🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <danpop.809100505@rscernix>, Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch (Dan Pop) wrote:

> In <rmcassid-2108951317450001@dante.eng.uci.edu> rmcassid@uci.edu
(Robert Cassidy) writes:

> >And I definately get more work done on MacOS than UNIX, which just goes to
> >show that your individual cases are worthless. Let's look at the majority
> >of users - I'll give them MacOS, you give them Linux - we'll see who gets
> >more work done. That's the basis of the argument - that for *most people*,
> >MacOS is better. Certainly UNIX is better for some, and DOS, and Windows,
> >and AmigaDOS but for most people, MacOS is probably the best choice.
> 
> Yet most people are born masochists and deliberately avoid the OS which
> is the best choice for them, especially these days, when there is no
> significant price penalty.  OK, injecting hard facts when discussing
> with an advocate isn't fair play :-)

And yet more people use MacOS than Linux - hard facts. Sales are hardly an
indication of what is best unless market share is considered in the
decision. Either we go with the market share and simply state that DOS is
the end-all, be-all OS or we try and move beyond sales and make an
evaluation on other terms.

> I thoght I made my point clear enough.  Linux is the best choice for me
> and I couldn't care less about what's the best choice for anybody else.
> I don't give Linux to _anybody_, except people who come to me and ask for
> it.  Even my boss, a long time Mac user, asked me to install Linux on his
> PC notebook.

I'm so happy that Linux is best for you. Why do you need to share this? I
prefer tartar control toothpastes and I favor lemon-lime drinks over
colas. Now we know  more about each other. Everybody bask in the warm
fuzzies of people coming together over USENET.

The point is that if there is any point to trying to understand what makes
an OS valuable to the masses (and most of us are not representative of the
masses) then we need to look not at individual cases but clusters or
trends. I personally would take Linux over Win in a cool second but I'd
have to say that Win is far better suited to people than Linux. I'd also
say that for many mainstream business markets that Win is a better pick
than MacOS. There, I've dropped the advocacy shield, can we move on now?

> >But nobody runs SPEC. SPEC is great if you want to design something for
> >the hardware, not compare complete systems (apps, OS, and all). So fine,
> >PPC is 30% faster than x86 right now. Why is SPEC a good measure for the
> >95% of the population that work with a system that SPEC is invalid for?
> 
> SPEC is composed of real applications running on real hardware, hence it
> compares complete systems.  How about getting a clue about what you're
> talking?

SPEC is composed of real UNIX apps. I suspect that 95% of the systems out
there have never had a SPEC app run on them as they are represented in the
suite. If you are concerned with performance of a UNIX system, SPEC is
probably great - but UNIX is not the computer industry. In terms of the
bulk of systems shipping, we'd probably be closer to the mark with a Word
& Dark Forces suite than SPEC.

> >Sure there are good tests. Application tests are good. Take the top
> >selling 10 software packages that are available commonly for each platform
> >and compare them. That's what people are buying and thats what people are
> >running. How about it? The users pick the app set, deliver on what they
> >buy.
> 
> Then, it's up to those users to do the tests for themselves.  I don't use
> any of the top 10 selling software packages, hence such a test would be
> irrelevant to me.  Some of my applications are similar to those in the
> SPEC suite (especially 085.gcc, 026.compress and 022.li), so the SPECint
> number is the primary criterion for _me_ when comparing systems.  I couldn't
> care less about the performance of Word, Excel or PhotoShop or any 
> comparison based on this kind of applications.

Yes, such a test would be irrelevant to you - probably to me as well. But
not to me in terms of how I select systems for this office - it would be
perfect for that purpose. It would be a reasonable result for at least 75%
of the computer buyers out there - and that's pretty good.

SPEC is perfect for you. SPEC sucks for most people and is misleading.
Knowing that Word bites on a 604 is valuable - I'd buy a P5 if Word
performance mattered. Knowing that Photoshop bites on a P5 is also
valuable - I'd buy a 604 if PS performance mattered - and those things are
definately not represented in SPEC.

> Even if PhotoShop or Excel would run 100 times faster on a Mac than a PC,
> I wouldn't consider switching platforms if the SPEC data wouldn't show that
> this makes sense (and even then, unless the OS I'm interested in runs on
> the Mac).  I never installed Windows on any of my computers and I wouldn't
> consider installing MacOS either.  Keeps me on the sane side.

> Nevertheless, I don't think that a comparison based on the top 10 apps
> would be flattering for the Mac.  A large part of those apps would come
> from MS, and we all know that the performance of MS apps sucks on non-MS
> OS's.  But feel free to try it.

2 of those apps would come from MS, maybe 3 - and no, they would not at
all be flattering, but systems should be bought for the apps and the tasks
that they are needed to do. If 604 sucks for the apps I need, I want to
know that. If P5 sucks for the apps I need, I want to know that as well.

-- 
Bob Cassidy
UC Irvine