>>Though the articles convey useful information and although you've been personally helpful to me, I must admit that I am not a fan of the style you've used with the column.
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>Well, of course we cannot please everyone, and I am sorry that you don't like the style. But I must say that it is entirely deliberate and done with "malice aforethought".
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>The original intention, and key selling point, of the column (when I took over from Barbara Peisch as co-author to Paul Maskens back in 1998) was to be different from the "usual" style of article published in the technical magazines. We sought to do this by presenting a problem as a dialog between two developers that actually traced the process of getting from point A ("I have a problem") to Point Z ("WE have a solution"). Marcia and I have, in particular, sought to bring out this process more clearly and we deliberately try to cover as many alternatives as we can think of - even the 'bad' ones sometimes.
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>This was, and remains, a direct contrast to the more usual format of "Here's how to do this" which focuses on a single implementation and rarely, if ever, covers alternatives that were considered and discarded.
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>Of course, as you have stated so clearly, not everyone finds this useful, or enjoyable, but then (I hope) no-one is actually forced to read it either. I just hope you won't let the presence of our column affect your decision to purchase and continue to support any magazine in which it may appear.


I just wish your English accent would come through in the articles!