Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!mejac!orchard.la.locus.com!fafnir.la.locus.com!dana From: dana@locus.com (Dana H. Myers) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: How wrong is MS-DOS? (or: What is the definition of obsolete) Message-ID: <1991Jan16.065408.2834770@locus.com> Date: 16 Jan 91 06:54:08 GMT References: <343@bria> <11123@lanl.gov> Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Inglewood, CA Lines: 72 In article <11123@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes: >UNIX certainly has _more_ >tools, but the individual tools on MS-DOS tend to be more _powerful_. An assertion which can not be supported, but Jim tries anyway. >The tools on UNIX tend to be clustered into a few categories: > > 1) Trivial. These tools ('grep' is an example) perform functions > that are so simple that there is hardly an excuse for separate > tools to do them. I do a 'grep' perhaps once a month (and then, > only because 'ls' doesn't have a filter for file ownership in it). > In view of this fact, 'grep' also falls into the next category. Ok, so grep is trivial. I use it maybe 100 times as often as you do. Is it possible you aren't a typical Unix user? I guess 'more' or 'pg' are really trivial, too. What are you suggesting; one big tool, a massive, difficult to maintain behemoth, that implements all the functions which are currently broken into discrete, individually maintainable modules? Imagine the documentation on the 'Giles Shell'; goodness, it would be like taking 10 or 15 or lesser man pages and making them into one big page.... hmmm... is this supposed to be progress? > 2) Useless. These tools (and there are a lot of them) don't do > anything I ever need to do. A prime example is 'spell'. If > I _knew_ how to spell a word, I wouldn't have mispelled it. If you _knew_ how to use Unix, you wouldn't be saying all this absurdity. > My spelling checker on MS-DOS suggests alternatives so that > I can correct my error. It also has a built-in thesaurus, so > that I can find words (correctly spelled) that are better that > what I tried originally. Spelling checkers also fit into the > next category. There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone from providing an enhanced spelling checker for Unix. Your DOS spelling checker probably did not come with DOS; instead, it is a commercial product you bought (or maybe made a copy of) or a shareware product. > 4) Muscle. Since UNIX _requires_ a more powerful hardware base to > even get it running _at_all_, there are usually some things that > UNIX throws in that something like an XT _can't_ do. To be sure, > this is a bonus for UNIX. But, it's also costly. Things in this > category are exemplified by TCP/IP. Of course, TCP/IP is a DARPA > standard and is available on many systems - including MS-DOS. But, > on MS-DOS, you only pay for the software/hardware for TCP/IP if > you really _need_ the functionality. What are you saying? Most users don't by XT clones anymore. 286 and 386 machines are quite popular, even to DOS users. Certainly most Unix ports for the 386 platforms run nicely in what many DOS users consider a typical configuration for running DOS.... >Note: in order to disarm the usual ad hominem flame from UNIX proponents >I must tell you that I have used UNIX every working day for about a decade >now. I know it reasonably well. So don't hit me with the usual "he's >obviously never used UNIX and doesn't know what he's talking about" >routine. It won't wash. It would wash better than most of your "logical" arguments. I wonder what you call 'using Unix'. I won't say that you 'obviously never used UNIX' but I will say that you don't appear to really know what you are talking about. -- * Dana H. Myers KK6JQ | Views expressed here are * * (213) 337-5136 | mine and do not necessarily * * dana@locus.com | reflect those of my employer *