Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!tektronix!cae780!leadsv!laic!darin
From: darin@laic.UUCP (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Help us defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <183@laic.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 88 20:37:11 GMT
References: <90rrk@byuvax.bitnet>
Organization: Lockheed AI Center, Menlo Park
Lines: 79
Summary: succumbing to temptation

Ok, I have been staying out of the fray, but I will put in my two sense
worth (or as a recent DEC magazine said - 10 cents for uucp message :-)

I learned UNIX and VMS in school - both without instruction (and with
projects due in two weeks after start of class).  Right now, I spend
80% of my time as a VMS programmer (system utilities/management) and
the rest as a UNIX manager.

I must admit VMS was much quicker to pick up (after one hour tutorial).
I just kept trying a few commands until one of them worked (REMOVE vs. DELETE).
This part was not as easy as UNIX.  As a beginner, I found the
help equally useful (we had a help command on our unixes, as well as man).
The VMS editor at the time was EDT, which I abhored.  Most of the vt series
terminals on campus were used quite a bit, so I was forced to either
use line mode, or redraw a lot with ANSI-but-not-DEC compatible terminals.
Albeit, VI is no marvel of engineering, after a one-hour intro, I was able
to edit quite well on any terminal that happened to be open (especially my
$300 adm3a).  Later on, a friend and I wrote our own VMS editor just to
avoid EDT.  Now of course, I use TPU and/or EMACS (Emacs on UNIX/VMS/Amiga
all works the same).

However, after I became slightly proficient at both OS's, I found
UNIX to be much easier to keep learning new tricks and easier ways to
do things, such as pipes, job control, etc.  VMS however, I was pretty 
much stuck at my same level of competence.  When it got around to
doing system's level programming, I found UNIX much easier to use. To do
the same with VMS required ALWAYS yanking out the manuals, HELP was
pretty useless as it never told what I needed to know (such as
what parameter to put into an item list to $GETJPI).  UNIX online
manuals almost always told what you needed or else referred you to the
manual page that did.  Programming in C made VMS just that much worse.
Everything to all system calls usually required passing by reference,
passing null parameters, using descriptors, treating a 1 return code
as succeeding, etc.  I admit, if you program in MACRO, FORTRAN, etc.,
then you don't have to worry about these details.
I have only seen UNIX source once, and only then to track down what
I thought was a bug.  I have never used it to figure out how to do
something (although some people have implied that the manual pages
are useless without source code).

As far as system cost, bundles software, etc. I should point out that
there are quite a few machines here that don't have "necessities" or "luxuries"
for VMS, just because of limited budgets.  Some people have actually said
that they would have bought the "whatsit" package if it didn't cost $20,000
(they then went and bought it for a uVAX for ~$1000 :-)

I can probably summarize by saying that the learning curve on VMS starts out
steep, but quickly levels out, while the learning curve for UNIX is pretty much
opposite.  They meet in the middle somewhere.  Of course, as most people
have said, try to get a mix of both (our campus also had Burroughs with CANDE
which no-one knew how to use :-).  I haven't gone into too many details of
what I like/dislike about each system since enough people are bashing these
issues around.

> As far as the communities "rapidly switching to UNIX", as far as it goes
> on VAX's, the existing base of VAX's is (last time I checked) 60% VMS, 40%
> UNIX.  The new VAX's being shipped are about 80% VMS, 20% UNIX.

I read different and conflicting figures everywhere I look :-)  I do know
of at least one machine licensed for VMS, but actually running BSD Unix
(mostly because DEC used to not service machines with non-DEC software,
but this has changed), and quite a few machines originally bought with
VMS, but then converted to UNIX.  I suppose some figures take this stuff
into account, and others don't.  I have even seen some reports that
show x% UNIX when they meant ULTRIX.  Do they show the figures of VAXen shipped
without either one (to put someone elses unix on it)?

*** flame on - replies to this flame ignored ***
> So we can choose from either
> DOS, or whatever the MAC runs or VMS.

I myself, would prefer that MS-DOS, MAC, and other LemmingWare should
not be discussed in the same breath as real-operating systems:
VMS, UNIX, AmigaDos (well, perhaps Kickstart 2.0).

-- 
Darin Johnson (...ucbvax!sun!sunncal!leadsv!laic!darin)
              (...lll-lcc.arpa!leadsv!laic!darin)
	All aboard the DOOMED express!