Use of ``vi'' for business office word-processing
Larry Lippman
On occasion I get asked for my opinion on computer systems for small
business applications. Since 100% of my computer applications are scientific
in nature (which is pretty far afield from business applications), I try to
avoid giving business applications advice (except to go UNIX :-) ). However,
sometimes I cannot avoid getting involved...
In addition to programming, I do an extensive amount of document
preparation. On UNIX systems I use ``vi'' _exclusively_ for document editing,
and use nroff and troff for formatting when required. If I am using a letter
quality printer with justification capability, often I will imbed justification
commands and other printer commands in the text file and not use nroff or troff.
In my humble :-) opinion, I cannot think of any editor more universally
useful than ``vi'' (yes, I know about Emacs, but I still prefer ``vi'').
So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
environment?
In my travels I have taken a cursory look at various word-processing
packages for UNIX machines, and do not find their operation or command set any
more intuitive than ``vi''. I am certain that some people will disagree with
me on this issue; so, tell me, what are the ADVANTAGES of word-processing
software (like Lyric, Wordstar, etc.) over the standard UNIX editing/formatting
utilities in the business-only environment?
At the moment I am being compelled to offer an opinion on a computer
system for a medium-sized law office; they want to start out small, and do
not want to spend the money for a law office automation system (like a product
of Barrister Information Systems). For three or four secretaries (and to allow
for growth), I am inclined to recommend a 3B2 or NCR Tower XP as the most
COST-EFFECTIVE means of implementing a multi-user system. Comments, anyone?
==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
==> UUCP: {allegra|decvax|rocksanne|rocksvax|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
==> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|seismo|utzoo}!/
==> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3} "Have you hugged your cat today?"
Paul Higginbottom
> On occasion I get asked for my opinion on computer systems for small
>business applications. Since 100% of my computer applications are scientific
>in nature (which is pretty far afield from business applications), I try to
>avoid giving business applications advice (except to go UNIX :-) ). However,
>sometimes I cannot avoid getting involved...
> In addition to programming, I do an extensive amount of document
>preparation. On UNIX systems I use ``vi'' _exclusively_ for document editing,
>and use nroff and troff for formatting when required.
> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>environment?
>==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
>==> UUCP: {allegra|decvax|rocksanne|rocksvax|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
>==> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|seismo|utzoo}!/
>==> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3} "Have you hugged your cat today?"
Yes, I think you're wrong. Secretaries don't have time, nor do they usually
want to learn something like Unix. They will prefer EVERY TIME something
which works as similarly as possible to their typewriter.
The combination of vi, nroff, troff, etc., and the Unix utilities do provide,
for those that are computer literate or will take quite a lot of time to
learn, a great deal of flexibility.
In the business environment - people rarely need that much flexibility (in
wordprocessing anyway - order processing or other similar applications are
a whole other ball game where they need infinite flexibility). What they
want is simplicity, reliability, and the minimum of hassle.
I personally would suggest getting each person an IBM-PC compatible type of
machine. There's a million and one different word processors for it, and
some are extremely nice to use, definitely with the comuter-illiterate in
mind. They ACT like typewriters, but the secretary CAN at his/her pace learn
to use mail merge, sorts, search/replace, type of features later.
To say to someone "Hi, I'm going to teach you Unix, vi, nroff, troff, grep,
pipes, c-shell, sort, eqn, tbl, xyz, and pqr just to make your life
easier" and they'll say forget it, I don't have two months, I'll stick with
my typewriter.
Hope this helps,
Paul.
P.S - remember, even if they get PC's they can still network, share
hard disks, printers, etc. True they won't have electronic mail, but I
personally think Unix has a long way to go before it will really be
palatable in the normal business environment. Don't get me wrong though,
*I* LOVE Unix.
Disclaimer: They opinions are my own.
g...@sun.uucp
> want to learn something like Unix. They will prefer EVERY TIME something
> which works as similarly as possible to their typewriter.
I agree with this. Heck, *I* like UNIX (I think), but *I* get rather
annoyed at the text processing tools sometimes; for almost all the stuff I
do, some sort of good WYSIWYG editor would probably let me do all I need and
*much* more conveniently. A *really* good one, i.e. one whose formatting
primitives aren't all at the "indent 5 spaces, left margin at 10, right
margin at 70" type, but which permits you to say "make this a standard
paragraph" and then edit a style sheet telling it what a "standard
paragraph" looks like, and which will permit you to change that style sheet
later and have the document's appearance change as soon as the style sheet
is changed, would be even better. I think Microsoft Word, for example, does
this; versions definitely exist for UNIX, since I think they were offering
it for the AT&T UNIX PC.
> The combination of vi, nroff, troff, etc., and the Unix utilities do
> provide, for those that are computer literate or will take quite a lot
> of time to learn, a great deal of flexibility.
I think I fall into the category given, but frankly I think I can get most
of the flexibility I need without having to pour so much energy into
figuring out how to get the programs to do what I want. "tbl" is especially
annoying here; anybody who can get it to produce the table they want on the
first try, every time, deserves a Grand Master of "tbl" award. A WYSIWYG
system at least gives you feedback more quickly; you don't have to wait for
"[nt]roff" to grind through N pages before it gets to the page you're trying
to get right.
--
Guy Harris
{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
g...@sun.com (or g...@sun.arpa)
Richard Kuhns
>
>business applications. Since 100% of my computer applications are scientific
> At the moment I am being compelled to offer an opinion on a computer
>system for a medium-sized law office; they want to start out small, and do
>not want to spend the money for a law office automation system (like a product
>of Barrister Information Systems). For three or four secretaries (and to allow
>for growth), I am inclined to recommend a 3B2 or NCR Tower XP as the most
>COST-EFFECTIVE means of implementing a multi-user system. Comments, anyone?
>
>==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
>==> UUCP: {allegra|decvax|rocksanne|rocksvax|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
>==> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|seismo|utzoo}!/
>==> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3} "Have you hugged your cat today?"
I wouldn't have any problem recommending a 3B2 for the circumstances you've
described -- we started with a 3B2/300 about 1 1/2 years ago, upgraded it
to a 310, and have been satisfied enough that we've added 2 3B2/400s since.
The worst problem we've had has been a bad memory card, which was replaced
within 2 days (not bad, considering it went bad during the strike).
(I didn't mention it, but we are using them in an office environment).
Multi-user support is very good, by which I mean that you (I) don't notice
much system degradation as several people log in, unless they're running
very disk-intensive operations (the system definitely starts dragging
then).
My feelings about word processing are similar to yours, except I favor
EMACS (JOVE, to be precise). We aren't heavily into word processing, but so
far vi and/or jove has been sufficient.
--
Rich Kuhns {ihnp4, decvax, etc...}!pur-ee!pur-phy!mrstve!rjk
ro...@utcs.uucp
I think that you are wrong, Paul.
Whether you install micros or Unix, there is a lot of learning that
has to happen at the beginning. The last thing I want my clients to
have to deal with is hardware, so where possible I think that a quiet
terminal with no floppies, hard disk or other paraphernalia to get in
the way is the best solution. PC networking is an expensive
and frustrating experience at best with no standard solution yet in
place.
One need not even let the secretary know that Unix is the system she
is working on. Therefore all the scary things like eqn c-shell etc.
do not even have to be introduced. A customized environment is not a
bad way to go in UNIX provided there is a clever administrator.
Each office is different. If the office is fragmented then separate
PC's may be the answer, but if the office is one integral whole, then
the benefits of UNIX are tremendous. There is plenty of software for
the kind of machines that are being considered, with some very good
word processors and databases that are every bit as easy to use as the
stuff for DOS. One would think that a database of "legalease"
boilerplate text is just the tip of what could be put together in a
central law office facility. And soon there will be CD-ROMS with law
libraries on line (although the lawyers will not take to that
quickly).
Mark
romwa@utcs - or - mark@utcs!romwa
L Reid
> software (like Lyric, Wordstar, etc.) over the standard UNIX editing/formatting
For non-technical people, word-processing packages are easier to learn
and use. I, like yourself, prefer vi and nroff/troff because I find it
more flexible.
Our secretarito "true" word processing packages, they much prefer it.
Some managers do to.
Face it - techies are weird.
Laura Reid
tru
L Reid
> software (like Lyric, Wordstar, etc.) over the standard UNIX editing/formatting
But, our secretaries/clerks, when exposed to the other packages
preferred them.
Although flexible, nroff/troff is not easy to learn for non-technical
people. I know managers who prefer other WP software to nroff/troff.
Laura Reid
(Sorry, but my last posting of this got real garbles somehow. GREMLINS!)
Marcus J. Ranum
>
> On occasion I get asked for my opinion on computer systems for small
> business applications. Since 100% of my computer applications are scientific
> in nature (which is pretty far afield from business applications), I try to
> avoid giving business applications advice (except to go UNIX :-) ). However,
> sometimes I cannot avoid getting involved...
> useful than ``vi'' (yes, I know about Emacs, but I still prefer ``vi'').
> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
> and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
> environment?
I have worked in both development computing and academic computing
environments. I feel you are misguided to recommend UNIX and VI to buisnesses,
for several reasons:
1) UNIX is expensive. I can build an MS-DOS machine for under 1000$
and never worry about licenses, support, needing systems
managers, or major systems-crashes bringing the office to a
standstill.
2) There are at LEAST 1000 decent editors available for the IBM/clone
market. This gives you a great range of capability and function
without having to be tied to any *ONE* package. There are
typesetters available for clones, as well as simple menu-driven
packages that severely limit the user's capability. A user
will have a wide choice of applications packages available,
typically at a cost of under 200$ (less if you look)
3) Quality of output is not necessarily as important to businesses as
we might think. Even if it were, I have seen output produced
with an IBM PC and a laserwriter that is better (and was made
with less effort) than output produced on a 1/2 million
dollar UNIX system.
