Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!decwrl!petunia!polyslo!jdudeck From: jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: OS/2 vs. Unix Message-ID: <260293cb.3cd3@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> Date: 17 Mar 90 19:45:14 GMT References: <1990Mar16.222205.9749@comm.WANG.COM> Reply-To: jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo Lines: 56 In article <1990Mar16.222205.9749@comm.WANG.COM> lws@comm.WANG.COM (Lyle Seaman) writes: >> MS-DOS wasn't!!!!!!!!! Thus OS/2 was created!!!! > >I can't believe that OS/2 was created. It shakes my faith >in a benevolent God. OS/2 must simply have happened, one of those >inexplicable mysteries that plagues mankind. Oh well, maybe I can >blame IBM... > >Besides, OS/2 is just warmed-over MS-DOS. I'd rather have TRS-DOS 4.0. I am really enjoying this discussion, because I have great hopes for OS/2's future. It *sounds like* everything I want in an OS for my 386. But, on the other hand, I was reminded recently by another netter of Frederick Brooks' wisdom in the book, The Mythincal Man Month. He has a chapter in it entitled, "Self-Discipline--The Second-System Effect". I quote: "An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he is doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. "As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next time". Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems is ready to build a second system. "This second system is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other... "The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile"." Just looking at OS/2 it is hard to not think of it as being somebody's "second system". Still, I don't think that it is all that bad. It's something with tremendous potential, but the complexity is making it very difficult to develop and really finish. On the other hand, Unix is big and complex, too, and it has taken a long time to get where it is. But it started out simple. The difference is that Unix started off with a good design that has lent itself to incremental evolutionary improvements without destroying the design. MS-DOS was a very poor place to start, and such add-ons as Windows will never make it into a better system. Hence the impetus for OS/2. OS/2 is not an evolutionary change to MS-DOS. It is a completely new system, with a "DOS compatibility" appendage. What amazes me is that what most users seem to want from OS/2 is the ability to use it as a multitasing DOS system. Everyone seems to be complaining that the current version only has *one* compatibility box. The value of OS/2 is not in its compatibility box! -- John Dudeck "You want to read the code closely..." jdudeck@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu -- C. Staley, in OS course, teaching ESL: 62013975 Tel: 805-545-9549 Tanenbaum's MINIX operating system.