RE: tlug: X Windows client

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Michael" == Michael Chiu <mchiu@example.com> writes:

    Michael> going towards M$... there's not only the OS, but other
    Michael> features as well...  for example, I cannot send a
    Michael> document to any of my customers unless it's in some sort
    Michael> of M$ format such as Word, Excel, etc...

Well, last week I spent a couple of hours trying to find a copy of
English WordPerfect for a colleague whose paper got accepted but the
editor demanded submission of the final draft in WordPerfect format.
And it wasn't so long ago that I last heard from somebody bitching
about incompatibilities among the various flavors of Word
(English/Japanese, Mac/PC).

    Michael> I have never gone wrong before by sending a M$ Office
    Michael> document to anyone before... maybe they translate it into
    Michael> something else before editing and returning to me, but at
    Michael> least the M$ Office seems to be fine for them...

If it's very simple I can use Microsoft Smirks, but that's all I've
got.  :-)  Most of my colleagues use TeX (but then, it's mandated by
most math journals).

    Michael> however, for the general computing side, I still only see
    Michael> it as two sides...  Windows or MAC... maybe it may change
    Michael> in a few years, but for the time being, I can only see
    Michael> these two sides...

"General computing"???!!  YMBFK.  OA bloatware is not "general
computing."

There's no question that Windows, Macs, and M$warez are a great boon
to people who must use OA in their jobs, and (more or less
justifiably) don't want to learn anything about computers.  But these
are "household appliance" uses, not _computing_.  Just like
"ching-suru" is not _cooking_.

On the other hand, in the academic environment where the point of
research is to do something new, even the oldest of fogies (nowadays)
is a programmer of sorts, and many of my colleagues are continuously
asking "Howdja doo dat?  Ken I doo dat too?"  The typical response to
a reply of "Linux + bash + XEmacs + The GIMP + xfig + TeX + NAS + ..." 
is a rueful "Oh, I was hoping there's a Windows version, I'm too old
to learn Unix."  But more and more often I get "OK, help me get set
up."

Probably there will never be a time when Unix dominates the OA
environment (or it will be incredibly mutated).  But Linux's share of
OA apps for people who do real computing too will grow rapidly, I
think.
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