jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. DeArmond) (07/17/90)
bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes: >>to produce a package that meets the quality standard of the DOS world from >>even as far back as 5 years ago (you know, things that generally work like >>they should, documentation that bears some resemblance to what's shipped, >John, I don't think it's entirely fair to equate the DOS world with Interactive >UNIX or any other UNIX for that matter. The "quality standard of the DOS world" >is pretty sad until you have curried and combed out the pearls. DOS runs and >runs well on specific platforms, UNIX crosses all the borders. I whole- >heartedly agree with your conclusion (ditch Interactive) but I disagree with >the comparison. Let me clarify a bit here. When I refer to the DOS world, I do not mean the program loader actually called DOS, I'm refering to the applications that get loaded. And since each application must have major portions of an OS embedded in it, this is a fair comparison. Most any DOS application of substance (translate: you gotta pay $ubstantial bux for it.) meets a minimum standard of quality that is vastly better than what we put up with in the Unix world. If the Docs are incomprehensible or poorly organized, if the program crashes or does not perform in minute detail in accordance with the docs, it gets flamed in the press and people won't buy it. Yet we in the unix world continue to tolerate shitty documentation, utilities (the bundled "applications" of Unix?) that are broke, installation procedures that don't work, and vital information that "you just gotta know" in order to make the systems perform. For example, I have yet to see a Unix box whose line discipline behaves exactly like the termio man page says it should. Async I/O is the place that my code invariably has the most system-specific #ifdefs. There is no excuse for this. Unix has been around too long. And unlike the DOS applications vendors, Unix vendors such as ISC did NOT have to actually write the software. All they've done is port and optimize (or in some cases, break) the AT&T supplied code. Not to denigrate the good work done by ISC and others, but the time normally used to create a product should have gone into documentation and stabilization. I look at what a few vendors such as HP, Sun or NCR have done with documentation and it makes me want to cry. NCR, for example, not only supplies a tuning guide that explains kernal parameters and how each one affects system operation, they also supply a separate book of error messages with explanations as what to do to remedy the problem. Why can't we have that kind of quality in the PC Unix world? I love nothing more than to knock some huge piece of computing iron out on the street with a tiny little PC that runs circles around it. The recent work of ISC and others is making that task more difficult. <Climb off the soapbox for a moment> >[ more DOS comparison deleted...] >>installation, while a bit more glitzy than 2.0.2, had all the same >>old problems and still required me to whiz around with vi editing this >Here's where he scares me even farther away from 386/ix v2.2. John says that >all of the nagging old problems are there, or at least enough of them to >feel like they're all there, but some new layers of distraction have been >added. I don't want glitzy or exciting installations, I want dead, dirt simple, >thoughtless effort. I don't want to have to figure out some nifty script or >find my way into some programmer's head to figure something out; just lay it >down on the disk and give me a login prompt. No thanks, the excitement doesn't >enchant me. Just to be fair, a couple of the glitzy features are actually worthwhile. There is an interactive file system partitioning utility that gets run as part of the installation that is very nice. It operates spreadsheet style and allows you to work out disk partitions while showing you the results of what you've done. This is nice. The bad part is that it seems (I say 'seems' because I've not had time to search for it too much) to exist only on the installation floppy. On the other hand, they nuke themselves (and us) with arbitrary changes in the installpkg routine. I spent the day and most of the night friday working with a vendor of IBM connectivity hardware/software trying to get it to install under 2.2's installpkg. It appears that ISC has made somewhat arbitrary changes to the scripts that render 2.0.2 scripts obsolete. Once we got the scripts fixed, the application went right in. What they've done is force vendors to now have BOTH versions up and running on separate machines in order to support both. Wonder if it would have been possible to have kept the old stuff, maybe named "oldinstalpkg" or something like that? nah... >Thanks for the follow-up John and sorry for the bulk. I had to sit on the >article for a few days to make sure that I was making a business decision >and not just reacting emotionally. Nope, I run a business, I depend on >happy customers, I must maximize my productivity to make a profit, and >Interactive keeps building obstacles. I don't fabricate or imagine them, >Interactive constructs them. They've got the last of my bucks and join the >list with Microport, Santa Cruz Operation, and American Telephone & Telegraph. >Jeezus the list is shrinking as firms become prosperous! Yeah, me too. Why does it have to be that way. Why is it that the first thing a newly successful company does is forget who and what made them successful? Why is it that if you don't represent 7 digit annual sales to them, you are to be ignored? As a side note, I've gotten as much mail in response to my original post as for anything I've ever written for the net. My mailbox runneth over! And not a single person has disagreed. I've tried to reply to all these people but sometimes our mail does not work too good. I am urging everyone who has responded and even those who have not to let ISC and SCO know how we feel. Call, write, or just post (they are watching.) and speak your mind. A similiar campaign killed copy protection in the DOS world and it can do it here. John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congress Radiation Systems, Inc. | than we can prostitution on pimps. Both simply Atlanta, Ga | provide broker services for their customers. {emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd| - Dr. W Williams | **I am the NRA**