dkmann@SUN.COM (Darlene Mann) (04/27/89)
Hello again, NeWS-Makers! This time, I am looking for your input on terminal emulation facilities in NeWS. Your recent responses to the NeWS Early Adopters Survey (and thanks for all those replies!!) have prompted us to find out more about what NeWS-users need in the area of terminal emulation facilities. Feel free to telephone me at the number below, if you prefer verbal communication. Thanks for your response! Darlene Mann Product Manager, NeWS Sun Microsystems 415-336-3428 __________________________________________________________________________ This brief questionnaire is intended to determine the NeWS-based terminal emulation requirements of X11/NeWS users. Feedback from NeWS users will be used by development at Sun for planning bundled and unbundled NeWS-based emulators. Your input is very valuable, and is greatly appreciated by Sun. 1) How satisfied are you with terminal emulators in NeWS 1.1 for your applications? Are you "very satisfied" (3), "satisfied" (2), "somewhat satisfied" (1) or "not satisfied" (0)? Satisfaction Rating:______________ (0-3) 2) What are the three major factors, based on their order of priority, which impact your satisfaction with NeWS-based emulators? Please be as specific as possible. 1.__________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ 2.__________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ 3.__________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ 3. How important are the following features of a future NeWS-based emulator running on X11/NeWS for your applications? Please rate each feature according to the scale: "Very Important", "Important", "Somewhat Important" or "Not Important". Very Somewhat Not Important Important Important Important Full Sun termcap (shelltool) compatibility VT100 compatibility Other:_______________________________ 4. If "VT100 compatibility" is rated "Very Important" or "Important" in Q3., please list the main VT100 applications that the emulator will be used to access. Please also specify if its an in-house or a commercially developed application. 1.___________________________ 2._________________________ 3.___________________________ 4._________________________ 5. If "VT100 compatibility" is rated "Very Important" or "Important" in Q3., what are the major reasons (if any), apart from application compatibility, that such compatibility is required? Please list the top 3 reasons in order of their priority. 1.___________________________________________________________________ 2.___________________________________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________________________________ 6. Please use the space below for any further comments re: the NeWS-based emulator requirements for users at your site.
bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (05/01/89)
>This brief questionnaire is intended to determine the NeWS-based >terminal emulation requirements of X11/NeWS users. Feedback from NeWS >users will be used by development at Sun for planning bundled and >unbundled NeWS-based emulators. Your input is very valuable, and is >greatly appreciated by Sun. Talk about re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic...! What is the purpose of sending out questionairres like this? Are the NeWS programmers at Sun so wedged they can't figure out if the terminal emulator works or not? Or is someone looking for fuel to try to get the attention of some bloated committee full of folks who have lots of strong opinions despite the fact that they never use window systems (aka Human Factors people, Marketing people and others you could fire mercilessly and only improve the quality of life.) Is it so hard to write a clean VTxxx emulator that Sun needs all sorts of assurance that someone out there wants it? Is this a rational question? Does someone there doubt there's a need for a standardized terminal emulator? And being as unbundling NeWS from SunOS has already more or less thrown it into the junk heap of "nice tries" what's the plan now? To unbundle the terminal emulator? Does anyone at Sun have any clue as to how much resistance to a product like this they create when its basic format is unbundled, even if inexpensive? There's something bizarre going on over there with this (almost) product, a total loss of direction or some such thing. -- -Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die There's nothing more terrifying to hardware vendors than satisfied customers.
schwartz@shire.cs.psu.edu (Scott Schwartz) (05/01/89)
Sun writes: [ Stuff about NeWS ] In article <30471@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bzs@bu-cs (Barry Shein) writes: >Talk about re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic...! I like NeWS a lot, but listen up Sun: Barry Shein knows what he is talking about!!! A few years ago, a friend who works at project Athena told me that "no NeWS is good news", and laughted hysterically. At the time, I thought he was being cocky. -- Scott Schwartz <schwartz@shire.cs.psu.edu>
bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (05/01/89)
In article <4526@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> schwartz@shire.cs.psu.edu (Scott Schwartz) writes: Sun writes: [ Stuff about NeWS ] In article <30471@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bzs@bu-cs (Barry Shein) writes: Talk about re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic...! I like NeWS a lot, but listen up Sun: Barry Shein knows what he is talking about!!! \begin{soapbox} I have plenty of respect for Barry Shein, and he does know what he's talking about, and I often listen to what he says, and what other knowledgeable folks have to say. But I then make up my own mind. Appeals to authority (e.g. "Kirkegaard says...") are a basic form of logical fallacy and carry no weight other than emotional. You could look at an appeal to authority as sort of an inverse of an ad hominem argument - neither is valid and for very similar reasons. The ideas themselves still have to stand on their own merit. Someone may turn out to be right, but don't believe what they said just because they said it. Please don't try to infer from this what my own feelings are concerning the Window Wars - you won't be able to! I just don't like appeals to authority as a logical technique. \end{soapbox}
bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (05/01/89)
From: bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) >\begin{soapbox} > >I have plenty of respect for Barry Shein, and he does know what he's >talking about, and I often listen to what he says, and what other >knowledgeable folks have to say. But I then make up my own mind. > >Appeals to authority (e.g. "Kirkegaard says...") are a basic form of >logical fallacy and carry no weight other than emotional. You could >look at an appeal to authority as sort of an inverse of an ad hominem >argument - neither is valid and for very similar reasons. The ideas >themselves still have to stand on their own merit. Someone may turn >out to be right, but don't believe what they said just because they >said it. > >Please don't try to infer from this what my own feelings are >concerning the Window Wars - you won't be able to! I just don't like >appeals to authority as a logical technique. > >\end{soapbox} Yeah, but ya gotta listen to *someone* eventually, even if it's yourself. I am quite sure, however, the world would be a better place if they did everything my way, at least for me... What I'd really like to hear is what is going through the players at Sun's minds, this whole thing is getting pretty confusing to us mere customers. Maybe someone can coax Warren Teitelman out onto the networks, even if just to correct my spelling of his name. C'mon, it's time for a little brass (in all senses of the word.) (Kirkegaard???) -- -Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die There's nothing more terrifying to hardware vendors than satisfied customers.
schwartz@shire.cs.psu.edu (Scott Schwartz) (05/01/89)
I wrote: >>I like NeWS a lot, but listen up Sun: Barry Shein knows what he is >>talking about!!! Bob Sutterfield wrote: >Appeals to authority (e.g. "Kirkegaard says...") are a basic form of >logical fallacy and carry no weight other than emotional. Quite correct. Let me clarify by saying that it was Barry's _reasoning_ in the posting from which I quoted that I support, and did not not intend to appeal to authority in any way. My comments were motivated by the fact that I like NeWS a lot, but am unhappy with some of Sun's tactics in promoting it, and was happy to see a posting that echoed my own feelings. Certainly, seconding an opinion one agrees with is not an unreasonable action, especially in response to a request for input. -- Scott Schwartz <schwartz@shire.cs.psu.edu>