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

[Marcus J. Ranum]

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 my humble :-) opinion, I cannot think of any editor more universally
> useful than ``vi'' (yes, I know about Emacs, but I still prefer ``vi''). 
> 	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?

	I have worked in both development computing and academic computing
environments. I feel you are misguided to recommend UNIX and VI to buisnesses,
for several reasons:
	1) UNIX is expensive. I can build an MS-DOS machine for under 1000$ 
		and never worry about licenses, support, needing systems 
		managers, or major systems-crashes bringing the office to a 
		standstill. 
	2) There are at LEAST 1000 decent editors available for the IBM/clone
		market. This gives you a great range of capability and function
		without having to be tied to any *ONE* package. There are 
		typesetters available for clones, as well as simple menu-driven
		packages that severely limit the user's capability. A user
		will have a wide choice of applications packages available,
		typically at a cost of under 200$ (less if you look) 
	3) Quality of output is not necessarily as important to businesses as
		we might think. Even if it were, I have seen output produced
		with an IBM PC and a laserwriter that is better (and was made
		with less effort) than output produced on a 1/2 million 
		dollar UNIX system. 
	4) The kicker is that in most non "hard-core computing" environments,
		there are relatively few people who (like me) are obsessed with
		the wonderfullness of computers. There are a lot of secretaries
		and managers out there who don't give a damn about pipes and
		nroff macro libraries, but want to be able to sit down, bang
		out some text, and have a program justify, fill, and throw it
		onto a page in a decent looking font without having to learn
		*ANYTHING* about what they're doing. I have had too many users
		tell me "I don't care about WHAT it does, I just want to type
		and get a nice looking document"
	5) UNIX is not forgiving to idiots. IBM-clones at least ask you if 
		you're sure you want to remove *. Even so, you wouldn't believe
		the number of people I have seen trash files on PCs by some
		dumb trick or other. I used to deliver PCs to offices at my
		last job. I always told the people "read this one little book
		and try to understand it, and you'll be better off". They never
		did. When I came back a week later 'cuz they had re-formatted 
		thier hard drives, they never figured out why I had so little
		sympathy.
	6) Downtime: unless you get lots of expensive UNIX pc's you have the
		problem of downtime. On an micro/clone if user X's machine's
		dead, he can take his floppy down the hall and plug it into 
		user Y's. (if he has no floppy, he's stupid) repair costs are
		incredibly smaller.

	I don't want to sound nasty, but I think your telling businesses to go
with UNIX is a bad idea.  The reasons I list are about 1/2 of the good ones.


Live Free
mjr

"I do not in any way have any chance of making money from the above opinions.
I work with UNIX and think it's neat. Let my willingness to criticise one of
my favorite things stand as an indication of how serious I am."
-- 
Giddy grasshopper
Who spends his little breakfast
Among the flowers