Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!emory!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!src.honeywell.com!msi.umn.edu!sctc.com!stachour
From: stachour@sctc.com (Paul Stachour)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: A tirade about inefficient software & systems
Message-ID: <1990Oct29.232733.2065@sctc.com>
Date: 29 Oct 90 23:27:33 GMT
References: <9886@milton.u.washington.edu> <=YN6UN5@xds13.ferranti.com> <8460@scolex.sco.COM> <11R6593@xds13.ferranti.com>
Organization: Secure Computing Technology Corporation
Lines: 33

>In article <8460@scolex.sco.COM> seanf (Sean Fagan) writes:
>> >> DON'T make every application do everything under the sun.  Do the 
>> >> essential operation, do it well, and make it efficient!
>> >Bravo!

>> I agree.  And don't make your OS do everything, if you can make the
>> applications do it for you.  Just my opinin, though...

Here I must totally disagree.  Putting things in applications that
belong in the OS is one of the worst forms of development known.
Every application developer puts them in.  And the cost is enormous.
And the speed is horrible, because no-one has enough time to check
performance and optimize correctly.  And the reliability is horrible
because because it's not checked and reused.  And the reliability
is even worse because when the application fouls up, it crashes
the whole thing.

Done correctly, putting it in the OS (and paging it in when needed,
so that all applications don't pay for a feature they don't need)
is the performant, correct, consistant way.  And it's the cheapest.

I've spent soo-much time re-doing in applications software things
that should have been done in the OS.  And when I got through,
it was of much lower quality than I was capable of.

But when people insist on using programs that are not really
operating systems and calling them OS's, then we all have problems.
...Paul
-- 
Paul Stachour         Secure Computing Technology Corp
stachour@sctc.com      1210 W. County Rd E, Suite 100           
		 	   Arden Hills, MN  55112
                             [1]-(612) 482-7467