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June 25, 2004

8+ levels of hierarchy

Martin Hardee wrote about Tufte's original comment on AnswerBook (before the web version). Tufte's quoted as remarking:

Dr Spock's Baby Care is a best-selling owner's manual for the most complicated 'product' imaginable -- and it only has two levels of headings. You people have 8 levels of hierarchy and I haven't even stopped counting yet. No wonder you think it's complicated.

IMHO, Tufte misjudged there. Babies come without history. As a parent, you know how to operate them almost intuitively.

The same is not at all true of UNIX.

Posted by Mark at June 25, 2004 09:40 AM