Re: The Apple II Now and Forever

[toddpw@cco.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)]

Sorry this took so long; our news server has been running out of /tmp space
lately and it means I usually have a 50/50 chance of my articles getting
dumped back at me. Besides, I needed some time to fetch my ten gallon hat and
a pair of six shooters... :)

mattd@apple.com (Matt Deatherage) writes:

>You don't have to read "Moby Dick" to write a book report on it, either,
>and you're just about as likely to get it right.

It's not the same thing. "Moby Dick" is a novel and is therefore far less
constrained by reality than a piece of software is. I wouldn't expect
_anybody_ to be able to write a halfway decent report on "Moby Dick" without
reading it _and_ the Cliff Notes (I did both, and mine still sucked). I am
not and have never claimed to be doing the equivalent of writing a book
report about what goes on at Apple. If that's the way _you_ read it, well
I'm sorry, but since nobody ever asks me how I know so much about what
actually happened at Apple, I suspect that you are the only one who is
reading it that way.

> Unlike folks who may have been in a meeting where there
>were not non-disclosure agreements, I _am_ bound by an employment agreement
>with Apple that gives other people the choice as to what I can and can't
>discuss regarding Apple's internal policies.  I say what I can.

Ok, if that's how you feel about the stuff you haven't said, I will quit
arguing with it. I just wasn't going to give up until I heard you say it
definitively.

I do however take issue with your tendency to simply ridicule people because
you cannot disclose the actual facts that prove them wrong. Perhaps you have
never considered this, but the person being ridiculed usually is not the
source of the information, and probably heard it from somebody they thought
they could trust. No matter what the circumstances, the last thing they need
to hear is an authority like yourself essentially smugging them off the net!

You typically take it on yourself to work hard at diffusing any and all
criticizm of the system, usually by implying or saying outright that the
critic doesn't know what he or she is talking about, because Apple thought
of everything and made their decision, so shut up and happy with it. Of
course, it is never this blunt, but as the object of many of these (and
seeing similar responses to others) it sure feels like this to me! Don't
fool yourself with the old, "I've survived online for X years, I can't
fall into a rut like that" -- that's what I thought when I first logged
onto GEnie, and look where it got me.

>You can't know any of this, of course, because you weren't around to see it.

Of course not. To claim otherwise would be absurd! I'm not a secret agent and
I am not claiming to be one.

>But of course, as you insist, it's not important -- you can guess and fill
>in the rest and that makes up for lack of personal experience.

Matt, this is the root cause of our whole argument. It is VERY important,
but you don't seem to make the distinction. I can give you a reasonable
assessment of a lot of system features and what made them desirable or gave
them problems; so can you, Jawaid, Dave, and a host of other people. From
that information, it IS possible to suppose a great deal about the evolution
of the system in terms of features and releases. But I can't and never have
claimed to tell you what goes on at Apple as if I had secret agent equipment
hidden in every cube!! Only you seem to believe that I am saying that.

Has it ever occurred to you that when I say something that _sounds_ absurd
to you, 99% of the time that is _not_ what I meant? But of course, since you
READ it the wrong way, it's _obviously_ my fault for not being clear as a
bell about what I actually meant, isn't it. Never mind that you easily have
the brainpower to deduce the reasonable interpretation of what I wrote. This
is what I was trying to say politely on GEnie: if you spent more brain power
analyzing what you read, you'd waste less of it in replying to things the
author quite evidently never intended!!

>Who's not being realistic?  Hal claimed, or at least strongly implied, that
>the original design team wanted to build in multitasking support and they
>had to jettison it for cost/time reasons.  I don't buy that, and I said so.

Fine. Just quit ostracizing me for agreeing with things that you "don't buy".
You've accused me in the past of trying to sound like an authority when I'm
not; items like this one lead me to suspect that I could do a better job of
levelling that same charge back at -you-. This is the FIRST time I've ever
heard you mention that somebody else at Apple disagrees with your version
of history.

>You continue to think that I won't admit shortcomings in the system software
>design, or that I'm some kind of apologist for Apple.  This is because
>you're not reading what I'm saying, but rather what you think I'm saying.
>This won't get you much of anywhere.

Really? Read some of your back posts. Find somebody who you think is impartial
but _isn't_ a Yes-man and ask them if there aren't a lot of cases where
somebody attacks a weak spot in the system and your response just diffuses
their question with virtually ZERO information content. There were a couple
of those on GEnie where I literally stepped into the vacuum afterward and gave
the developer (BurgerBill, in one case) an answer that actually told him
something along the lines of what he wanted to know.

I won't be so silly as to suggest that you _never_ admit shortcomings in the
system, but you sure avoid it a lot, especially when somebody has an honest
criticism (not new to you, but to them). And if they manage to set off one
of your infamous red flags in their initial post, well you might as well let
somebody else answer. This doesn't get THEM much of anywhere, and they don't
even know what they did wrong.

I highly recommend that you take some of your own advice and wait a few days
before replying to this.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ cco.caltech.edu