From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: X is a hack? (was Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks!)
Date: 26 Aug 92 19:54:52 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <1992Aug26.171756.17033@msi.com> bill@msi.com writes:
>Brian Sturgill (brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu) wrote:
>: In article <47470005@hpfcmgw.FC.HP.COM> glen@hpfcmgw.FC.HP.COM (Glen Robinson) writes:
>: 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 :-)
>
>1) Why is X a hack?
It's a glue-on on top of Unix (i.e. it's not well integrated).  I purports
to be a GUI, but has a fair number of standard features missing.
Why do people take my long thought out comments and pick on the passing
remark?  In the last couple of weeks I decided that rather than harping
on NT I'd spend some time talking about helping OS/2... I've got nothing
but grief since then.  I realize that people won't necessarily like
what I've said, but I tried to say it nice, and unfortunately most, if
not all of it's true.  Why is the advocacy group opposed to making
a position that says where OS/2 should improve and how it should compete
with NT.  I'd not mind if people didn't like my ideas and proposed their
own.... but why pick on the small points, and ignore OS/2's gaping holes?

>2) At what level do you need multi-user?
Logons... per-user profiles, and protection against accidental file
erasures, etc.  The level that Unix-V6 had many years ago would be overkill
for my personal needs.
This also gives a limited level of virus protection.

>3) What native apps would you like?
Well at home my wife and I have Word for Windows, PFS:WindowsWorks,
Visual Basic, Borland C++ 3.0 w/Applications Frameworks, MSC 7.00,
Excel 4.0, Windows Draw, Star Trek, Might and Magic II, Super Tetris
for Windows, Wing Commander, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, Red Baron, Vette,
Home Lawyer, Alpha 4, Turbo Tax for Windows, Object Vision (for Windows),
a selection of freeware Unix look-a-like commands, and some freeware games.
Brief 3.1 is on order.
The only shareware we have registered (and thus that we use) is
a CD-ROM CD-player program.  I'm currently re-evaluating WinQVT, but
it's still buggy, so I'm not sure i'll buy... zmodem transfer works well
though.

At work for testing reasons I have a copy of most major Windows packages, and
a copy of any user-level programming package I can get my hands-on.
I also have copies of the professional programming packages for the platforms
we support.

I'm not sure what you wanted for the answer.
We'd like some household packages like meal planning w/recipes, but have
not found what we want.  As we now have a CD-ROM drive and a SoundBlaster
Pro... MM packages are being evaluated. Anybody know where I can
get the New York Public Library Desk Reference on a CD-ROM?
I'd also like recommendations on an Atlas program.
Any nifty music packages for non-musicians?

The sorts of things we like (except for games) are in general available under
Windows.  Under OS/2... usually no.
Under NT I expect I'll be using 16-bit versions of low-end things for a while,
but as it's likely they'll have been developed under NT, I doubt there will
be compatibility problems.

>
>
>--
>+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+
>| Bill Poitras    | Molecular Simulations Inc.    | Tel (408)522-9229       |
>| (bill)          | Sunnyvale, CA USA             |                         | 
>|                 | FAX (408)732-0831             | bill@msi.com            |
>+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+


Brian
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy