Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!OPUS.CS.MCGILL.CA!bajan
From: bajan@OPUS.CS.MCGILL.CA (Alan Emtage)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Remote NeXT Users, etc.
Message-ID: <8909272058.AA16856@opus.cs.mcgill.ca>
Date: 27 Sep 89 20:58:09 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 59


In his message of 25 Sep 89 03:13:33 GMT jst@cca.ucsf.edu writes:
> 
> Listen, Joe:
> 
> It's fine if you want to use things in ways in which the
> designers did not intend them to be used.  For example, feel
> free to drive your car with your only your feet instead of your
> hands (but not on my street, of course).
> 
>  [stuff deleted]
>
....
> 
> To be fair, I (and probably some of the other news readers) are
> interested in the technical problems you've encountered.  I am
> sure that the people at NeXT are interested in the technical
> problems you've found, even if they can't give you an immediate
> workaround.  I'm sure the NeXT product could be improved, but
> it will be improved most quickly if we all send in clear,
> concise bug reports, rather than personal complaints.

Agreed. I myself found the original poster's tone a bit too snarky
however that said, I have to strongly disagree with the following.

> I won't go into the gory details of the problems you've brought
> up, except to choose one example where I think you are being
> unreasonable.  You say that it would be philosophically wise to
> maintain the Unix man pages.

I don't at all think this to a be an unreasonable request. Since I do it
on a regular basis, standard UNIX man pages, for those of us who are used
to them, are easy to change and update. 

	I am a member of a system staff charged with operating a number
of NeXT machines (probably with more on the way), and I find having the
documentation split between the Librarian and the man pages to be a real
pain in the butt. I have no problem with NeXT trying to expand the man
pages in the Librarian, however, there is no excuse for not having the
basics (where the command is, a short description and what it's options
are) in a man page available to be read on a standard ascii terminal. I
should *not* have to go to another building to get to a Cube to get this
information. If NeXT is pushing it's ``compatibility'' with 4.3 BSD then
whatever it layers on top of 4.3 the underlying functionality should
still be there. 

We haven't yet had the time to upgrade to 1.0 but I should hope that such
glaring omissions as not mentioning that vipw did not update the Netinfo
stuff was perhaps acceptable for 0.9, *not* for 1.0. The Librarian might
be very pretty and useful for the neophyte, but those of us who have to
maintain the machines (and us used-to-be neophytes) have come to expect a
certain functionality. Please have it available.

If you're going to be giving me BSD and more, fine. But get the BSD right
first.



Alan (bajan@cs.mcgill.ca or listmaster@cs.mcgill.ca)