Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!oz.cis.ohio-state.edu!jgreely From: jgreely@oz.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Meat and Potatoe Programs Message-ID: Date: 26 Jul 89 05:50:28 GMT References: <320@zooks.Morgan.COM> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: J Greely Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science Lines: 99 In-reply-to: jordan@Morgan.COM's message of 24 Jul 89 18:01:33 GMT In article <320@zooks.Morgan.COM> jordan@Morgan.COM (Jordan Hayes) writes: >J Greely writes: > I don't do spreadsheets, since I can do what I need faster with > emacs, awk, and perl. > >If you can "do what you need" with those tools, you don't have the >needs of other users. I'm not sure how to read that, so I'll let it go. Buried somewhere in my article was the opinion that I don't see much point to having too much bundled software, and that I don't see how useful the current NeXT bundle is going to be to people in the very fuzzy non-university market. Sort of. >I think the point stands that a good spreadsheet >is needed in UNIX land (and i'm not talking about sc). "But what does that have to do with the NeXT?" Sorry, instinct took over there for a moment :-). I can see your point, but I'll remain skeptical on the *need* part. Desired by the upwardly-mobile PC crowd, certainly. Needed? Maybe I just haven't run into the same Unix crowd that you have. >If I could open >an Excel window on a NeXT, I would throw my MacII out the window. Well, stick around. When the machine is released, we'll see what third-party software has shown up. (and will you charge admission when you pitch the Mac?) >I'm a programmer, not a "business type" (where did COBOL get into this >discussion? talk about a stereotypical attitude) but I have some >serious needs that only get filled by a spreadsheet. (COBOL came in the way it usually does, as a digression on my part. I've spent so much time working with/around it that it leaks out occasionally) I never said that spreadsheets were useless in general. I wouldn't even object if one were bundled. I'd begin to have a problem if it added substantially to the cost of the machine. >Sure, I don't use document-preparation tools all the time in my work >either, but how many of you have asked for better tools in that arena >as well? Now, TeX seems to be getting there, and there are several >decent previewers out there now, but when will we see a WYSIWYG >word-processor? There are either quite a few or none at all, depending on how you define "WYSIWYG" and "word-processor". Personally, I still lump WYSIWYG in with Hypertext as an idea whose time is iffy. I'll take TeX for most tasks, and cheerfully take advantage of on-screen previewing. > "I don't do spreadsheets, since I am used to the lack of > support UNIX gives me" Nice quote. Who's it from? It's an interesting parody of my attitude, and would be fairly accurate if you left out the word "lack". It is (in part) the *superior* support provided by Unix machines that made me quit shoe-horning problems into spreadsheets. >If you think about it a little bit, tbl really makes you want a >spreadsheet, You have a spreadsheet that supports multiple proportional fonts in a cell, centering over multiple columns, justification, and rules? How easy is it to paste the output into your document production system? >pic makes you want a paint program, No. Not if by "paint program" you mean MacPaint. Pic is a small language for drawing pictures, and is capable of some very impressive output. See Bentley's Programming Pearls books for some interesting examples of what can be done with Pic that are out of the question with a point-and-click paint program. Think of it as batch MacDraw. Kind of. >TeX makes you want to use fonts on-screen, etc. TeX makes me want to *preview* on screen. >Ignoring "those" applications is a pin-head move. (pin-head? "I'm having an EMOTIONAL OUTBURST!! But, uh, WHY is there a WAFFLE in my PAJAMA POCKET??") Why did you pick on document production tools as examples of things in Unix that are "inferior" to their PC counterparts? And why did you pick the ones you did? Similarly irrelevant wishes can be constructed around eqn, refer, bc, and other tools ("Come on, doesn't awk *really* make you want QuickBasic?"). Your comparisons seem really strained to me, and any impact your point may have had was completely lost. "No, no, he's still breathing. See how the blood bubbles out of his nose?" -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)