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"Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software"

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  "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2019-12-02 13:59 -0600
    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2019-12-02 12:33 -0800
      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Melzzzzz <Melzzzzz@zzzzz.com> - 2019-12-02 21:17 +0000
        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" "Alf P. Steinbach" <alf.p.steinbach+usenet@gmail.com> - 2019-12-02 23:08 +0100
        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2019-12-02 15:39 -0800
          Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Daniel <danielaparker@gmail.com> - 2019-12-10 13:55 -0800
            Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2019-12-11 12:48 -0800
    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Pankaj Jangid <p4j@j4d.net> - 2019-12-03 09:21 +0530
      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Cholo Lennon <chololennon@hotmail.com> - 2019-12-03 02:03 -0300
        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2019-12-03 09:40 +0000
          Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-03 11:40 +0100
            NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software") gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2019-12-03 11:33 +0000
              Re: NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software") David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-03 16:24 +0100
                Re: NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software") Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2019-12-03 17:13 +0100
              Re: NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software") Stuart Redmann <DerTopper@web.de> - 2019-12-04 14:32 +0100
                Re: NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-04 16:53 +0000
                  Re: NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Mr Flibble <flibbleREMOVETHISBIT@i42.co.uk> - 2019-12-04 18:34 +0000
                    Re: NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-05 12:51 +0000
              Re: NIHS (Was: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software") legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2019-12-08 04:21 +0000
        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2019-12-03 17:05 -0800
    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2019-12-06 22:12 -0800
    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2019-12-07 07:28 +0100
    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" rep_movsd <rep.movsd@gmail.com> - 2019-12-09 07:57 -0800
      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-09 11:03 -0600
        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2019-12-09 17:08 +0000
          Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-09 11:39 -0600
            Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2019-12-09 18:26 +0000
              Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-09 15:50 -0600
                Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2019-12-10 15:09 +1300
                  Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-09 20:30 -0600
                    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-10 09:06 +0100
                      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-10 03:58 -0600
                        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-10 11:18 +0100
                          Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-10 05:37 -0600
                            Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-10 15:49 +0100
                              Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-10 11:43 -0600
                                Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2019-12-10 10:19 -0800
                                  Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-10 12:50 -0600
            Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-10 13:12 +0000
              Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-12-10 13:54 +0000
                Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Paavo Helde <myfirstname@osa.pri.ee> - 2019-12-10 17:22 +0200
                  Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-10 15:35 +0000
                  Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Cholo Lennon <chololennon@hotmail.com> - 2019-12-10 15:17 -0300
              Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-10 11:32 -0600
              Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> - 2019-12-10 21:09 +0000
                Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-11 09:49 +0000
                  Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2019-12-11 03:13 -0800
                    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-11 11:20 +0000
                      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" "Fred. Zwarts" <F.Zwarts@KVI.nl> - 2019-12-11 12:57 +0100
                      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2019-12-15 23:27 -0500
                        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-16 10:02 +0000
                    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2019-12-11 14:17 -0800
                  Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-12-11 12:11 +0000
                    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-11 12:42 +0000
                    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-11 16:01 +0100
                      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-11 16:15 +0000
        Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Melzzzzz <Melzzzzz@zzzzz.com> - 2019-12-09 22:16 +0000
          Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-09 16:25 -0600
            Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2019-12-09 16:35 -0600
              Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> - 2019-12-09 17:19 -0600
              Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-10 11:09 +0100
                Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-10 13:17 +0000
                  Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2019-12-10 15:55 +0100
                    Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" boltar@nowhere.co.uk - 2019-12-10 15:26 +0000
      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Melzzzzz <Melzzzzz@zzzzz.com> - 2019-12-09 22:16 +0000
      Re: "Microsoft Exploring Rust as the Solution for Safe Software" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2019-12-09 16:33 -0600

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#70384

On 10.12.2019 15:54, Bart wrote:
> As to its speed, yes these days Windows is a monstrous bloated mess of
> an OS. I use it but just try and ignore most of it as much as I can.
> (Eg. right-click on some file icon, and you can count to 10 - or
> sometimes even longer - before it shows a menu. WTH is it up to?)

