(opinion about) Symbolics Software Services

[Walter Hamscher <pwtc!hamscher@LABREA.STANFORD.EDU>]

The distinction (inherited from the larger computing world) between
software support groups and the software development groups (and their
consequent geographic separation) doesn't really seem appropriate for
Symbolics products.  Genera has a high degree of interdependency between
its constituents and it is more widely used as a development environment
than as a delivery environment.  Among the consequences of those two
characteristics are that you really can't know much about Genera except
by using it to develop a complex program.  It's not surprising that the
software support people frequently end up asking the developers for the
answer to customer's questions: they never got the opportunity
themselves to learn the whole environment by using it the way it is
designed to be (and is) used.