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From: wcs@ho95e.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: why learn UNIX
Message-ID: <1305@ho95e.ATT.COM>
Date: Sun, 1-Feb-87 21:57:46 EST
Article-I.D.: ho95e.1305
Posted: Sun Feb  1 21:57:46 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Feb-87 02:12:15 EST
References: <2083@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1238@frog.UUCP> <4221@utah-cs.UUCP> <1977@ncoast.UUCP>
Reply-To: wcs@ho95e.UUCP (46133-#Bill.Stewart,2G202,x0705,)
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs 46133, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 34

In article <1977@ncoast.UUCP> btb@ncoast.UUCP (Brad Banko) writes:
>How much does dec pay these guys to knock Unix in favor of VMS?  VMS is 
>like an advanced MSDOS for minicomputers... Unix is sheer brilliance,
>simplicity of design & function...
.........
>I don't have to sell Unix to these non-believers... either they retire, or
>they will have to learn it within the next 5 years, because in the free
>market, productivity and standardization are the restoring force, and with
>this force, Unix has been the single stable eigenstate for the past 10+years.

Ok, so I like UNIX too, and I' rather not do development on VMS (or
--OH, NO--- TSO, or MS-DOS), but VMS does have its good points.
In the real world, there's a *lot* of adequate-quality software serving
business needs, and while you or I may not think COBOL-written
accounting programs are any fun, a lot of businesses need accounting,
and it's a lot harder to do high-performance transaction processing on
UNIX systems than on VMS.  Similarly, for number-crunching, I'd rather
have the flexibility of C++ to work in, but there are a lot of
heavy-duty F0RTRAN scientific subroutine packages that I'd rather reuse
than rewrite, and a lot of scientific programming can be done
adequately without good recursive control structures, and nobody's ever
claimed f77 was a model of optimum high-speed code generation.

While VMS version changes are probably more painful than UNIX version
changes, you can change hardware without changing your object code,
and that's worth a lot.  There are some obvious costs to staying with
DEC hardware, but they do a good job of supporting their customers, and
that keeps them, and VMS, in business.

You know all the disclaimers I'm supposed to add here.


-- 
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G-202, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs