THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 20:59:44 -0800
04 00074 61 02122601
Mr. Garold L. Johnson
dynalt@dynalt.com
Dynamic Alternatives
PO Box 59237
Norwalk, CA 90652
..
Subject:
Publications in Other Files Saved
SDS "Other Files" Need Savx
Dear Gary,
You may have found another "hole" in the system, under the use case scenario in
your letter today. .. On October 13, a major improvement was made to
conform handling of documents received
with the process developed earlier for managing docs issued, and this solved
the problem I think you had today, by automatically entering savx to create
directories.
..
One solution might be to use savx universally. Not sure it causes any harm,
and likely have not done so because of personal cultural inertia.
..
Specifically, when you open a new file for a "publication" (which incidentally
it looks like you did everything correctly), you need to hit the home key and
enter savx [Home] to create the directory structure, since most of the time it
is not there. Creating a link, executes a "save" command, but if the
directories are not there, it doesn't really work. That's what it sounds like
happened in this case. The code created the link, executed "save" and then
closed the file, since, if you need it open, you can get back by opening the
link just created. All makes sense, except Rod has not gotten around to
filling this particular "hole" because there are lots of other things to do,
per my letter yesterday, and since I personally know all about savx and use it
intrinsically, there is initial shock that this kind of thing goes wrong.
..
Anyway, I think "savx" is the solution to your issue today.
.. We could make savx the default function. But, is there any downside to
this, or is it a "no brainer" as they say? For example, in the case of just
opening any random file, the save command helps people avoid a mistake of
putting something in the wrong place, by forcing the user to think about
structure, rather than just put anything anywhere, under your recent dictum
about people avoiding thinking at any cost. On April 25, 2001 Morris noted SDS
is a utopia because
everything is in the right place at the right time.
..
If we use savx
it will not know the directory structure needs to be established by careful
thinking. Without thinking, files wind up anywhere and everywhere, and so they
are nowhere to be found when needed; it is a KM dilemma observed by
Eric Armstrong on September 16, 2001. A few weeks later on October 3
Eric noted that
problems finding information paralyze productivity.
Earlier on December 12, 2000 Reuters reported that too many people having too
many problems reduces productivity, like Eric says, but a lot of people don't
care about productivity. They care are user friendly that is
easy to learn,
as discussed on December 12, 2002 a few weeks ago.
However, Reuters goes on to report a
ripple effect. Lower productivity causes lower earnings and
stock prices, which people care about deeply.
..
We might say that linking for sure needs to use savx, yet that too has the
potential for error. In the case of formal correspondence, the Doc Log fills
out secondary fields that establish location in Knowledge Space.
..
Actually, for publications, which you were defining today, secondary doc log
fields are used. Maybe we could let the system query to verify everything is
filled out, and, if not, return a message before opening the file, and if so,
then open the file and execute savx, like with formal correspondence.
..
You can see an example of
secondary fields for publications
in the record for
August 16, 2002.
You have to open my records on your computer to see the structure on line
031004.
..
What is your take on this stuff?
So, very sorry about today. I know how discouraging it is to struggle with new
and unfamiliar instructions, and yet do everything right only to have a lot of
work and time wasted because of a
little inconsequential detail,
noted by Morris on November 27, 1992.
..
The number of conditions people can encounter that cause issues seems to grow
and grow, as the level of support is broadened. We actually, need a study to
identify similar kinds of issues, get them on a list and work it in a
coordinated way.