Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!beta!unm-la!unmvax!nmtsun!hydrovax
From: hydrovax@nmtsun.nmt.edu (M. Warner Losh)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Help up defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <1514@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 88 06:26:38 GMT
References: <2235@bsu-cs.UUCP> <45@ucsvc.dn.mu.oz>
Reply-To: hydrovax@nmtsun.UUCP (M. Warner Losh)
Organization: NMT Hydrology program
Lines: 63

In article <45@ucsvc.dn.mu.oz> u8551087@ucsvc.dn.mu.oz writes:
>
>A VMS Fortran compiler has all these nifty "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.
>

Also there is the CICS vs RISC issue.  10sun MIPS == 4 VAX MIPS (Source:
Digital Review.  uVAX 3 is three times uVAX 2, while SUN 4 is 4 times a
uVAX 2!)

>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 Fortran and C compilers I have used on UNIX aren't worth the disk space
they take up if you are trying to learn the language!  However, Pipes
are very nice, too bad VMS doesn't have this feature.  Would make looking
at LONG directories MUCH easier...among other things....

>> 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? :-)
>

Well, the online help is MUCH MUCH better than all those blessed MAN pages.
If you are a new user, you can't even find out what all of the commands
that have documentation on them are.  (If you are an expert, and don't need
this information, there is always 'man -k \*' which nobody ever tells
any new users about....

>> 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.
>

Says who?  There are several DECnets that span the ENTIRE GLOBE!  Please
check your facts before random flaming. :-)

>> This is not a religious flame
>
>Well you could have fooled me.
>

Me too.  Sounds like sour grapes to me.

>    U8551087@xvax.dn.mu.oz (VMS VAX 8650)
>or  sue@murdu.mu.oz        (Unix Vax 750)
You have a choice            ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Unix vs. VMS holy Wars.  Just Say No.  Both have their merits.  Both have
their faults.  There is no "ideal" operating system yet (except may GNU :-)

-- 
bitnet:	losh@nmt.csnet			M. Warner Losh
	warner@hydrovax.nmt.csnet    ! Don't know if this works, let me know.
csnet:	warner@hydrovax.nmt.edu
uucp:	...{cmcl2, ihnp4}!lanl!unmvax!nmtsun!warner%hydrovax