Collective memory

[jmfbahciv at aol.com]

In article <n1tphvg2gtmjsl8j3rehh33ebhqkb91q2d at 4ax.com>,
   Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis at SystematicSw.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Tue, 08 Jul 03 12:43:14 GMT in alt.folklore.computers,
>jmfbahciv at aol.com wrote:
>
>>In article <bec993c8.0307080602.7d5d132e at posting.google.com>,
>>   shoppa at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) wrote:
>><snip>
>>
>>>Remember the Dilbert where PHB complains that his programmers are using
>>>way too many semicolons? :-)
>>
>>All RIGHT!  That's a good PHB.  It was so difficult to distinguish
>>between a semicolon and a colon on the listings.
>
>That's a lousy printer operator: the ribbon should have been
>flipped end around long before it got to that stage. 
>(That's the old equivalent of shaking a laser toner cartridge.) 
>You also wouldn't be able to differentiate between commas and
>dots, some apostrophes and quotes, maybe bars and bangs, possibly
>parens brackets and braces, if you had and used them. 

Yep.  I know it was due to lousy print quality.  However, I firmly
believed that lousy print quality should have been a slight
constraint in designs.  

Nowadays, we have great print quality; now, it's my eyesight that
smudges the pixels.  And it still should be a slight contraint in
designs.  Distinguishing characters, no matter what the display,
has to be a first consideration that is usually forgotten by
the time the design takes its first evolution.  Just because
it's forgotten does not mean that it's no longer an implicit 
assumption.

/BAH

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