Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 22:12:30 +0200 From: Peter Korsten <peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Conclusion to "NT vs. Unix" debate Message-ID: <19970831221230.08862@grendel.IAEhv.nl>
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I think John Fieber made some comments that I can only agree with. Wes Peters did so too. Please read their messages for more details. (This of course has nothing to do with them at least partially agreeing with me. :) ) The point I was trying to make, is not whether NT is better or Unix is. I know ftp.com is the busiest server in the world. I know that FreeBSD usually performs better on the same platform. The discussion has turned into a "why X is better than Y" and you're bound to lose that on a FreeBSD mailing list. Perhaps I should say that I really want an Amiga, but then with a 500 Mhz Alpha chip. The Amiga had a pre-emptive multitasking OS that ran in 256 Kb. Though some parts were a bit clumsy, the base was very good. The basic type was a Node (ordered in a List), from which you could derive (yes, object-orientation in C) a Task, a Library, a Device or any system structure. The GUI was good and getting better, so was the shell. ARexx was the third interface. This altogether made a system that, as I think of it, was better than Unix (despite it's excellent shell) or Windows 95/NT 4.0 (despite it's GUI). The fact that not all applications supported all functions of the system, doesn't make the system less powerfull. The Amiga has some functions that I really really miss in other OS's. Writing your own installer application in some sort of Lisp-like language - no need for InstallShield. Assigning logical names to devices, directories or drives. Installing new devices or filesystems while the system was running. But the market has been divided. You basically have MS, the Mac, some Unixes and dedicated OS's, like real-time OS's (but they are a niche market anyway). At the moment, a Unix server (probably any Unix server) is more suited for something like an Internet-server than an NT server, be it for mail, news, ftp or http. Trouble is, most non-Intel platforms will be having a hard time to survive, simply because of the tremendous costs to build a new plant. Intel is somewhat the Microsoft of the hardware world: they could have released the Pentium II months earlier, but there simply was no need. Alpha is your best bet in processor architectures, as it comes to who survives Intel the longest. What company can put own $1,000,000,000 for a new processor? As about GUI's, opinions differ and probably will be differing for quite some time. In my view, a GUI is not something that you should be able to configure to the max, it's a way of representing data in a consistent way to the user. The book I read was the Amiga User Interface Style Guide. Yes, there's a lot of psychology behind it as well. That's something very difficult for a programmer. I also have the opinion that a computer should be easy to use. Look, for instance, at an ATM. In the Netherlands, you put in your card, type your secret code, select the amount of money, take your card, take your money. In Belgium, you choose the amount of money _before_ you enter your secret code. In the States, you get your money before you get your card back - so Dutch people tend to forget their card. Personally, I think the Dutch version is the most logical sequence to get money from a machine. If you link it to personal computers, probably the easiest to use is a Windows machine. I have told people how to configure dial-up networking over the phone, people who didn't even know how to move a window. It just wouldn't have been possible with a Unix machine. The Mac is even more easy to use, but it has other problems. So, if you limit yourself to an environment that basically text- oriented, you put yourself in a pretty small market. And you can't provide the coupling to those popular applications that come from Redmond, WA. And despite Motif and CDE, they aren't standard like the prescribed standard of MS is. If I look at FreeBSD, even sysinstall has it quirks. I always end up pressing the wrong buttons and that's because the buttons (and keys) keep changing functions. The "Cancel" button changes into an "Install" button all of a sudden. Basically, that's what I want to say. I also realize that making a good GUI is very difficult and takes tremendous resources. It should be done with the other free Unixes, it's too big for just FreeBSD. But I think that the hack-heads who do everything from a tty and who have a lot of influence on the development of FreeBSD, should consider the world outside who's in need of GUI's. - Peter
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