Until DEC introduced the Alpha the issue between VMS and UNIX was often one
of 'convenience' vs 'speed'. Since no one can ever agree on how much weight
to give to either of these two, these discussions mostly degenerate into the
endless 'religious' wars that have poisoned peoples lives over the last few
years. We have an Alpha here on loan and it is the fastest thing on the site
(at present): and it runs VMS. It is fairly clear that there will no longer
be a 'performance' penalty associated with running VMS, if that is best for
you.
I think that people should concentrate on bread-and-butter reality. UNIX or
VMS don't produce the results, the software (e.g. GCG) does the job. Just
provide software written following standards like X-windows, Posixs, etc. and
leave the site to choose the OS best for their environment.
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|Ross Smith, Research Computing Resource, Department of Cell Biology, NYU-MC|
|E-Mail: SMITH at NYUMED.BITNET (BITNET), SMITH at MCCLB0.MED.NYU.EDU (Internet)|
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