Jay,
1. I am no fan of Microsoft being a Mac bigot for many years.
2. Much of my life is devoted to VSS, C++ and their CD-ROM SDKs
as part of my WinDoze work.
3. I am not prostituting PWG as a us vs. them forum
4. Allow me to add another perspective ?
The PWG is, as in all standards committees, a compromise solution based on
commercial vested interests and the rather peculiar perspective of
engineers who, IMHO, often miss the point of real life user requirements.
It is also mostly design through incremental change whereby everybody does
nothing till the other guy moves first.
I blame the marketing departments of the printer companies and lack of
feedback from users directly to the engineers other than through a large,
thick bureaucracy that kills innovation. This applies to many computer
companies, not just printer manufacturers, and if you look at the USENET
you will see that I am not alone in stating this.
Until the engineers randomly talk to users (ie without being referred by
corporate customers to talk a certain person who is deemed an "expert"),
this will continue. Why is that there is no mechanism of channeling
specific complaints DIRECTLY back to the feet of those who can fix it ?
Now, MS does have such a mechanism (of sorts). They probably did things the
way they did because they feel progress of the PWG is too slow any other
way and suffers from a warped engineer perspective that immediately sets
things off in a certain direction. Too many compromises create mush. Just
look at our politicians and what they achieve (zilch).
Of course I could be totally wrong, but this does seem to fit the facts in
the absence of a better theory.
This is a welcome change of perspective towards users and software
developers rather than the whims of printer companies all important moronic
marketing departments.
And now, a joke that is very apt for this occasion ;-)
_____________________________
Bill Gates dies and heads up to the pearly gates (no relation).
Saint Peter meets him there and says, "Well, you've led an interesting
life, Bill. To be perfectly honest, we're not quite sure which place to
send you. So we're going to let you decide."
Gates swallows nervously and says, "okay". St. Peter snaps his fingers
and they are instantly transported to a sunny beach. There's beer and
rock music and topless women playing volleyball. Gates says, "Hey, is
this heaven? It's GREAT!" St. Peter says, "No, this is Hell. Let me
show you what Heaven is like."
He snaps his fingers again and they are instantly transported to a
serene city park. There's a soft breeze and birds are chirping and old
people are sitting on benches feeding pigeons and playing chess. Gates
says, "Well, this is... nice. But, given a choice, I guess I'll take
Hell."
St. Peter says, "You got it," and snaps his fingers. Gates is instantly
imbedded in molten rock, skin flayed off in unspeakable agony. All
around him he can hear demonic laughter and the screams of the damned.
He looks up and shouts, "Hey, it wasn't like this! Where's the beach?
Where're the babes?"
Saint Peter looks down and says, "Sorry, Bill. That was the demo."