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From: steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: UNIX is yuck (was Re: Next intro...)
Message-ID: <1990Oct11.174724.23701@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 11 Oct 90 17:47:24 GMT
References: <1990Oct9.003852.18788@oswego.Oswego.EDU> <1990Oct9.040256.12082@d.cs.okstate.edu> <1990Oct11.160526.22081@oswego.Oswego.EDU>
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In article <1990Oct11.160526.22081@oswego.Oswego.EDU> ostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) writes:
#>In article <1990Oct9.040256.12082@d.cs.okstate.edu> minich@d.cs.okstate.edu (Robert Minich) writes:
#>
#>>I personally agonize when I have to dig into the
#>>UNIX man pages to track down exactly what I need to know to use a
#>>routine.
#>
#>I think you misinterpreted what I said.  I certainly was not trying to
#>defend the unix _manuals_!  My point was that the programmer's interface
#>to the operating system is less confusing.  On both the Mac and unix side
#>a little supplementary reading is needed (or at least helpful).

As someone who moved from UNIX on a VAX to the Mac (actually
using both simultaneously), I thought the Mac was "yuck" when
I first started using it (having to take my hands off the
keyboard to touch a mouse, losing the powerful search/replace
facilities in vi, not being able to type in commands, etc.).
Now I appreciate what the Mac can do, though there are still
lots of things I prefer to do in UNIX, including certain types
of typesetting which are easier to do in troff.

The moral (if there is one) is that you really can't judge
an operating system until you become fairly expert at its
use. It takes longer to do this with UNIX than with the Mac
(I'm not speaking of programming the Mac, which I haven't
tried).

Steve Goldfield$