Re: Portability (was Inform Competition ?!!)


28 May 1995 14:05:33 -0400

Whew! I come back here to check up on this newgroup only to find that I've
been flamed. Egads! I apologize for dragging everyone through this again,
but there are points that need to be mentioned.

badger@phylo.life.uiuc.edu (Jonathan Badger) originally wrote:

>Well, since you are from American On-line, your ignorance may be
>excusable, but I'd say close to a majority of us on Usenet prefer UNIX
>to any bitty box O/S, and TADS and Inform run on most UNIX
>systems, while other systems don't.

To which neilg@newsserver.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy) replied (thanks!):

> Hm. That's not the friendliest remark I've ever read.
> I fear r.a.i-f is degenerating into one of those pointless religious
>OS wars of which Usenet is so often vulnerable...

Causing badger@phylo.life.uiuc.edu (Jonathan Badger) to shoot back:

>No, not really. It's just when some AOL newbie makes a statement
>like "990f all people interested in interactive fiction use a Mac
>or PC", it really *needs* to be corrected.

True, Mr. Badger, my post was hastily written, and was in need of
correction. I was in fact referring only to the so-called "bitty boxes"
when I made my blanket statement. Of course plenty of folks out there use
Unix, and, as you mentioned, they can run either TADS or Inform just as
easily.

What saddens me, however, is your assumption that I am an ignorant newbie
not because of the content of my post, but because it was posted from AOL.

On the Internet, you can't tell a person's race, creed, color, age, height
or weight. Despite this, some people *still* will find an equally baseless
reason to prejudge others. It's called bigotry, and it's just as wrong in
r.a.i-f. as it is in the real world.

I hope I have gotten the wrong impression from you, but if this is what
you intended in your posts, your ignorance is *not* excusable.

- Jeff