From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-04-11 14:49:51 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!newsrout1.ntli.net!news.ntli.net!proxad.net!freenix!enst.fr!melchior!cuivre.fr.eu.org!melchior.frmug.org!not-for-mail From: "Alexander E. Kopilovich" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language) Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 01:47:18 +0400 (MSD) Organization: Cuivre, Argent, Or Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lovelace.ada-france.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org 1081720043 243 212.85.156.195 (11 Apr 2004 21:47:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 21:47:23 +0000 (UTC) To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org Return-Path: In-Reply-To: ; from "Dmitry A. Kazakov" at Sun, 11 Apr 2004 12:31:06 +0200 X-Mailer: Mail/@ [v2.44 MSDOS] X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p7 (Debian) at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 Precedence: list List-Id: "Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6985 Date: 2004-04-12T01:47:18+04:00 Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > ... Unix is that sort of half-baked OS. Tools do not replace > the OS. But what UNIX and later Microsoft shown, one can well sell tools > and call them OS. Well, half-baked... but weren't half-baked food products popular in supermarkets? Quite similar situation: making a product from raw components may be expensive in terms of workforce and time, while turning to a good restaurant may be expensive in terms of money; at the same time half-baked products may provide optimal compromise in many cases. > > In more technical terms, Unix pay much more attention (and provides much > > more means) to interoperation between separate processes. > > You definitely mean fork and copying file descriptors. Indeed, an excellent > way of interoperation. Actually I meant pipes in first place. > > In classical IBM > > mainframe OSes all processes were really separated from each other, and > > when a need emerged to establish some kind of cooperation between parallel > > processes it always was a pain and required the skills far above the > > ordinary programmer's level. And that was right and good approach those > > times and for typical applications. In RSX (DEC PDP-11) situation shifted: > > it became much easier to establish cooperation between parallel processes > > (at the cost of slightly weaker separation), but it still required > > programmer's skills above average (although not "far above" any longer). > > And you intentionally do not mention VMS which had uncounted ways of inter > process communication. Well, I have no personal experience with VMS, I have read its general docs but no more. But: 1) VMS appeared (as far as I know) when Unix was already known and already gained some popularity; 2) VMS ran on VAXes, which were near mainframes (well, somewhere between mainframes and minis) in many aspects, including cost and availability; 3) VMS was not portable in any sense. I think (from the docs I have read and other assorted sources) that VMS was quite good OS, although some of its features surprised me by their seemingly unnecesessary complications, for example a mixture of rollin/rollout with virtual memory. But nobody, including DEC, did attempt to give this OS an independent status, that is, to loosen its dependance upon VAXes. And subsequent MicroVAXes weren't too successful and widespread. What followed was Cutler's migration to Microsoft and then appearance of Windows NT. It was said once (or more than once) that Windows NT has the heart of VMS, legs of Unix and the face of Windows. Not discussing here the "legs" and "face", I believe that metaphor for the heart had some grounds. The bottom line of that VMS story is that DEC did not qualify to true heavyweight and therefore was unable to maintain strong influence in the wide market (like IBM did), and at the same time it did not let competitors to use the potential of VMS another way that letting Cutler to go to MS. > > In > > Unix the concept of interprocess cooperation was made one of central > > system concepts, and it was made routinely accessible for all users. It > > became possible and easy to use tools/utilities in concert, not in > > sequential order via external data files. > > Come on, in UNIX everything is a file. Even locks are files... Regargless of what is was at the system level, for an application programmer the concept usually was a stream. > > Networking was not a strong side of > > those OSes - it was quite expensive and required highly skilled system > > administrators, which often weren't available. SNA, and even DECNET looked > > like monsters. I think that with those kinds of networking we would still > > have Internet in science fiction only. > > Yes, we would have one global distributed OO networking system with nodes in > PCs. One would need no ftp to get a file. One would even have no files, but > persistent objects of different types... Besides that this is a hardcore idealistic dream, this means that regular users would be deprived from the basic low-level abstraction. > >> What new gave UNIX and Windows to us in recent 20 years, except for > >> awk and viruses? > > > > They gave radical extension of user base, which stimulated investments, > > which, in turn, stimulates hardware vendors, which results in dramatic > > decrease of hardware prices. Well, they did not exactly *gave* us all > > that, but they substantially participated in that. > > Which features of UNIX and Windows gave that extension? Availability of these OSes and accessability of the features, which are/were important for general/mass end-users and corresponding applications. A quality in strictly software engineering sense was not among those features simply because it was not among the most important things for that audience. > What makes you think > that LSI-11 under RSX would be worse than IBM PC under CP/M? At the same price and quantities? Perhaps it would be better. Even RSX was not necessary - more restricted and simple TSX would be better choice for many beginners. But it was not there at these conditions. > That extension would happen anyway, but on a much higher level. This is a pure guess, and I think it is wrong guess. Anyway, we aren't going to rewrite history. > >>> Those innocent people were often too stupid, > >>> easily lying and sometimes even intentionally damaging cables. > >>... > >> Come on, I never heard of PC users chewing cables. > > > > It was in pre-PC time - when IBM mainframes and DEC and HP minis reigned. > > I suppose that users of those computers were no less innocent then PC > > users, weren't they? > > No. Being that time a system *manager* you just suffered from the disease > all managers have. (:-)) Well, I see, you never seen intentionally damaged cables, and you find it hard to believe in that. You find it easier to assume that the teller simply suffered from the Manager Disease or UserPhobia. The concept of innocent users appears more important then other things. > The problem is that 0.001% of community can produce 60% of mail traffic. > So it is not 99.999% who are responsible, but the system, which allows > that. The "system", which allows that is not Windows or Unix but the Internet. > If the OSes and their services were developed at a minimal level > of responsibility there were no way to produce spam in its current volume. > There are elementary ways from prevent that. I don't know which elementary ways you mean, but I'm sure that at least at the current stage, any elementary way of that kind that will not broke the service to the end, will be immediately circumvented. > > And anyway, software is still much more effectively controlled than light > > weapons, explosives and car traffic (perhaps you know that the latter > > kills huge number of people every year... software can't come near that > > number of victims in near future). > > You are joking. Strange. How can I be joking about million of car accident victims (worldwide) every year? > To your knowledge, the next generation of cars will have > dozens of contolling computers conntected by up to 6 field buses. Guess > which language will be used to program them? I have read something about MISRA-C regarding this matter. But I think that language is irrelevant there. Just as sex, race or average age of programmers. There are much more important issues in the case. For example, will be car vendors required to publish full sources of the software used in their cars? Alexander Kopilovich aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia