Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!nic.MR.NET!eta!woods!rscott
From: rscott@woods.unix.eta.com (Richard Scott)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Religious OS arguments
Message-ID: <2882@eta.unix.ETA.COM>
Date: 24 Feb 89 00:17:56 GMT
References: <2685@eos.UUCP> <7612@venera.isi.edu>
Sender: news@eta.unix.ETA.COM
Reply-To: rscott@woods.unix.eta.com (Richard Scott)
Organization: ETA Systems, Inc., St Paul, MN
Lines: 71

In article <7612@venera.isi.edu> raveling@vaxb.isi.edu.UUCP (Paul Raveling) writes:
->In article <2685@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes:
-> ....
->We Unics should encourage these other OSes to prove their manhood
->and port their OSes and get them out of our hair.  Just think
->you too can relive the 60s.
-
-	You mean by using UNIX?   (sorry, I couldn't resist)
-
-
-	We're looking for application portability, right?
-
-	1.  We didn't have to even recompile or change [ugh] JCL
-	    to move from one machine running OS/360 to another.
-	    In case the '91 was down, we just ran the same batch
-	    of jobs on a model 75 -- or even a mod 40.
-
	So? This is comparable to me saying that my binaries which run
on the Sun 3/60 on my desk also run on a 3/280 in our lab. Both are
running SunOS, a variant of UNIX, (not even the same version, though).
Shell scripts run on both our Sun-3's and our Sun-4's, unmodified; if you're 
willing to recompile, C programs will also run on both, again unmodified.
This is nothing new; notice, however, we are both talking about machines
all made by the same manufacturer.

-	2.  It's been some years since I used VMS, but I can believe
-	    the same is substantially true across the VAX line,
-	    anywhere from Microvax through 8800.

	Ditto for Sun or any mfgr. of multiple-architecture UNIX machines. 
This really means nothing new.
-	
-	3.  Here's what prompted me to not keep quiet -- a small
-	    portion of a log file from today's "adventures" in
-	    portable software on UNIX:
-
-widgets
-
-    Dclock              Make failed; Xlib symbols unresolved despite -lX
-    Mailwatch           Make failed; Xlib symbols unresolved despite -lX
-    MenuBox             Made            Needed to hack includes for test
-    Xhp                 Make failed; syntax errors in header files
-    Xsw                 Make failed; missing include file
-    cpicker             Make failed; compilation errors in Bargraph.c
-    tblwidget           Make failed; syntax errors in Tbl.c
-    widgeteditor
-        extensions      Made
-        qp              Make failed; incompatible cmd line syntax for ld [cc] 
-        wedit           Make failed; incompatible cmd line syntax for ld [cc]
-    Widgetwrap          Make failed; depends on header file installation
-    xpalette            Make failed; undefined externals when linking
-
-	Not to mention that it was necessary to hack Makefiles for
-	most of these to get even that far.

	Ah, but you haven't told us how trivial it is for you to port code 
between the machines you talk about in ex. 1 and the machines mentioned in
your ex. 2 (i.e. IBM running OS/360 <--> VAX running VMS)? Complete software
compatability in the lines of machines *by the same manufacturer* is easy; UNIX
is good in that it gives you a *reasonably* portable platform between machines
of different companies. [vis-a-vis Bill Joy's keynote address at SUG, Winter '88]

-Paul Raveling
-Raveling@isi.edu


----------
rich scott (612) 642-8404 internet: rscott@unix.eta.com
eta systems, st. paul, mn     uucp: {amdahl,rutgers}!bungia!eta!rscott

"I've been on a calendar, but never on time" - Marilyn Monroe