🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <58...@bbn.BBN.COM> cos...@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:

   d...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (David Anderson) writes:

   } [...]
   }So, I said to her "Pick a key .. any key you like!"
   }She pressed the SHIFT key ... and (you guessed it) nothing happened.
   }I had to then try and explain to her why she couldn't use the 
   }SHIFT , CTRL and CAPS LOCK keys.

   And of course, after you reflect on it there is hardly any reason to be so
   'helpful' and make the program so general, instead of simply having it read
     "And then hit the space bar"
   and be done with it -- no ambiguity, no confusion, no nothing...

*BUT* someone will eventually hit, say, RET (or <CR> or whatever!)
instead of the space key and that too, will work and cause no end of
confusion.  Which means the program would have to be changed to accept
only the space bar, and beep-error-message all the other non-modifier
keys... Argh!

Parenthetically, the "arrow" and "function" keys are non-modifer keys,
but may cause problems as well on certain terminals under certain
apps.

Finally, a certain bit of documentation for a certain product which
shall rename nameless, but runs on a "user-friendly" machine known for
it's ease of use, describes keys like this (not direct quote):

  Pressing the key labelled `A' generates the letter `A' or the letter
  `a'... Keys that produce letters of the alphabet like this, or keys
  that produce numbers or other symbols like `!'  or `%', will be
  referred to as, for example, (bold) "the `A' key" (unbold).

So guess what they called the space bar?  Yup, the

  (bold) "the ` ' key"  (unbold)

I wonder why they didn't call the return key the

  (bold) "the `
' key" (unbold)

:-) :-)


[ No, wait, that's both LF and CR!... ]

[  M.P.Gerlek (mi...@lanl.gov)                 -
[  Los Alamos Nat'l Lab / Merrimack College    -
[  Disclaimer: Yes, Mom, I'll play nice.       -
[  "My other machine's a multi-threaed YMP."   -