FYI: these are shell extensions installed by various third-party 
software packages and which maybe want to add items in that context 
menu. Windows itself is not much to blame here (apart of not 
automatically deactivating slow or non-functional extensions).

Things become especially interesting (i.e. boring) when some shell 
extension wants to access a network drive which is not there any more. 
But 10 s seems a bit fast for this.

In principle you can clean shell extensions up yourself in the registry. 
Probably there are also tools for that.

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#70386

On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 17:22:20 +0200
Paavo Helde <myfirstname@osa.pri.ee> wrote:
>On 10.12.2019 15:54, Bart wrote:
>> As to its speed, yes these days Windows is a monstrous bloated mess of
>> an OS. I use it but just try and ignore most of it as much as I can.
>> (Eg. right-click on some file icon, and you can count to 10 - or
>> sometimes even longer - before it shows a menu. WTH is it up to?)
>
>FYI: these are shell extensions installed by various third-party 
>software packages and which maybe want to add items in that context 
>menu. Windows itself is not much to blame here (apart of not 
>automatically deactivating slow or non-functional extensions).

Allow 3rd party extensions to highjack a fundamental piece of OS shell
functionality is beyond f*cking stupid, but then thats MS for you.

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#70389

On 10/12/19 12:22, Paavo Helde wrote:
> On 10.12.2019 15:54, Bart wrote:
>> As to its speed, yes these days Windows is a monstrous bloated mess of
>> an OS. I use it but just try and ignore most of it as much as I can.
>> (Eg. right-click on some file icon, and you can count to 10 - or
>> sometimes even longer - before it shows a menu. WTH is it up to?)
> 
> FYI: these are shell extensions installed by various third-party 
> software packages and which maybe want to add items in that context 
> menu. Windows itself is not much to blame here (apart of not 
> automatically deactivating slow or non-functional extensions).
> 
> Things become especially interesting (i.e. boring) when some shell 
> extension wants to access a network drive which is not there any more. 
> But 10 s seems a bit fast for this.
> 
> In principle you can clean shell extensions up yourself in the registry. 
> Probably there are also tools for that.
> 

Autoruns from MS Sysinternals helps with that awful problem.

--
Cholo Lennon
Bs.As.
ARG

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#70387

boltar wrote:
> Ned Latham wrote:
> > Scott Lurndal wrote:
> > > Ned Latham writes:
> > > > rep_movsd wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > MS did it before - remember the Singularity OS, Sing# and Spec# ?
> > > > >
> > > > > MS keeps trying many things, but there is still Windows 3.1 code in
> > > > > Windows 10
> > > >
> > > > I very much doubt that. Windows 3.1 is a M$ kludge. Windows 10 is
> > > > descended from Windows NT, which was written by DEC.
> > >
> > > Windows NT was written by Microsoft, led by former DEC engineer
> > > (Dave Cutler).
> >
> > It was written by a team hired from DEC led by Dave Cutler. Some members
> > of the M$ OS 2 team joined them. Note that DEC had control and use of NT
> > until well after delivery. Though it was written *for* M$, it took coding
> > far beyond the quality and capabilities that are the usual M$ fare.
>
> Are you talking about NT here or some reliable and fast OS that MS never
> released? Win NT was a blue screening, slow joke of an OS and frankly I'd have
> expected better from people who worked on VMS.

NT, yes. As I said in another post, on taking delivery, M$ set about
"improving" it. It was fine on DEC hardware.

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#70392

On 10/12/2019 13:12, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
> Are you talking about NT here or some reliable and fast OS that MS never
> released? Win NT was a blue screening, slow joke of an OS and frankly I'd have
> expected better from people who worked on VMS.

After using Windows 3.1 (the 16 bit one) Windows NT 3.1 was a breath of 
fresh air. It just kept running. It really didn't crash (except when our 
HW was broken, and since we were developing it that did happen).

3.51 was if anything better.

AIUI NT4 picked up the 9x GUI. Certainly it was not as stable as the 
earlier ones.

