🚀 go-pugleaf

bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright) writes:

>I find `stock'
>Unix much worse than VMS in terms of productivity mostly because
>of that horrible `vi' editor that comes with it :-).

	In fact, most "operating systems wars" boil down to preferences
as simple as these. I realize that Bruce had a 'smiley' to indicate that
he was joking, but it seems that whenever the VMS-versus-UNIX or
UNIX-versus-DOS or whatever war starts up, sooner or later it winds
up boiling down to text editors and window systems and help systems
and the really piddly triviata that have *NOTHING* to do with the
operating system and everything to do with the operating environment.

	Usually, once the "discussion" has boiled down to this final
remnant of sticky pure opinion goo at the bottom of the crucible, most
sensible people realize it's time to find something worthwhile to
talk about. Arguing about environments is stupid. Especially when
it comes to editors and you can buy TPU for UNIX and get vi clones
for VMS.

	Here's an interesting postulate to argue about: operating
system kernel technologies aren't interesting anymore. Whether it
is VMS or UNIX or NT or FooFrATz is meaningless if the system
*environment* ("environment" == utilities, user interface, system
libraries, network interface, etc) does what you need it to do.
The question, I submit, is not "UNIX or VMS?" it is "what do I
need for this *particular* project?" - and that depends on the
project, programmer skills, requirements, etc - and is not worth
arguing about on USENET.

mjr.