GERLAND@UBVMS.BITNET.UUCP (03/26/87)
>>I don't know about the rest of you, but I am reading this out of a non-DEC- >>written BULLETIN utility, and it works well for me... > >>Have fun and see yuh... >> --Curtis R. Anderson >> State University of New York at Buffalo > >Yeah, > > You folks have a lot of non-standard stuff don't you. One of your >students came to our campus and couldn't do anything, because what he thought >was VMS was all .COMs and such that you folks had on your systems. (Actually >he was a fairly knowledgable consultant, and knew they were .COMs, but he >didn't know the way to do things in honest-to-DEC VMS). This me impresses >me as a dis-service to your students. Each and every one will put on their >Resumes they know VMS, and they really won't. > > >TBLAKE@BINGVAXB.BITNET Thomas R. Blake >TBLAKE@suny-bing.CSNET Academic Support > SUNY Computer Center > Binghamton, NY 13901 My but did we get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I think it is our responsibility as User Services people to do just that. Provide a service for our users and if that entails writting .COMs to make their life easier then EXCUSE ME!!!!. Any student who has even a smidgen of interest in VMS will make the small effort necessary to examine a given .COM to see what it is doing and how. I am the author of many of the .COMs being attacked by Mr. Blake and would just like to make it known that here at UB we attempt to provide a computing environment which is conducive to furthering one's educational and personal growth. As an aside, most of our .COMs are written to make life easier for the faculty, not students. Students will take that extra step to learn VMS/UNIX/CMS/whatever. This topic was discussed on this list a few months ago and I believe the consensus was that a certain number of .COMs are a necessary evil. Yes, Tony, we do 'have a lot of non-standard stuff', such as BULLETIN, gMAIL, FINGER, MICRO_PRINT, UBVM_PRINT, UBSERVE, LISTSERV on our IBM, BIT_NODES_LISTING (which I understand SUNY/Binghamton keeps secret from their users), and even our userid generation system (which BTW, has allowed us to open our VAXcluster to every student/faculty/ employee of UB). Without these utilities we would have a system which was not very USER-FRIENDLY, and I believe we are User Services and should be providing a Service to our Users. Jim Gerland ( User Services Postmaster ) University Computing Services State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 (716) 636-3557