From: murphy@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (William J. Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT's, Amiga's, PC's, MAC'S, (was Re: Question #2 "Are Macintosh Users Really Happy?")
Date: 13 Aug 92 21:51:55 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Physics Department

In article <dillon.0kwu@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US  
(Matthew Dillon) writes:
>    prevailent across the industry but there is a difference.  In the Amiga
>    market, for example, you have extremely sophisticated freeware written
>    by yours truely and many many many other people, several GIGABYTES of
>    it, in fact (and keep in mind that executables on an Amiga are an order
>    of magnitude smaller then executables on a NeXT, enhancing the value of
>    the number I gave).  This freeware forces the commercial products to
>    (a) be more sophisticated then the freeware, and (b) not be overpriced
>    (or the person simply uses the freeware).  Since you do not see much
>    freeware of this calibre on the NeXT you do not have this check on the
>    commercial products.

I don't agree with your statement about the quality of the freeware software
in the Amiga.  Two reasons:  1) Much of what I recall collecting while I owned
an Amiga did not really produce satisfactory results. (I won't include your
software in this, it worked very well and was a factor in my purchasing an
Amiga.)  2) The software that I see being released by Fred Fish seems to me 
to be many of the same utility programs reworked by someone else.  That is
the freeware (GIGABYTES of it) is largely repetitive.  

So the real question is how much useful software is there available on either
platform?  

IMO, I don't view the NeXT software as largely repetitive.  As well,
people are not writing a plethora of utility programs that are largely 
irrelevant to everyday work.  For myself, I don't need to have a process
monitor running all the time, I don't need 15 different screen based editors
(vi, Edit, DME, and Z work(ed) just fine).  I would like an AREXX for the NeXT,
but it's not crucial.  I don't need dnet, NeXT Step provides for most of what
I need there.  How many plot packages are there on the Amiga that still produce
inferior quality output?  I would venture there are a bunch?  What about the
NeXT?  I may not be able to do everything I would like with NXYPlot, but
it's output is 400DPI and no jaggies because of the PostScript.  Lotus Improv
is far more comprehendable than any spreadsheet that I have used on ANY
platform.  It may not do everything, but it allows such flexibility in
organizing data that it is quite usefull.  

At this point, I think that many users are probably not releasing their 
software to the Public Domain, because they don't think it is good enough.
At least, I know my software is not where I would want others using it.  
I believe that both machines have there merits.  I prefer NeXT to Amiga, 
but if I wanted to play a really hot game, I'd choose the Amiga.  If
I want to get work done, I will choose the NeXT, then Amiga, then ????.





Bill Murphy               | Old Home Cottage Cheese:  The only cottage 
			  | cheese that's not made from formaldehyde, 
murphy@physics.purdue.edu | arsenic, or rodent parts.