Andy

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#70394

On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:09:24 +0000
Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>On 10/12/2019 13:12, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
>> Are you talking about NT here or some reliable and fast OS that MS never
>> released? Win NT was a blue screening, slow joke of an OS and frankly I'd
>have
>> expected better from people who worked on VMS.
>
>After using Windows 3.1 (the 16 bit one) Windows NT 3.1 was a breath of 
>fresh air. It just kept running. It really didn't crash (except when our 
>HW was broken, and since we were developing it that did happen).

Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at university
so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada and NT didn't nothing to
dispel that imagine. It crashed, it had to rebooted once a week as it had
a serious memory leak issues and it was a slow as a dog. If that was a breath
of fresh air then god knows what you were breathing beforehand.

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#70395

On Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 4:50:06 AM UTC-5, bol...@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
...
> Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at university
> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
> Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada and NT didn't nothing to
> dispel that imagine. It crashed, it had to rebooted once a week as it had
> a serious memory leak issues and it was a slow as a dog. If that was a breath
> of fresh air then god knows what you were breathing beforehand.

As I remember it, NT almost never crashed, but I'm not sure what I meant
by "almost never" when I formed that memory. Windows 3.1 typically
crashed several times per day for me, so a weekly crash might have felt
like "almost never" by comparison.

Like you, my experience with Unix pre-dated my experience with either
DOS or Windows, and those Unix systems were very reliable. However,
those systems were mainframes being maintained by professional
sysadmins; I would not have dreamed of expecting the same reliability
from a desktop machine that I maintained myself.

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#70396

On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 03:13:44 -0800 (PST)
James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>On Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 4:50:06 AM UTC-5, bol...@nowhere.co.uk
>wrote:
>....
>> Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at
>university
>> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
>> Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada and NT didn't nothing to
>> dispel that imagine. It crashed, it had to rebooted once a week as it had
>> a serious memory leak issues and it was a slow as a dog. If that was a breath
>
>> of fresh air then god knows what you were breathing beforehand.
>
>As I remember it, NT almost never crashed, but I'm not sure what I meant
>by "almost never" when I formed that memory. Windows 3.1 typically
>crashed several times per day for me, so a weekly crash might have felt
>like "almost never" by comparison.
>
>Like you, my experience with Unix pre-dated my experience with either
>DOS or Windows, and those Unix systems were very reliable. However,
>those systems were mainframes being maintained by professional
>sysadmins; I would not have dreamed of expecting the same reliability
>from a desktop machine that I maintained myself.

The basic reliability of an OS should be independant of how well or otherwise
its administered so longs as patches are installed.

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#70397

Op 11.dec..2019 om 12:20 schreef boltar@nowhere.co.uk:
> On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 03:13:44 -0800 (PST)
> James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> On Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 4:50:06 AM UTC-5, bol...@nowhere.co.uk
>> wrote:
>> ....
>>> Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at
>> university
>>> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
>>> Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada and NT didn't nothing to
>>> dispel that imagine. It crashed, it had to rebooted once a week as it had
>>> a serious memory leak issues and it was a slow as a dog. If that was a breath
>>
>>> of fresh air then god knows what you were breathing beforehand.
>>
>> As I remember it, NT almost never crashed, but I'm not sure what I meant
>> by "almost never" when I formed that memory. Windows 3.1 typically
>> crashed several times per day for me, so a weekly crash might have felt
>> like "almost never" by comparison.
>>
>> Like you, my experience with Unix pre-dated my experience with either
>> DOS or Windows, and those Unix systems were very reliable. However,
>> those systems were mainframes being maintained by professional
>> sysadmins; I would not have dreamed of expecting the same reliability
>>from a desktop machine that I maintained myself.
> 
> The basic reliability of an OS should be independant of how well or otherwise
> its administered so longs as patches are installed.
> 

The reliability also depends on the amount of (third-party, cheap) 
hardware used in those systems. Those early Unix systems supported far 
less hardware. There is a reason why Microsoft later introduced 
Microsoft certified drivers.
I was used to VMS systems. I remembered how in that time the same 
argument was used against Unix and pro VMS.
When later-on Linux started to supported the same hardware as Windows, I 
also saw "kernel panic" very often. (But it was not blue. :-)

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#70488

On 12/11/19 6:20 AM, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 03:13:44 -0800 (PST)
> James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
...
>> Like you, my experience with Unix pre-dated my experience with either
>> DOS or Windows, and those Unix systems were very reliable. However,
>> those systems were mainframes being maintained by professional
>> sysadmins; I would not have dreamed of expecting the same reliability
>>from a desktop machine that I maintained myself.
> 
> The basic reliability of an OS should be independant of how well or otherwise
> its administered so longs as patches are installed.

