From: xm9@sdcc12.ucsd.edu (richard g. adair)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.sys.sgi,comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Comparison of Alpha, MIPS and PA-RISC-II wanted
Summary: UNIX
Keywords: UNIX
Date: 20 Dec 92 17:35:38 GMT
Followup-To: comp.arch
Organization: Arete Associates, San Diego

In article <BzGn32.37C@dscomsa.desy.de> Hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
>1) Online manual still designed with aim of minimizing disk space rather than
>providing information.

The new CDROM programs have just what you want.  HP's help browser
with the bookshelf idea make searching through manuals fun!

>	2) No help facility.
>	3) No standardized user firendly shell.

The best way to provide a help facility is to make sure users don't
need help very often, like on the Mac.  The ballon help is really
nice for novice users, and you can turn it off when you are familiar
with the OS.

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

Perhaps the .Xdefaults should be generalized for all UNIX commands??
Something like:  ls*F: G   would replace the F option in ls with a
G instead?

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

NO computer system is secure.  PERIOD!

>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.

This is  feature, not a bug!  Have you ever worked with a record
oriented system like VMS?  You spend most of you programming time
defeating the file system :-(

>The kernel is a major factor in determining how useful the system is. Only AT&T
>had the capability to introduce a shell to replace the standard ones that could
>have achieved a degree of acceptance. 

All shells are the same, since they all share the same weird
restriction that the user know a specific language to converse with
them.  VMS is more wordy, but none the less has specific commands
that you just have to know to survive.  We should be more concerned
with what the new interface which will replace shells will look like.

>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).

No, UNIX is better for these reasons:

	pipes
	make
	light sub-processes
	the path
	transparent networking
	network file sharing
	no RMS
	choice of shells
	machine independant, choice of vendor freedom
	vendor price and speed wars
	better hardware
	graphics
	it does't have DEC-this DEC-that all over (gak!)
	simplicity

>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.

UNIX is like English.  If it sees a concept it likes, it takes it!
:-)  There isn't anything wrong with this.  UNIX is set up
flexibly so that you can add all sorts of new concepts easily as
software technology advances...

>There were other choices. PICK for instance was a very highly regarded system
>but was killed through over agressive attempts control it. Imagine a world in
>which EBSIDIC, not ASCII was the standard for charaters. We would see people
>the system were an advantage rather than a serious drawback.

PICK is not dead, it's being used to run the Tax rolls in Moscow!

Tony Burzio
Arete Associates
San Diego, CA