Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pacbell!sactoh0!tree!stever
From: stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on
Summary: UNIX is at a disadvantage since UNIX programmers won't use assembly
Message-ID: <268@tree.UUCP>
Date: 15 Apr 89 08:03:06 GMT
References: <7632@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <256@jwt.UUCP> <7697@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Organization: TREE BBS (916)-349-0385 Sacramento, Ca
Lines: 19

In SOME article SOMEBODY WRITES:
> >>We all hear horror stories about how resource-intensive OS/2 is, and

I don't normally frequent this newsgroup so I probably won't be around for
any followups--but I couldn't let this pass without speaking out on something
that's been bugging me for some time. 

I would LIKE for UNIX to win out against OS/2.  I feel that UNIX is at a
tremendous disadvantage, though, for a reason that I've never seen
discussed:  UNIX programmers and companies which are selling to the UNIX
marketplace are so caught up in keeping their products easily portable between
different UNIX machines that they generally make little or no effort to
optimize their code via assembly.  They write everything in C and a well
written 100% C program generally can't hold a candle to a well written
assembly program--the compilers just aren't that good and they never will
get that good since the UNIX compilers themselves are caught up in the
portability trap.

Portability is the enemy of excellence.