22 Aug
2006
22 Aug
'06
4:14 p.m.
On Tuesday 22 August 2006 05:52 pm, Tony Duell wrote:
Actually that explains it pretty well, as there are any number of software
packages, both operating systems and applications, where I've felt like I
was fighting it more of the time than not -- which sounds like what you're
describing here.
And I'd really rather not. I have better things to do with my time.
On Monday 21
August 2006 05:50 pm, Tony Duell wrote:
I was using the term 'unix' generically, to include things lik linux
More usefully, I got to play with some fun toys
like transputer chips,
ECL logic, etc. And to use VAXen (I'll have to say, though, that I
still prefer unix to VMS...)
Why is that? I've no real experience with "unix" per se, though I do
run linux here on multiple boxes, and I don't
know a darn thing about VMS
(yet).
It's difficult to really explain, but things I like about unix are the
idea of I/O redirection and pipes, the fact that you can treat a file as
a stream of bytes (OK, unix would benefit from sturctured files too, but
under VMS I spent a lot of time convinicing the OS to let me do things to
the file that are trivial to do under unix), the ability to nest
subdirectories as deep as you like, and so on. Don't get me wrong. VMS is a fine system, and for
some applications it's
superior to unix. But that doesn't mean I have to like it for what I want
to do.
In what sorts of things might it be considered superior?
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin