Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!bill
From: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: R.I.P. Byte
Summary: Here comes the devil's advocate
Message-ID: <674@proxftl.UUCP>
Date: 30 Aug 88 08:03:42 GMT
References: <402@mfgfoc.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)
Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale
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In article <402@mfgfoc.UUCP> exodus@mfgfoc.UUCP (Greg Onufer) writes:
: Has anybody seen the latest issue of Byte?  I was searching long and hard
: for some redeeming social value in that magazine the other night when I
: started to glance through Pournelle's column....  and the bastard basically
: said that Un*x was good for nothing except poorly written multi-user
: databases.   His biggest complaint was that Un*x couldn't run a lot of his
: MS-DOS applications well enough (two products were mentioned, I think).

No: his biggest complaint was that he had various things he
wanted to do, that *only* his MS-DOS applications would do these
things well, and Unix wouldn't run those programs.

You have misrepresented him. So here, in his own words, he is:

	"There may be a good "DOS under Unix" system somwhere out
	there, but I guarantee you I don't have one, or if I do
	have it, the instructions on installation are beyond my
	ken.  What I've got is a Unix that can -- sometimes --
	run some DOS programs, provided that the DOS programs are
	*very* well behaved...

	Of course, I can also run standard Unix programs, but why
	bother?  All the Unix programs that do the things I want
	to do have been pretty small potatoes compared to what's
	available on DOS.  Sure, Unix has unique features.  If
	you have a real need for multiuser access to a very large
	database, Unix is fine.  If you've simply got to have a
	bunch of users working off one central system, it's
	wonderful.  There are things Unix can dp that DOS
	wouldn't dream of.  On the other hand, most Unix
	application programs are very vanilla in features (for
	example, almost no Unix program knows anout color), they
	are overpriced, and hard to use.  I've looked at a dozen
	or more Unix application programs, and for the kind of
	work I do, there aren't any that I'd prefer to what I
	have on DOS (and for that matter, I had better word
	processors and accounting programs on CP/M than the stuff
	Unix users put up with).  Most PC users will not care to
	give up what they have on DOS for what they can get from
	Unix.

	This whole situation puzzles me.  I've had a dozen people
	try to explain why you can't simply fire up Unix and use
	it as the master operating system to run multiple DOS
	programs, and the usual answer is `You can, but nobody's
	done it.' None of them can answer the next question."

First, for those of you who don't know: Jerry Pournelle is a
*computer user*.  He is not a data entry clerk, nor a computer
programmer.  He is a guy that uses a computer to get a job done.
He knows a little about programming, but he makes no claim to
being a professional.  All he cares about is: "What can a
computer do for me?"

I, as a computer professional, read his column religiously.  No,
I do not like much of what he writes.  It is boring and chatty.
But, when it comes down to it, *he* (and his kin) pays my
salary.  So, when he bitches, I listen.

So, let's look at the substance of his complaints:

	1) There does not seem to exist a good way to run
	   arbitrary DOS programs on a Unix box.  Or more than
	   one of them at a time, as a good Unix ought to.

	2) The Unix applications he wants to use are weak
	   compared to DOS applications.  For that matter, in
	   word processing and accounting, they are weak compared
	   to CP/M applications.

	3) Unix can do some wonderful things, but not the things
	   he wants to do.

	4) Unix applications are overpriced.

	5) Unix applications are hard to use.

	6) He implies that Unix system administration is
	   unnecessarily complex.

Well, how many of you want to defend Unix against these
complaints?  Of them, 1) and maybe 6) seems to have changed with
the introduction of the 386i; the other things are still
more-or-less true, and until the price of Unix based DOS
application equivalents becomes reasonable, will remain
relevant.

While *I* wouldn't use DOS for anything at all, if I could avoid
it, I agree completely with him that, for a person whose sole
interest is what, of the things *he* wants to do, he can
accomplish, Unix is not the right system.

---
Bill
novavax!proxftl!bill