4) The kicker is that in most non "hard-core computing" environments,
there are relatively few people who (like me) are obsessed with
the wonderfullness of computers. There are a lot of secretaries
and managers out there who don't give a damn about pipes and
nroff macro libraries, but want to be able to sit down, bang
out some text, and have a program justify, fill, and throw it
onto a page in a decent looking font without having to learn
*ANYTHING* about what they're doing. I have had too many users
tell me "I don't care about WHAT it does, I just want to type
and get a nice looking document"
5) UNIX is not forgiving to idiots. IBM-clones at least ask you if
you're sure you want to remove *. Even so, you wouldn't believe
the number of people I have seen trash files on PCs by some
dumb trick or other. I used to deliver PCs to offices at my
last job. I always told the people "read this one little book
and try to understand it, and you'll be better off". They never
did. When I came back a week later 'cuz they had re-formatted
thier hard drives, they never figured out why I had so little
sympathy.
6) Downtime: unless you get lots of expensive UNIX pc's you have the
problem of downtime. On an micro/clone if user X's machine's
dead, he can take his floppy down the hall and plug it into
user Y's. (if he has no floppy, he's stupid) repair costs are
incredibly smaller.
I don't want to sound nasty, but I think your telling businesses to go
with UNIX is a bad idea. The reasons I list are about 1/2 of the good ones.
Live Free
mjr
"I do not in any way have any chance of making money from the above opinions.
I work with UNIX and think it's neat. Let my willingness to criticise one of
my favorite things stand as an indication of how serious I am."
--
Giddy grasshopper
Who spends his little breakfast
Among the flowers
Susan Richter
>
>useful than ``vi'' (yes, I know about Emacs, but I still prefer ``vi'').
I agree. I've continued to use vi in preference to such editors as Emacs
and the Rand editor 'e' (actually, I think I'm the only person working at
Rand who does use vi!). Maybe it's because I use my editor for editing, not
compilation, graphics, AI, text formatting, etc. The simpler, the better.
One of the winning features of vi is its use of normal alphabetic
characters as commands, so that when you are on some non-standard
keyboard, everything still works (ESC is sometimes the only problem --
there *are* keyboards with no ESC character!). Editors which are heavily
dependent on the function keys of a specific keyboard (not that I'm thinking
of any *particular* editor! :-) tend to be a real pain to use on others.
> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>environment?
I'm not that familiar with "business application" environments, but I did
have the idea that most small businesses that plunge into office automation
go with PCs (that's a generic term, OK?), and they use Wordstar, Microsoft
Word, or other similar WP package. Those seem to be much easier for
non-computer people to learn than vi (or any Unix editor, for that matter).
If, however, your people are really going with Unix, I would also recommend
staying with vi. Like I said: the simpler, the better.
- Susan Richter
ric...@rand-unix.uucp
...trwrb!randvax!richter
These opinions are certainly not official Rand opinions. Certainly not.
John d Woolverton
>business applications. Since 100% of my computer applications are scientific
>in nature (which is pretty far afield from business applications), I try to
>avoid giving business applications advice (except to go UNIX :-) ). However,
>sometimes I cannot avoid getting involved...
> In addition to programming, I do an extensive amount of document
>preparation. On UNIX systems I use ``vi'' _exclusively_ for document editing,
>and use nroff and troff for formatting when required. If I am using a letter
>quality printer with justification capability, often I will imbed justification
>commands and other printer commands in the text file and not use nroff or troff.
>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>environment?
I have done both micro-based word processing and UN*X editing and find both
have their advantages. When I first came here, I needed to be able to do
word processing SOON so I powered up the Compaq entered Microsoft Word and
started playing. Getting started was easy and it worked with various printers
from my slow daisy wheel to the Laserwriter. It had a lot of other nice features
in terms of formatting and such and the results were displayed on the screen.
Later someone introduced me to TeX in UN*X. This meant getting used to the os,
csh, vi (yes this is a handy and easy word processor), and TeX. This was a
difficult task but worth the power of TeX. TeX now runs on IBM's and so does
VI. So I don't know if I would recommend a unix system to a business.
jdw@tybalt / wool...@csvax.caltech.edu
koe...@uiucuxe.cso.uiuc.edu
I'm in a fairly computer illiterate academic department--
economics at u. illinois (urbana). We use vi, ditroff,etc
exclusively for technical word processing and find it very
satisfactory. The hardware configuration is minimal:
an IBM-AT and the HP Ljet, but it produces *very* nice
results with the help of software by Textware (in Cambridge
Mass). I'd reccommend this direction with one caveat:
someone must be willing to invest some time in learning
some unix basics; without some sort of local expert the
earlier comments about the superiority of dos word
"processing" are probably correct.
Darryl P. Wagoner
>useful than ``vi'' (yes, I know about Emacs, but I still prefer ``vi'').
> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>environment?
> In my travels I have taken a cursory look at various word-processing
>packages for UNIX machines, and do not find their operation or command set any
>more intuitive than ``vi''. I am certain that some people will disagree with
>me on this issue; so, tell me, what are the ADVANTAGES of word-processing
>software (like Lyric, Wordstar, etc.) over the standard UNIX editing/formatting
>utilities in the business-only environment?
I really like vi for writing programs. Vi won't do the things that WordStar
will do, but if you put vi, nroff, troff, tbl and (n)eqn together you have
a very powerful word-processing tool. The only problem with this is that
it is somewhat difficult to use and has a longer learning curve. I know
of no other package that can do tables with the same ease as tbl. The
following is what I see as the pro's and con's of vi,[rt]roff,tbl and eqn
as compared to a "word-processor".
Pro's
vi and company. Word-processor
Smaller storage requirement What you see is what you get.
Standard among Unix Many different product avail.
Tables and simple graphics using Left and Right justification
pic & tbl as you type.
vi uses less cpu time than a cpu usage is spread out over
fancy word-processor. a period of time
Help menus
Con's
[NT]roff eats up a lot of CPU time. Tables are a real pain.
The dot commands are painful at best
No help commands. (can be an asset) Menus slows down a sharp
user.
Basicly I would have to sum it up with: If you have a high turnover rate
or somewhat slow secretaries, then go with a "word-processor". But if you have
sharp people and/or have a low turnover rate, go with the vi and roff package.
> At the moment I am being compelled to offer an opinion on a computer
>system for a medium-sized law office; they want to start out small, and do
>not want to spend the money for a law office automation system (like a product
>of Barrister Information Systems). For three or four secretaries (and to allow
>for growth), I am inclined to recommend a 3B2 or NCR Tower XP as the most
>COST-EFFECTIVE means of implementing a multi-user system. Comments, anyone?
>
I have heard not but good things about NCR Tower's. Except they are
System V :-)
--
Darryl Wagoner
Raytheon Co.; Portsmouth RI; (401)-847-8000 x4089
best path {allegra|gatech|mirror|raybed2} ---------\
next best {linus|ihnp4|pyrbos} ---------------------->!rayssd!dpw
if all else fails {brunix|cci632} -------------------------/
Terry Grevstad
>...
>> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>>environment?
>...
>Yes, I think you're wrong. Secretaries don't have time, nor do they usually
>want to learn something like Unix. They will prefer EVERY TIME something
>which works as similarly as possible to their typewriter.
Well, I think Larry is right. I would stay with vi and nroff and
troff. I started out at my current job trying to teach everyone who
needed to know how to use nroff-troff, and what I wound up doing was
this:
1. I set up a group of macros for creating letters and memos
which was extremely simple to use. If all they wanted to
do was letters and memos all they had to learn was about
20 macro calls and how to use them. This is much simpler
than most of the word-processing software I've seen, and
everything comes out uniform because everyone is using
the same thing.
2. I made myself available on a one-to-one basis to anyone
who had some major project to do that went beyond the
letter/memo macros. I now have 3-4 people in the office
who can usually manage to do just about anything with
nroff/troff/tbl (we don't have much use for eqn) and I
have very few questions to answer any more.
Considering that there are now 8 people in the office using
nroff/troff and getting everything they want out of it, I've been very
happy with the results. I'd go for vi/nroff/troff again whenever
possible.
One little disclaimer: I do think that there needs to be at least
one person who already knows nroff/troff and is readily available to
the others who are learning. I picked this stuff up on my own with
only the UNIX nroff/troff manual (phfew :-{) and it took me at least
a month of solid 8-hours-a-day work to begin to feel like I knew what
I was doing.
--
\"\t\f1A\h'+1m'\f4\(mo\h'+1m'\f1the\h'+1m'\f4\(es\t\f1\c
_______________________________________________________________________
Terry Grevstad
Network Research Corporation
ihnp4!nrcvax!terry
{sdcsvax,hplabs}!sdcrdcf!psivax!nrcvax!terry
ucbvax!calma!nrcvax!terry
Steve Minneman
>...
>> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS
>>APPLICATION environment?
In article <7...@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> hig...@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom) writes:
>
>Yes, I think you're wrong. Secretaries don't have time, nor do they usually
>want to learn something like Unix. They will prefer EVERY TIME something
>which works as similarly as possible to their typewriter.
>
>...
>
>I personally would suggest getting each person an IBM-PC compatible type of
>machine. There's a million and one different word processors for it, and
>some are extremely nice to use, definitely with the comuter-illiterate in
>mind. They ACT like typewriters, but the secretary CAN at his/her pace learn
>to use mail merge, sorts, search/replace, type of features later.
>
>...
I agree with Paul in every respect, except for buying a PC for everyone.
It's tough if not impossible to teach many people who want to only edit
documents how to use an editor, a text formatter, and all the system commands.
