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

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 11/30/16 8:40 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 11/29/2016 11:32 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> 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.
>
> Have you ever run any of them?  Windows is the worst, but many of the Linux
> distributions are just as bad.  Every week the OS is slightly different.
> You can't count on the base platform remaining the same.

We're back to that hogwash again. I have had Windows Server Systems that
ran for months when I was mobilized with no one to hold their hand.  BSD
boxes, too.  Linux, not so lucky.  The only Linux I ever had in
production was setup for a Bio professor and had to be rebooted every
couple of days.  Some of them seem a bit better today.  Oh, yeah, I
left that job over a year ago.  They have not hired a replacement yet
(politics at its finest) and all the stuff I left behind is still
running just fine.

>
>>> 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?
>
> No, what happened was people decided security and stability weren't worth the
> cost at that point.  Commodity systems are just so incredibly cheap, it is
> very seductive.
> --scott
>

And like it or not, most commodity systems can be setuo to be both
stable and secure.  I think Dave isn't the only one who doesn't get
out much.  :-)

bill