[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2012-08-23 23:43, ChrisQ wrote:
> On 08/23/12 20:14, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>
>>
>> The purpose of an operating system, of a database or other record
>> management system, and most other frameworks, is to abstract the
>> lower-level interfaces. An operating system is a bag of device drivers,
>> and a selection of tools and abstractions.
>>
>> A file system can be built upon, but is not necessarily dependent on
>> sector-addressable hard disk storage systems.
>>
>> The file system abstracts the disk storage.
>>
>> Few folks want to deal with programming disk storage hardware directly,
>> and (going forward) the baroque interfaces and constructs are
>> undoubtedly and eventually headed for deprecation. As non-solid-state
>> rotating-rust storage dies (slowly), so too will the interfaces. And I'd
>> prefer to move that abstraction up further, and dispense with the
>> hassles inherent in RMS-style interfaces.
>>
>> Will some folks need sector-level access? Sure. Some folks still use
>> assembler, or machine code directly, and not the higher-level languages
>> and their abstractions. But most have moved on from there.
>>
>
> Very much so. If you consider that the basic function of an operating
> system
> is to provide services to applications, then the more generic and abstract
> you can make those services, the more applications will be able to make use
> of them...

No problem with that. It's just not "the lowest level", nor is it always 
that every problem looks like a nail.
But it works exceedingly well most of the time.

	Johnny