Transitioning from PRD to IT
Transitioning from PRD to IT When people transition from PRD to IT (or any other expander), the attitudes they take can be quite different. I found quite interesting that you mention as two "limitations" of PRD some assumptions that many of its users took for granted, very much as we take the position of a wall for granted. For example, you mention: The program [PRD] also eliminated the possibility of more than one expansion for any given short form. For instance, "cp" could only be "chest pain", not cerebral palsy or cardiopulmonary. Additional long forms had to have a unique short form. I always had to remember that "cpu" was "cardiopulmonary" and "cpa" was "cerebral palsy". This shows that as you moved to a new program, you took advantage of the additional degrees of freedom it offered. And looking back, not having them appears as a limitation :) When we help users transition to IT, we also encounter users who want to do it — exactly as in PRD — and I do not consider that illegitimate. The idea is that some of them have perfected a certain way of doing things to such a degree that any change is likely to slow them down (at least initially) and they may not be in a situation where they can afford to slow down. As we further developed Instant Text version after version, we have added more ways to allow users to work with their own style, including for those who want it — exactly as in PRD. Thus, beyond importing PRD abbreviation files, we've added space bar expansion, made it easier to resize or hide advisories, allowed an implicit inclusion of Shorts.glo, and so on... Often when we have a chance to talk to these users some years later, we find out that they no longer use IT this way. Being able to use IT as a PRD clone allowed them to transition faster, but later on, little by little, they started taking advantage of other Instant Text features. People are different and this is why we have options. Jean Ichbiah
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