Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!dg!dg-rtp.dg.com!lewine From: lewine@dg-rtp.dg.com (Donald Lewine) Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer Subject: Re: Why use U* over VMS Message-ID: <1089@dg.dg.com> Date: 29 Oct 90 20:07:35 GMT References: <1990Oct25.160937.28144@edm.uucp> Sender: root@dg.dg.com Reply-To: uunet!dg!lewine Organization: Data General Corporation Lines: 47 In article <1990Oct25.160937.28144@edm.uucp>, geoff@edm.uucp (Geoff Coleman) writes: |> Well any O/S who's language of choice for opening and controlling |> devices is FORTRAN (or BLISS) ala VMS has definite drawwbacks. This can also be considered a feature. If you are a C programmer then it is obvious that UNIX is well matched to C. On the other hand if you program in FORTRAN, BASIC, PASCAL, or ADA, then VMS does very well. If you want to build a complex application in a combination of programming languages then VMS is quite good. I will admit the the VMS call-by-descriptor mechanism is poorly supported by VAX C. |> The other obvious downfall |> of VMS from my point of view was the need to worry about the inifinite |> combination of file types (fixed length records, fixed block size) versus the |> UNIX philosophy of a file is a file is a file. Again, one man's bug is another's feature. If I want to print an ISAM file under VMS the print spooler will do it for me. The fact that the system supports many record types means that the appplications programmer does not have to. A C program can read any format as stdin and VMS's Record Management Service (RMS) converts it to new-line delimited strings. In UNIX it is not possible to support anything but flat ASCII files without special code in the application. That is why most UNIX systems have only flat ASCII files. This may be fine for software engineering but it is not what the Data Processing world wants. These are only my humble opinions. I have spent many years writing applications for both VMS and UNIX. I like them both but for different reasons. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Donald A. Lewine (508) 870-9008 Voice Data General Corporation (508) 366-0750 FAX 4400 Computer Drive. MS D112A Westboro, MA 01580 U.S.A. uucp: uunet!dg!lewine Internet: lewine@cheshirecat.webo.dg.com