sned@PEGASUS.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM.UUCP (12/18/86)
From an equally biased source with a different viewpoint....
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 86 10:01:55 PST
From: melohn@Sun.COM (Bill Melohn)
Speaking as an admittedly biased source, the Sun Datacomm group has
managed to implement OSI (MAP/TOP) with a minimum of kernel changes
using the basic protosw, ioctl facility, and even the routing table
routines from the standard SunOS. We also have implementations of X.25,
SNA, and DECnet which all use the ifnet structure to layer different
protocol instances on top of different datalinks (HDLC, SDLC, 802.x).
As you might expect, the farther your protocol is from the TCP/IP
model, the less useful the standard networking code will be.
If your goal is XNS under Unix, it makes sense to use the 4.3
implementation.
I can't really disagree with that.
As a general platform for protocol/network
development, we believe SunOS offers most of the facilities you
need.
If your goal is general protocol/network development or cross-system
integration, the Symbolics Lisp Machine's "Generic Network System" is
probably 10x more powerful. Use UN*X to develop UN*X software,
particularly when there are no deep design issues involved. Use
something far better if there are any hard or unresolved issues to be
solved. I could easily justify my 10x claim, but this conversation
wasn't about that.
Steve Sneddon
Manager of Networks and Communications
Symbolics, Inc.mrose@NRTC-GREMLIN.ARPA.UUCP (12/20/86)
[ My appologies to everyone for continuing this flame, but I could
not let it go past untouched... ]
> If your goal is general protocol/network development or
> cross-system integration, the Symbolics Lisp Machine's "Generic
> Network System" is probably 10x more powerful. Use UN*X to
> develop UN*X software, particularly when there are no deep
> design issues involved. Use something far better if there are
> any hard or unresolved issues to be solved. I could easily
> justify my 10x claim, but this conversation wasn't about that.
Use Lisp environments to develop Lisp environment software. Don't
preach to others about which system is more powerful. While I
admire the tight integration between the networking software and the
rest of the lisp environment, I know a lot of people who wouldn't
consider even touching a lisp environment to do protocol
development. It is a matter of personal taste and personal
productivity. There is no way you could justify your 10x claim in
my environment (and yes, we do have people building distributed
expert-systems on top of lisp environments here, so we have detailed
experience in building things on top of the environment you
mention).
While the original speaker may have been out of line in his claim
that "we believe SunOS offers most of the facilities you need", your
response was, owing to its language and posturing, even more out of
line.
Please direct further outrages to me personally, rather than burden
the list...
Thanks,
/mtr