From: mdchaney@fractal.ucs.indiana.edu (M Darrin Chaney)
Subject: Re: Comparison of Alpha, MIPS and PA-RISC-II wanted
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 15:50:13 GMT

In article <9212230350.AA09983@TIS.COM> mjr@TIS.COM writes:
>bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright) writes:
>
>>I find `stock'
>>Unix much worse than VMS in terms of productivity mostly because
>>of that horrible `vi' editor that comes with it :-).
>
>	In fact, most "operating systems wars" boil down to preferences
>as simple as these. I realize that Bruce had a 'smiley' to indicate that
>he was joking, but it seems that whenever the VMS-versus-UNIX or
>UNIX-versus-DOS or whatever war starts up, sooner or later it winds
>up boiling down to text editors and window systems and help systems
>and the really piddly triviata that have *NOTHING* to do with the
>operating system and everything to do with the operating environment.

I agree, but there is a bit to be said for the environment.  With a straight
off the tape VMS system, you have a real editor, a real debugger, shared
libraries (as in shareable images), etc.  You get none of these in a
standard, off the tape Unix system (I know, I know, Jack's proprietary Unix
has these features, but I'm speaking in general).  However, you get a C
compiler, unless you're still buying Sun products.

A real editor and debugger make a difference, especially if you don't have
net.access.  Alot of sites don't, and they're using vi...

>	Usually, once the "discussion" has boiled down to this final
>remnant of sticky pure opinion goo at the bottom of the crucible, most
>sensible people realize it's time to find something worthwhile to
>talk about. Arguing about environments is stupid. Especially when
>it comes to editors and you can buy TPU for UNIX and get vi clones
>for VMS.

I agree.  There are flamewars on the local newsgroups, usually started by
the CS types who think Unix is the only OS.  I've seen remarks referring to
VMS as that "clunky old operating system."  What that comment means is "I 
don't like DCL."  I don't love it, but it's not an operating system.  And,
that's usually what it boils down to: I like (whatever)shell better than
DCL.  That's when I interject the "We're talking about operating systems, not
shells.  Get Posix."  That stops the whole thing immediately.

The other comments are about DEC having exclusive control of VMS source.  I
invite them to get source to SunOS, HP-UX, Ultrix, AIX, whatever, since it
is apparently free.

It usually comes down to misinformed people.  They've heard VMS sucks, but not
why.  That's why I get in a dander when I see people here calling RMS "the
file system" and arguing that point.  If you don't know the difference between
a record manager and a file system, you don't have the base knowledge required
to intelligently discuss the matter.

>	Here's an interesting postulate to argue about: operating
>system kernel technologies aren't interesting anymore. Whether it
>is VMS or UNIX or NT or FooFrATz is meaningless if the system
>*environment* ("environment" == utilities, user interface, system
>libraries, network interface, etc) does what you need it to do.
>The question, I submit, is not "UNIX or VMS?" it is "what do I
>need for this *particular* project?" - and that depends on the
>project, programmer skills, requirements, etc - and is not worth
>arguing about on USENET.

Actually, to the standard Unix biggot, Unix is what you need for the
particular project, no matter what it might be.  That's how these things
get started.  I agree that no OS, including VMS, is perfect for every
situation.  There are alot of people who still don't understand that, though.

	Darrin
-- 

mdchaney@iubacs mdchaney@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu mdchaney@rose.ucs.indiana.edu

"I want- I need- to live, to see it all..."
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