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Old 01-14-2005, 04:51 PM
srdiamond srdiamond is online now
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Join Date: 11-23-2004
Location: Los Angeles
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How much guidance a program ought to give the user in optimising its effectiveness is necessarily a question of degree. It isn't advanced by accusations that the person advocating best practices is for that reason a dictator. As you said in your initial comments, UR's strength is its combination of flexibility and structure. But what combination is optimal? Your lead posting didn't answer that question, and maybe left the impression that optimality is apparent on the program's face. Maybe you even think that; I don't know.

But given that we're after a balance, I think finding and refinding the point of optimal balance will be the result of analysis . Your proposal takes UR in the direction of still greater flexibility, with less structure. I don't know if you are prepared to admit that much, but the weight of my postings on this subject has been to argue that including hyperlinks sacrifices structure too much in favor of flexibility.

That we have different positions on this is apparent from the programs we have considered using and where the features we propose come from: Notes Studio versus Idea!--a less structured program and a more structured one (but still relatively quite flexible). It is no doubt true that different points on the continuum are optimal for different users, but that still leaves a question of what's optimal for a particular program, a question that I think sometimes but not always has an answer.

It lowers the level of discussion to reduce to an epithet a technical and ultimately quite abstract discussion about whether a feature introduces excessive flexibility at the expense of structure.

Stephen R. Diamond


Quote:
Originally posted by bkonia
Stephen,

The reason I said you were being dictatorial was because your argument against hyperlinks was based on the absurd notion that there is only one correct way to use UR --- YOUR way. We are all individuals and we all have our own organizational strategies. What makes perfect sense to me, may not make any sense to you and vice versa. It doesn't mean that I'm right and you're wrong, it just means that we have different approaches. When you try to impose your approach on me, that's being dictatorial.

It seems to me that UR was intentionally designed to be flexible and to accomodate almost any organizational strategy imaginable.

'Nuff said!

Last edited by srdiamond; 01-14-2005 at 04:57 PM.
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