quality of review articles

[Dick Dunn]

Folks were flaming about the quality of the reviews of 386 UNICes in
_UNIX_Today!_.  In response, in <358 at belltec.UUCP>, dar at belltec.UUCP
(Dimitri Rotow) writes:
>...I didn't particularly agree with all of the points presented about
> our UNIX, but I thought it was a pretty good article.  If you think
> you can do better, get to it and crank out an article for the UNIX
> magazines. 
and the summary of his article was
>...OK, smart guys, *you* try your hand at a review

But that's really wide of the mark.  It's one thing to say that writing is
poor or that there's some amorphous subjective flaw.  It's quite another to
say that it's inaccurate.  If the article was off-target (I'm not saying it
was), it shouldn't be published, and people shouldn't have to be able to
supply a replacement to point out where something is wrong.  Look, I don't
have to be a winemaker to know bad wine; I don't have to design furniture
to know an uncomfortable chair...

> Every one of the journals is looking for qualified people to write
> quality articles...

Sure, but there's the old saying, "Those who can, do; those who can't,
write."  Actually, it shouldn't be so hard to find people capable of
writing an article now and then, but it's hard to find people among them
who don't have obvious biases or vested interests.  Would you want me (as
an Interactive employee) to do a comparative evaluation of 386 UNICes?
Probably not.

>...As one editor put it to me once, "There's just
> not enough mediocrity to go around."...

Hmm??  I find quite the opposite to be true!
-- 
Dick Dunn      UUCP: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd           (303)449-2870
   ...Never offend with style when you can offend with substance.