Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!hub!lime!dz From: dz@lime.ucsb.edu (Daniel James Zerkle) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Meat and Potatoe Programs Message-ID: <2104@hub.UUCP> Date: 21 Jul 89 15:41:11 GMT References: <5527@oregon.uoregon.edu> Sender: news@hub.UUCP Reply-To: dz@lime.UUCP (Daniel James Zerkle) Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara Lines: 119 In article <5527@oregon.uoregon.edu> joe@oregon.uoregon.edu (Joe St Sauver) writes: >After learning that I'm not alone in yearning for a VT100 emulator, let me >follow up -- > >Having a lot of friends who are business oriented, and, recalling (myself) >that VisiCalc is what got the whole microcomputer circus rolling in the >first place, does it strike anyone as slightly odd that there's no spreadsheet >distributed with the NeXT? > >Maybe some of you can sympathize -- people come in and see the new machine, and >then the first thing they (the business types) say is, "So, can it run Lotus or >Excel or SuperCalc?" One is then put in the awkward position of mumbling, >"Well, not yet, but maybe someday. Want to see a balancing seal neural network >or a poker demo instead, though?" Mathematica thrills the mathematicians, but >it leaves the accountants cold. > >The emphasis on graphic and sound demos is fine and good, but there's also a >*crying* need for some meat-and-potatoe programs such as honest-to-god VT100 >emulator I mentioned earlier, a mainline spreadsheet program, one of the major >stat packages, etc. I also wish NeXT would distribute the BSD compilers >(fortran and pascal, say) with the machine! > >I realize the machine is still not in a production release of the OS, and is >intended primarily to be a development environment, but I still can't help >being sadened to see a lot of initial (potential) buyers lose interest in >the machine when they see how little software is currently available. [I'm >afraid the computer buying public has become rather leary of promised software >after the rash of vaporware plaguing the industry as a whole.] The question I >hear is, "Why should I buy a NeXT rather than a Mac II or SparcStation or >one of the new low end Vaxstations?" > >I mention these views not to start a flame war, but rather in the hope that >either (1) someone out there will be encouraged to develop meat-and-potatoe >programs for the machine, or (2) someone at NeXT will consider these opinions >when deciding where priority development support should go. > >Joe St Sauver You have some very good points. One of the biggest problems with NeXT is that it can't decide if it wants to be a microcomputer with a fancy graphical interface, or a minicomputer with all the UNIX goodies. If NeXT would push all the minicomputer capabilities, people would stop saying "but there's no software." In fact, there's TONS of software: If it works for UNIX, it will work for NeXT. The problem with that is that it will alienate the business world, which is familiar enough with microcomputers and mainframes, but not with minicomputers (although that will end, soon). Business users will all want to use the mouse and software that will only run under NextStep. There is NOT enough software for NextStep yet--that's certain. However, there will be (some day). IBM has licensed NextStep and plans to use it. This alone is a guarantee that it will not die. (Nobody is buying OS/2 and it is still around). Aside from that, there really is a lot of development work going on. I quote from the third-party catalog: Our customers have frequently told us that the first offerings for the Ne?XT Computer must be a suite of basic productivity and research tools. In addition, they assure us that if the quality of the offerings is high, only a handful of these applications is essential. We are therefore focusing our initial efforts to help proven developers deliver state-of-the-art versions ofthe most frequently requested applications and languages. Although we are working with many vendors in various categories, our priorities for 1989 are: o Word processing o SPREADSHEET o Database o Page layout o Fortran o Draw/paint o Communications o Statistics o Mathematics o Pascal o 2D CAD o LISP o Digital Signal Processor development tools. Anyway, the catalog says that Lotus is working on something, but it won't say what (remember what happened with 1-2-3 release 3.0?) There will be one database included with release 1.0, and other companies are selling other databases. Absoft is selling a FORTRAN compiler that is object oriented. (Object oriented FORTRAN? Will that language never die?). As for DEC terminal emulation, this company is at least working on one for the NeXT, and may be done: Scott Darling White Pine Software 94 Route 101A P.O Box 1108 Amherst, NH 03031 (603) 886-9050 I agree that the compilers should be included with the disk you get. The more development tools out there, the more likely that there will be enough software. You get a lot of goodies with a NeXT, and it is a good deal for the price, but it is nothing like inexpensive. The business community is not going to start snatching these things up unless there are at least two or three really fantastic applications for it that everybody wants. Otherwise, you're just as well off buying some UNIX box and saving a few thousand dollars. Of course, we can do our own bit by developing public domain goodies to cover until the commercial people can do it. After all, we DO have all the Objective C, debuggers, and Interface Builders we could want. -Dan