Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!alberta!calgary!news
From: news@calgary.UUCP (Network News Manager)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: The White Paper
Keywords: RPC, networking
Message-ID: <2197@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP>
Date: 4 Dec 89 19:13:59 GMT
References: <31904@cci632.UUCP> <46f42a6a.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> <14983@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM>
Reply-To: sharp@ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca.UUCP (Maurice Sharp)
Organization: Knowledge Science Lab, U. of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
Lines: 111

From: sharp@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Maurice Sharp)
Path: cpsc!sharp

     I have also used both systems (NCS and Suns RPC), and thus have
my own comments on the following ...

In article <14983@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM> joshua@Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) writes:

>Too late for that.  The copy I got about 10 months ago from Apollo has 
>Apollo's name all over it, and does not have your name on it at all.
>It was an "official pronouncement" of Apollo then :-).

     Not surprising.  They have to do something about Suns blatant
rumour spreading techniques (Mr. Sun says Sure WE are UNIX now..., NFS
for file sharing, much better than Apollos)

>0. The paper is out of date by two years at least.  Many things have chagned
>   since it was written.

     On both sides.  Apollo for the better as well.

>1. The paper is marketing propaganda with a thin veneer of technical knowledge

     Actually, Apollo NCS IS faster than the Suns.  I have the source,
compiled NCS and NIDL on the Suns, and it WORKED first time.  NO bugs
(unlike NFS for machine X).  Not only that, it took 3 Sun 4 file
servers to equal the speed of 6 DN3000's for the Mandel demo.

>2. Never use the paper's arguments in a debate with someone who understands
>   Sun's RPC: you'll be cut to shreads.  The facts about Sun's RPC are often
>   out of date or inaccurate, the facts about Apollo's RPC are often 
>   technically acurate, but totally misleading.

     Totally agree with you there.

>There are two ways to compare Sun's and Apollo's networking systems, 
>technically and intuitively.  Technically would take many pages to handle in
>detail, but here is a quick inituitive comparison:
>
>Apollo's networking system is like VMS's file system; Sun's networking system 
>is like UNIX's file system.

     More accurate to say Apollo is like Multics.

>    VMS is a file system of features.  It directly supports all kinds of 
>    special purpose files, it has record based files and stream based files,
>    all kinds of files.  UNIX only has one kind of file, but it is flexible
>    and easy to use. VMS has features; UNIX has simplicity.  

     Nonsense.  The Apollo system is Object Oriented.  I would agree
with a higher learning curve to master it.  However, it is MUCH more
flexible and MUCH easier to use.  (A file type to mount Vaxes at the
root level in abouth 2 weeks, including learning time)

>    If you make a feature by feature comparison, Apollo's networking system
>    has more features than Sun's.  But, if you want simplicity and ease of
>    use, then Sun's is the winner.

     I disagree, see above...

>Apollo's RPC is like PASCAL; Sun's RPC is like C.

     NIDL lets you do Pascal OR C.  You are confusing the interface
with the implementation.  Yes, the Apollo NCS is written in Pascal,
but then so is the OS.  And not standard Pascal, but one with many C
like extensions.  The Sun version is C to the core.

>    Since it was designed as a teaching language, PASCAL forces you to write
>    programs the way the designer wanted programs written.  C is a language 
>    designed to to what the programmer wants, right or wrong.  PASCAL says 
>    "this is the best way to do things", C says "here is a flexible language, 
>    do what you want".

     NCS is a can be used with C including a C interface definition.
Are you sure you used it ?

>    For example, Apollo's RPC forces you to use their beefed up UDP transport
>    protocol.  Sun's RPC allows you to use UDP or TCP as a transport protocols,
>    your choise.  Apollo makes it very difficult to use any interface
>    language except NIDL.  Sun provides RPCGEN, but also makes it easy to
>    roll your own interface language, if you want to.  Apollo makes it very 
>    difficult to use any data representation except their's (NDR).  Sun makes
>    it easy to replace their representation (XDR), if you want to.

     NCS does that because the machines are TRANSPARENT.  Try
interfacing with an IBM using Sun.  Yech, write your own.  For NCS, if
it exists on the machine, use NIDL and all is OK :-)

>Finally,  Sun's RPC system has always been an open system; Apollo's is just 
>now opening up (and even now, is opening in a marketing/buzzword sense of
>the word).
>
>    The know this is an emotional issue, but lets face it.  Sun's RPC source
>    code has been freely distributable for three or four years.  Apollo's
>    source is still not freely distributable.  Apollo uses a proprietary,
>    private communications protocol.  Sun uses public protocols when possible,
>    and publishes their protocols, when they are forced to create their own.

     Apollo now publishes all their stuff.  And they currently use 2
protocols (TCP, and Domain) with others to follow.  Sun ???

     I do not work for Apollo, nor for Sun.  I have used both.  And
just as a final note, RPC is NOT a good way of distributed processing
anyway.  If they were smart, they would offer Message passing, or even
Linda, or maybee all of them :-)

	maurice
Maurice Sharp MSc. Student
University of Calgary Computer Science Department
2500 University Drive N.W.			      sharp@ksi.cpsc.UCalgary.CA
Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4	                   ...!alberta!calgary!sharp