From: spexet@engin.umich.edu (Dennis Robert Spexet)
Subject: Why people bow and scrape before NT (long)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 09:52:19 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor
Distribution: world 

In article <1992Aug26.021104.11651@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>Can you give me an example of where I bow and scrape before NT?  It's
>true that I'm a fan of NT, but then I was a big fan of OS/2, and would
>like IBM to make it so that I can continue to be.  Things would have
>been much different if that June CSD had come out in June.

Not to be a cynical SOB, but I will do so anyway.  Is the June CSD *that*
important to you that you absolutely require it in order to write OS/2 apps?
From the tone of your messages, I suspect for some reason that your
"conversion" to NT is not so much of a technical nature than of a personal
and emotional issue.  That is to say, your appear to be p***ed off at IBM
and some of its personnel because they didn't cater to your personal needs
in a way that you would have liked.  Because of this, and the fact that
MS appears to be offering an easier-to-swallow proposition to the potential
NT programmers, you have decided to use Windows NT for your software
release, and not write for OS/2.

It's your choice, and a gamble as well.  For your sake, I hope you ultimately
find happiness with your decision.  But I wonder:  Why do you still read this
newsgroup?

>From a personal standpoint, NT is closer to what I want, as the features I
>have always wanted was a combination of Unix and Macintosh/Windows
>3.0.  NT fits this bill very well. I.E. tons of neat, cheap GUI apps on
>a "real" system.  X is a hack, so no Unix ever really fit the bill.
>OS/2 2.0 came close, but it is not multi-user enough, and I'm not about
>to buy into a multimedia API that no one will develop for.  It is also
>not clear that it will have a good app base.
>	     	      Oops insert ^ native :-)

From a personal standpoint, let me make several points, for what it's worth:

1.  NT is largely incomplete.  The features that you brag about NT having
    are not even existent yet for a large part.

    My favorite one, which you love to brag about:  The C2-level of security.
    Since you seem to be so hyped on this one, perhaps you can tell me the
    name of the rating company (either Mitre or some NCSC-approved one) that
    did the certification and rating of NT?  The Microsoft personnel that I
    have spoken to have not informed me of this.  It's too bad, because I
    would like to obtain the official rating report on NT's security class.

2.  I suspect that you will not see too many "neat and cheap" GUI apps on NT.
    Other than word processors and spreadsheets, I think you are going to see
    workstation-level prices (read:  many thousands of $$$) for NT apps.
    This is merely speculation, though.

3.  X being a hack is your personal opinion, one which a lot of people do not
    share.

4.  Your comments about OS/2 and its multimedia API are not only arrogant
    and snide (my personal opinion), but they also seem to be largely
    incorrect as well.  Many people are developing for OS/2 and its MME, many
    of them in-house.  More people are developing for this than you think.

>From a business standpoint I would very much like to see both do well.
>In general, I see Microsoft taking the necessary steps; IBM, ... it
>depends on which part, in general IBM has done poorly.  I just read an
>article in this month's Computer Shopper that said IBM is ignoring OS/2
>because their real plan is Taligent.  I don't really believe that, but
>the way IBM as a whole has treated OS/2, I don't entirely rule out the
>possiblity.  This is the second article I've seen say this.  It's a
>shame that IBM's followup on OS/2 has been so poor that they are
>open to such accusations.

What has been so poor about it?  I know this has been hashed over and over
again, but let me reiterate:

1.  IBM lets you call up their telephone support, on *their* dime.  No
    LD or 900 numbers to call.  For the types of questions that most people
    seem to have about OS/2, they seem pretty-well set up to me, except that
    they could always use a few more people.  This may not be a necessary
    step to you, but it certainly makes me feel pretty good about my choice.

2.  Bug fixes.  Not only do you have a choice of 2 BBS's and CIS to get bug
    fixes from, but you can get them by anonymous FTP from an official IBM
    site as well!  And they are free!  I don't see IBM telling me to "wait
    for the next release, two years from now" when I ask for a bug correction.
    Furthermore, I don't see them charging me $50 for a bug fix, either!

