Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!sun-barr!oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!jesup From: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Minix, Unix on the Amiga, and flames on AmigaDOS braindamage... Message-ID: <7523@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: 3 Aug 89 03:37:45 GMT References: <1610@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> <195@VAX1.CC.UAKRON.EDU> <513@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu> <1332@osupyr.mps.ohio-state.edu> Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 35 In article <1332@osupyr.mps.ohio-state.edu> Vidhyanath K. Rao writes: >In article >Deven>AmigaDOS? More elegant than Unix? Don't make me laugh. > >I would say that AmigaDOS looks like a project from a B student: A good >concept, but implementation shows lack of imagination and more importantly, >inability to adapt to a different evoirment: Relying on BCPL thruout is only >one instance of it. Another example [why I would give the implementation >a B rather than an A] is packets implemented to support only >co-routines, hijacking of the Message.Node.Name field etc. But I side with >Bernie: Conceptually, AmigaDOS is more evolved than Unix. But then, it did >come latter. Two things to remember: 1) Tripos (aka AmigaDOS) was developed at Cambridge University; 2) BCPL is _the_ language at Cambridge, much in the way C is in most US unversities (lately). The C-style interfaces on top of AmigaDOS were dropped onto an OS designed for BCPL. That's changing now, of course, since we have little reason to want to encourage BCPL on the Amiga. AmigaDOS's design includes features that only recently appeared in any Unix variant, such as user-process filesystems, etc. Unix has been fine-tuned and revised many, many times. It still carries the results of some less pretty design decisions, though, and it shows it's age, for all the improvements and tweaks added over the years. AmigaDOS is much less refined, and currently has some implementation oddities, but the basic design is arguably a bit cleaner and more modern. Hopefully we'll have the chance to clean up and refine the desing and implementation over the years as Unix has done. We are a bit more beholden to the great god compatiblity than most Unix developers are, though. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!"