I'm curious - how in the world do you expect an OS to be designed to
make it's reliability independent of the level of competence of the SA
maintaining it? About the only way I can see to do that is to give the
SA very few options for doing anything that he might do wrong, and a
system so-designed doesn't need any system administrators (for instance,
most of the electronics that run in my refrigerator don't need any
system administration). On powerful general purpose machines, that's
simply not an option - SAs have enormous power, and correspondingly
enormous capabilities for ruining a system if they're not sure what
they're doing.

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#70499

On Sun, 15 Dec 2019 23:27:11 -0500
James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>On 12/11/19 6:20 AM, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
>> On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 03:13:44 -0800 (PST)
>> James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>....
>>> Like you, my experience with Unix pre-dated my experience with either
>>> DOS or Windows, and those Unix systems were very reliable. However,
>>> those systems were mainframes being maintained by professional
>>> sysadmins; I would not have dreamed of expecting the same reliability
>>>from a desktop machine that I maintained myself.
>> 
>> The basic reliability of an OS should be independant of how well or otherwise
>
>> its administered so longs as patches are installed.
>
>I'm curious - how in the world do you expect an OS to be designed to
>make it's reliability independent of the level of competence of the SA
>maintaining it? About the only way I can see to do that is to give the

I expect the kernel not to crash and statically linked core system utilities 
(not a concept Windows is familiar with) that are currently running should 
remain running even if a sys admin deletes something he shouldn't have or 
messes up a library upgrade or rm -rf /.

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#70403

On 12/11/2019 3:13 AM, James Kuyper wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 4:50:06 AM UTC-5, bol...@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
> ...
>> Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at university
>> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
>> Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada and NT didn't nothing to
>> dispel that imagine. It crashed, it had to rebooted once a week as it had
>> a serious memory leak issues and it was a slow as a dog. If that was a breath
>> of fresh air then god knows what you were breathing beforehand.
> 
> As I remember it, NT almost never crashed, 

One time I created a little program that would try to crash NT using a 
build up of non-pageable memory. It took mem from the non-paged pool, 
iirc. This can be done using IOCP. Each pending request is in 
non-pageable memory. The result was a crashed system. This can happen in 
a server using IOCP, its a real problem indeed. So, during server setup, 
my test program tried to stress the system to certain breaking point(s), 
then setup a configuration file that had the limits hardcoded.


> but I'm not sure what I meant
> by "almost never" when I formed that memory. Windows 3.1 typically
> crashed several times per day for me, so a weekly crash might have felt
> like "almost never" by comparison.
> 
> Like you, my experience with Unix pre-dated my experience with either
> DOS or Windows, and those Unix systems were very reliable. However,
> those systems were mainframes being maintained by professional
> sysadmins; I would not have dreamed of expecting the same reliability
> from a desktop machine that I maintained myself.
> 

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#70398

On 11/12/2019 09:49, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:09:24 +0000
> Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 10/12/2019 13:12, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
>>> Are you talking about NT here or some reliable and fast OS that MS never
>>> released? Win NT was a blue screening, slow joke of an OS and frankly I'd
>> have
>>> expected better from people who worked on VMS.
>>
>> After using Windows 3.1 (the 16 bit one) Windows NT 3.1 was a breath of
>> fresh air. It just kept running. It really didn't crash (except when our
>> HW was broken, and since we were developing it that did happen).
> 
> Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at university
> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
> Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada

My experience was the opposite. I didn't think a great deal of Windows, 
which to my mind simply got in the way (compared to my previously using 
MS/PC-DOS for ten years where you had direct control of a lot more of 
the hardware).