3.  E-mail access.  I dunno about you, but I see a lot of IBM personnel on
    the Internet, CIS, and the BBS's who have direct access to the OS/2
    developers in Boca Raton.  If there is a hard-core OS/2 problem, you can
    be pretty damn sure that the problem reports will reach a responsible
    person in very little time.

    This resource is amazing, and it is not to be taken lightly.  Rather than
    merely being a bunch of staff people singing the corporate line, these
    people have written a lot of the stuff that you see in your OS/2 packages,
    so who is better to ask?

I hope that you get better service from MS than I do from IBM, because it
surely must be tremendously awesome and God-like service, indeed.

>I don't understand this bow and scrape before NT comment-- I have used
>both OS/2 2.0 and NT's pre-beta (and inhaled! :-)) extensively... I know the
>features of both well.  While I miss the idea of WPS, WPS is too rough
>around the edges to really let you like the implementation.  Further, I
>have little doubt that there will be shareware shell Blah that emulates
>the WPS for NT, I might even do such a thing myself.  WPS is just a
>shell.  For example, NT comes with an app that is just as important to
>me... an app that plays music CD's in my CD-ROM drive.  I already have
>800x600 SVGA under NT.  OS/2 has been out for 4-5 months, and I still am
>running VGA on my machine at work.  During the beta I didn't mind at
>all...  it was after all a beta, but here NT comes along and has all
>this stuff and it's not even in beta..  or if you want to argue, it's
>in a beta level less than what OS/2 2.0 LA's beta was.

WPS is more than just a shell.  It's a way of interacting with the user.
While WPS has many rough edges for now, I think it's a damn good thing that
IBM has included it.  The IBM personnel have various ideas on how the user
should interact with the machine, (i.e., how the GUI should work), and I
must admit that I think more of their "rough-edged" shell than I do of
Microsoft's "bug-free" one.

As far as shareware shells go, WPS is going to be hard to beat.  It's got
more capabilities than you have observed.

Also, you may (or may not) be interested to know that IBM has had a CD
player program out for its CD ROM drive for at least 2 or 3 years now.  It
works very nice.

I also have 800x600 SVGA video under OS/2.  Isn't it nice?

NT is not even a beta.  It is, at most, an alpha-level developer's kit, with
the stuff you need to write NT apps.  You think more of NT than what it
really has.

>Why do people want to bash those telling/warning them about NT and its
>nice features, rather than asking IBM why OS/2 is still missing even
>more primative "normal" features?

Because your blindness has confused your sense of reality?

OS/2, for the most part, has the "normal" features you speak of.  NT is
missing most of the features you speak of.

>I don't see how it is bowing and scraping to acknowledge a good
>performance on Microsoft's part.  I'd quite happily do the same for
>IBM... the difference is I can see that Microsoft is delivering and
>therefore believe that they will deliver later.  IBM may have delivered
>OS/2 2.0 "on-time", but I think there are few users that aren't
>anxiously awaiting the bug-fixes.

Your damn right they aren't.  They are taking advantage of using OS/2 right
now, and enjoying the experience.

No product is perfect.  OS/2 has bugs, to be sure.  I have confidence that
they are being fixed.  To put it bluntly, I think IBM supports me as a user
better than MS does, and that is why I made my choice.  If this changes in
the future, than so will my choices.

>Take for example the 32-bit GDI that according to John Soyring (as quoted in
>the July OS/2 Monthly) was ready in March.
>	So we got to the point in March where the 32-bit graphics
>	engine was done.  They finished the coding, we finished the internal
>	testing, and it was meeting specifications. ... 
>If it was done, why do I still not have it 4 months later?

Perhaps because it is still buggy?  I dunno about you, but I'd rather take
a working product rather than a buggy one.  Maybe you are used to prerelease
software with Win3.1 and NT, but the regular user wants something that works.

>Brian


-- 
D. Robert Spexet II, N0OKR   Internet:  spexet@math.lsa.umich.edu
Department of Mathematics    BITnet:    user68xr@umichum.bitnet
The University of Michigan   UUCP:      uunet!mailrus!math.lsa.umich.edu!spexet
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy