Subject: Re: [lojban] Lojban on UNIX vs. Windowssuggestions?)

From: "James F. Carter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 11:34:06 -0700 (PDT)

On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, John Cowan wrote:
> [email-masked] wrote:
> > If you don't want to use MS products, don't. But there is no stigma
> > attached
> > to using them (even studpidity is challengeable).
>
> There most certainly is a stigma attached to using them.

There shouldn't be a stigma attached to using a particular brand of
software. I think the issue here is that, first, there's a correlation
between Lojban interest and UNIX geekitude. Not r==1, of course, but I
suspect that while 10-20% of the general computer user population uses some
kind of UNIX, a much larger fraction of the Lojban people use it.

Then, the UNIX geeks resist vociferously being dragged into the Windows
morass because there's important software that only runs on DOS. John
Cowan's recent port of Logflash to UNIX/Linux will do much to address that
problem.

It would be best if all the good software for Windows could also run on
UNIX. (To really do this, check out "vmware". You need a legal copy of
Windows.) And also, if the good stuff for UNIX could run on Windows. (NT
has a "UNIX shell" which you can optionally install if you could ever find
it, and for starters you should install PERL and the Cygwin-GNU "C" and C++
compiler.)

I recently had to decide whether to put Windows or Linux on an office-type
machine, and so I evaluated software for UNIX/Linux. Star Office was
excluded for political reasons. Outside Star Office, there was no
spreadsheet [that I could find] that could handle the sheets we use, nor
was there a database client suitable for the level of expertise of my
users. Thus, Windows was chosen. Yes, there are things Windows can do
better, but for the kinds of jobs I spend most of my day on, Windows is a
stinking albatross, and I avoid it to the maximum possible. It's also
**expensive** and going to get more so for enterprise users, with the new
licensing paradigm. The status of Star Office is going to be seen in a new
light now, since our department won't be able to afford upgrades.

I think the conclusion for Lojban is that we should imitate many major
software vendors, such as Matlab, Maple, Lotus and Oracle, and offer both
Unix and Windows versions of our products. John Cowan and Robin Powell
have been doing a good job on that.

James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555
Email: [email-masked] http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)