The best way to understand the ideas above is to start playing
with the system. They should become clear after a little practice.
Each of the following three sections describe one of the DISCUSS client
programs available on Athena.
Each has its own
advantages, and which one you decide to use is a matter of preference.
Most users start by using discuss, a no-frills client which can be run at any time and which provides help for every command. While xdsc cannot be run over dialup and is more limited than discuss, xdsc provides an intuitive, pretty interphase designed to be as user-friendly as possible. The edsc client is convenient to those who are fond of using emacs; it is perhaps less easy to become accustomed to than xdsc, but may be run over dialup.