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From: rda@epistemi.UUCP (Robert Dale)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Unix and the casual user
Message-ID: <318@epistemi.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 26-Oct-85 08:12:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: epistemi.318
Posted: Sat Oct 26 08:12:19 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Oct-85 06:23:16 EDT
References: <540@qantel.UUCP>
Reply-To: rda@epistemi.UUCP (Robert Dale)
Organization: Epistemics, Edinburgh U., Scotland
Lines: 38

In article <540@qantel.UUCP> israel@qvax2.UUCP (Paul Israel - Renegade@ex2564) writes:
>
>   If there is indeed one universal truth about UNIX, it is that it was
>not designed for casual users. ...   To make 
>the best use of UNIX, you really need to KNOW it. There are uncounted
>tricks one can use to really do something efficiently that aren't
>properly documented in the standard manuals supplied.
> ...
>   There is nothing inherently wrong with this. UNIX was designed for providing
>programmers a useful environment for program development. Where things start
>going bad, however, is when one takes that extra step of using UNIX not merely
>as a tool in developing commercial (mostly business) products, but as a
>commercial product itself. Business systems work best when they are kept
>simple, and optimized to the needs of the business, in general making them
>as easy for the business in question as possible to implement, learn, and
>deal with on a day-to-day basis. UNIX is not optimized for such applications,
>particularly database processing, a major necessity for business applications.
>UNIX is far more sophisticated than the average business machine user
>requires, and is generally not as fast in handling transaction processing
>as most systems designed for the purpose.

I really find this debate interesting, but I'm not sure I really see what
it's *about*.  I've talked with this about some colleagues here, and we come
to the same conclusions:  exactly what is it that makes UNIX inefficient and
unsuitable for commercial environments?  A friend has likened UNIX to a base
that can be used to build other operating systems on top of:  by providing
suitable sets of aliases and links, you can select whatever subset of the
sophistication provided by UNIX that you require.  UNIX's un-user-friendly
sophistication becomes an underlying flexibility that can be taken advantage
of when required.  Sure, UNIX may not be optimized for particular
applications:  but just how much extra efficiency would a system
so-optimized really buy?  Is it worth it?


Robert Dale

	...!seismo!mcvax!ukc!cstvax!epistemi!rda