Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!philmds!nlgvax!hans
From: hans@nlgvax.UUCP (Hans Zuidam)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Apple //GS, words from their world
Message-ID: <225@nlgvax.UUCP>
Date: 15 Mar 89 17:45:05 GMT
References: <1981NU140487@NDSUVM1>
Reply-To: hans@nlgvax.UUCP (Hans Zuidam)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga
Organization: Philips Research Geldrop
Lines: 47

In article <1981NU140487@NDSUVM1> NU140487@NDSUVM1.BITNET writes:
>
> [Lots of rude remarks and foul language regarding the AmigaDOS filesystem
>  and GURUs deleted --hz]

First off, it is not really necessary to use foul and rude language to argue your
points. It does not add anything to my understanding of you case.  And it certainly
doesn't solve your problems.

On the file system employed by AmigaDOS. Sure it is slow, sure it is not the
most reliable in the world and so on. No one ever mentiones the fact that I
can cram upto 31 letters in a file name, that I can put as many files in a
directory as I like and. that the filenames is case insensitive so I can make
my file names easy readable and still easy typable (is that English?), that I
am not bound by some magic number. For me personally these things throw the
balance to the right side. 

Commodore managed to implement a faster one for harddisks which lives besides
the slower one and gives you upto fives times (don't know the exact figures)
more performance. This shows us two things: Commodore addresses problems and
tries to solve them. And somehow the system is designed such that it allows
for these changes. Ever wondered what will happen as OS/2 goes to longer
filenames?

GURUs are indeed bad practice. Moreover, they are bad marketing. The Mac and 
Atari ST display nice cute not offensive bombs. You hardly notice them on the
screen. The reaction (also mine) when a Mac crashes is "oh the machine crashed",
but when my Amiga crashes "OH MY AMIGA CRASHED". 

So, did you ever heard of "trade-offs"? Trade-offs are the decisions one has to
make when building something with finite resources. As you might (or might not)
know those resources are numbers of people, amounts of money, available time and
so on. All in all I must say Commodore (and Amiga before them) did a VERY good
job given their constraints.

Rereading your message I was a little bit shocked about your language. Once again
such wording is not called for and I advice you to read Gene Spafforts monthly
articles on good net behaviour. If you cannot find them, I can send you a copy.

					Hans

As always, I speak for myself.
-- 
Hans Zuidam                                    E-Mail: hans@pcg.philips.nl
Philips Telecommunications and Data Systems,   Tel: +31 40 892288
Project Centre Geldrop, Building XR
Willem Alexanderlaan 7B, 5664 AN Geldrop       The Netherlands