However, this is no reason to run the extra expense of buying all those PCs
-- there are some excellent "word-processing" packages such as LEX-11
available under both UNIX and VMS for machines such as VAXEN. If you put your
word-processing software on the VAX (or similiar machine) you can teach casua
users of this software how to access it with mimimal interaction with other
commands and the operating system and yet allow them access to the additional
power of the larger machine when and if they so desire to learn and use it.--
---
Steven A. Minneman (Fujitsu America Inc, San Jose, Ca)
!seismo!amdahl!fai!stevem or !ihnp4!pesnta!fai!stevem
The best government is no government at all.
Bob Peirce
> useful than ``vi'' (yes, I know about Emacs, but I still prefer ``vi'').
> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
> and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
> environment?
I think you are absolutely right. We tried some "word processing" packages
and without exception everyone rejected them. They are anti-unix; they get
in your way. We use vi/nroff with mm macros and an Informix db for mailing
lists. Recently I have added uEmacs but so far I am the only one who loves
it. I still use vi about half the time. Both have strengths and unix lets
you use them.
> For three or four secretaries (and to allow
> for growth), I am inclined to recommend a 3B2 or NCR Tower XP as the most
> COST-EFFECTIVE means of implementing a multi-user system. Comments, anyone?
Don't overlook the marvelous machine made by Altos. We are going to a 3068
for a current staff of six and a planned future staff of 10-12. Everybody
lives off the machine from the Chairman (me) on down. We found two networked
68000s couldn't handle our load. I think the M68020 is the only way to go.
> ==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
--
Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA
uucp: ...!{allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis}
!pitt!darth!investor!rbp
412-471-5320
NOTE: Mail must be < 30K bytes/message
harr...@utfyzx.uucp
>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>environment?
I have been involved in word-processing in the Physics Dept. Because
of the math requirements, WYSIWIG's were pretty well excluded, so we
used eqn, tbl, and troff. Once the decision to use an embedded-command
WP system was made, we had to teach our secretaries an editor, and
found that there was little problem in using "vi". So, I would tend to
say that you are not wrong. As to WYSIWIG vs. embedded-command WP
systems, net.text is the appropritate forum for that discussion.
However: we also found that teaching "vi" first led to some blocks
in our users learning naked UNIX that were removed if we taught
them "ed" first. This is now pretty general for me: I teach users
good-old "ed", and when they are fairly comfortable show them "vi".
Thus, they get exposed to UNIX regular expressions, etc., before
going full-screen. ( I also use sh, not csh, to give you some idea
of my prejudices in these matters. )
I suspect that the success of our teaching of "ed" was partly aided
by the fact that we use the "U of T Zoology" version of it, which
includes an excellent line-editing mode, browsing commands, and other
nice features. I've never tried to teach a naive user vanilla ed.
--
David Harrison, Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Toronto
{ihnp4,utzoo}!utcs!utfyzx!harrison
r...@phri.uucp
If you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have said to
go ahead and teach your business-types how to deal with unix. I've spent
the past 5 or so years running unix systems (used at least 50% for word
processing) in a place where only a few people know anything about
computers. Yes, we've gotten secretaries who can barely deal with
automatic teller machines to learn enough emacs (and before that, ed!) and
nroff and neqn to get their stuff done.
Was it worth it? I'm not sure. Most of the people have learned
most of what they know by rote, and can't deal with any variations. Right
now (no kidding) I can hear two people in the next room: "what's this EQ
and EN stuff?"
We do scientific writing here -- that means lots of eqn stuff,
tables using tbl, and references using bib. I don't honestly know of any
other system that would suit our needs, and we've looked at a lot of
systems. So far, Interleaf seems the best competition, but we can't touch
the price tag.
Over the past year or two, I've come to realize that I've probably
been more gung-ho about unix that it deserves. Don't get me wrong, for a
programming environment, I wouldn't pick anything but unix. For high
quality technical publishing, with properly trained users, I'd probably
still go with unix (we've just ordered TeX, which I expect to be an
improvement over troff, but still not a panacea). But for a lot of the
routine stuff that gets done around here like business letters and memos,
unix is just too much overkill, and too much stuff to learn. If it wasn't
for the fact that these secretaries had to learn troff anyway to deal with
scientific manuscripts, I would say we'd be better off with something like
MacWrite or WordStar or whatever on some sort of PC.
--
Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
W. H. Pollock x4575 3S235
editors and word processors. While I like by vi and emacs very much, and use
troff and TeX too, for business applications word processors have a big
advantage over the editor-formatter combination: speed. Most documents are
revised several times, tables are moved around, differents fonts are tried, etc.
The change-print-change-print cycle of a word processor is perferable to the
change-format-print-change-format-print cycle. Of course for simple documents
such as letters, this doesn't matter that much. Other factors which are
important in the business environment are ease of use and learning time, and
flexibility. The newer word processors have this, especially when used in
conjuction with spread-sheet programs (which give you tables that rival any
that can be produced with tbl).
When writting that important article for Newsweek though, the flexibility of
TeX comes in real handy. Or for classy looking sales brochures and
prospectuses.
Wayne H. Pollock,
UUCP: ...{ihnp4,cbatt}!cbnap!whp
DELPHI: WHP
GEnie: W.POLLOCK
"The opinions expressed above are ficticious. Any resemblance
to the opinions of persons living or dead is purely coincidental."
Daniel P Faigin
> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>environment?
[Note: My wife asked me to post this. I personally perfer vi and
think it is usable for novices... with the right support]
A few notes -- you asked for it!
I _have taught_ word processing to secretaries several times in
the past, and am currently being scheduled for a MASS-11 "Train
the Trainer" class so that I can teach our system to several of
our company's (semi-local) groups. I agree with Paul
Higginbottom
1. vi, Wordstar, EMACS, TECO and the rest of those "programmer
friendly (HAH!)" languages will drive a secretary to _tears_ (or
to quit -- which is bad news if she's a good secretary). Forget
'em in the _business_ world. Anyone who advises teaching vi,
nroff, et al to secretaries should be forced to do the training
themselves.
2. "Word Processing Software" comes in two forms:
a. IBMs and clones (e.g., IBM 5570, CPT)
b. That which I can teach running rudiments of to a programmer
in 5 minutes, and a secretary in less than an hour.
--> Corollary: Stay away from IBMs "word processors"
3. A _good_ word processing package on a stable system is worth
its weight in expensive rare-earth metals.
4. WSIWYG is a _must_. Labelled keycaps (_not_ loss-prone
templates) can help immensely.
5. Remember that word processing applications expand to fill all
available features.
Recommendations:
1. Standalones: NBI (can also be networked to other NBIs, and
through software, to "name your computer")
2. Standard & Multiuser:
: IBM-PC or clone with SAMNAword, NBI, or MASS-11 software on
hard disk (w/LAN)
: MicroVax w/ All In One and MASS-11 software, VT200/VT220
terminal (up to ~15 users)
: Larger Vaxen as need arises.
Karen Davis
--
UUCP: {akgua allegra ihnp4 hplabs sdcsvax trwrb cbosgd}!sdcrdcf!faigin
ARPA: sdcrdcf!fai...@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA --or-- sdcrdcf!fai...@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
W (Daniel): System Development Corporation (-: A Sparroughs Company :-)
2525 Colorado MD 91-01; Santa Monica CA 90406; (213) 820-4111 x6393
W (Karen) : Amex Systems Incorporated (An Allied Bendix Aerospace Company)
107 West Carob Street; Compton CA 90220; (213) 604-4500 x4838
H: 8333 Columbus Avenue #17; Sepulveda CA 91343; (818) 892-8555
William M. Fischer
>
>>In article <12...@kitty.UUCP> la...@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
>>> On occasion I get asked for my opinion on computer systems for small
>>>business applications. Since 100% of my computer applications are scientific
>>>in nature (which is pretty far afield from business applications), I try to
>>>avoid giving business applications advice (except to go UNIX :-) ). However,
>>>sometimes I cannot avoid getting involved...
>>> In addition to programming, I do an extensive amount of document
>>>preparation. On UNIX systems I use ``vi'' _exclusively_ for document editing,
>>>and use nroff and troff for formatting when required.
>>...
>>> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>>>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>>>environment?
>>...
>>>==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
>>want to learn something like Unix. They will prefer EVERY TIME something
>>which works as similarly as possible to their typewriter.
>>
to teach office personnel the wonders of vi, etc. I agree that every office
is different, but it has been my experience that people prefer the small PC
based WP programs, with lotsa bells and whistles and on-line help. I also
work on the lowend of the scale in *NIX world and find that the user gets
better performance for HIS or HIS specific task by being able to work at
a stand alone system for things like word processing and spreadsheets. A
typical installation has a six user XENIX box and 3-5 PCs hung off the ports.
These PC's have full terminal capability for access to the main accounting
software, with either download or "cut and paste" ability to snag the data
off the main system and massage it later offline. All the little desktop
goodies are also available, without burning up precious system overhead
on the UNIX box. For the computer-phobe, a "desktop disk" is provided that
never lets him near either operating system once he boots his PC and still
lets him have user functionality on them. The power user is in heaven, running
his 400k spreadsheets without clobbering the other users. With the cost of
a 256k (+), 2 drive MS/PC DOS machine shrinking every day, it makes a lot of
sense to have the "best of both worlds".
--
_______________________
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-/ \-=-=-=
| Fortiter in re, Bill Fischer |
| suaviter in modo. w...@chinet.UUCP |
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\_________________________/-=-=-=
Henry Spencer
I don't quarrel with the general assertion, but the example seems dubious.
A group here at U of T evaluated LEX-11 for a while. Their overall comments
on it were pretty much unprintable. One thing that was very conspicuous
was that the software was not written with Unix in mind, and the port to
Unix was done very sloppily with no attempt to revise any of the decisions
to match the new environment. They rejected it vehemently. Mind you,
quite possibly it has improved since then -- this was several years ago.
"Try before buy."
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
Mike Meyer
>You were doing so well, until you reached this point. For a Computer
>literate person, an IBM (compatable?) may be a good idea (debateable).
