Use of ``vi'' for business office word-processing

[William M. Fischer]

In article <1986Sep8.085454.25126 at utcs.uucp> romwa at utcs.uucp (mark dornfeld) writes:
>
>>In article <1246 at kitty.UUCP> larry at kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
>>>	On occasion I get asked for my opinion on computer systems for small
>>>business applications.  Since 100% of my computer applications are scientific
>>>in nature (which is pretty far afield from business applications), I try to
>>>avoid giving business applications advice (except to go UNIX :-) ).  However,
>>>sometimes I cannot avoid getting involved...
>>>	In addition to programming, I do an extensive amount of document
>>>preparation.  On UNIX systems I use ``vi'' _exclusively_ for document editing,
>>>and use nroff and troff for formatting when required.  
>>...
>>>	So my question is: Am I WRONG in advising people to stay with ``vi''
>>>and not spend money for "word-processing software" in the BUSINESS APPLICATION
>>>environment?
>>...
>>>==>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
>>Yes, I think you're wrong.  Secretaries don't have time, nor do they usually
>>want to learn something like Unix.  They will prefer EVERY TIME something
>>which works as similarly as possible to their typewriter.
>>
>>some are extremely nice to use, definitely with the comuter-illiterate in
>>mind.  They ACT like typewriters, but the secretary CAN at his/her pace learn
>>to use mail merge, sorts, search/replace, type of features later.
>>
>>To say to someone "Hi, I'm going to teach you Unix, vi, nroff, troff, grep,
>>pipes, c-shell, sort, eqn, tbl, xyz, and pqr just to make your life
>>easier" and they'll say forget it, I don't have two months, I'll stick with
>>my typewriter.
>>
>	>Hope this helps,
>		>Paul.
>
>I think that you are wrong, Paul.
>Whether you install micros or Unix, there is a lot of learning that
>has to happen at the beginning.  The last thing I want my clients to
>have to deal with is hardware, so where possible I think that a quiet
>terminal with no floppies, hard disk or other paraphernalia to get in
>the way is the best solution.  PC networking is an expensive
>and frustrating experience at best with no standard solution yet in
>place.
>
>One need not even let the secretary know that Unix is the system she
>is working on.  Therefore all the scary things like eqn c-shell etc.
>do not even have to be introduced.  A customized environment is not a
>bad way to go in UNIX provided there is a clever administrator.  
>
>Each office is different.  If the office is fragmented then separate
>PC's may be the answer, but if the office is one integral whole, then
>the benefits of UNIX are tremendous.  There is plenty of software for
>the kind of machines that are being considered, with some very good
>word processors and databases that are every bit as easy to use as the
>stuff for DOS.  One would think that a database of "legalease"
>boilerplate text is just the tip of what could be put together in a
>central law office facility.  And soon there will be CD-ROMS with law
>libraries on line (although the lawyers will not take to that
>quickly).
>
>Mark
>
I have to cast my vote for the PC / Word Processor option rather than trying
to teach office personnel the wonders of vi, etc. I agree that every office
is different, but it has been my experience that people prefer the small PC
based WP programs, with lotsa bells and whistles and on-line help. I also
work on the lowend of the scale in *NIX world and find that the user gets
better performance for HIS or HIS specific task by being able to work at
a stand alone system for things like word processing and spreadsheets. A
typical installation has a six user XENIX box and 3-5 PCs hung off the ports.
These PC's have full terminal capability for access to the main accounting
software, with either download or "cut and paste" ability to snag the data
off the main system and massage it later offline. All the little desktop
goodies are also available, without burning up precious system overhead
on the UNIX box. For the computer-phobe, a "desktop disk" is provided that
never lets him near either operating system once he boots his PC and still
lets him have user functionality on them. The power user is in heaven, running
his 400k spreadsheets without clobbering the other users. With the cost of
a 256k (+), 2 drive MS/PC DOS machine shrinking every day, it makes a lot of
sense to have the "best of both worlds".


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|    Fortiter in re,                                 Bill Fischer             |
|                     suaviter in modo.            wmf at chinet.UUCP            |
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