i'll have to throw in a couple of my own opions... hopefully
they won't be too flammable.

> Speaking of adding on tools, are there any sources of consolidated info on
> uber tools?  You know, it would have been nice if someone had told me from
> the start, "Use MH for mail,

MH may be very nice - but boy is it huge.  i'd say it was overkill to build
it for a personal system like mine.  (i wanted to try out exmh.  i'll stick
to the program i wrote meself, thanks.)

> use (whatever, I use tin but it's not optimal) for news,

my very favourite by parsecs is gnus/emacs.  avoid nn at all costs.

> emacs for editing

editing?  i thought it was the OS :)  i also use w3/emacs for web browsing.
the biggest problem with that is not being able to edit while waiting for
a page to load.  the lack of embedded images under gnu emacs doesn't bother
me, but if you really want them, get lucid emacs.

> TeX for composing,

yesss! :)

> PERL for scripts that require arrays

nope.  tclsh for scripts that need arrays.  i'm adamant on that one.

> If nobody has a "Unix power user" web page up with links to the best
> replacement tools, I may design one.

that might be a good idea.


--
Hume Smith   <hclsmith@isisnet.com>