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

[Paul Higginbottom]

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
>==>  UUCP:  {allegra|decvax|rocksanne|rocksvax|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
>==>  VOICE: 716/688-1231           {hplabs|ihnp4|seismo|utzoo}!/
>==>  FAX:   716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3}      "Have you hugged your cat today?" 

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.

The combination of vi, nroff, troff, etc., and the Unix utilities do provide,
for those that are computer literate or will take quite a lot of time to
learn, a great deal of flexibility.

In the business environment - people rarely need that much flexibility (in
wordprocessing anyway - order processing or other similar applications are
a whole other ball game where they need infinite flexibility).  What they
want is simplicity, reliability, and the minimum of hassle.

I personally would suggest getting each person an IBM-PC compatible type of
machine.  There's a million and one different word processors for it, and
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.

P.S - remember, even if they get PC's they can still network, share
hard disks, printers, etc.  True they won't have electronic mail, but I
personally think Unix has a long way to go before it will really be
palatable in the normal business environment.  Don't get me wrong though,
*I* LOVE Unix.

Disclaimer: They opinions are my own.