🚀 go-pugleaf

Chad Irby (cirby@news.gate.net) wrote:

    I believe you didn't completely understand the UNIX advocates,
so I'll try to give a better explanation of their point of view.

: Joe Sloan (jjs@dostoevsky.ucr.edu) wrote:

: : A unix machine can be used by zero or more persons at any point in time.
: : (a unix machine is typically busy running tasks whether there are zero, 
: : one, twenty or 500 people actively using it.)

    Obviously. It's perfectly natural to have a unix machine running for
zero users. In fact, disallowing users to use a unix machine, either
directly or indirectly (nfsd, sendmail, rpc ...), is the most efficient
way to avoid problems with the system, to assure that the PREEMPTIVE
MULTITASKING OS will always run smoothly.

: : The bottom line: there is no minimum number of users, and the maximum
: : number of simultaneous users is a function of system resources, e.g. 
: : CPU power & installed RAM...

    Yes! Users doesn't matter at all!

: You don't have to sit at a machine to use it.  If there are processes 
: running that are supposed to do things, then it's being used by someone.

    Why are you concerned about the users!?!?

    My brother didn't know a thing about computers, refused to learn DOS,
but with just a few hours of help, he started using my Mac. I sold it to
him, and since then he does his works very well on it, alone, for his
university studies (not related with computation). Does his brilliant works
matter? No, because he doesn't even know what sendmail is, and his Mac
doesn't have a PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING OS yet.

    There are lots of brilliant software for the Mac. For example,
the Mac still has the best music software, no doubt about it. I believe that
it is still the best platform for DTP, but that's probably debatable. There
are many kinds of good software for it, from word processors, to games,
to multimedia titles ("The Louvre" and "Brief History of Time" come to
mind). But does any of this matters? No, because the MacOS doesn't have
PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING yet.

    My Mac only crashed about 4 or 5 times during the last year, all of
them because of badly designed freeware/shareware/demos I was testing.
I didn't lose a single document because of it, not even a bit of a
document did I lose. And I use it almost every day. Does this matter?
No, because it doesn't have PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING yet.

    Is it all clear now? You were having problems understanding their point
of view, because you were thinking about the end user, instead of thinking
about the programmer, the system administrator, and, most important of all,
PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING.

: If there's nobody using the machine, you should turn it off and save some 
: energy...
: -- 

    Heresy! Heresy! Whatever you do, you must NOT turn it of! Even a unix
machine, when turned off, delivers no PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING! Ah!

: Chad Irby           /    My greatest fear: that future generations will,
: cirby@gate.net     /      for some reason, refer to me as an "optimist."


:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)


    Well, while I like unix very much, and learned it before I ever
touched a Mac, and I think that it makes sense to use it at work,
what I want to have at home is a Mac with MacOS. Like you, I'm not
ready to start PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING worship!


    Cheers,
    Jaime.