>However, the MS/PC DOS OS is almost as cryptic as UNIX. As far as
>applications for the computer are concerned, the major fault with a PC is
>that they are all different - you must learn a different system for
>dealing with each one. If you know how to use a word processor, that
>will do you absolutely no good in learning how to use a spreadsheet,
>etc.
>
>The system to use for a business environment is the Macintosh. Here is
>why:
> First, the Mac is by far the easiest computer to use...Once you
>learn the basic system (5 minutes, max) you can use ANY program out.
>*They All Work The Same!* You only have to learn one system for all of
>the programs.
>
> Another reason is that it looks a lot like a typewriter (notice
>the keyboard?). The main screen (command interpreter if you insist) is
>set up to look like a desktop (in fact, that is what it is called) It
>uses (get this!) *PICTURES* to represent its files, instead of cryptic
>names. Like a word processor document lookes like a piece of paper with
>a name under it (up to 31 characters, not just eight letters/numbers + a
>three letter extension)
The above is all also true of the Amiga (except for the addition of a
real ASCII keyboard and numeric keypad) and, I suspect, the ST.
The correct answer to someone asking you what kind of computer to buy
is *not* "something that runs Unix," "an Amiga," or "an IBM PC clone."
The correct answer is "something that runs software that does what you
need it to do." Tell people to go find software that does best what
they need done, and then buy hardware that it runs on. If possible,
provide pointers to different places based on what they are looking
for.
I don't follow the WP market, but from my last foray into it, I'd
suspect that the PC-compatable market is best. But that was before
people considered using Sun-class machines for WP work, so is
obviously dated.
Of course, if you go with PC's, you don't have the luxury of finding
terminals with keyboards your secretarial staff likes. But everything
has it's price.
<mike
Steve Alesch
...
> I agree with Paul in every respect, except for buying a PC for everyone.
> It's tough if not impossible to teach many people who want to only edit
> documents how to use an editor, a text formatter, and all the system commands.
> However, this is no reason to run the extra expense of buying all those PCs
> -- there are some excellent "word-processing" packages such as LEX-11
> available under both UNIX and VMS for machines such as VAXEN. If you put your
> word-processing software on the VAX (or similiar machine) you can teach casua
> users of this software how to access it with mimimal interaction with other
> commands and the operating system and yet allow them access to the additional
> power of the larger machine when and if they so desire to learn and use it.--
> ---
Come on, get serious!!! Your suggesting a 3 secretary law office needs
a $300,000 system!!!
--
Steve Alesch AT&T
(312)510-7881, ...!ihnp4!ih1ap!sja
Guy Harris
> characters as commands, so that when you are on some non-standard
> keyboard, everything still works (ESC is sometimes the only problem --
> there *are* keyboards with no ESC character!).
If you like the "vi" user interface, particularly its use of alphabetic
characters as commands, there's an editor with WYSIWYG word-processing
capabilities that might be perfect. It's called Bravo, and runs on the
Xerox Alto; I think "vi"s user interface was influenced by Bravo's, down to
the "i" for insert command, terminated by ESC. WYSIWYG processing and a
"vi"-like user interface - the best of both worlds! :-) It also had a
number of good ideas in its editing and formatting mechanism; a number of
other editor/formatters probably owe many of their good ideas to Bravo.
Of course, there's the apocryphal story of the user typing the word "edit"
when they didn't know they weren't inside an "insert" command; "e" selected
the Entire document, "d" Deleted the selection, "i" started an Insert
command, and "t" inserted a "t". Realizing their mistake, they hit ESC and
"u" (or whatever the Undo command was), and Bravo dutifully undid the
insertion. Unfortunately, it only had a one-level undo list....
That's one reason why I *strongly* dislike "vi"; it's a moded editor.
> Editors which are heavily dependent on the function keys of a specific
> keyboard (not that I'm thinking of any *particular* editor! :-) tend to
> be a real pain to use on others.
You're definitely not thinking of EMACS; it uses control keys and ^X-key or
ESC-key sequences by default for most commands. You *can* bind commands to
function keys, but you don't have to.
Noemi Berry
> At the moment I am being compelled to offer an opinion on a computer
>system for a medium-sized law office; they want to start out small, and do
>not want to spend the money for a law office automation system (like a product
>of Barrister Information Systems). For three or four secretaries (and to
>allow for growth), I am inclined to recommend a 3B2 or NCR Tower XP as the
>most COST-EFFECTIVE means of implementing a multi-user system. Comments,
>anyone?
Here at Moscom we have several NCR Towers, two 3B2's, around 20
AT&T PCs (for developing and testing a PC product) and various other
machines. Other departments around here have IBM PCs, an Apple or two and
a few Macs for documentation. This is a medium-sized company ( < 90 people)
and there is no poverty of computer literacy around here - or so I thought.
Yesterday someone from Accounting approached our resident software
expert and informed him that they were having "trouble with the hard disk"
on Accounting's PC. "You see, there's a directory containing an old
application and we need the disk space - how do we get rid of what's there?"
I had a hard time containing myself while my friend, gritting his teeth,
explained DOS's "cd" and "delete" command. This isn't the first time he's
had to help Accounting or Sales with something incredibly basic.
Point is, even DOS machines require maintenance from reasonably
knowledgeable people, let alone 3B2's and Towers running Unix. The average
law firm may not have such people. I would not recommend any Unix system
for primarily word-processing. The maintenance nightmares it would cause
the average secretary would not be COST-EFFECTIVE.
Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't trade any one of our Unix machines
for a Lamborghini - there is nothing in the world like it for development.
And for an editor, I have never found anything leaner and meaner than vi.
But not for ordinary office word-processing.
An alternative might be an AT or two, networked together (SysV is
even available if you're *really* bent on recommending Unix).
noemi berry
{allegra|seismo}!rochester!moscom!noemi
he who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet - fortune cookie
Edward Vielmetti
A lot of the choice of which word-processor to use depends on the
sort of tasks that are going on. An appropriate first level of
analysis would look at what sort of stuff you want to send out;
for instance:
short memos don't need TeX;
heavily graphic-oriented stuff might deserve a Macintosh;
boilerplate legal text generates special demands.
This is enough for me to keep around several sorts of tools for
writing, hopefully to let me choose the right tool for the job.
Here's some likely to be useful combinations: TeX and MacWrite for
a person doing both short technical correspondence and more
intricate stuff (an Econ prof at U-M); PC-Outline and a wordstar-like
editor for me, depending on my mood; VEDIT and PC-Outline for
regular editing and semi-programming (vedit) plus bureaucratic,
boilerplate text (pco).
Design word processing choices with interconnectivity in mind,
but if you can accomodate multiple options do it.
Edward Vielmetti, CC Microgroup, U of Michigan, ihnp4!umich!umix!emv
Tim Smith
>
>for those that are computer literate or will take quite a lot of time to
>learn, a great deal of flexibility.
>
When cithep ( Caltech high energy physics ) got a VAX, the secretaries
started learning nroff and troff. They had ed ( and maybe qed ) instead
of vi.
They became good at these tools as quicky as most of the computer literate
people. Don't underestimate your secretary.
--
I admit it! I don't believe in Mary Worth! I Lied! HaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!!
Tim Smith USENET: sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim Compuserve: 72257,3706
Delphi or GEnie: mnementh
Larry Campbell
>In article <3...@fai.UUCP>, ste...@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman) writes:
>> -- there are some excellent "word-processing" packages such as LEX-11
>> available under both UNIX and VMS for machines such as VAXEN. If you put your
>> word-processing software on the VAX (or similiar machine) you can teach casua
>> users of this software how to access it with mimimal interaction with other
>> commands and the operating system and yet allow them access to the additional
>> power of the larger machine when and if they so desire to learn and use it.--
>
>a $300,000 system!!!
Where have you been hiding? The first VAX introduced, the 11/780, may
have sold for $300,000, but the present model range starts at under
$25,000 and extends up to mainframe-class machines selling for nearly
a million dollars.
A decently configured MicroVAX-II, able to support 8 to 12
simultaneous users, can be had for between $25K and $30K, before
discounting. Maybe a tiny bit of overkill for 3 users ($10K per
user), but definitely cost effective for 6 or more. At 10 users, the
per-user cost is about $2500. And let's not have any flames about PC
clones for $900; the VAX and PC architectures are in entirely
different leagues.
The nicest part about the VAX is you can upgrade in many small steps
all the way to a cluster of 8800s capable of supporting thousands of
online users, without changing one bit of the applications software.
Oops, sorry to have strayed off the original "vi vs. WordStar etc."
discussion. Just wanted to set the record straight about VAX prices.
--
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
ARPA: campbell%maynar...@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
Maintenance Account
> can provide all of the office needs you mentioned, Paul, and they can
> have electronic mail to boot (InBox from Think Technologies). My
> secretary was about as computer-illiterate as you can get but she
> picked up her new Mac and was blasting out memos and spreadsheets and
> using Email in a day or two.
>
> Brian Fenske Boeing Aerospace Company
> UUCP: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!brian Seattle, Washington
Why should they have to use MS-DOS? I support PC's where I work
and the only thing my users know about the good ole A> prompts
is that they should have one on the screen before turning the
machine off. There are scads of menu shells out there and you
don't need a system administrator to install one.
Mac networking. Can you say s-l-o-w? I knew you could. I'd love
to see a law office running macs. Especially considering what's
available in word processing programs for it.
Don't get me wrong, I like the mac. It's just that I can't afford
to deal with a machine that allows me to take a coffee break
while it reformats a long document.
I don't think PC's are the ultimate cure-all either. If anyone
had that, everyone else would be out of business.
