From: mwp@iconix.oz.au (Michael Paddon)
Subject: Re: Comparison of Alpha, MIPS and PA-RISC-II wanted
Organization: Iconix Pty Ltd (World Headquarters)
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 02:37:31 GMT

In <BzGn32.37C@dscomsa.desy.de> hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker) writes:
>If I wanted to spend my time looking at centuries old technology I would be an
>archeologist.

However, to work in a vaccuum is to repeat old mistakes and forget hard
earned lessons. As the computer industry matures, more is accomplished
through evolution.

>Bugs they still need to fix:-
>
>  1) Online manual still designed with aim of minimizing disk space rather than
>providing information.

This one always amuses me. I've used VMS and it's printed manuals are far less
useful than Unix's, and they are not online. Yet the VMS example is held up
as a paragon. You are mistaking quantity for quality.

Example: try to use the VMS backup command in a way that isn't covered in
one of the examples in the manual.

>	2) No help facility.

The VMS help facility does not provide 10% of the information provided
by the the Unix online manuals.

>	3) No standardized user firendly shell.

Last time I looked POSIX had standardized at least one of the Unix shells.
You can move to any modern Unix, and be able to use your favorite shell.

In comparison, VMS provides DCL. A language with 60's control structures
(no for loops, while loops etc). No pipes. No command output substitution.
No globbing, so that's its done different by every command. God save us!

>	4) Command qualifiers hard coded into applications making multilanguage
>customization impossible.

This is not a drawback of Unix. The need is for appropriate mechanisms
to be standardised and made available. You can bet that when that happens,
the implementation will be much easier under Unix than VMS.

>	5) Requires expensive expert to have a chance of any security.

No more so than any other multiuser OS I've dealt with. However,
"Unix is insecure" is another one of those unsubstantiated myths.
Yes, early versions in loose environments (universities, etc.) were
insecure. However, VMS systems on campus were also notoriously easy
to break in to.

Modern Unix systems are as secure as any other mass market OS,
so long as the vendor or sysadm don't do anything stupid.

>6) File system limited to sequential file, forcing applications to create their
>own file system on top of the UNIX one, thus preventing any standardization or
>application independent optimization.

Let's look at a system with file types. List the file... Sorry you can't
do that with XYZ. Run may application on that data... Sorry don't know
how to access that file type.

This is real 1960's stuff.

>They had a limited problem and provided a limited solution. I find it hard to
>see how you can consider UNIX to be a superior system to VMS while admitting
>that it is inadequate for many tasks. It would appear to me that the strongest
>statement to be made would be that UNIX was superior for some tasks (presumably
>through simplicity).

After using both, I found that I produce code up to 10 times faster under
Unix. Which is superior?

>If UNIX was ever allowed to become the sole O/S it would halt O/S deelopment
>completely. The only effort UNIX has ever made is in catching up.

There should never be a sole OS. That way lies stagnation. However Unix
has broken ground in some extremely important areas; examples are easy to
find, for instance the BSD networking development.

The most important point, however, is that Unix is *not* perfect. The
problem with commercialization is that is becomes harder and harder to
throw away old ideas, because code must be supported.

So Unix grows crusty with age, and thereby creates room for a newcomer.
What will it be? That's the real question.

Michael
Newsgroups: comp.arch