Re: MyInfo 3, Jot+, etc., and the vital need for calendars

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 2369

Posted by srdiamond15
2004-12-28 15:31:45

One very critical point about how UR is ergonomically superior to ADM: UR is one of the few programs to have implemented a universal unlimited undo, a feature of incomparable importance in a pure knowledge organizer. You say you seldom have need for that feature, but does your work or play entail trying out different organizations of long documents, including book length documents. This is where you need apure knowledge organizer.

There’s no need to be excessively agnostic about GrandView. Out of some kind of methodological scruple you would withhold even tentative judgment on this crucial experiment in crossing boundaries? GrandView had limited undo functionality, and as its main proponent here agrees, DOS programs were not ergonomic. There’s a lot of room for disagreement on why GrandView failed commercially in the end—whether its problems were _due_ to its attempting to cross lines—but it seems pretty clear that modern programs like NoteMap and BrainStorm are more ergonomic.

The learning curve doesn’t equate with ergonomics because there are different kinds of learning. Conceivably a program could take a long time to learn, because the user has to develop an _understanding_ of its function. Such a program could be ergonomic despite taking long to learn. But the way computer programs in point of fact become hard to learn doesn’t generally involve complex understandings but rote habits that must become automatized.

May I ask two personal questions:
1. Why don’t you use Zoot!?
2. How fast do you type?

Stephen R. Diamond

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