Oh yea, this was asking about word processing recommendations, wasn't
it. Here's mine. I'll recommend the PC's too. As far as software
is concerned, try Word Perfect. It has just about every feature
that you'd want in a word processing program (except for mac style
font juggling) and is easy enough to use that a secretary can
do letters, memos and other good junk in an hour or two. Also
the documentation is good enough that a secretary can actually
learn the program off of it. Unfortunately, few PC word processing
programs can make that claim.
I like unix too, but I'd hate to support as many secretaries using
it as I currently do using PC's.
I have no affiliation with IBM, Apple, Word Perfect Corp,
Think Technologies, DEC, AT&T, or anyone else for that matter.
--
/Dave Edick/
{hplabs,ihnp4}!qantel!dosadi!root
"I come in peace, take me to your lizard"
Maintenance Account
> is *not* "something that runs Unix," "an Amiga," or "an IBM PC clone."
>
> The correct answer is "something that runs software that does what you
> need it to do." Tell people to go find software that does best what
> they need done, and then buy hardware that it runs on. If possible,
> provide pointers to different places based on what they are looking
> for.
Bravo!
>
> I don't follow the WP market, but from my last foray into it, I'd
> suspect that the PC-compatable market is best. But that was before
> people considered using Sun-class machines for WP work, so is
> obviously dated.
>
> Of course, if you go with PC's, you don't have the luxury of finding
> terminals with keyboards your secretarial staff likes. But everything
> has it's price.
Huh? I recently went shopping for replacment PC keyboards for an office
that didn't like the IBM keyboard. Everyone and their cousin had them.
ro...@utcs.uucp
>Oops, sorry to have strayed off the original "vi vs. WordStar etc."
>discussion. Just wanted to set the record straight about VAX prices.
>--
>Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
>ARPA: campbell%maynar...@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
>UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
Just what is the real issue here? If the issue is vi/*roff vs.
WYSIWYG, then why not try one of the couple dozen or so word
processors that are available for any number of UNIX/XENIX machines?
Installing a UNIX box has nothing to do with the type of word
processor one wants to run. I have use LYRIX on XENIX and found it to
be more that satisfactory on a three user sytem, and have seen Crystal
Writer which turns itself into nroff output if you want it to. Making
the choice is admittedly not easy, and the answers seem not to be
coming from the net. A market search is needed in each case, and the
people who are going to use the system have to be interviewed and
evaluated.
As far as I am concerned, the issue is multiuser vs. single user. The
software is not a problem on either side of the line. Remember that
this office has money for a 3b2 or something else in that price range.
That means that while the initial investment may be $3K per user
(assuming 3) the addition of new users should be limited to the cost
of a terminal and the line to hook up. We have boards on our Sperry
IT w/XENIX running at 19,200bps which makes the terminals pretty
quick so that should not be a problem (if such things are available at
the 3b level).
The decision to put in UNIX or DOS must be made with a view toward
ability to support and maintain the system. UNIX will take quite a
bit of baby sitting while with DOS or MAC's the people will become
less dependent on a SYS. Administrator. As soon as you network all
those DOS machines, however, you need a network administrator and
someone to see to the daily maintenance so you are back at the UNIX
solution through the rear entrance.
Just one look at what is happening with the new hardware and DOS
should make one think about just what kind of solution to go for. The
hardware is going to be so powerful that the software one gets will be
more complex and have a multiuser/tasking layer in it anyway. why not
buy a mature product line UNIX?
mark@utcs!romwa or romwa@utcs
Mark T. Dornfeld
Royal Ontario Museum
Toronto, Ontario
Steve Minneman
>>...
>> I agree with Paul in every respect, except for buying a PC for everyone.
>> It's tough if not impossible to teach many people who want to only edit
>> documents how to use an editor, a text formatter, and all the system
>> commands. However, this is no reason to run the extra expense of buying all
>> those PCs -- there are some excellent "word-processing" packages such as
>> LEX-11 available under both UNIX and VMS for machines such as VAXEN. If you
>> teach casual users of this software how to access it with mimimal
>> interaction with other commands and the operating system and yet allow them
>> access to the additional power of the larger machine when and if they so
>> desire to learn and use it.
>> ---
>
>a $300,000 system!!!
>--
Read what I wrote again. Point one is that you can get a Vax for under
$30,000. There is no reason to pay $300,000. The second point is that I
didn't say go out and buy a Vax. I said don't go out and buy a PC for
everyone. If you have a mini that will serve the same purpose as buying
numerous PCs and that mini has excess capacity, use it. If you want to go
out and spend $300,000 for a mid-range Vax that will serve 40 to 50 users
for the sole use of 3 people, that's up to you; but, I sure wouldn't.
John P. Nelson
>a $300,000 system!!!
Have you priced MicroVAXen lately? I'd say a MicroVax II would suit a 3
secretary law office just fine. And it's possibly cheaper than three AT's with
hard disks, ethernet, etc.
Paul Higginbottom
>(repeats what I wrote)...
>> I personally would suggest getting each person an IBM-PC compatible type of
>> machine. There's a million and one different word processors for it, and
>> mind. They ACT like typewriters, but the secretary CAN at his/her pace learn
>> to use mail merge, sorts, search/replace, type of features later.
>>
>> hard disks, printers, etc. True they won't have electronic mail, but I
>> personally think Unix has a long way to go before it will really be
>> palatable in the normal business environment. Don't get me wrong though,
>> *I* LOVE Unix.
>>
>(then Brian responded with)...
>Why make the poor secretaries learn MS-DOS? A network of Macintoshes
>can provide all of the office needs you mentioned, Paul, and they can
>have electronic mail to boot (InBox from Think Technologies). My
>secretary was about as computer-illiterate as you can get but she
>picked up her new Mac and was blasting out memos and spreadsheets and
>using Email in a day or two.
>
>
>I have no affiliation with Apple or Think Technologies (and
>certainly not with IBM :-))
>
>Brian Fenske Boeing Aerospace Company
>UUCP: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!brian Seattle, Washington
Brian, I agree with you about Macs, Apple has done a nice job with their
networking; it's SIMPLE, but not crude. I've been to a place where they had
about 6 or 7 Macs sharing a couple of hard disks (Profiles?) and a Laser
printer. It worked very well for them.
I merely suggested PC's because of the pricing (they're almost being given
away) and because I don't personally believe that Macs are for everyone.
While there is keyboard phobia out there, there is also mouse phobia.
At least people know what a keyboard is! True, true, it doesn't take long
to get the point across, but its another abstraction.
Let's not get into a discussion as to whether Macs or PC's are better - they
can both do the job well, in different ways.
I have found this debate fascinating, it has moved with religious zeal!
Paul.
Disclaimer: opinions expressed are mine only, although you may have them
for free!
Noemi Berry
Expires:
References: <12...@kitty.UUCP> <7...@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> <1986Sep8.0...@utcs.uucp>
Sender:
Reply-To: no...@moscom.UUCP (Noemi Berry)
Followup-To:
Organization: Moscom, East Rochester, NY
Keywords: ``vi'' word-processing non-programmers
>>> So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>>>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS
>>>APPLICATION environment?
>>Yes, I think you're wrong. Secretaries don't have time, nor do they usually
>>want to learn something like Unix. They will prefer EVERY TIME something
>>which works as similarly as possible to their typewriter.
>>[...]
>>Paul.
>I think that you are wrong, Paul.
>[...]
>One need not even let the secretary know that Unix is the system she
>is working on. [...] A customized environment is not a bad way to go
>in UNIX provided there is a clever administrator.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Mark
And what average law firm or office *has* this clever administrator?
Who wants to devote a lot of time (read: money) to learning a system that for
office word-processing purposes is really overkill? Even in companies with
lots of computer-literate people, the word-processing is better off done in
more idiot-proof environments. UNIX *can't* be beat for R&D, but for a typical
office environment where the most knowledgable computer person really could be
a secretary? I'd recommend something *meant* for businesses.
Stephen J. Hartley
> Xref: dartvax net.text:1148 net.unix:8174
>
> I have been involved in word-processing in the Physics Dept. Because
> of the math requirements, WYSIWIG's were pretty well excluded, so we
> used eqn, tbl, and troff. Once the decision to use an embedded-command
> WP system was made, we had to teach our secretaries an editor, and
> found that there was little problem in using "vi".
>
Unix, files, vi, tbl, eqn, and troff.
L Reid
You can get a 3B2 (5-10 user system) for $10K and up.
Ed Tankus
> --
> Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
> ARPA: campbell%maynar...@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
> UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
Anyway, there has been lots of discussion here and I think all of it has been
food for thought. I'll throw some additional comments in here:
Check out the October '86 issue of UNIX/WORLD(tm?). There is a
review of 4 U*IX word processors.
Unfortunately, the reviewer did not conclude the article with a stated
preference for one product over another. I would like to have seen
this part of the article as it would have given an insight into the
person conducting the review and their particular prejudices.
--
-- Ed.
Net : {noao!ihnp4!yale!}!hsi!tankus
Snail: Health Systems Int'l, 100 Broadway, New Haven, CT 06511
Bell : (203) 562-2101
Comfy chair
Oh, no, not another editor war. Speaking only for myself,
When all I had was Wordstar, I used that for correspondence and I was
happy. I even (shock, gasp) typed in assembly language with that.
When I have vi, I use LaTeX and a laser printer and I am happy too.
When I don't have either, I just use a ball point pen.
Oh, ok, :-).
Being able to judge the proficiency level of the users is an important
task of the system configurator. We all know how to do that, right?
Can we talk about something else now?
Ken
--
UUCP: ..!{allegra,decvax,seismo}!rochester!ken ARPA: k...@rochester.arpa
Snail: CS Dept., U. of Roch., NY 14627. Voice: Ken!
Larry Campbell
>The reason that our customers have gone to "lyrix" instead of using
>what we use for \fBall\fR of our document preparation is simple:
>our customers need to print form letters &c. to their customers.
