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From: mmm@weitek.UUCP (Mark Thorson)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Unix from a snob's point of view!
Message-ID: <298@weitek.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 11:28:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: weitek.298
Posted: Thu Oct 17 11:28:21 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Oct-85 06:52:12 EDT
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 55
Keywords: valid and invalid criticisms

It's become soooo fashionable to put down Unix.  So why don't you ever hear
valid criticisms of Unix?  You always hear chicken---- like:

1.  It has cryptic command names.  (So what?  They work!  Alias them if
    you'd rather say 'search' to call 'grep'!  What do you want, a menu-driven
    shell?  It would be easy to give you one if that'll put this stupid
    criticism to rest!)

2.  It has bad documentation.  (Have you tried to read it?  It is oriented
    to working programmers so it does tend to be terse and easy to scan.
    But if you need some one to hold your hand, there is an abundance of
    books at your local technical bookstore.  The books range from ultra-
    beginner to advanced topics, specialized to generalized, verbose "user
    friendly" to dry reference tomes.  What do you want?  Unix has been
    described from every conceivable angle.)

3.  It's a hack.  (Dead wrong.  Operating systems from the manufacturers are
    hacked --- RSX11 for an extreme example.  When I started using Unix ten
    years ago, most multitasking operating systems were much larger.  They
    were also highly restrictive.  Things like the command interface were
    part of the OS.  The SYSTAT program (in DEC parlance) was part of the OS.
    The file copy program was part of the OS.  The revolutionary thing about
    Unix back in 1975 was that it only supported critical functions in the OS.
    Everything else was a disc-resident program.  Thus you could write your
    own shell, your own SYSTAT, your own everything.  And people did.  Unix
    in 1985 is encrusted with all kinds of cute additions.  The Unix environ-
    ment today is the OR function of everbody's ideas on how to 'improve' the
    shell and the system utilities.  BUT THE UNDERLYING ELEGANT STRUCTURE IS
    STILL THERE.  You can delete the extensions if you wish, but it's easier
    to turn them off.  When I was given my account on the Weitek VAX, the SA
    had provided me with .cshrc and .login files that turned on most of the
    cute features. Like the funny characters after the file names when you
    do an 'ls'.  I immediately deleted those files and logged back in.)

I'm not love-blind to the weaknesses of Unix.  There ARE valid criticisms of
Unix, but you won't hear them from these pseudo-intellectual snobs.

1.  Unix does not support the traditional scientific computing environment 
    well.  This means compute-bound FORTRAN programs.  If you want to program
    in FORTRAN or if you want to run crunching FORTRAN programs like DRACULA,
    get VMS.  At Weitek we run one VMS machine solely for this reason.

2.  Unix does not support the traditional business computing environment well.
    This means sequential I/O bound COBOL programs.  Unix does not even have
    sequential I/O.  It's random-access I/O is so fast that it is used to fake
    sequential I/O.  But it does not fake it as fast as the real thing.  So
    get an IBM computer if you want that (or look up a back issue of Computer
    Graphics to see how Tom Farrin made Unix support true sequential I/O).

3.  Unix security is eggshell-thin.  In practice, Unix is usually run about
    as securely as other OSes.  But it is intrinsically easy to break.  This
    is one problem that Unix can't run away from.  As Unix matures the other
    problems will become less important, but this one will become more.

Mark Thorson  (...!cae780!weitek!mmm)