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
Message-ID: <295@tree.UUCP>
Date: 1 May 89 21:10:51 GMT
References: <274@tree.UUCP> <635@eecea.eece.ksu.edu> <2333@rpi.edu>
Reply-To: stever@tree.PacBell.COM (Steve Rudek)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 48

In article <2333@rpi.edu> fargo@pawl.rpi.edu (Irwin M. Fargo) writes:
>In article <635@eecea.eece.ksu.edu> Terry Hull writes:
>>In article <274@tree.UUCP> stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek) writes:
>>>
>>>But I'll repeat:  Portability IS the
>>>enemy of excellence.
>>
>>To quote another USENETTER, "Bull."
>
>One way we might be able to clear things up here is if we change the phrase,
>"Portability is the enemy of excellence" to "Portability is the enemy of
>speed"  By making programs portable, you obviously have to make a compromise
It's the enemy of speed AND size AND functionality.  There is very
definitely a "good enough for UNIX" mentality.  For example, I read an
article about Wordperfect Corporation's porting efforts a couple months
ago.  The Wordperfect representative described how the unix ports are
finished month's ahead of the ports to the Macintosh, MS-DOS, etc because (to
paraphrase) "the UNIX ports can be done in C."  Well, yes, BUT they *could*
also be done in assembly.  Or, to be more fair, *all* the ports could be
done in C.  Except that we all know that if Wordperfect tried to do that
their product would flop!

It is a lot harder for the programmer to judge resource consumption
under unix ("Maybe it just *seems* slow because other users are hogging
system resources.").   But mainly I think there is a problem with significantly
lowered expectations by unix users--which permits a laziness on the part of
the vendors.  And the vendors all think:  *portability* is what UNIX is ALL
about!  At this point I'd guess there are MANY TIMES OVER as many 386/UNIX
users as OS/2 users.  But you won't see Wordperfect go out of their way to
do an assembly version of Word Perfect for 386 unix users.  AND, more
tellingly, you won't see them try and foist off a "portable" C version on
OS/2 customers.

THAT mentality is an horrendous problem for UNIX acceptance as it battles
OS/2 for the moribund DOS market.  So UNIX mainly gets second rate,
"generic" products whereas OS/2 gets all the "WOW!  I'm gonna buy OS/2 to
run THAT!" products.  Let me present my point a little differently:
virtually *every* application which is sold for 386 UNIX can be ported to
OS/2 with relative ease.  Hardly *any* application which is sold for OS/2
can be ported to 386 UNIX without a MAJOR effort.  And usually when the
vendor does elect to make such a port to UNIX it considers it "acceptable"
to give up significant performance and functionality in return for
future portability.

A very sad state of affairs.
-- 
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Steve Rudek  {ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac OR ames!pacbell!sactoh0} !tree!stever