steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (06/18/86)
I am sorry that I got mad at ULTRIX. I lost a $75,000.00 contract because my software, which allegedly worked or 4.2 (it does) did not work on ULTRIX. The reason it did not work is because the acct data structure had several fields that were "comp_t" on UNIX were "float" on ULTRIX. I have been informed that from one version of ULTRIX to the next it also changes. End users believe what DEC says. WE believed DEC, and we were naive enough to believe that ULTRIX was 4.2. Now I am going to have to eat rice for a while. ULTRIX is no worse than anyone else. HP has a very good UNIX that is "system V compatible" that has the 4.2 file system. Any system level program that accesses the file system needs to know that. (At least the man page reflects the change, though). "Compatible" is a marketing term, not an engineering term. I am sure there are many nice people at DEC (I have certainly met many) that are really trying to do a good job. I am sure that when they read what the marketing folks are saying they cringe. It is especially tought here on the West Coast because DEC is an East Coast company and it is not easy to get in touch with the right people, where it is easy to get in touch with people from Sun, Pyramid, and so on. -- scc!steiny Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 109 Torrey Pine Terrace Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 (408) 425-0382
levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (06/21/86)
In article <668@scc.UUCP>, steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes: > I am sorry that I got mad at ULTRIX. I lost a $75,000.00 >contract because my software, which allegedly worked or 4.2 (it does) >did not work on ULTRIX. The reason it did not work is because >the acct data structure had several fields that were "comp_t" >on UNIX were "float" on ULTRIX. I have been informed that >from one version of ULTRIX to the next it also changes. End >users believe what DEC says. WE believed DEC, and we were naive >enough to believe that ULTRIX was 4.2. Now I am going to have >to eat rice for a while. > > ULTRIX is no worse than anyone else. HP has a very good >UNIX that is "system V compatible" that has the 4.2 file system. >-- >scc!steiny >Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software >109 Torrey Pine Terrace >Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 >(408) 425-0382 What are you apologizing for? If we are to believe what you say, DEC screwed you royally by misleading you about the guts of Ultrix. THEY owe their users an apology if this is so, not vice versa. "No worse than anybody else" my foot.... (Why couldn't your code be easily patched to account for the ULTRIX dif- ferences, however? I presume that if it could have been it would have been.) -- ------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are | dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em- | an engihacker @ | ployer or the administrator of any computer | at&t computer systems division | upon which I may hack. | skokie, illinois | -------------------------------- Path: ..!{akgua,homxb,ihnp4,ltuxa,mvuxa, vax135}!ttrdc!levy
rjk@mrstve.UUCP (Richard Kuhns) (06/24/86)
In article <1002@ttrdc.UUCP> levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) writes: >In article <668@scc.UUCP>, steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes: >> I am sorry that I got mad at ULTRIX. I lost a $75,000.00 >>contract because my software, which allegedly worked or 4.2 (it does) >>did not work on ULTRIX. The reason it did not work is because > >(Why couldn't your code be easily patched to account for the ULTRIX dif- >ferences, however? I presume that if it could have been it would have >been.) I can't, of course, speak for Don, but I can easily imagine the following scenario (actually, I don't have to imagine it -- I've sat thru just such a meeting): The senior management of a medium sized company requests demonstrations of a certain type of package from several vendors (say, a database manager). One vendor produces a package which was designed on a Brand X computer, which our company happens to have. It doesn't have quite all the features we want, but it runs without a hitch. Another vendor, who designed their software on a Brand Y machine, was lead down the garden path by the vendor of Brand X, who claimed complete compatiblity with Brand Y. The software provided by the second vendor comes much closer to what our company wants, but it bumps into a few "inconsequential" differences between Brand X & Brand Y, which cause said program to die ocasionally. Senior management says "Well, if it would die once, it might die right in the middle of something important." Our hapless (2nd) vendor claims it's a minor discrepancy, easily over- come. Senior management says "No thanx -- if you found one discrepancy, you'll probably find another, and we don't want to spend our money on a product we can't trust. We'll sacrifice a few features for reliablity." That's how a (relatively) minor discrepancy can cause the loss of a sale to an inferior product. -- Rich Kuhns {ihnp4, decvax, etc...}!pur-ee!pur-phy!mrstve!rjk