Martin writes:
> Is it just me, or do I detect a lot of animosity towards
> UNIX in the HP3000 world?
 
Yes.  It's just you.  Take your medication and all will be
well again ;->
 
Your point is well taken, but I would not align animosity on
just the HP3000 patrons.  My MVS, OS/400, and VMS friends
have equally low opinions of UNIX and it's 1,204,567
derivatives.
 
I'd like to make a few modest observations:
 
1) *Most* folks who like UNIX have very little *detailed*
exposure to other operating systems (this may be a side
effect of the prevasivness of UNIX in academia).  Without
real-world exposure to the day-to-day demands on a system,
one cannot make a valid comparison.
 
The converse of this applies.  Many folks on proprietary
operating systems have little exposure to UNIX.  However,
the ratios are different.  My informal surveying indicates
that MPE hounds who have *any* UNIX experience can install
and configure UNIX systems, and write simple programs.  The
average UNIXphile could not begin to do this on a
proprietary system, and thus does not have the insights to
make a valid comparison.
 
My favorite war story for this topic concerns a meeting I
was trapped in two years ago.  The resident UNIX bigot (who
had extremely little exposure to alternate OSs) began
proselytizing, and sang the praises of recent UNIX advances
including FIFO files, journeled file systems, late-binding
shared libraries and more.  My laughing out loud didn't
improve his opinion of me, and when he asked when MPE was
going to achieve any of these features, I replied "Early
1980s" (I didn't know exactly when each of these features
were added [journeled file system was 1987] but most were
there when I started my HP3000 career in that time frame).
 
2) Fear motivates.  For those who have invested decades
mastering a proprietary architecture, who are in fact more
intimate with their operating system than their spouse, UNIX
is threatening.  It means starting over.  It means being a
relative novice again.  It means limited career
opportunities or career backsliding.  This is no excuse, but
I can see why a select few individuals are openly hostile.
But more importantly . . .
 
3) Familiarity breads contempt.  Fear rules the uneducated
and inexperienced.  For those of us with UNIX experience (I
installed my first HPUX system back in the mod 80's) we
see the differences clearly.  UNIX has been around longer
than MPE, but yet it has no unity of design, no rigid
adherence to data protection, and relative lack of
scalability.  I have repeatedly offered a cash reward to
anyone who can find or make me a "UNIX Happens" bumper
sticker, since this succinctly describes how UNIX was
*never* designed, but just kinda happened.  Others have called
UNIX "the original computer virus", "the worlds largest
contributed software library", "digitized anarchy [Copyright
1990, Guy Smith, all rights reserved]", and "proof that
evolution doesn't work".  Familiarity with this "lack of
design and direction" is what spawns justified contempt.
 
4) Evolution:  When I visited Westminster Abby, I stood on
Charles Darwin's grave (he's buried under the floor in the
church).  When my father pointed out that I, of all people,
stood on top of Darwin, I concluded that Darwin's theories
were bunk.
 
UNIX is very good at one thing:  it is an evolutionary
playground.  Being the predominate operating system on
college campuses (when did VMS fall?) UNIX has had more
experimenters and hackers, with the largest unfettered
mindset, of any OS.  This has led to many exciting
innovations.  It has also led to many crippled programs and
mongoloid subsystems.  Commercial systems cannot evolve as
quickly as UNIX due to the limited human resources that can be
applied.  This is somewhat counter balanced by the fact that
commercial systems are developed by experienced programmers
and not a gaggle of freshman hacks.
 
The point is that UNIX is only one half of the evolutionary
cycle.  UNIX spawns the mutants, the genetic variants, and
occasionally produces new traits that increase survivability
(networking, portable programming disciplines, small kernel
designs).  The other half of the evolutionary cycle, which
UNIX ignores, is the killing off of monstrous offspring
(cryptic shell scripts, poor security, fragile file
systems).  UNIX has become the Darwinian impossibility, an
otherwise healthy creature with stunted limbs, a beautiful
stallion with three lizard heads.
 
What I find exciting is that proprietary platforms are
performing both halves of the evolutionary cycle (they
always have) but with a twist:  They are acquiring traits
of other species, including UNIX, but only the ones that
improve the breed.  This is like evolution in fast forward.
Bleeding edge encampments will suffer UNIX indignities to
experiment with new tools, utilities and applications.
Proprietary platforms can take their time and choose those
new tools which didn't main the first users.
 =======================================================================
Guy Smith                                Voice:  804-527-4000 ext 6664
Circuit City Stores, Inc.                  FAX:  804-527-4008
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The thoughts expressed herein are mine and do not reflect those of my
employer, or anyone with common sense.