Favorite operating systems query

[Todd Aven]

In article <339 at valid.UUCP> sbs at valid.UUCP (Steven Brian McKechnie Sargent) writes:
>
>	1) For the VMS fans out there: what's your favorite feature(s) of
>	   the system?  Why do you like it?  How does it help you?

In article <452 at geowhiz.UUCP> mcvoy at rsch.wisc.edu (Larry McVoy) writes:
> I think that the main complaints with Unix from VMSites are

> 3) Likewise with DCL (Dec Command Language).  It's like sh with more obscurity.
>    *Large* DCL programs exist (my father who is a physicist has a modelling
>    program with an enormous dcl frontend, like 10-15K lines. Unfortunately, 
>    stuff like this is not uncommon).  This could be solved by writing a dcl-like
>    shell.

DCL (which stands for Digital Command Language) is, like /bin/sh and variants,
inappropriate for 10-15K programs. DCL, sh, csh, etc. are *interpreted*
languages, and hence are REAL SLOW. The reason that command languages are
used so widely is that one has no choice but to learn an operating system's
command language, while on the other hand most people trying to do research
hate like hell to learn a new programming language and will avoid it by writing
10-15K lines of command language 'script'. CLs are typically very forgiving
of syntactical mistakes, too. I don't quite understand what problem is to
be 'solved' by creating a DCL shell for UNIX, but I think that it would
be neither interesting nor useful. On the other hand, a UNIX shell for
VMS has been very helpful to me for those times that I just 'had to have a
pipe' (:-).


> 4) EDT - the VMS screen editor.  Somebody already fixed this by writing an emacs
>    interface to emulate EDT.

Why would anyone want the full-screen interface of EDT in GNU Emacs???
I admit that I use EDT, but ONLY in line mode for a quick one-line change.
I'm trying to get SED to work so I never have to touch EDT!


> [From here on out they are my personal complaints; 1-5 were complaints that I
>  have to listen to everytime I bump into a VMS person.  They are as of yet
>  blissflly ignorant of #6].

My bliss is due to knowledge, not ignorance, of #6.

> 6) File system.  Why, oh, why, must the Unix file system be so fragile?  VMS
>    never loses your files. 

BULLSH*T! I take great offense to that comment, having once spent an entire
weekend trying to straighten out a royal mess. VMS allowed me to rename the
root directory to be a sub-directory somewhere else. I was an idiot for doing
it, but that proves that VMS is not idiot-proof. No OS is!

>    And it's faster to boot up.  I have no idea what
>    the difference is in design but somebody ought to have a look & see what
>    could be done.

By the time you added the UNIX equivalent to RMS (Record Management Services)
onto your favorite brand of UNIX, you'd have crashes as the rule, not the
exception. The difference in design is actually in the philosophy. VMS was
not so much designed *for* the VAX as it was designed *with* the VAX. The
basic VAX-11 processor was designed concurrently with it's operating system.
My best guess is that UNIX was designed for the user, and the guru's have
learned to tweak the source to the benefit of the machine. 

> 8) Robustness.  VMS almost *never* crashes.  Unix crashes all the time.  You
>    damn near can't survive without source because you're always fixing 
>    something.  DEC has never handed out VMS src.  Unix is the ultimate example
>    of "the quick fix solution"; those solutions always turn out to be wrong
>    in the long run (trust me, this is the voice of experience talking. Sigh).

Come now, where are you getting your information? VMS crashes when people
start poking into its guts as much as any other system (believe me!).
You can survive without VMS source by groaning and moaning and waiting for
the next release of VMS, which ain't so pleasant at times. But DEC absolutely
***DOES*** provide VMS source. It is distributed on microfiche under most
licensing agreements, and for a price (a BIG PRICE) you can buy it in
machine-readable form. As far as quick-fix solutions, I've written a few
for VMS. I've even written some based on information provided in the fiche.

> OK, now that I've got all the fanatics foaming at the mouth, let me throw in my
> disclaimer.  I've been a Unix fanatic myself for the past 4 years.  I'm just
> not blind to the problems that exist in Unix.  As a research vehicle,  as a 
> development system, it's the nicest thing I've ever used.  However, I have 
> real problems recommending Unix as a "users" system.   It needs a nursemaid
> to survive properly.  Read net.mail - every time the postmaster at some large
> site leaves his job the mail gets all fouled up.  What happened to programs
> that run themselves, without being nursed?  Unix has too much folklore & 
> guru-ness about it to be accepted into the mainstream.

Just in case anybody has gotten confused about which side I'm really on,
read on...

VMS is the nicest operating system I've ever used (out of a sample of
about 7, which isn't all that many). Period. I just wanted to clarify
and correct the points made in the parent articles.  Most of the
complaints that I hear fro