Ken Baker ("bakerk at frir.afrc.ac.uk") writes:
> 1] More flexible
> 2] Smaller instruction set makes it faster
> 3] Supports a graphical user interface
The flexibility of VMS compared to UNIX is generally higher. Nowadays
disadvantages of VMS are
- VMS is a proprietary operating system. People feel more independent
from any manufacturer running UNIX.
- because of the reduced instruction set, case sensitivity, security lacks,
... the processors are in fact faster. Imagine, either you pay attention
on upper and lowercase letters by yourself or the computer does it for you,
has to calculate more, is slower,--
But you should consider
- as a programmer you have to do much more work for an average program
implementing it under UNIX than under VMS.
- You can get GUIs for VMS as well. The question is whether you have the
appropriate terminals to display all the stuff and the CPU-power to spend
most of it to the GUI.
- One should talk about programs, not about operating systems. What's an
operating system without any good program?
In fact it is true that more than 90% of the GCG programs are not critical in
terms of speed. Therefore I feel no need to move towards UNIX just to be
somewhat 'up to date'. Show me a good program that I really need and that I
can't get under VMS, this could be a reason.
Regards
Christoph Gartmann
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+------------- Do you know MENUE, the user environment for VMS? -------------+
