Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!necntc!necis!mrst!sdti!mjy
From: mjy@sdti.UUCP (Michael J. Young)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Unix vs. OS/2 (was RE: Pournelle on Unix)
Message-ID: <200@sdti.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jan 88 21:30:21 GMT
References: <11156@brl-adm.ARPA> <10091@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: mjy@sdti.UUCP (0000-Michael J. Young)
Organization: Software Development Technologies, Sudbury MA
Lines: 33

>In article <11156@brl-adm.ARPA> GUTHERY%ASC%sdr.slb.com@RELAY.CS.NET
>>(guthery%asc@sdr.slb.com) writes:
>>1) Here are some O/S goodies that stock OS/2 (now playing on my desk)
>>has that stock Unix (also playing on my desk) doesn't have:
>>	- built-in light weight processes blended compatibly 
>>	  with heavy weight processes 
>>	- runtime dynamic linking and demand loading
>>	- shared global memory segments
>>	- file locking by byte region
>>	- standard system calls from drivers
>>	- periodic signals

You forgot some:
	- A toy file system
	- An inability to examine process status (a la ps(1))
	- An inability to kill an errant process
	- A multitasking philosophy that permits the foreground process to
	  preempt normal background processes (try running two compilations,
	  one in the foreground screen group, one in a background one, and
	  see how fast the background process completes!)
	- A command interface that is as nice as MSDOS (granted, CMD.EXE
	  was designed to make people WANT the Presentation Manager)
	- EDLIN (yes folks, it's still there)

Maybe if AT&T worked a little harder, they could create a new Unix standard
that has some of these neat features (they could call it System "V--").

Note: :-) :-)!
-- 
Mike Young - Software Development Technologies, Inc., Sudbury MA 01776
UUCP     : {decvax,harvard,linus,mit-eddie}!necntc!necis!mrst!sdti!mjy
Internet : mjy%sdti.uucp@harvard.harvard.edu      Tel: +1 617 443 5779
"Are we having fun yet?" -- Zippy