Posted by Nigel Topham on November 07, 1997 at 15:52:37:
In Reply to: Communication posted by Jonathan Meddes on November 07, 1997 at 14:02:21:
: [snip] but I don't think I'm the only
: one who is concerned about the consequences to
: saying in public what many people say in private.
Jonathan, the only consequences of stating publicly what
you believe to be the case regarding equipment provision
is that we (the dept) will attempt to do something
about the issues raised. We value honest views, and we
can take criticism - especially if it is constructive.
: I am aware that PGs are at the very bottom of the
: equipment pecking order, but when you see the
: facilities at other departments it makes you
: wonder what is going wrong here?
Although it would be premature to make promises at this
stage, I can certainly say that PG provision is close to
the top of the list this year!
The views expressed here will help us to formulate plans
for making better resources available to PGs. This
year it seems most likely that a sizeable chunk of
capital spending will be used to improve PG and staff
desktop machines (maybe also servers). As you probably
know we used a sizable chunk of last year's (and some of
this year's) budget on the new CS2 machines.
People's experiences with the CS2 machines has naturally
brought into sharp relief the discrepancy in performance
between older Suns and modern PCs. We are concious that
PGs have traditionally been given relatively old machines
or Xterms as they are moved out of other areas of service.
I'd like the department to do something better this year.
- Nigel.
(these are personal views, not necessarily department
policy - yet).