From: aelman@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Adam Elman)
Subject: The uses of Windows? (was Re: Someone explain this to me...)
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
Date: 12 Apr 92 21:35:34 GMT


fornax@vlsi10.WPI.EDU (Psychadelic Dan!) writes:
>In the article <1992Apr11.005823.18377@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> in comp.os.msdos.misc,
>	KUDOS!!  Windoze is a waste.  Try using it to switch between
>ACAD, WP5.1, and Lotus 3.1... NOT!  I tried it out for awhile, being
>the adventurous type, but after it crashing my system, being flaky, a
>disk and memory hog, I said screw it.  A simple 12k PD menu system
>that I have is much more reliable and does it's job quite well.  No
>hassles, or any of this other garbage with Windoze.
>	Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I find that most people
>use Windows simply to switch between applications, and it hasn't been
>until recently that there have actually been useful programs that run
>in the windowing environment.  That might cause a trend towards people
>using programs like that.. i.e. Lotus for windoze 1.0 and WP 4
>windoze, but at a few hundred bucks a pop, it's unlikely in the near
>future.
>	Overall, I find that using straight MS-DOS batch files to
>access programs is about the quickest, fastest, less memory dependent
>way to run a program, not to mention that the user has to understand
>a few basic concepts of the computer that their working on.

Well, I'd like to offer a correction here.  :-)
I have been using Windows fairly exclusively on my own machine for
about a year now.  As a student, I am able to get some decent
discounts on Windows SW -- Excel for $120, Word for Windows for $80,
and Windows itself for $67.  This is quite a bit less of a hit.

Between that, a couple of cheap add-ons (Amaze!'s Far Side Calendar,
for instance) and a bunch of shareware have made my Windows
environment quite nice and workable.

Frankly, I agree with you completely -- as a task-switcher for DOS
apps, Windows sucks eggs.  I have a 286, so I can't even _run_ apps in
a DOS window.  Even on the 386 we have at work, I find it fairly
useless to run DOS apps in a window.

The reason _I_ use Windows is because I like the interface and I like
the applications.  I prefer Word for Windows 2.0 to WordPerfect 5.1.
Sure, maybe it takes an extra couple of milliseconds for the
characters to appear, but after using UNIX machines via remote for a
while, I don't even notice that.  But I find things like OLE, DDE, and
the clipboard to be EXTREMELY useful.  Not for DOS apps, since those
things aren't supported.  But for Windows apps.

I'm not the kind of person who expects instant performance from my
computer -- especially considering the power of my system. :-)  But I
find the capabilities I have in using Windows to be much more
powerful than any DOS apps I've ever used.  Besides -- Windows just
_looks_ better than a DOS app running in character mode. :-) :-)

The funny thing about your other comment is that I find that the people
who least understand the specifics of their system _are_ the people
using DOS.  I work as a consultant for a mixed DOS/UNIX/mostly Mac
environment.  The Mac people usually understand at least the concept
of folders, documents, and programs which are used to create the
documents.  The less informed UNIX people miss a lot, but they at
least end up knowing enough to understand the idea of a command line.

But the DOS people frequently have no clue whatsoever what they are
doing, besides that they are using WordPerfect or Lotus or whatever.
It's tougher to explain the idea of files and directories to a DOS
user than a Mac user.  It's tougher to explain to someone whose system
was set up by a friend to have certain batch files to run certain
programs that the same commands will not work on another person's
computer.  

Sure, Windows shields a lot from the user.  But what it shields are
the things that the user really shouldn't have to worry about anyway
-- printer drivers, memory allocation, video modes.  The user should
really only have to know about the filesystem and the way their
applications work.  With DOS, it's far too easy just to tell someone
to "type 'wp' and type your document, then type 'f7' to exit", because
it's too hard to explain any further.  A GUI like Windows (or the Mac)
makes explaining a little further a _lot_ easier.

Adam Elman
aelman@cs.stanford.edu