[Info-vax] Variable declarations, was: Re: improving EDT

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 11/29/2016 11:32 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In article <o1itup$1r5d$1 at gioia.aioe.org>,
> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 11/23/2016 10:58 AM, Kerry Main wrote:
>>> Unfortunately, in the commodity OS world, due to the volume of
>>> monthly security patches, many Operations shops have adopted a
>>> "patch-n-pray" philosophy because there is no way the business
>>> will give the OPS folks the corresponding amount of time to
>>> re-test important applications.
>>
>> By commodity OS do you mean OS where software is available for and
>> security bugs get found and patched?
>
> He means an OS designed for the widest possible number of applications for
> the widest possible number of users.
>
> The consequence of that design is that it becomes impossible to actually
> fix design bugs but only issue patches to deal with specific consequences
> of them.  The end result of this is a constant flow of patches and an
> unstable platform.

I don't see general purpose platforms like Unix, VMS, Linux, Windows etc.
as being unstable.

> If a system is designed for a specific application, building actual security
> into it becomes much easier.

True.

But didn't such dedicated OS's become obsolete many decades ago?

Arne