From: Michele Andreoli (quisque@tin.it)
Date: Sat Nov 27 1999 - 16:50:53 CET
Summarizing arguments, it seems the "List part duo divisa est",
and many told me (also privately) that they like to mantain
rustic english in muLinux, mainly for affective raisons.
The Alfie Costa's argumentation (send to me privately), for
example, look impressive and, finally, more more ... italian ones :-)
Alfie speak:
"MuLinux doesn't fool the user with a slick manual, so instead of being shocked
at what doesn't work, the user is expecting trouble. This leads to
the pleasant discovery that muLinux works better than one expects it to."
I think this is what generally happen when foreign deal with
italians stuff: a pleasant discovery, contrasting with the general
evidencies :-)
Ok, if the muLinux's bad language contribute to general appeal and
friendlyness of the system, welcome!
Alfie speak:
"Most user manuals are professionally written to make a program
look better than
it is. Often a program won't be as well written or edited as its manual --
which doesn't mention all the bugs, or conceals or distracts one's attention
from them. The poor user is lulled into a sense of inflated confidence and
false security, and later may grow disgusted when they find
out how things are."
(The Bill Gates epigraph ....)
I subscribe totally this argument. More Windows help files look as
written by an "expert computer system". I like, on the contrary, the
Linux HOWTO docs: they are so imperfect, so approximate but, reading, you
may feel the *human*, behind them, not the machine.
A good compromise should be: please help me to correct what
is really dangerous, changing for example the info() functions in
the /setup/fun subtree and sending me the result.
Michele
-- "I'd like to conclude with a positive statement, but I can't remember any. Would two negative ones do?" -- Woody Allen --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: mulinux-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk For additional commands, e-mail: mulinux-help@sunsite.auc.dk
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