Arthur Fichtl has made a very important point. The world is what it is; and systems behave as they behave, distressing some and pleasing others.
Macro facilities can be used to mitigate, even eliminate such perceived deficiencies. In particular, Paul Gilmartin can have something closer to his heart's desire without depriving others of behavior they prefer, perhaps only because it is what they are accustomed to. The notion that things can function as we would wish ab initio, out of the box, and without programming, is a naif, utopian one. Worse, it is certainly chimerical. None of us can have things the way we want them all or even most of the time because others want them different. The best we can hope for is a set of primitives, building blocks, that is complete in the sense that they can be used together to build much more complex, disparate facilities. They and their completeness; not lamentation about the notional inadequacies of others' designs, should be the focus of our attention. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
