Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!ariel.unm.edu!spectre.unm.edu!john From: john@spectre.unm.edu (John Prentice) Subject: Re: Compilation listing from Sun F77 References: <1991Jun10.234931.5147@ariel.unm.edu> Organization: Dept. of Math & Stat, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Message-ID: <1991Jun11.100327.2529@ariel.unm.edu> Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 10:03:27 GMT Lines: 39 In article khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman fpgroup) writes: > > an operating system for people who grove on lots of little utilities). > >Yes. It's proponents count that as a feature (combined with the usual >arguments about the joys of shells, piping, and empowering programmers >to build what they want). > >I don't happen to subscribe to such ideals, for whatever that's worth. > I have to agree with Keith here, I don't care much for the UNIX approach to little utilities either. Coming from either the supercomputer or PC worlds, I feel like I have taken a giant step into the past everytime I encounter UNIX. This must have been a hot operating system in the early 70's, but it leaves alot to be desired as a modern operating system. Looking at it from the supercomputer perspective, it is just not as efficient as other operating systems like CTSS. It is also less functional as a rule. All I can say UNIX has over CTSS is standardized mediocrity. Comparing it to PC's, UNIX as an operating system is certainly an improvement over MS-DOS, but the utilities are a bloody joke. The word processor on my old XT is better than almost anything I can get on UNIX (this is slowly changing. Now if only OpenWindows could manage to keep a window up reliably!). This old UNIX hacker philosophy of small utilties is in my opinion an anachronism, more appropiate to the small memory slow machines of the past than to the modern workstation or supercomputer. I would dearly love to see it discarded. Along those lines, I would love to see Fortran compilers which provide all the features that I now have to run half a dozen UNIX utilities to get. I get them on the Cray, I wish I could get them on the more user friendly (or at least less expensive) environment of my workstation. Arghhh.... John -- John K. Prentice john@spectre.unm.edu (Internet) Computational Physics Group Amparo Corporation, Albuquerque, NM