OT: OS/2, Linux and Windows (was Re: TZ)

[Simon Bowring]

>And?  SMP is not in advance of Linux'.  If I remember correctly SMP is
>only in the older versions of OS/2 server, not in the latest releases.
You remember incorrectly, SMP is in Warp Server for ebusiness - the 
very latest release from last year!

>Samba and Samba is the implementation to beat, even by Microsoft.
No, it only implements the less efficient "NetBIOS over tcp/ip"
transport, which isn't even the native SMB network transport mechanism.

Samba implements little or none of the SMD network management functionality, 
and very few flavours of the many SMB dialects!  It does enought to 
"get by" between linux and windows or OS/2!

>DOS support.... why?  The only realy need for /DOS/ support is, uhm...  You know,
>I can't think of a single reason to have DOS around any more.
Fair enough. I do still run some DOS tools (like our timesheet system,
some enbedded system development tools which aren't made anymore etc, 
etc).

Why?  Because they work and aren't broken so I don't need to 
fix anything or upgrade anything or bring dead companies back
to life to port their software to something else!

>> Much more in fact - OS/2 is much bigger than linux!
>
>    Define Linux.  Larger then the kernel?  Yes.  Larger than the kernel and
>bare minimum for user space?  Yes.  Larger than a good distribution (say,
>Debian with 2 CDs worth of packages), no.
Oh read the question! I was commenting on the amount of work required
to duplicate OS/2, which would be "too much"!

>> It takes a long time to unlearn 10 years worth of know how, and learn
>> something different (and often inferior).
>
>    Trust me, OS/2 is the inferior part here.
Ok, I trust you, you're right, what logic, do want to borrow some money?!

>    I find that quite the contrary.  In the past 5-6 years of using different
>versions of unix I have found that is has been one of the most consistent and
>user friendly environments I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

You must realise that this is an unusal position to take about unix! Even
amongst it's advocates there's certainly an awful lot of opinion to the 
contrary, unix is certainly powerful, but is rarely considered user friendly!
This opinion does little to back up your credibility!

Unix is chock full of inconsistancies: config tools vary unbelievably across
versions and distributions, config file locations change, common tool
command line options vary, there is a truly bizarre range of command line 
formats accross it's utilitioes, regular expressions are different accross many 
tools, no two X programs work the same way....!

>I have gone from SunOS on old Sparcs on my first Netcom account to working on FreeBSD
>at a local ISP to running Linux on my server at home and now work on Ultra-2's
>running Solaris 6 at a national ISP.  Until a few months ago I used the same
>editor, the same shell, the same configuration files!
If you really did use "the same config files" on all those disparate unixs 
systems then some of them didn't work! [e.g. sendmail.cf]

>    As for binary compatibility, what do you expect?  OS/2 doesn't run DOS
>programs natively so you expect FreeBSD to run Linux binaries?  Why?
I don't expect it to do anything, just commenting that binary
compatibility means that shrinkwrap software is a reality on this
system, not a suck-it-and see experiment!

>> OS/2 is nicely placed in in the middle, it's friendly (still has
>> the best GUI I've ever seen, despite it's warts),
>
>    GUI != user friendly.  CLI != user-unfriendly.  Simply put I find "cat
>mainlog.1.gz | gunzip | eximstats | less" 

No, try to understand the words - it's not more friendly, it's more powerful.
I like that sort of power, I do that sort of thing you show all the time under
OS/2.  I'm a programmer (mainly embedded systems, Unix, OS/2, DOS and
and VMS) and I use many filters and command line tools (including the gnu 
tools which I wouldn't be without). But none of this has prevented me 
undertsanding the difference between the words "user-friendly" and "powerful",
what happened to you?


>    Wow, that describes Linux.  You get REXX.  I get perl, python, tcl/tk, C,
>C++, two versions of Pascal.
Shell, Perl, and tcl, awk etc are ill conceived difficult write-once 
languages with unthoughtout syntax based on a  weirld mix of C and 
punctuation characters. Python is good, but doesn't come from the unix 
community and isn't at all a standard part of unix (or even a defacto 
part of it) - I've got the OS/2 version on my system - big deal.

REXX is a nicely designed simple powerful extensible (ANSI) standardised 
systems scripting language integrated into the OS so that it is used as 
the OS's scripting language (the equivalent of shell scripts) AND (using 
the same interpretter) is available to apps as their scripting language 
(which they can extend), so you have the same scripting language in your 
OS, editor, comms program, word processor etc, etc, with the same 
syntax and same behaviour (because its the same interpretter).

>> OS/2 is more networking neutral than Unix or windows (which
>> prefer their own "native" networking to a greater extent than 
>> OS/2)
>
>    I beg to differ.  Haven't had any problems with my Samba mounts yet.
You really have no idea what I'm talking about have you? See other follow-ups
for some reasons!

>    Unix has pretty much standardized on Perl.  You'd be hard pressed to find
>one that doesn't come with Perl installed.  Maybe Solaris, I think that is it.
>Perl is available for OS/2 and Windows.  Perl is also a far cry more powerful
>than REXX ever will be.
Ha, ha ha ha! Perl is a powerful adhoc, write-only piece of junk, it's one of
the worst languages I have the misfortune to use, and is mainly used to 
guarantee programmers jobs by generating unmaintainable unstructured
unpredicatable, semi-portable software!

>In all the years I've used unix I've never had a need for shell script.  
So you're prepare to agrue the merits of shell scripts, without ever
having had to write one!

I started my unix usage when we implemented AT&T Unix System 3 onto a 
powerful 8Mhz 68000 based machine with a stagering 256 kB of RAM in the 
earkly to mid 80s - I have a lot of unix experience on System 3, 
System 5, Linux and Solaris, Sadly, I''ve had to write shell scripts.

I do think unix is the most powerful and complete 1970s style operating 
system ever developed - I prefer OS/2 despite it's warts because it's 
friedlier and more consistent, but is still powerful and it doesn't
feel like working back in the 70s!

>> Linux has appalling mutithreaded capability (one reason why Java has
>> taken so long to port and performs so badly under linux), OS/2 has
>> an efficent natively threaded scheduler, so Java runs faster on 
>> OS/2 than *any* other intel platform (until it hits the GUI, since 
>> graphics performace under OS/2 is usually fairly poor).
>
>    Threads?  Oh, you mean processes.  I used to think mutliple threads were a
>great thing but they really aren't needed.
Duh!  What you means is that unix is a 1970s environment that has never 
been comfortable at hosting threads which it was never designed to do!
(It's can get v.nasty when you mix threads with with the unix's primitive 
process and signal model of of multiprocessing).

Threads are efficient if done properly, way more efficient than processes
(there an argument a unix user will be at hoem with).  Java is making
big gains in the server market at the moment, butthis relies on
effieicnet use of server threads, so it's a shame linux won't be a 
contender until IBM fix their scheduler!

>    No, there aren't any good reasons for sticking with OS/2.
Ok you're right, I've seen the light I won't be using OS/2 
anymore. Thanks for the enlightenment.

You need to read "The Unix Hater's Handbook" - it's hilarious (even 
for unix lovers).

Simon