From: jake@nora.dei.unipd.it (Luca Polo)
Subject: Re: I can get something done with OS/2, thanks IBM. 
Organization: Universita' di Padova, Italia
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 09:58:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.131248.5468@cs.joensuu.fi> jahonen@cs.joensuu.fi (Jarmo Ahonen) writes:
>
>In the beginning I tried to run my codes under WINDOWS.
>It was painfull. The memory management felt inadequate.
>would you believe how slow the program got when it run out
>of RAM and paging started? Try it and you will know...
>And no real multitasking. What a pain for a devoted UNIX
>user.
>
I know, I know..... :-( 
UNIX may be not very friendly, but when you know it, you can do almost
everything with two or three commands.
>Then a collegue of mine proposed that I should try OS/2.
>Well, I had played with the versions 1.x, and they were a bit
>better than unusable for me. So I was a bit skeptic at first,
>I though that the new OS/2 would just be still another shithead
>system for intel processors, and I actually regretted that I
>hadn't paid more and got a Sun.
>
Sounds exactly as my opinions when I was proposed to adopt OS/2 2.0 for
my PC!
>During some months I have now used OS/2 2.0 to run/develop my
>code, and I have been *very positively* surprised with the 
>usefulness of OS/2. I have found that I'm able to run a number
>chrunching program at background, interactively develope another
>program and use mathematicsl software to analyze the results...
>Just like in UNIX :-). 
>
Same as nine (?) lines above :-)
>I'm quite happy with OS/2, although my wishlist for additional
>features is includes at least:
>1) WPS should be a bit more versatile (is it possible to get it to
>   work like X-windows?).
?? If you mean "focus-follows-mouse mode" , try xfeel, a new PD program
which implements this feature (it is in its very firsr release and you
can find it at ftp-os2.nmsu.edu in pub/os2/new for a while).
>2) *much better* documentation. The current one does not earn the
>   name of documentation!
I agree: a sort of mini-redbook with "fool-proof" glossary, eetc. would
be a nice thing; a even nicer thing would be throwing away from the 
install pack all those little booklets and replace them with a reference
manual for installation AND commands,etc.; the booklets can be turned in
.INF format. I think that 10$ more for OS/2 (the cost of adding a reference,
I guess) should not compromise its diffusion...
>3) a simple C-compiler as a part of the system. Why not? Now I use gnu,
>   but couldn't IBM include a simple C-compiler to the base system?
>   It would make life much easier for many people, I believe.
>   I believe and hope that IBM is listening :-).
Why not sign an agreement with FSF to include GNU C (by default or on demand?)
in base OS/2 ? A small C compiler is always useful....(OK, one can say
"There is REXX if you need to write a small piece of software", but how
about all those small C utilities one has written under UNIX ?)
>4) Useful file-protection system. The method to use extended attributes
>   to set the "read-only" bit on is primitive and I do not like it at all.
>   It would nice to stop myself from accidentaly doing something nasty :-).
I agree twice! (and more)
while I was impressed for OS/2 capabilities , I was not happy to see the
same DOS-like unregarding for file protection: it is not an impossible
task for OS/2 developers to add a two levels protection system to OS/2:
just a "user level" and a "supervisor level", with a password to obtain
supervisor privileges, and the concept of "owner" of a file.
This little add would make the tasks of a system manager quite easier:
a lot less of worries for users who "accidentally" trash the system or
delete programs...
>5) A full variety of programming languages directly from IBM or from
>   ISV's. FORTRAN-90 would be nice (or even FORTRAN-77 with some -90 
>   extensions). I have not seen many adds for languages for OS/2 :-(. 
>6) How can I tune the system for my specific purposes? Can I tune the kernel?
>   The documentation, again!
I agree, again!
>7) Better documentation...
I agree...
>8) better documentation...
I agree...
>9) ...
...

Luca Polo.
Universita` di Padova, Italy
(with you from 1222. More than 770 years of history)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy