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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!uunet!in2.uu.net!206.246.124.37!nntp.newsfirst.com!nntp.crosslink.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!metro.atlanta.com!cssun.mathcs.emory.edu!nntp.msstate.edu!walt.cs.msstate.edu!jopasm From: jopasm@walt.cs.msstate.edu (Jonathan Smith) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Betting on Unix Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Date: 8 Feb 1997 20:47:20 GMT Organization: Mississippi State University Lines: 52 Message-ID: <5diooo$lcv@NNTP.MsState.Edu> References: <5d3sr2$44n@nntp1.best.com> <E50rGo.K3n@nonexistent.com> <nLVF2tL@quack.kfu.com> <5daq9b$tck@usenet1y.prodigy.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: walt.cs.msstate.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:156863 comp.os.linux.networking:67644 comp.os.linux.setup:96025 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:5926 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2372 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:52164 comp.os.os2.advocacy:266372 bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com) wrote: : In article <nLVF2tL@quack.kfu.com>, Nick Sayer <nsayer@quack.kfu.com> wrote: : | What would make Unix' future? Scott MacNeily can whine about Microsoft : | desktops wasting monumental amounts of admin time and energy if he : | likes, but unix will die without applications. : UNIX doesn't have applications. You look for one product from one : vendor to use UNIX, you have a large choice with MS. You don't : (sanely) buy an o/s and then look for apps in the business world, : you find the app and then buy the o/s, and then buy the hardware. In some cases, but not all. If you want something that's easy for secretary XYZ to use, and want it to be the "standard" you go with either WOrd or WordPerfect. If you want a fast stable server for high speed data calculations (ask Exxon what they do their mission critical calculation on- hint: It's not Wintel) you go with Unix. NT doesn't seem to have really taken over much of the mission critical market (at least among companies that want to stay alive :>)> I don't consider word processing and file serving to always be mission critical btw. A Java-Machine seems to be (in some ways) the next "killer hardware" on the horizon. If (the big IF) it can gain acceptance it seems like a better solution running than a myriad of PC's running various verions of windows. And it can be the front-end for anything. Do your programmers need to develop in a Unix environment? Provide sufficiently powerful telnet & Xwin apps on their desktop boxes. Seems like an elegant solution for dta processing as well. Basically each person hasidentical hardware on their desk, if it goes down, swap out the CPU unit for a spare and let the IS services fix the damaged one. When it's fixed, put it back in the "spares" pool. Admittedly this requires fast networks and a well-backup up server (redundant servers are better), but is that all that different from today's environment? \ : You look for the platform which gives you the apps, and stay with : it. Its name is MicroSoft, unfortunately. : I like UNIX variants, but when I want to write something of any size : I go to Word, because it's a better tool than anything affordable on : UNIX, and because people want you to use it. The only two formats I : have seen widely used for electronic submission are troff (then) and : Word (now). You can find academic journals which take TeX, and : magazines that know your WordPerfect will read into Word, where they : want it, but they are not the mass market. : I still write stuff in troff using my own version of almost-emacs, : but I don't expect to use anything but the hardcopy, and if I had a : good revision control for Word, I'd be using that more (maybe in : Office 97). : | But Unix' achiles heel is that its compatability is only at source : | level. : Write everything in JAVA ;-) Sorry, couldn't resist. : -- : -bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com) : "As a software development model, Anarchy does not scale well." : -Dave Welch