Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Single user vs. shared (was Re: Killer Micros and vectorized code)
Message-ID: <2165@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 19 Mar 90 16:16:56 GMT
References: <51771@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <100598@convex.convex.com> <52661@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Mar18.023523.4034@ultra.com> <52817@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 37

In article <52817@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> brooks@maddog.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks) writes:

| By sharing your computer among a small group of people, large enough
| to bring the utilization level up to perhaps 50%, you end up with
| more computer, not less.  I do think that you should have your own
| X display station, however, this can not be switched between users in
| a millisecond or two.

  The problem with sharing a computer is that someone gets to be
administrator. And that means making decisions about software and o/s
versions which will impact users. On of the nicest things about a system
of your own, even is small, is that backups happen when you want,
upgrades happen when you want (and more importantly don't happen when
you don't want), and the configuration is dedicated without compromise
to the productivity of one user.

  Work which must be shared can be on shared machines, and should be.
But work which has a well defined interface can be done on a machine
setup to make it's one user productive. For example: my boss doesn't
care what editor I use to write a report, what version of the o/s, etc.
Nor what spreadsheet or other tool I use to bash the numbers. One person
uses 1-2-3 and Word in DOS, I use MicroEMACS and an awk script, someone
else uses vi and sc.

  A shared machine is always a compromise. The administrator does not
want fifteen editors, ten spreadsheets, etc, to keep working. We hit the
problem frequently that under VMS one user needs a new o/s version to
run one thing, while another user has no budget to upgrade another
package to the new o/s, or that the upgrade just isn't available.

  Workstations and central computers both perform valuable functions in
terms of productivity, and I don't think that any central system or
network will replace the workstation, or vice versa.

-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me