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From: david@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: dsb unix vs. dec's vms
Message-ID: <3830@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Date: Sat, 23-May-87 00:18:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: elroy.3830
Posted: Sat May 23 00:18:56 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 18:49:50 EDT
References: <5828@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <34ab0e42.8be4@apollo.uucp> <688@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Image Analysis Systems Grp, JPL
Lines: 54

In article <688@bsu-cs.UUCP>, corwin@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Frommeyer) writes:
> 
> I just finished an extensive paper on system management philsophy, and
> it basically compares and contrasts Unix with VMS in about as thorough a
> study as I could manager without writing a book. In my paper I show how
> each system was designed with very different goals in mind, and that
> those goals molded and shaped the respective OS's right down to the
> internals. I go on to show how there can be no real comparison of the two,
> since they are aimed at such different target markets and to some extent
> have such different features.
> 
> The continual Unix vs. VMS battle (which is the subtitle for my paper)
> seems to be a bit foolish. The key words tt are used seem to be 'I like',
> and so it appears that a lot of what is being passed for objective data
> is in fact subjective opinion. 

I agree 100% with your analysis of of the OS battles.  You should pick
an OS for what you need done, not a religious reason.  The same goes
for programming languages.

> (...) VMS is a far more reliable
> system than Unix, and I am sure most Unix gurus sufficiently familiar with
> VMS will acknowledge this.

I would not call myself a "guru" but I have used both VMS and UNIX quite
a bit and I can't agree with you on this point.  It is a common argument
against UNIX and is not valid.  The reliablity of a system is more
closely related to the quality of the vendor who sells it.  I have found
that the Sun systems that I use crash a *LOT* less often than the VMS
systems (especially versions ending in an even number ).  There are a
few UNIX vendors out there who are very good at support and have very
clean systems, on the other hand there are a few really bad ones too.
People who get BSD UNIX direct from Berkeley and don't hire an adequate
system manager to support it get what they deserve, a poorly supported
OS.  VMS tends to have more Bugs just because of the shear size of the
OS and utilities, VMS VX.[0-1] is usually quite buggy and you are best
to wait until it stablizes before upgrading.

I have found each has its advantages and disadvantages depending on
your application but you can do almost anything in either if you
try hard enough.


> -- 
> Paul "Corwin" Frommeyer        "Experience is no substitute for competence."




-- 
	David Robinson		elroy!david@csvax.caltech.edu     ARPA
				david@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (new)
				seismo!cit-vax!elroy!david UUCP
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