Letter
To the editor:
I read with distress your article "Better be ready for Banner." I don't know whether I am the only person at McGill who does not have a computer. If not, I will speak for all my fellow sufferers.
Ever since the conquest of our world by the computer, life has become incredibly more complicated. One used to be able to write a book and depend on the publisher to look after the type setting and the printing. Now one is required to provide the final version on a diskette oneself.
Concerning our research grants, we are now expected to waste six hours learning how to use the new Banner system. For a thousand professors this involves 6,000 man hours! Presumably this is to be followed by us doing the work that used to be done by the accounting department. Not that I ever understood the yellow sheets I received monthly, but at least I did not have to produce them.
Let me repeat: I do not have a computer. I do not know how to use one. At my advanced age, I have no intention to learn how to use one.
Joachim Lambek
Redpath Professor Emeritus of Mathematics
