Re: [9fans] Re: 9fans Digest, Vol 27, Issue 52

["John Floren" <slawmaster@gmail.com>]

On 7/24/06, Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu> wrote:
<snip>
> 0) A browser.
> 1) Some office suite application or applications.  Sure, *I* can edit
>   my documents in sam or acme and do markup using troff or tex or
>   some other such thing, but you ever try emailing a troff document
>   to a non-technical colleague?  Or one who comes from a Windows only
>   background?  These are the same people who may email me an MS word
>   document with embedded graphics, or a PowerPoint presentation, or
>   an Excel spreadsheet.  Or a Visio graphic.
>   You get the picture; I can control the format of the output I
>   produce output, and thus can get away with using Plan 9.  But I
>   can't control others, who may send me something I need to see, read,
>   watch or listen to, but can't do so under Plan 9.
> 2) An IM client (I worked at a job where we used AIM for internal company
>   communications; actually, two of my jobs used it.  Believe it or not,
>   it was highly effective.  Sure, the protocol sucks, but we could "talk"
>   to one another on a daily basis).
> 3) I use Mathematica a lot.  That's critical for me.
> 4) I hate to say it, but sometimes I need C++, or Objective-C, or any
>   number of other languages that I just don't have either compilers or
>   interpreters for under Plan 9.
> 5) Any number of players of various multimedia formats.
> 6) A mail client that can do GnuPG or OpenPGP or whatever.
> 7) Any number of other applications....
<snip>
This appears to be quite a complete list. I second everything on the
list, with the inclusion of some other apps (circuit design stuff). IM
is important, because it's the best way to reach my friends. Media
players--huge. I love my media. On the same note, some decent
filesharing interfaces would be good, like Direct Connect. Wonder how
that could be implemented the Plan 9 Way? Allow searching by grepping
a file, and have all the clients mapped in a directory tree? Hmm.
Although I like the acme mail client and even find 'mail' useful, I
could really do with something beefier before making the switch--I'm
gonna do the bad thing and utter the words "Thunderbird-like"
Well, there's MY 2 cents, take it or leave it.

John
--
TANSTAAFL! (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!)