[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <fY6dnVwrmZASYa7NnZ2dnUVZ_jidnZ2d at giganews.com>,
	"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
> On 8/21/2012 9:25 AM, ChrisQ wrote:
>> On 08/20/12 21:17, David Froble wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Address the merits of Unix ..
>>
>> One of the great strengths of unix is that it is a system designed from the
>> start for programmers to be productive. The terse command and utility
>> set may
>> be a steep learning curve, but save so much time when you are familiar with
>> them. The overall philosophy of a single tool to do one job, with the
>> ability
>> to trivially pipe the output from one command to another could not be
>> simpler
>> in concept, but has real power to to do serious work.
>>
>> Now compare that with vms, which has limited functionality as shipped, a
>> laboured command language,
> 
> "Laboured????
> 
> If you bought VMS in the United States, or Great Britain,
> the command language was English.  

Shouldn't that be "English Like"?

>                                   In the U.S. we don't see VMS
> using the British but I assume that the British dialect can be accommodated.
> 
> If you want to copy something, COPY is your command.  Want to  print 
> something, just say PRINT. If you don't specify the file to be printed
> you will be asked for it!

When was the last time you had a conversation in English using single
words?  Or words with options separated by slashes?

> 
> If your native language is not English, VMS can accommodate you! 
> Chinese characters are a bit more difficult but possible.

Same is true of Unix.  If you think the names are to short, make your
own.  In any language supported by your keyboard.  Much the same way
people made the VMS commands shorter with additions to their LOGIN.COM.

> 
>>very expensive software dev tools and
>> languages and
>> there's really no argument as to which is the better for software
>> development.
>> VMS is a system designed for mission critical work, with reliability
>> stressed
>> over wide functionality and ease of use.
> 
> I certainly do not find VMS "difficult"!  OTOH, I do find Unix 
> difficult.  Terse and cryptic does nothing but annoy me!

And, as has been said a thousand times already that is because of
which one you chose to get experience with.  I and millions of other
Unix users think quite the opposite.

>>
> Had I been forced to use an ASR-33 Teletype to talk to a VMS system,
> I would hate it.

Didn't some people actually do that?  I have a lot of modules from
DEC that were in common use after the arrival of the VAX that still
supported tty loop instead of or in addition to RS-232.

bill 
 

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>