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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 11/30/2016 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?

Yes.

 >                    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.

They run all sorts of mission critical stuff on them.

>>> 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.

General purpose is a much broader concept than commodity.

VMS, commercial Unixes, z/OS, i are all general purpose but not
commodity.

Arne