Business Graphics

[Mitchell Wyle]

I use sc(l), and various plot(5) utilities including graph(1), sunplot(l),
qplot(l) (from the crc plot package) and even fig to do student exercises,
grades, scoring and student / course database stuff.

Others here use matlab or Mathematica (a mis-use in my humble opinion) to
do the same tasks.

These scientific, facilities can't touch Excel[1] or even Lotus 1-2-3[2]
in the pizaz or quality of the graphics they produce.  My boss isn't going
to spend many Kilo-Francs per Grad-student workstation to get simple
business graphics.  Are you listening, Sun??  Where is Open Look?  Will it
come bundled with a simple spread-sheet / business graphics system?

Is Sun Alis worth looking into or will it soon die of natural causes?

When is Sun going to wake up and smell the coffee[3]?  A very good reason
to buy a (blech!) mac-IIx or NeXt is the lack of bundled software for
simple Publishing and Spreadsheet tasks.  Ok, most Suns are sold for
code-writing applications, and nothing can touch dbxtool.  However, the
box should not be dedicated to coders.  Grad students of the world unite!
We have nothing to lose but our General exams!

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[1] Excel is probably a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
[2] 1-2-3 might be a trademark of Lotus Corporation.
[3] "Wake up and smell the coffee" is copyright (C) 1989 by Mitchell F.
     Wyle.  All rights reserved.
-- 
-Mitchell F. Wyle                         wyle at ethz.uucp
Institut fuer Informationsysteme          wyle at inf.ethz.ch
ETH Zentrum / 8092 Zurich, Switzerland    +41 1 256 5237

[[ Remember that the Sun was originally designed to be a scientist's and
engineer's workstation.  It is still a little short on the "business end",
so to speak.  --wnl ]]