[Sigia-l] Visio feature improvements - why bother?

[Peter Picone]

> In fashion, nobody forces you to wear any one particular brand. I've never
> heard of a party where (specifically) wearing an Armani suit was
> mandatory.

Exactly, no one is forced to be fashionable.  If you want to be "in-fashion"
you wear what is trendy by your own choice - even if it is ugly as sin.
That's the essence of standardization and fashion vs. practicality and free
will.  It's what defines a fashion maven.... probably what drives the
lemmings to the sea as well.

> > If you need someone else to tell you what to wear, eat, think,
> dress, or to do
> > your work, then you are not in control of your craft.
>
> Well, you managed to miss the entire point. I don't *need* anyone else to
> tell me what to "wear, eat, think, dress, or to do my work". In
> fact I don't
> *want* anyone to tell me what tools to use at all. That's what a
> proprietary
> 'standard' like Visio does: by pretending/projecting to be a 'standard' it
> tries to exclude other choices. And that's the whole point: choices.

Why are you calling it a "proprietary standard"?  Last I heard it was still
an off-the-shelf tool that you had an option of purchasing or leaving on the
shelf?  Also, no product pretends to be a standard nor does the product
exclude other choices... that's the job of the consumer and the marketing
departments.  That would also be giving it much too much credit for thinking
on its own - I believe the credit there goes to marketing folks (the same
ones that typically define standards and fashion).

>
> > Get on with it and use what makes you most effective without
> becoming a slave
> > to, or trying to define standard/fashion...
>
> You have a rather misguided notion of a (non-public) 'standard'. You, as a
> user, don't get to define standards. Others define it for you so that you
> are *forced* to use them. That's the whole commercial rationale behind a
> 'standard'.
>

You as a user ALWAYS get the choice of using what you want to do your job
properly.  If not, that is an issue for you and your boss to work out.
Perhaps you should bring that up at your next meeting.  I am also puzzled
how in your mind Visio has slipped into the realm of "non-public" and
"proprietary" to boot.  I thought it was pretty open for purchase at will?
I am also rather confused at who these "others" are, if not the practicing
craftsmen of out trade....  I am guessing there is a good reason why so many
of us are using it - besides listening to the voices in our heads - forcing
us to believe what "the others" are saying....

> On a rainy day, curl up with a mountain of press releases over
> the past five
> years from Apple, Microsoft and Real, for instance, on whose
> product is the
> emerging 'standard' in multimedia delivery. Do you really think they are
> just mindlessly wasting their time writing this stuff?
>

Kind of like curling up with an issue of GQ or the latest teen rag - why do
you give them such credibility and sway over how you do your job?   Stop
reading what others want you to believe and do your own assessment. By
definition, they are writing it to give the mindless an opinion.  That's
their job.

> > it will change next year anyway,
>
> No, it won't and that's part of the problem. Many of the crappy apps have
> been around for better part of a decade or longer.

Sure - just ask Dan Bricklin about proper prototyping tools... And do you
remember when most of our wire frames were built using paper and pencil?
Sorry - been here over ten years - none of them exist any more (except the
powerful paper and pencil).  Neither do half their environments.... and its
only going to move faster from here.  Help define the future by using
whatever works for you...  That's how most of them were blown away by their
competition.  Free will.

>
> > and whining about it serves no practical purpose  professional
> or otherwise.
>
> That's naïve. Even if a single person thinks a bit more
> critically about the
> tools they choose to use, keeps an open mind toward other
> choices, and gives
> one fewer headcount to those peddling 'standards' it will be more
> than worth
> it. This must be so, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to whine about
> whatever you are whining about.

Finally - we agree, and you finally see the point of my post - stop reading
those rags and listening to the voices in your head.  Choose those tools
that work for you.  Be that single critical person and stop worrying about
"proprietary" "non-standard" conspiracies and go do good work.  Fashion and
standardization are in the minds of those who can't make a choice for
themselves.


-Peter

Peter Picone
President,
Half-Tide Designs, Inc.
half-tide at attbi.com
http://half-tide.home.attbi.com
(978) 352-2548 (H)
(978) 352-9670 (W)
(978) 852-2081 (Cell)