Re: RFD: rmgroup comp.lang.eiffel, a defunct newsgroup dedicated to a dead non-language

["Larry J. Elmore" <ljelmore@montana.campus.mci.net>]

Doug Semler <dsemler@octavian.ics.uci.edu> wrote in article
<p9ohfy4q6c.fsf@octavian.ics.uci.edu>...
>
> If Unix isn't inferior to Windows, then why does the marketplace
> consistently chose Windows over Unix?  Are you a socialist who believes
> the marketplace does not make the most optimal choices?

It depends on what you are doing, what your requirements are. For many
jobs, Windows just can't cut it. Most web servers run some flavor of Unix,
as do most workstations. In these instances, it _is_ inferior. Many people
would argue that the MacOS is clearly superior to Windows (vastly superior
to Win 3.1), and in some ways, I agree with them. Of course, for a number
of historical reasons, Windows has the market share and a vastly larger
software base, so in that sense, it is superior (though mainly due to
Apple's recently abandoned policy of trying to keep the whole Mac market to
itself, thereby keeping 100% of a shrinking market share instead of a
smaller percentage slice (but of increasing size) of an increasingly large
pie).

One does not have to be a socialist to lament the fact that Microsoft
Windows is dominant on PC's. The code bloat of Win95 and slowdown in
performance (offset by more memory, bigger hard drives and faster CPU's) is
even worse than what has happened to many software packages. Because of
historical realities, nothing is likely to displace it anytime soon. Just
because it dominates the market doesn't mean that in many ways it's a pig!