Mike D's rational comments (NOT grandiosity!)

[Robin Wilson]

>
> I just cannot let Mike D's statement that no one should be doing keys any
> way except his way because his are so much better!  This patently self-
> serving statement is absolute bullshit.

You can't put sentences like the previous and the next together, referring
to the same subject, and expect people to take you seriously.
>
> Mike, I use and love keys that use your software, and I wish that all keys
> were available that way, but this is the real world.  To fully utilze your
> system in an isolated situation takes years of work, years that could produce
> good, usable keys along the way.  I have worked with one of the users at your
> institution that has published an intkey CD, and he admits that without you
> right there, and the huge storage capacity in the back-up computers on your
> local network, he would never have been able to do it.  It is rediculous to thin
> that only institutions with the wealth to have a Mike D and such a network
> should be producing keys.

I and many others have developed plenty of DELTA applications without
the support of a local "Mike D" and without "huge storage capacity".
Mike was only saying the obvious, that an interactive key with multiple
entry points and linked figures is far more useful than a single written
key in which the choices have all been made by the author.  Sure, it
will take a little longer at first, but not years.  And I agree that
many people cannot or will not learn a new skill, but that is
something to regret, not to rejoice.

>
> Your system is still 'way too expensive to be practical.  I expect it to
> become cheaper as time goes by, and younger workeres will eventually come
> on line in the profession with INKEY type  expertise as a matter of course.
> That is in the future, not today.
>
Too expensive!  Give me a break!!  DELTA is only as expensive as a typical
wordprocessor or spreadsheet, and I am sure Mike &  CSIRO don't make
as much from software as Bill Gates. Buying DELTA will cost less than
1 week of salary for someone; how serious can you be about a project
if this is too much?

> To state that anyone "wasting" time on convintional keys should be looked down
> on is simply irresponsible, and cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.  I hope
> that no 80 year old systematist with a bad heart stops working on the last
> few couplets of the genus they have worked on for 40 years to learn a
> stops doing so in response to your view, and begins all over to learn a
> new system similar to yours.  Instead of good key, we will probably get
> a "modern" nothing. ....

Well, I can't believe that Mike knew he would have been construed as
laying down the law to 80 year old systematists (with or without bad
hearts).  That is just being silly and obtuse.  Mind you, I would
love to see an 80 year young systematist put a view forward ...

> without the means, skills, back-up, or inclination to do it your way.
>
> Lets quit telling people "if you don't do it my way, your an oaf"
> and get back to providing excellent tools for progress, for those that
> choose to use them.
>
> Michael A. Ivie
> Department of Entomology
> Montana State University
> Bozeman, MT 59717
>


--
Robin Wilson                            rwilson at ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au
Museum of Victoria
71 Victoria Crescent                    telephone 61-3 284 0216
Abbotsford  Victoria                    fax       61-3 416 0475
Australia  3067

--
Robin Wilson                            rwilson at ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au
Museum of Victoria
71 Victoria Crescent                    telephone 61-3 284 0216
Abbotsford  Victoria                    fax       61-3 416 0475
Australia  3067