>
>There appears to be no easy or clean way to merge data into nroff --
>the data would have to be prepared with extra new-lines, and as for
>iterating to print a hundred copies -- looks like it would be hairy.
Funny, I whipped off a little shell script to do just that today.
Something like this (typed from memory, it was on a different system,
so I may have dropped a backslash or a quote somewhere):
#!/bin/sh
# Run this with the data file (address list, whatever)
# as standard input
#
while 1
do
read NAME
if [ "$NAME" = "" ]; then exit; fi
read ADRRESS
read CITY_STATE_ZIP
sed <form.letter \
-e "s/<<NAME>>/$NAME/" \
-e "s/<<ADDRESS>>/$ADDRESS/" \
-e "s/<<CITY_STATE_ZIP>>/$CITY_STATE_ZIP/ \
| nroff -ms >/dev/lp
done
Improving this to handle variable number of lines in an address,
salutations, etc. is left as an exercise for the reader. This isn't
super fast, but then again nroff is where most of the time is spent
anyway.
John M. Ritter
> >The reason that our customers have gone to "lyrix" instead of using
> >what we use for \fBall\fR of our document preparation is simple:
> >our customers need to print form letters &c. to their customers.
> >
> >There appears to be no easy or clean way to merge data into nroff --
> >the data would have to be prepared with extra new-lines, and as for
> >iterating to print a hundred copies -- looks like it would be hairy.
>
> Funny, I whipped off a little shell script to do just that today.
> Something like this (typed from memory, it was on a different system,
> so I may have dropped a backslash or a quote somewhere):
>
built right into nroff/troff by using the `.rd' request to accept
standard input from the keyboard, a file, or a pipe. You also eliminate
an invocation of [nt]roff for *each* letter you want to send.
At least if it *doesn't* work, I don't understand how all
of my correspondence has been working!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I enjoy working with human beings, and John M. Ritter
have stimulating relationships with them." Allied-Signal Inc.
- HAL 9000 Corporate Tax Department
{bellcore,harpo,ihnp4,infopro,princeton,sys1}!motown!jmr
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Plamondon
Most word-processing software was written for simple tasks done by
non-technical people. What programs to give your secretary has just been
beaten into the ground in this group. What about software for us?
I've used a number of editors and formatters, and I've come to some
conclusions.
SCRIBE-LIKE FORMATTERS
Scribe, originally by Brian Reid, is an embedded-command formatter. For
example, to start a subsection, you type "@subsection{Another Subsection}",
and to put something in bold you type "@B(emboldened text)". It gives you an
immense amount of flexibility over the formatting of your document,
including multiple columns, footnotes, indexes, bibliographies -- you name
it.
Scribe can support virtually any kind of printer. Many of the formatting
macros are defined like this: "put the heading in 14-point bold Helvetica if
it's available, else use the Big font in bold, else use bold, else use
overstriking, else use all caps." Thus, fancy features are used if the
target printer supports it, and alternatives are examined until the program
finds something that will work.
Scribe also uses nested environments: if you put an itemized list inside an
itemized list, it indents more and switches to a different bullet character.
Troff fails miserably at virtually any combination of nested environments.
Scribe costs a fortune, maybe two fortunes. There are various formatters
based on Scribe that cost less. Two are FinalWord and LaTeX.
FINALWORD II, from Mark of the Unicorn[1], has a formatter that is very
close to Scribe (by the way, I've never used Scribe, but I've looked through
the manuals, and the two are very close). It's available for MS-DOS, CP/M,
and maybe even UNIX (they keep promising). List is $299, but it can be found
at prices approaching $200.
The formatter supports macros, user-defined printers, multiple columns (any
number), multiple indexes, floating figures, and so on. It has drivers for
everything from line printers to phototypesetters. It has drivers for most
laser printers, including Apple and HP.
The editor is very similar to emacs, with a macro language, assignable keys,
user-definable terminals/displays, a spelling checker, user-definable (and
disable-able) pop-up menus, etc. The performance is very good, the product
seems to be bug-free, and the editor can be used quite well as a program
editor.
LATEX is a version of Donald Knuth's TeX formatter. As far as I know, the
only drivers that exist for it are pixel-oriented devices, such as laser
printers, some phototypesetters, CRTs, raster plotters, and dot-matrix
printers (the last is very slow and not really good enough for anything but
page proofs). While less wierd and bug-ridden than troff, LATEX takes some
getting used to. It supports indexes (kind of), bibliographies, tables of
contents, et at. It has two-column support, but it stinks. FinalWord does a
much better job with multiple columns. LaTeX also has a "picture mode" that
lets you do diagrams with a fairly simple x,y format that makes it easy to
do a diagram on graph paper and transfer it to the system.
LaTeX is cheap: it comes on the $75 TeX distribution tape from the
University of Washington. It compiles slowly but simply on 4.2 Vaxen and Sun
IIs, and presumably other machines as well. The MS-DOS versions are all
proprietary and cost several hundred dollars.
INTERLEAF puts out WYSIWYG software for machines with hig-resolution
displays, such as Suns. It displays a whole page of formatted text at once,
showing graphics, fonts, and type sizes as they will appear on the output
(usually a laser printer). It's powerful and easy to learn, though I don't
think it's suitable for large documents because of the lack of indexing,
cross-referencing, table of contents, and such. Very good for documents in
the 1-30 page range. We use it for data sheets and similar documents.
CONCLUSIONS: I use LaTeX at work, and FinalWord II at home. LaTeX is a pain
for short documents -- memos and such are much easier on the Interleaf --
but is invaluable for things like the heavily cross-refrenced 200-page
manual I'm working on now, with diagrams and figures and indexes and such.
For editors, I prefer something that's fast and customizable. Vi is fast but
not customizable; emacs is customizable but not fast. The FinalWord editor
is both, but there doesn't seem to be a Unix version yet. Sigh.
[1] Mark of the Unicorn, (617) 576-2760
[2] TeX distribution -- write Pierre Mackay, uw-beaver!uw-ward!MACKAY
--
Robert Plamondon
UUCP: {pyramid,turtlevax, cae780}!weitek!robert
Disclaimer: It's not my fault!
Karen Christenson
I get a lot of questions from freshmen and secretaries in my little
public consultant office. We have a home-brewed OS and screen editor (which
I love, but then, I grew up with it, so to speak), Unix with emacs and vi,
lots of Macs with MacWrite and Word, and a few IBMs (but I don't do IBMs).
From what I've seen, MacWrite and Word are easiest for students and
secretaries to learn. Some people simply don't want to know about computers
and will balk at doing anything more than they have to with them. I prefer
emacs to vi, personally, but I'd say they're both about equally good for the
average user with average aptitude.
I think one thing that gives MacWrite and Word (and emacs) an edge is
that they work on a what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of situation, which
is something you don't get on Unix. It takes away some of the frustration
of doing the thing, discovering an error, changing something, waiting to see
if it worked, etc. (Vi has a slight disadvantage here; when you modify text
you don't always see the line as it will end up until you get out of that
mode.)
So a lot depends on the attitudes and aptitudes of the people in the
office. If they have no difficulty in accepting computer literacy, then go
with Unix and troff. I did my resume with troff and it outshines anything
I've ever seen come out of a Laserwriter. However, if they just aren't a
part of the computer generation, they will be happier with something that
doesn't take as much time to learn and that shows them what to expect.
Karen Christenson
"Mostly harmless." ...!dartvax!chelsea
Have an adequate day.
Jay Batson
with a name and address. We've seen discussions about using
commercial WP packages with databases, and recently, a shell
script to read a data file.
Well, I recommend Towers, 3B2's, and other such boxes to
businesses, and teach them vi/nroff. And as for merging
stuff, has anybody taken the time to read the 'nroff' paper
out of the 'papers' part of the UNIX manuals? It describes a
nifty call named
.rd <arg>
which will accomplish the merge. How you say? Easy. Put the
.rd
in your file where you want the name, address, etc. to go.
Then nroff the document. If you don't provide a redirected
standard input, nroff will prompt you with a bell, or <arg> if
you provided one, and you simply type in the name and address
you want, ending with an extra carriage return (e.g. blank
line). When it reads the extra <cr>, it proceeds with the
rest of the document. Of course, you might wish to proceed the
.rd
with a
.na
.nf
and follow with whatever adjusting you want afterward.
Ok, so what about doing this on 100 form letters? Simple.
Put the names and addresses in a file, seperating each set of
names/addresses with a blank line, and use this line for formatting:
nroff -m(package) form.letter < names.file > output.file
and you're off. One thing - at the end of the data file, be
sure to put a blank line below the last name, and add a
.ex
on the next line. That way, nroff will stop looking for more
data, and '.ex(it)'.
Notice that either typing things on the std input, or
providing redirected data will allow you to use as many lines
for any single name/address as you want, and nroff takes the
proper formatting in stride.
So tell me again why we shouldn't recommend vi/nroff? You
mean _no_ other WP packages use dot commands, and secretaries
aren't smart enough to know a couple of dozen such commands?
Gee, I'm glad I don't have your secretary.
--------
"Stop it!! Stop it now. This is getting silly again, and this silliness
has _got_ to stop. Go on to the next sketch. Go on. Turn this camera o "
Jay Batson
ihnp4!onecom!\
isis!jay
seismo!{hao,nbires}!/
Phil Gustafson
> programming environment, I wouldn't pick anything but unix.
> ... But for a lot of the
> routine stuff that gets done around here like business letters and memos,
> unix is just too much overkill, and too much stuff to learn.
> ... I would say we'd be better off with something like
> MacWrite or WordStar or whatever on some sort of PC.
> --
> Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy
Security is another important issue. Much clerical data (pay rates, customer
lists, job evaluations) is much safer on a floppy disk in a drawer than on a
UNIX system. Only constant vigilance can keep any UNIX system secure, and
that vigilance is most unlikely in an office environment.
