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From: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: UNIX vs. the world (again) (was: Compilation listing from Sun ...)
Message-ID: <25849@lanl.gov>
Date: 17 Jun 91 18:07:27 GMT
References: <1991Jun15.143436.5574@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <25791@lanl.gov> <6373@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
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Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
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In article <6373@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>, ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
|> In article <25791@lanl.gov>, jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
|> > So why do we have to stick with the _first_ one that became portable? 
|> 
|> Same reason we stick with c**p like the internal combustion and Fortran.
|> Too expensive to re-tool.

All the more reason for those of us who are just switching _TO_ UNIX
to avoid doing so.  Expecially since what we are switching _FROM_ is
already better.

|> [...]
|> > Why not insist on a truly well designed, efficient, easy to use system
|> > - and then insist that _it_ be made portable.
|> 
|> Portability, like quality, is not something you can bolt on afterwards.

The UNIX is really a doom of major proportions.  You are saying that it
can _never_ be modified to be quality environment.

|> > If you 
|> > "administer" your own machine, it takes a higher percentage of your 
|> > time than any other micro system I've seen (or, so I understand from
|> > friends of mine that do so).
|> 
|> I'm sure your friends are wonderful people, but I ran SunOS 3.5 on a
|> Sun-3/50 at home for a year, and never did *anything* to it except
|> switch it on and off (ok, so I made backups).  [...]

I have absolutely _NO_ experience with standalone UNIX boxes.  So, from
your testamonial, I can only assume that the major problems arise either
from networking or system upgrades or both.  If you run a standalone
system, you can decide not to upgrade until the _new_ system offers
improvements that you desire - in a networked environment, one machine
upgrades, they pretty much all have to.  That's the major source of
grief from my perspective - every Sun OS upgrade makes the system 
slower (and brings my workstation down for 1-2 days during the upgrade).
The thing that most of the "system administrators" seem to spend most of
their time worrying about is the network - who knows why.

J. Giles