Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!teklds!zeus!bobr From: bobr@zeus.TEK.COM (Robert Reed) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: AEGIS/UN*X Message-ID: <1809@zeus.TEK.COM> Date: Mon, 8-Jun-87 17:18:37 EDT Article-I.D.: zeus.1809 Posted: Mon Jun 8 17:18:37 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jun-87 05:46:11 EDT References: <870608041836.190078@HI-MULTICS.ARPA> Reply-To: bobr@zeus.UUCP (Robert Reed) Organization: CAE Systems Division, Tektronix Inc., Beaverton OR Lines: 96 In article <870608041836.190078@HI-MULTICS.ARPA> Giebelhaus@HI-MULTICS.ARPA writes: You really should spend as much time in the DM as with Emacs before trying to pass judgement. Well, that's just not the way I operate. I find as a matter of course that I start pushing the limits of whatever tool I'm using rather quickly, whether or not I am able to use the full breadth of its capability. I am therefore willing to dig in order to make use of the facilities as they exist. I was therefore able in fairly short order (albeit cursing and swearing the whole time) to come up with a macro in debug to print ascii-z strings (i.e., strings terminated by NUL) which debug, amazingly enough, knew nothing about. The point of all this is that despite my willingness to hack in order to develop sufficient tools in a given environment, I come very quickly to conclusions about the effectiveness of those tools in providing a reasonable environment. Some tools rarely get in my way (e.g. Gosling Emacs). Some tools constantly get in my way (e.g. AEGIS, DM, debug, etc.) I don't have to suffer through complete emersion before having a good gut feeling about DM. Either you have not given Aegis much of a chance or your requirements are very different from mine. One very quickly runs out of gas strictly within the DM. Its editing facilities are a joke. I'm sure the DM editor satisfies novice text entry needs OK, but I mostly edit documents and code. I require things like electric-C mode, tags, background compilation and error walkthrough, and other things which the DM editor does not support. I can do things with an Emacs package driving the UNIX dbx debugger that would make users of debug drool with envy. The thought of doing a major software project under standard BSD just makes me cringe, though. Funny, I have the same reaction to doing it under a strictly AEGIS environment. It is true that I have spent time around some of the people who helped develop Ada ... Well, there's part of your problem right there :-) I'd also rather have a slower robust machine than a fast piece of trash. Me, too. That's why I put up with firing up Emacs to do text editing rather than using the infinitely faster to start DM editor. I really have troubles believing that someone would like UNIX better when Aegis has DSEE, tb, compilers with real error messages, an operating system designed with some conventions, ts, dmpf, debug, and many more 1st and 3rd party products. I absolutely detest "segmentation error" and "memory fault". Whoa, what a mouthful! I know people who refer to it as "dizzy." It sure promises a lot, but I've heard nothing but complaints from people who've tried to use it (I, fortunately, haven't had to). Other implementations of UNIX have a perfectly reasonable analog to tb, called core files and one of a number of debuggers, including adb, sdb and dbx. Of course, these don't work under SR9.2.3. I can't fault the compiler error messages other than for their parsing difficulty (remember, I prefer to use the Emacs next-error function to automatically open and position at the errors). The slur about conventions is just that. There are many conventions within the UNIX domain, from the definition of regular expressions to the "small is beautiful" philosophy of UNIX tools. Further, I don't look at as Aegis or UNIX. I look at is as one operating system. I wish I could. However, the "glue" between the two is so spotty in some places that I'm constantly getting stuck in the cracks. Besides, claiming to prefer AEGIS but defining that to be AEGIS with DOMAIN/IX is in some sense cheating. If AEGIS is so good, would you prefer it if none of the UNIX tools were available? If not, is it simply the tools you find valuable? Or is it the philosophy that belies the tools and makes them play well together that you desire? I personally view AEGIS as a step to the side, founded on a few good ideas (like the networking scheme), but ultimately a dead end that is currently being backtracked into a more mainstream approach, so that those good ideas can be preserved in a more flexible environment. I always have both shells up on my dm and will switch between them constantly. Even from a terminal I usually start up a /com/sh from the csh which [I] suspend and unsuspend as I need it. It is not because I find the Apollo csh incomplete, but because I find the unix csh does not contain all the functionallity of /com/sh. What's missing? Is it tb (whose equivalent functionality Apollo defeated by not initially providing core files and adb)? The unspoken comment here is that you run csh by default. Why not /com/sh? Others have suggested that UNIX is obsolete by AEGIS standards, but here we have an AEGIS advocate who requires UNIX tools, down to the default command processor. Apollo has done a few things right, and they stand out like bright shining jewels amongst a sea of crud. -- Robert Reed, Tektronix CAE Systems Division, bobr@zeus.TEK