Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!ls1i+ From: ls1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Leonard John Schultz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Not another NeXT defector???!!! Message-ID: Date: 8 Nov 90 19:11:29 GMT References: <2909@unccvax.uncc.edu> <1990Nov4.084938.22146@cs.ucla.edu> <15549@venera.isi.edu> <1990Nov6.212848.10254@agate.berkeley.edu>, <904@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> Organization: Class of '92, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 30 In-Reply-To: <904@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> On 07-Nov-90 in Re: Not another NeXT defect.. user John Norstad@casbah.acns writes: >I'm not a NeXT user or progammer, although from what I've seen and heard >the NeXT looks great. I am a Mac user and programmer. I've always been >curious about one thing about the NeXT: If the NeXT GUI is so great, why >is it that whenever I look over the shoulder of a NeXT user on our campus, >I invariably see him or her typing away the same old UNIX commands in a >terminal window? Same comment applies to X-Windows for that matter. I >remain completely unconvinced that any sort of GUI tacked on top of UNIX >(or DOS) can every completely hide all the ugly complexities of UNIX (or >DOS) underneath the GUI. Our experience here at NU is that you really do >need to be a UNIX hacker to successfully install, maintain, and use a >NeXT, or at least you frequently require the assistance of such a hacker. >Here at NU we have a staff of NeXT experts to help people install, >configure, and maintain their systems. Our Mac users don't require 1% of >the technical help our NeXT users do. Most of these people are problably working away on a VAX or something. That is the most common thing I do on my mac, type unix commands into a terminal emulator. Or they might find that they are more proficient with unix commands than they are with a mouse. (I've seen several posts on this bboard asking for a command line interface for the mac!) But if you are not doing work that requires unix ( such as word processing, page layout, spreadsheet, etc.) then you will never have to see a command line. You see, there are two different type of programs on NeXT. You can think of NeXT as being a beautiful damsel with respect to NeXTstep applications, and a brutal beast when using generic unix programs. It is the best of both worlds. The UNIX interface is there just for the people who WANT to use it.