--
---------------------------------------------------------
All opinions except attributed quotations are mine alone.
Satirical comments may not be specifically identified as such.
--
Phil Gustafson Voice: (408)435-8600
Saber Technology Corp.
2381 Bering Drive Mail: decwrl!sun!saber!phil
San Jose, CA 95131 idi!saber!phil
Guy Harris
> that they work on a what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of situation, which
> is something you don't get on Unix. It takes away some of the frustration
> of doing the thing, discovering an error, changing something, waiting to see
> if it worked, etc. (Vi has a slight disadvantage here; when you modify text
> you don't always see the line as it will end up until you get out of that
> mode.)
I'm composing this reply using EMACS on a UNIX system. Furthermore, I
*wrote* an editor, which ran under UNIX, that was a WYSIWYG editor in the
sense that it showed the text, formatted as it would print (mostly - modulo
page headers, footers, footnotes, etc.), as you typed. For that matter,
Microsoft Word is available on the AT&T PC 7300 - also known as the UNIX PC.
Several other such editors are available on UNIX systems, from fairly simple
alphanumeric terminal-based ones up to Interleaf and programs of its ilk.
Which kind of WYSIWYG did you say you don't get on UNIX?
e...@plx.uucp
I got news for ya!
AT&T secretaries use vi !!!
I'm *NOT* kidding, My sister's one of 'em!!
Ed Chaban
Plexus Computers Inc.
Phone: (408) 943-2226
Net: sun!plx!ed
Alex B Laney
>Although flexible, nroff/troff is not easy to learn for non-technical
>people. I know managers who prefer other WP software to nroff/troff.
Let me add -- nroff/troff is not easy to master period. As someone who has
occasionally edited macros, let me say they are never "Perfect". At any time
that non-computer people tried to learn vi and nroff, it would always
backlog them. I have not seen the 4.3 "me" macros, but I know the 4.2 "me"
macros have bugs in them. (Like everything else on 4.2 :-) The Unix standard
packages are for the converted.
--
- + - + -
Alex Laney, Xios Systems Corp, 105-1600 Carling Av, Ottawa (613)725-5411x402
utzoo -
> !dciem
allegra!ihnp4!utcsri -- > nrcaer!xios!lib!alex
ucbvax!hplabs -- /
> !seismo!hadron!netex!prcrs/
decvax --
Henry Spencer
> lists, job evaluations) is much safer on a floppy disk in a drawer than on a
> UNIX system. Only constant vigilance can keep any UNIX system secure, and
> that vigilance is most unlikely in an office environment.
However, that data won't stay on floppies. Sooner or later the office will
discover how wonderful hard disks are compared to floppies. Somewhat later
they will discover how much time is saved by networking. And then we're
back to the same old situation: sensitive data must be kept on floppy to
be secure, but only constant vigilance will ensure that this is really done
when the alternatives are so much less hassle.
Actually, only constant vigilance is going to keep anything really secure.
What sort of drawer are those floppies in? Is it locked? Always? Is the
lock the type you can open with a paper clip? How many people are allowed
in the room (if it's a general office, probably a great many)? Who has keys?
How many people who've left the company still have keys? Is all this really
relevant, when the disks are probably sitting in an unlocked floppy box
beside the machine because it's too much hassle to constantly dig them out
of the locked drawer? Security *demands* constant vigilance of the people
involved, regardless of the nature of the system.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
and...@stc.co.uk
As someone else just said we all know what this is about anyway...
A few years ago, when I was still subscribing to Byte rather than the
net, there was an excellent editorial discussing the concept of "user
friendly", the gist being that it was something that varies very much
with time and experience. The start-up time with say LEX-11 is
relatively low - the menu driven front end leads the new user by the
hand into document composition, and there are those who use systems
sufficiantly infrequently for this to be a good and acceptable approach
to text generation. We have such users, and I will not attempt to
"wean" them from it. On the other hand those users who will be on
the system every day are introduced to vi immediatly, and LEX-111 only
to look at the first group's documents "in the raw".
For those who need to work every day with these things some sort of
extremely high powered text editor is rather more what is required
since, even if initially the hyperdrive features are not used or
understood they will eventually be wanted. The user no matter how
inexperienced initially will quickly come to recognise the result of
the various operations, be they embedded formatter commands or editor
built-ins. To start with everyone spends a lot of time consulting the
quick reference card or pull down menus or whatever is appropriate for
the system they are using, yes even *you* did --- remember the first
time you used TECO or "ed"? As one gains in experience one no longer
needs or wants the continual harrasment of the naive user's prompts,
and so a system which supplies them must have a way of turning the darn
things off.
I used to think that Wordstar was GREAT, I could tell it to shut up
unless it was obvious I was stuck, then I found out about nroff etc,
and becam a fan of embedded command formatters. --- I think the point
I'm trying to make is that if you know what you are doing, as any FULL
TIME user very swiftly does, then the underlying system hardly
matters, what is important is that it does not get in the way, nor
require excessive effort to achieve one's required results To this
degree I fully support the use of vi as a general editor --- the simple
approach of explicitly laying out a one page memo is possible, yet in
combination with a suitable post-processor (LaTeX, nroff -mm or
simmilar relatively High level mark-up language which divorces the user
from style decisions) it is suitable for preparing major documents.
(as an aside I personally use qed for most purposes but do not
recommend it to casual users. There are occasions when I need vi or
emacs however, and I am happy to use all the tools at my disposal as
and when there is need)
In conclusion Nothing Is Ever Ideal for every user but if you were
going to "bike" from SF to NY which would you prefer? a honda 50 or as
big a harley davidson as you could pick up... The answer as always
depends on your experience, and may well change on the journey --- as
you are learning to ride the Honda 50 is a suitable machine, but in the
end for long distance travel you want a bit more comfort. Just so
with editors.
--
Regards,
Andrew Macpherson. <and...@tcom.stc.co.uk> {backbone}!ukc!stc!andrew
gopal
PC for two years (mainly, word-perfect) and have used vi/troff for the past
one year. I am fairly proficient with vi/troff (can write my own macros etc.)
and love the output I get on the local Xerox 9700 laser printer.
But if it weren't for the fact that I can generate equations and pictures
(using pic) on unix and that I cannot afford to buy a laser printer (yet)
for my p.c., I would have reverted back to the WYSIWYG word processor a long
time ago. Vi/troff, with eqn, tbl and pic, meets my needs but rather painfully
(it takes many iterations to get a picture right). If I did not need equations
and pictures and had a letter quality printer, I'd gladly bid bye-bye
to this system. And it is not because I am afraid of programming, computers,
or the complexity of UNIX - I consider myself fairly good at these sort of
things and happen to like UNIX. I even wrote a macro package for pic at one time
to draw circuit schematics with.
As to the future, I have no doubt that there will be a WYSIWYG type word
processor that will do equations, pictures and almost anything else you
want on the p.c. Some progress is already being made in this direction.
I read on one of the newsgroups that someone out there sells an equation
package that they will guarantee to work with almost any word processor.
Let us face it - the p.c. is natural for this sort of thing with the built-
in graphics capability. Why should I go through editing a file and then
running it through a formatter when I can format on-screen ? And laser
printers are becoming cheaper and cheaper - I think they will become the
standard of the future even for home users.
Let us face it - WYSIWYG is software a generation ahead of the imbedded
command type software.
Venu P. Gopal, ihnp4!ihuxk!vg55611
gopal
Phil Gustafson
> > Security is another important issue. Much clerical data (pay rates, customer
> > lists, job evaluations) is much safer on a floppy disk in a drawer than on a
> > UNIX system. Only constant vigilance can keep any UNIX system secure, and
> > that vigilance is most unlikely in an office environment.
>
> Actually, only constant vigilance is going to keep anything really secure.
Most of the examples you cite (locked drawers, hairpins in locks) concern
concerted and deliberiate attempts to breach security. My original article
was more concerned with the casual snoop. The average UNIX system is more
likely to have casual pokers-around and security-testers then most OA systems.
Many perceive a big difference between looking in the corners of a file
system and snooping through someone else's desk. They're the ones I was
writing about.
Hamish Reid
can/cant mine-is-better-than-yours etc war over input devices, has
anyone ever used *foot pedals* combined with keyboards for input - the
keyboard allows rapid touch typing text input, and a suitable set of
(2?) foot pedals could easily provide iconic / pointer input/commands
- without ever taking your hands off the keyboard, and without
cluttering up the desk? Yer average car
driver and/or drummer and/or organist doesnt find it too
hard to use both feet and hands...
I've never seen it except in prototype form - is there any
non-theological problem I've missed?
Sorry, just asking,
H (Hamish Reid, ham...@root.co.uk, mcvax!ukc!root44!hamish)
Karen Christenson
>>>Security is another important issue. Much clerical data (pay rates,
>>>customer lists, job evaluations) is much safer on a floppy disk in a drawer
>>>than on a UNIX system. Only constant vigilance can keep any UNIX system
>>>secure, and that vigilance is most unlikely in an office environment.
>
>concerted and deliberiate attempts to breach security. My original article
>was more concerned with the casual snoop. The average UNIX system is more
>likely to have casual pokers-around and security-testers then most OA
>systems.
>
>Many perceive a big difference between looking in the corners of a file
>system and snooping through someone else's desk. They're the ones I was
>writing about.
>
>Saber Technology Corp.
>2381 Bering Drive Mail: decwrl!sun!saber!phil
>San Jose, CA 95131 idi!saber!phil
You also need to protect information, etc. from the users, especially
novice users. One company bought a Mac application (Word or File or
something like that). The secretaries used a magnet to hold it onto a
cabinet so that everyone could use it. Of course, they had problems. We
fix malfunctioning Mac disks in the office here. Sometimes you can't really
tell what caused the error, there are so many possible factors. Sometimes
I think they're just spontaneous. A Unix system is more reliable in this
respect. Certainly, if they're unsophisticated enough to stick a magnet
onto a disk and then wonder why it doesn't work anymore, they're not
sophisticated enough to threaten security. User aptitude is a significant
factor in making the best choice.
