Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!munnari!murdu!ucsvc!u8551087
From: u8551087@ucsvc.dn.mu.oz
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Help up defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <45@ucsvc.dn.mu.oz>
Date: 3 Mar 88 14:02:54 GMT
References: <2235@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Lines: 92
Organisation: The University of Melbourne


In response to a long article by Barry Shein which gets heavily into the
Unix-VMS war, I'd like to make the following comment.

Barry seems to view a campus as an organisations which supports the
department of Computer Science. While it may be true that a Unix environment
is the most appropriate for teaching Computer Science this is not 
necessarily the case in other departments. Also although Barry may not
realise it there are a myriad of administrative computing requirements, 
you know, Payroll, Alumni, Student Records.

Choosing computer equipment is no an easy task, but I would suggest that
the method should be to forget any pre-concieved ideas about systems you
would like, work out what is needed and then look for the system which
will best meet those needs.

There are one or two points Barry raises that I feel can't go unanswered so...

In article <2235@bsu-cs.UUCP>, bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:

> Unix is the premiere system for compute intensive areas, such as the
> sciences using Fortran. 

I find this hard to believe, that is if you're talking about good old
F77. A good compiler is essential to produce efficient code and to provide
a good development environment; "Syntax error - line xxx" isn't very helpful.
Try benchmarking it sometime! Unless you buy a decent Fortran compiler
for your unix machine, chances are you've got something which takes much
longer to do a:  DO 10 I = 1,100000
                   X = Y + Z
           10    CONTINUE
type loop under Unix than it would under VMS (on the same VAX 750) 
(and thats without optimization under VMS)

A VMS Fortran compiler has all these nifthy "extras" like useful compiler
error messages and OPTIMIZATION!!! - It doesn't matter if your CPU rates
half the MIPS if you only have to do a quarter of the instructions because
your compiler has been clever enough to optimize.

Its true that many of the utilities you take for granted on a Unix system
cost a lot of $$ for VMS, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

> The typical claim by the campus administrator is to point at all the
> myriad applications and big-name software that runs on VMS and doesn't
> run on Unix. ...No one on the campus has any need for any
> of the big-name applications the person is bragging about, you're
> running an academic environment, not a bank! 

I think you're talking about Computer Science here, Admin certainly need
a few "big-name" applications. Its suprising how useful a database can be
if you want to keep track of a few thousand staff members and tens of thousands
of current and past students. And you've no idea how nifty an accounting package
can be when your turnover is hundreds of millions of dollars. Spreadsheets also
come in handy if you want to do some budgeting or forward planning.

Admin aside, you may be suprised how often departments such as Psychology,
Medicine and Engineering would use a statistical package.

> VMS itself is not an interesting operating system to learn or study.

Most non computer science students (accounting, psychology etc) don't want
an interesting OS, they just want something that they can use easily.

> The claim that Unix is somehow less secure than VMS is a red herring.
> Unix offers sufficient security for campus systems, you're not the NSA.

OK, but would you want students (or other staff) messing with your payroll
records?

> There's some on-line help in VMS but it's designed to sell
> manuals or supplement them, the details are always missing
> (purposely.)

This is starting to get ridiculous, perhaps its all a conspiracy? :-)

> Decnet nearly completely locks you out of wide-area networking, such
> as the arpanet. 
> 
> And you can forget uucp and usenet entirely, which means no e-mail
> to vendors etc.

Thats funny, I would have sworn I'd logged into a VMS machine this morning.

> This is not a religious flame

Well you could have fooled me.

Sue McPherson
    U8551087@xvax.dn.mu.oz (VMS VAX 8650)
or  sue@murdu.mu.oz        (Unix Vax 750)

Software Contracts Group
University of Melbourne