From: vick-paul@CS.YALE.EDU (Paul A. Vick)
Subject: Re: Why I'm sticking with Windows
Organization: a tiny, little division of yale.
	<1992Apr14.213530.25749@CERIS.Purdue.EDU>
	<1992Apr14.230112.25668@ncsu.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 00:46:48 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.230112.25668@ncsu.edu> linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville) writes:
>
>>Well said, Andy.  I hear you saying, "If it ain't broke, don't
>>fix it!"
>
>That is the comment that has kept PC users running DOS for years and years.
>
>Besides, who said that Windows isn't 'broke'?  :-)
>
>John W. Linville
>

[message-specific comments begin here] 

Well, John, I would have to say that it is attitudes like yours that
have kept consumers in all fields wasting their money buying the
"latest that" and the "ultra-super new that" when in reality their
current products which they own, are comfortable with, work well and
keep them happy and satisified do just fine. :-) But I guess that's
the American way, and you can't get more all-American than IBM. ;-)
What I see is someone saying the equivalent of "Well, I own a cheap
import car and I'm very happy with it--it gets me around town just
nicely, thank you" and you replying (wryly, of course--I didn't miss
the humor, BTW) "Yeah, but you'll never win the Indy 500 with it, so
the car must be deficient."  If, like myself, Andy and others find
that all they really need is a graphical task switcher with a pretty
decent interface and some good programs to go with it, and if we find
that, unlike some other users, we don't get a lot of crashes, then
who's to say that Windows is "broken" for us?

[message-specific comments end here; general harangue not directed in
 any way at John starts here. I'll say that again: this is a general
 harangue, not directed at John but rather at various comments made on
 this group by others who have _absolutely nothing_ to do with John.] 

Although I am all for progress and love the latest technology and wish
the world would just hurry up and get around to embracing the cutting
edge technology so we could go ahead and make the _next_ leap forward,
I also think it is unfair to brand people as "stupid", "ignorant" or
just plain "dumb" because they are not willing to constantly shake up
their lives to accomodate the "latest" thing. Not that John would use
such adjectives or endorse such sentiments in the slightest, but such
seems to be the prevailing attitude among many vocal OS/2 users on
Usenet.  As great as OS/2 is over Windows, as great as Windows is over
DOS, as great as the Mac may or may not be over the PC, or as great as
the Amiga may or may not be over the rest of the world ;-), the truth
is it takes _money_ and whole lotta _time_ to change total computing
environments, which is not always simple given the fact that people
primarily use computers to get their real _work_ done. As such, I
don't find it surprising that some people are not rushing head over
heels to switch to the first "real" OS in the PC's history. I, for
one, will wait calmly until I feel it has been conclusively proven
that the time spent switch will be worth my while--I let my free copy
of Windows 2.0x languish on the shelf for months until Microsoft Word
for Windows convinced me that it was time to make the leap. Call me
dumb, call me a [insert your favorite moronic pun on Microsoft here--
or is "favorite moronic pun" an oxymoron?] tool, call me a roadblock
in the way of the progress, but I think you will find that a majority
of users are very similar to me. Maybe OS/2 will soon prove to them
they should switch--it sounds likely given the initial reports--but
maybe not. But the elitist attitude of some OS/2 supporters towards
anyone who is backward enough to actually be _happy_ with DOS or
Windows really cheezes me off.

[end of lengthy harangue]

Whew. I wanted to just make a small comment, but it came out a general
polemic. Sorry to lower yet further the S/N ration on this group and
look like a flaming radical, but... Don't worry, I won't be making any
replies if I can help it...

Paul