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

[Karen Christenson]

     I get a lot of questions from freshmen and secretaries in my little
public consultant office.  We have a home-brewed OS and screen editor (which
I love, but then, I grew up with it, so to speak), Unix with emacs and vi,
lots of Macs with MacWrite and Word, and a few IBMs (but I don't do IBMs).

     From what I've seen, MacWrite and Word are easiest for students and
secretaries to learn.  Some people simply don't want to know about computers
and will balk at doing anything more than they have to with them.  I prefer
emacs to vi, personally, but I'd say they're both about equally good  for the
average user with average aptitude.
     I think one thing that gives MacWrite and Word (and emacs) an edge is
that they work on a what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of situation, which
is something you don't get on Unix.  It takes away some of the frustration
of doing the thing, discovering an error, changing something, waiting to see
if it worked, etc.  (Vi has a slight disadvantage here; when you modify text
you don't always see the line as it will end up until you get out of that
mode.)

     So a lot depends on the attitudes and aptitudes of the people in the
office.  If they have no difficulty in accepting computer literacy, then go
with Unix and troff.  I did my resume with troff and it outshines anything
I've ever seen come out of a Laserwriter.  However, if they just aren't a
part of the computer generation, they will be happier with something that
doesn't take as much time to learn and that shows them what to expect.

						Karen Christenson
"Mostly harmless."				...!dartvax!chelsea
			Have an adequate day.