Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!aucis!bnick
From: bnick@aucis.UUCP (Bill Nickless)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Why Unix is good (was Re: Unix bigotry) LONG
Summary: But...
Message-ID: <140@aucis.UUCP>
Date: 16 Feb 89 18:04:44 GMT
References: <117@spectra.COM> <692@cvbnet2.UUCP> <3101@ficc.uu.net> <285@bnr-fos.UUCP>
Lines: 28

In article <285@bnr-fos.UUCP>, schow@bnr-public.uucp (Stanley Chow) writes:
> There are lots of other points againist Unix:
> 
>   - Non-portable code.  I know the truism "Unix & C are the most  
>     portable system & language". I have no knowledge about the portabiity
>     of Unix itself (the many versions of it) but the horror stories I
>     have heard (and read about in the net) makes me think twice.
>     (I am not saying it is impossible to produce an implementation of
>     Unix that is nicely protable or that all C programs are inherantly
>     non-portable, just that current practice does not).

At least with UNIX you have a CHANCE at writing semi-portable code!  The
netnews software, for instance, written on one machine is installable on
the many variants of machines, even running *nix's from different vendors.

For all the "horror stories" you hear of, there are many more instances
of a clean, well done operation.  How many people complain and post to the
net because their system came up right on the second (or first?) try?

Besides, what might constitute a "horror story" for one person might be a
five minute "oh, yeah, right" for someone else--depending on what the first
impressions were (C compiler bug vs. renamed header file) and on what you
try to do to fix it.
-- 
Bill Nickless                    Andrews University Computer Science Department
...!sharkey!aucis!bnick or bnick@aucis.UUCP                  Unix Support Group

              "Help!  I'm locked up in this .signature factory!"