Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!enmasse!rclex!harvard!uwvax!geowhiz!larry
From: larry@geowhiz.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: net.decus,net.unix,net.usenix
Subject: Re: Favorite operating systems query
Message-ID: <452@geowhiz.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Jun-86 21:57:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: geowhiz.452
Posted: Sun Jun 15 21:57:27 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jun-86 02:51:56 EDT
References: <339@valid.UUCP>
Reply-To: larry@geowhiz.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
Distribution: net
Organization: UW Madison, Geology Dept.
Lines: 73
Keywords: VMS, Multics, UNIX, fanaticism
Xref: watmath net.decus:327 net.unix:8181 net.usenix:588

In article <339@valid.UUCP> sbs@valid.UUCP (Steven Brian McKechnie Sargent) writes:
>
>	1) For the VMS fans out there: what's your favorite feature(s) of
>	   the system?  Why do you like it?  How does it help you?

I think that the main complaints with Unix from VMSites are

1) the BSD fortran compiler is the worst excuse for a compiler the world has 
   ever seen (reports of 4 to 400 times slower than VMS fortran).

2) Related to (1), VMS fortran is a SUPERSET of ANSI Fortran 77 *and* is the
   defacto scientific standard.  There are very few scientific research 
   centers (remember science includes physics, math, chemistry; computer
   science is only questionably a science) that don't have Vaxen running VMS 
   with the VMS fortran compiler.  A great deal of established software depends
   on the extensions provided by DEC.

3) Likewise with DCL (Dec Command Language).  It's like sh with more obscurity.
   *Large* DCL programs exist (my father who is a physicist has a modelling
   program with an enormous dcl frontend, like 10-15K lines. Unfortunately, 
   stuff like this is not uncommon).  This could be solved by writing a dcl-like
   shell.

4) EDT - the VMS screen editor.  Somebody already fixed this by writing an emacs
   interface to emulate EDT.

5) Real time support.  Other than Masscomp's RTU, VMS is the only company that I
   know of which supplies real time support.

[From here on out they are my personal complaints; 1-5 were complaints that I
 have to listen to everytime I bump into a VMS person.  They are as of yet
 blissflly ignorant of #6].

6) File system.  Why, oh, why, must the Unix file system be so fragile?  VMS
   never loses your files.  And it's faster to boot up.  I have no idea what
   the difference is in design but somebody ought to have a look & see what
   could be done.

7) IPC. Shared memory, sockets, pty's, pipes, ioctls all over the place.  And
   the only one that's not been hacked in as an after thought is pipes. IPC in
   Unix bytes the giant weenie.  Talk to the guys at CMU, they've got all kinds
   of literature defending Mach based on this (and other design) problems.

8) Robustness.  VMS almost *never* crashes.  Unix crashes all the time.  You
   damn near can't survive without source because you're always fixing 
   something.  DEC has never handed out VMS src.  Unix is the ultimate example
   of "the quick fix solution"; those solutions always turn out to be wrong
   in the long run (trust me, this is the voice of experience talking. Sigh).

9) Related to (7), networking support.  Sockets are gross.  This isn't just
   my opinion, ask the DoD what they think of sockets.  Remote filesystems,
   remote devices, etc, are all being kludged in by every OEM in the field.
   Have fun trying to make them all work together.  Design?  We don't need no
   stinkin' design, we got 10,000 lines of code.

OK, now that I've got all the fanatics foaming at the mouth, let me throw in my
disclaimer.  I've been a Unix fanatic myself for the past 4 years.  I'm just
not blind to the problems that exist in Unix.  As a research vehicle,  as a 
development system, it's the nicest thing I've ever used.  However, I have 
real problems recommending Unix as a "users" system.   It needs a nursemaid
to survive properly.  Read net.mail - every time the postmaster at some large
site leaves his job the mail gets all fouled up.  What happened to programs
that run themselves, without being nursed?  Unix has too much folklore & 
guru-ness about it to be accepted into the mainstream.

-- 
Larry McVoy
-----------
Arpa:  mcvoy@rsch.wisc.edu                              
Uucp:  {seismo, topaz, harvard, ihnp4}!uwvax!geowhiz!larry      

"Just remember, wherever you go -- there you are."
 	-Buckaroo Banzai