Henry Spencer
> concerted and deliberiate attempts to breach security. My original article
> was more concerned with the casual snoop. The average UNIX system is more
> likely to have casual pokers-around and security-testers then most OA systems.
If you don't have casual pokers-around and security-testers wandering around
your office, I see no reason why you should let them onto your office Unix.
The average Unix system -- where "average" is defined in terms of the numbers
of systems in the field -- is a small-business system with no dialups, no
public terminals, and most certainly no undergraduate-student accounts.
Actually, even on a "classical" Unix system, in a university environment
with student access, casual snoopers can be fended off quite effectively
by tactics like restrictive umask settings. Defending against serious
crackers in such an environment does indeed require a lot of work.
> Many perceive a big difference between looking in the corners of a file
> system and snooping through someone else's desk. They're the ones I was
> writing about.
There is somewhat less of a difference between having to break security
to read a file and having to pick a lock to go through a desk, however.
Agreed that many people feel uninhibited about inspecting files whose owner
has made no effort to protect them, but this is more of a question of
educating the owners: they need to realize (or have it realized for them,
by the person who sets up the accounts and decides on the umask setting)
that the system as a whole is a *public* environment, like a building
corridor, and some effort must be made to protect files if they are not
to be exposed to one and all. If the users aren't aware of this and the
person who set up the system hasn't done anything about it, somebody
is guilty of seriously unprofessional negligence.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
SofP...@imagen.uucp
... it requires a special technique to use pedals, otherwise known as the
"tootsie roll" ...
John R. Levine
>I'm puzzled - perhaps I've missed the point - but in all this theological
>can/cant mine-is-better-than-yours etc war over input devices, has
The main problem with rats (big mice that live on the floor) is that you have
nowhere near the muscle control over your feet that you do over your hands,
and moreover you need a very well designed work environment to be able to take
the weight off both of your feet without falling out of your chair.
I used to play the organ, and getting the control of my feet necessary to play
the organ pedals was unbelievably hard. It took years and I was never very
good at it. The analogy with a car is not a good one because in the car you
only have one degree of freedom in each pedal, and the driver's seat is
carefully designed to let you sit with no weight on your feet.
--
John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Lev...@YALE.EDU
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of a 12-year-old hacker
who has broken into my account and not those of any person or organization.
bo...@zeus.uucp
pedal or three and having fairly fine pressure control over them), but we
are talking about a mouse replacement here. Human feet (disregarding the
exceptional cases) do not have the sensitivity to control a device which
could replace the sensitivity and degrees of freedom of a mouse.
Clayton Cramer
Especially when wearing shoes.
Clayton E. Cramer
Gilbert Cockton
>Many perceive a big difference between looking in the corners of a file
>system and snooping through someone else's desk. They're the ones I was
>writing about.
I'm one of the many, indeed UNIX books and lecturers encourage the
reading of files in other people's bin directories and up in the /usr
partition. It's a good way of learning your way around UNIX.
The question is though, how many people outside the friendly `snoop
and learn' UNIX tradition feel there is a big difference. One systems'
administrator I've worked with saw none whatsoever, and charged
snoopers with gross moral deficiencies and latent hacker's syndrome.
I'd be curious to see how many people see computer file space as personal
space into which no-one should intrude, regardless of access permissions.
The `big difference' attitude, if generally accepted, would be an
important Human-Computer Interaction phenomenum, as beliefs about
text/information on a computer would be the oppostive of beliefs about
other personal `property'. On a lighter vein, could adaptive systems
spot compulsive neurotics and automatically change their umask to 077?!
Conversely, could an adaptive system spot egocentric exhibitionists
and automatically post all their source files to net.sources in shar
format along with inflated claims of their performance and functionality?!
--
Gilbert Cockton, Scottish HCI Centre, Ben Line Building, Edinburgh, EH1 1TN
JANET: gil...@uk.ac.hw.aimmi ARPA: gilbert%aimmi.h...@cs.ucl.ac.uk
UUCP: ..!{backbone}!aimmi.hw.ac.uk!gilbert
John Plocher
>Phil Gustafson writes:
>>Many perceive a big difference between looking in the corners of a file
>>system and snooping through someone else's desk.
>space into which no-one should intrude, regardless of access permissions.
I personally think that my directory is MINE. But, as with a desk, others
may want/need to look at it. Just as my desk has drawers with locks, my
directory has subdirs without rwx perms for {group,other}. I feel that
'if someone can get at a file of mine, she can do whatever she wants with
it'. If I am dumb/naive enough to give public write access to my home
directory, I shouldn't be suprised when someone adds a .rhosts file with
their name in it there. ;-)
With the power of computers comes the responsibility of using that power
WISELY!
--
harvard-\ /- uwmacc!uwhsms!plocher (work)
John Plocher seismo-->!uwvax!<
topaz-/ \- puff!plocher (school)
"Never trust an idea you get sitting down" - Nietzche
Gilbert Cockton
>system and snooping through someone else's desk. They're the ones I was
>writing about.
I'm one of the many, indeed UNIX books and lecturers encourage the
reading of files in other people's bin directories and up in the /usr
partition. It's a good way of learning your way around UNIX.
The question is though, how many people outside the friendly `snoop
and learn' UNIX tradition feel there is a big difference. One systems'
administrator I've worked with saw none whatsoever, and charged
snoopers with gross moral deficiencies and latent hacker's syndrome.
I'd be curious to see how many people see computer file space as personal
space into which no-one should intrude, regardless of access permissions.
The `big difference' attitude, if generally accepted, would be an
John Plocher
>Phil Gustafson writes:
>>Many perceive a big difference between looking in the corners of a file
>>system and snooping through someone else's desk.
>space into which no-one should intrude, regardless of access permissions.
System Mangler
> I'd be curious to see how many people see computer file space as personal
> space into which no-one should intrude, regardless of access permissions.
The policy on our student machine is:
"Do not read other people's files without explicit permission."
where "explicit" means "they specifically told you that you could look".
Don't want those students learning too much, do we?
I think the purpose of the policy was to "protect" the people who
didn't know how to chmod files, primarily TOPS-20 users, i.e. all
the faculty and staff. Despite the effective demise of TOPS-20,
the policy refuses to go away. Everyone violates it; the faculty
sponser likes the rule because it ensures that he always has grounds
for kicking off anyone who he thinks is misbehaving.
Don Speck sp...@vlsi.caltech.edu {seismo,rutgers}!cit-vax!speck
(The views I express are not necessarily those of Caltech CS).
Brandon Allbery
+---------------
| In article <8...@aimmi.UUCP>, gil...@aimmi.UUCP (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
| > I'd be curious to see how many people see computer file space as personal
| > space into which no-one should intrude, regardless of access permissions.
|
| The policy on our student machine is:
| "Do not read other people's files without explicit permission."
|
| where "explicit" means "they specifically told you that you could look".
I see a computer file system as no different from a regular file cabinet which
has a potential for access by "ordinary people". If a file isn't marked as
private, or a file drawer is locked (equivalent: file system access permission
denies access to the user/group/account/etc.), people shouldn't look. But if
a file (file folder) isn't protected or marked as private, there's no
reason for someone NOT to look at it. This is true for a file cabinet OR a
file system. Caveat filer.
My personal practice is that I lock files I don't want people snooping in or
around, and leave files readable by others if I want them to look. I also
have a directory ".transfer" in my home directory which is writeable by all,
so a user can send me files. (I have csh aliases "lock" and "unlock", plus
a program to examine files in a particular directory -- a shell script "scan"
which uses the "file" command to figure out whether a file is ASCII, binary,
a subdirectory, etc. and uses the appropriate command to look at it (more,
strings, resursive "scan", etc.).)
However, the other view is permissible by this as well: the customer file
cabinet at TDI is unlocked, but I have no business snooping in it. This is
a matter of policy (office file policy/computer file policy). In the end, it
comes down to a management decision. My file policy on ncoast is consistent
with ncoast's policy as a public-access system; at TDI, it is necessarily
different and more in step with TDI office policy.
++Brandon
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Ken Thompson
The discussion about whether or not it is morally acceptable to
read another person's unprotected files has made one thing perfectly
clear : You had better protect your files if you don't want other people
to read them because a lot of people will. As an administrator of a small
Unix system (about 12 users), I always explain this to new users. Assume
that someone will read your files if they are left accessible.
As far as the moral question goes, it seems to have something
to do with violating a person's physical space. People seem to think much
longer before going into a colleagues file cabinet than they do about looking
at the same colleagues unprotected files. I think this has to do with the
physical aspect of entering an office and opening a file cabinet.
Somehow, a cd and a cat just doesn't seem the same. I am not really
arguing that there is a moral distinction, just speculating on what makes
so many people believe there is.
--
Ken Thompson Phone : (404) 894-7089
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!thomps
Ken Thompson
References: <1...@tijc02.UUCP> <7...@hropus.UUCP> <10...@ho95e.UUCP> <16...@ncoast.UUCP>
> It *might* be possible to run "lp" setgid only -- but that might not help
> you. (Although it would take strange circumstances to do that.) But "lp"
> revolves around a few special files in /usr/spool/lp and ordinary users
> shouldn't be allowed to muck with them; even if they know what they're doing,
> mucking with /usr/spool/lp/outputq while lpsched is running is a good way
> to trash the print queue.
>
I still find it irritating and so do my user's when I can cat a
file to the screen but can't print it using lp. On our system we have
a shell script which does a cat on a file and pipes it to lp to get
around the problem. Somehow though it seems like it shouldn't be this
way. Alas, I fear it is a limitation of the rather.