Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!BruceH
From: BruceH@cup.portal.com (Bruce Robert Henderson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXt Performance/Price
Message-ID: <17032@cup.portal.com>
Date: 11 Apr 89 23:21:41 GMT
References: <2648@tank.uchicago.edu> <56267@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <16912@cup.portal.com> <16964@cup.portal.com> <3081@haven.umd.edu>
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shap@polya.Stanford.EDU Writes:

>As someone who has owned a mac since day one, is fairly happy with it,
>and has done extensive consluting in the Mac domain, I am afraid I
>must disagree.  There is a definite need for a decent text editor such
>as emacs.  Those of us who are touch typists simply lose too much
>speed by having to reach for the mouse all of the time.

>Also, the absence of SAS and SPSS/X has forced many of my clients to
>go with IBM compatibles, even when they preferred going with the Mac,
>simply because they *need* the capability.

>The belief that the Mac is simply a PC is naive.

Let's get one thing straight.  The concept behind a macintosh and your common workstation
are completely diffrent.  The bottom line is ease of use.  Unix is for computer geeks
only.  [I am one!] The mac was a godsend for the people because it made software intuitive.
but now they are dead ended with thier slow proprietary OS.  So along comes NeXT.  It is 
a very valid attempt to make more power available to people.  The fact is this machine was
not made so that grad students had a cute toy to play with.  It was made so that ordinary
people would have access to the tremendous power of unix in a way that wouldn't require 4
years and an MS in CS to master.  There is a lot of mac bashing going on and a lot of NeXT
bashing too.  Quit comparing these machines to WorkStations!  [I hear those f keys now!!! :-)]
The workstation is an excellent machine for the Engineer.  I'd rather have a nice 88K machine
than my mac any day.  But these machines are for the people. I get the feeling that many 
of the people who take the contrary position on this issue are students or university 
faculty that don't make thier living writing software that is written from the point of
view that Joe Blow needs to be able to run it straight out of the box. ND SHOULD
be able to master it in a couple of months!  I know that I'm about to be roasted on the
spit by all of you, but the viewpoint of the comercial developer needs to be heard!


louie@trantor.umd.edu writes:
>If this is the case, then you can take mine, and all of the other NeXT machines

>on our campus back and refund our money.  We don't need any more toy computers

>on this campus.  NeXT is trying to compete against the DEC and SUNs of the world
>too..

Please! no workstation snobbery is required!  The NeXT is [in my opinion] going 
to far outsell the DECs and the Suns... not because it comes with a nifty emacs 
editor.... but because there is going to be some incredibly powerful, easy to use
software out there that will make people buy these machines.  Get real! how many
MIS types give a hoot if thier new $12,000 widget can grep at the speed of light?
or that it comes with a zillion X Window gadgets on line?  [/dev/null] thats right!
what counts is that he can create the reports and the papers and the stuff that
doesn't get considered by the workstation world.   

BruceH@cup.portal.com
[may the cube be with you]