[Info-vax] report of the last "rendez-vous autour de VMS" (2-FEB-2024)

[Dan Cross]

In article <uvv0nq$38qe2$2 at dont-email.me>,
Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>On 4/19/2024 4:49 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> In article <uvu841$33rl6$2 at dont-email.me>,
>> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 4/19/2024 11:51 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>>>> In article <uvttut$31g69$1 at dont-email.me>,
>>>> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>> On 4/18/2024 7:05 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>>>>>> In article <uvrpvg$2dbgu$3 at dont-email.me>,
>>>>>> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>>>> On 4/17/2024 11:29 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Wed, 17 Apr 2024 22:27:58 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>>>>>> But VMS could not wait years for a new CPU.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> VMS wasn’t “waiting” for anything. It was customers waiting for VMS.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes. Because VSI ported to a CPU that was ready. Instead of to a CPU
>>>>>>> that may be ready some day in the future.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ARM is ready right now.
>>>>>
>>>>> You can buy an ARM server or rent an ARM VM in a public
>>>>> cloud if you search for it.
>>>>>
>>>>> But very few of the VMS customers will have ARM servers
>>>>> or ARM VM's today.
>>>>>
>>>>> So even though ARM would have been better than Itanium,
>>>>> because it is possible to buy a new one, then it would
>>>>> still have been a market disaster as VMS would still be
>>>>> "that weird OS that requires different HW than the
>>>>> rest of our stuff".
>>>>
>>>> I see you omitted the rest of my post in which I
>>>> largely agreed with you.  The point was that you are
>>>> mistaken in asserting earlier that ARM is not ready.
>>>> It absolutely is.
>>>
>>> No. In this context being ready means that the CPU
>>> has a position in the market where VMS users will consider
>>> it an acceptable platform - and it does not. Maybe it will
>>> in 10 years, maybe in 20 years. But not today.
>> 
>> That might have been what you _meant_, but that's not what you
>> _said_.
>
>I said that it was not ready.

And you are wrong.

>You made some assumptions about what I meant by ready.
>
>Some assumptions that was wrong.

Not really.  I'm not in your mind, nor is anyone else other than
you.  If you want people to know what you are thinking, then it
is on you to state that clearly and unambiguously.  What you
_actually_ wrote was:

|Yes. Because VSI ported to a CPU that was ready. Instead of to
|a CPU that may be ready some day in the future.

Note that this was in reference to ARM and you wrote about
"readiness" in the present tense.  ARM, the CPU, and systems
built around those CPUs, are "ready" by any reasonable
definition right now.  If what you meant to say was that these
systems don't have sufficient market representation for a VMS
port, then you should have said that.  If what you meant to say
was that these were not "ready" 10 years ago when the VMS to
x86 port started, then you should have said that.  But if you
just make a general statement that "ARM isn't ready" then you're
just wrong, doubly so since that's not the same thing as, "the
ARM server market isn't ready for a VMS port."

In other words, it's on you to accurately represent what you
mean.  If you don't do that, don't blame others when they
correct your misrepresentations of the current server landscape.

>>         What _I_ mean and what I said is that server-class ARM
>> machines exist, and they are ready for production use now, and
>> they are eating into the x86 server market. 
>
>I think that is common knowledge.

Perhaps, but that does not mean that you are aware of it.  You
are so often wrong on the deeper technical specifics that I see
little reason to simply take your word for it, particularly when
you write the exact opposite.

>> that they are useful for VMS.
>
>Meaning that it is irrelevant for the topic of what VSI should
>have ported to.

As I said above.

Again, you cut off part of my words.  The full sentence I wrote,
of which you only quoted a fragment, is: "That doesn't mean that
they are useful for VMS."
(https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/YCdFLLzW/report-of-the-last-rendez-vous-autour-de-vms-2-feb-2024#post24)

>> Again, you omitted the context around what I wrote, in which I
>> said that the "readiness" of ARM was irrelevant, as x86 will
>> remain with us for decades to come.
>
>Yes, because it was pointless.

No.  It was exactly the point.  Your statement about ARM, you
know, the one that you actually wrote, was wrong.  I corrected
it.  I know that have a very hard time accepting it when people
point out that you are wrong, but that's your flaw, not mine.

>It does not matter that x86-64 is currently #1 and will be around
>for decades. What matters is that most sites does not have
>ARM servers today.

Ah, but I didn't say that they did.  You don't get to have it
both ways.  You don't get accuse making others of bad
assumptions regarding things that you wrote rather plainly, and
then put words into their mouths.

	- Dan C.