But trying out Linux every few years, Windows always looked and felt 
solidly professional by comparison. On Windows, things just worked 
(mouse, USB, printers, internet, display), whereas on Linux during the 
90s,  these rarely worked properly, or worked badly, or had to be coaxed 
into working via configuration files.

And even when the display worked, it looked dreadful, like a cheap 80s 
home computer. That's probably not surprising considering Windows was 
backed by a multi-billion dollar company, and supported by multitudinous 
hardware vendors, while Linux was hacked together by amateurs in their 
spare time, it seemed. (And with dozens of different distributions.)

 > so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21.

If you were writing software for use by the general public, then Windows 
machines were obtainable anywhere at any PC store, all ready to go.

That was a huge advantage compared to having software relying on obscure 
workstations (where did you even buy such a thing).

I suspect such machines were more expensive too.

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#70399

On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 12:11:33 +0000
Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>On 11/12/2019 09:49, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
>> On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:09:24 +0000
>> Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at
>university
>> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
>> Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada
>
>My experience was the opposite. I didn't think a great deal of Windows, 
>which to my mind simply got in the way (compared to my previously using 
>MS/PC-DOS for ten years where you had direct control of a lot more of 
>the hardware).
>
>But trying out Linux every few years, Windows always looked and felt 
>solidly professional by comparison. On Windows, things just worked 

Well everyones experience is different I suppose. I've run Linux since kernel
version 1.1 and most things worked fine apart from printers which have always
been its weak point. The Windows PCs I was using at work however couldn't last
more than 2 or 3 days without a reboot if they didn't first crash anyway.

>And even when the display worked, it looked dreadful, like a cheap 80s 
>home computer. That's probably not surprising considering Windows was 

Not in my experience. Yes, X could be a pig to get working but once it was
it was fine. In fact I had full motion video running in linux on a 486 back in 
the 90s. Something Windows wadsn't even close to achieving except with special
3rd party hardware.

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#70400

On 11/12/2019 13:11, Bart wrote:
> On 11/12/2019 09:49, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
>> On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:09:24 +0000
>> Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 10/12/2019 13:12, boltar@nowhere.co.uk wrote:
>>>> Are you talking about NT here or some reliable and fast OS that MS
>>>> never
>>>> released? Win NT was a blue screening, slow joke of an OS and
>>>> frankly I'd
>>> have
>>>> expected better from people who worked on VMS.
>>>
>>> After using Windows 3.1 (the 16 bit one) Windows NT 3.1 was a breath of
>>> fresh air. It just kept running. It really didn't crash (except when our
>>> HW was broken, and since we were developing it that did happen).
>>
>> Perhaps I was spoilt - I went straight from 8 bit at home to unix at
>> university
>> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21. Then I was introduced to
>> Windows. It was like going from a Ferrari to a Lada
> 
> My experience was the opposite. I didn't think a great deal of Windows,
> which to my mind simply got in the way (compared to my previously using
> MS/PC-DOS for ten years where you had direct control of a lot more of
> the hardware).
> 
> But trying out Linux every few years, Windows always looked and felt
> solidly professional by comparison. On Windows, things just worked
> (mouse, USB, printers, internet, display), whereas on Linux during the
> 90s,  these rarely worked properly, or worked badly, or had to be coaxed
> into working via configuration files.

There is a /huge/ difference between HP-UX, Solaris, Sun-OS, AIX, etc.,
and Linux - especially at the time in question.  Linux these days is
strongly supported by big companies in all senses (big companies use it,
big companies supply it, big companies provide support, big companies
make sure their hardware and software works with Linux, etc.).  But in
the days of Win 3.1 and NT 3.x, Linux was very much a "do it yourself"
system for people who were willing to get their hands dirty.

The big unixes were a different world, however.  You did not buy a
random "PC compatible" and try to run Solaris on it - you got a Solaris
workstation, such as SPARCStation, and used that.  Often, you used it on
a network - a serious Ethernet network with a proper server, not a
little "LANtastic" setup.  The hardware was a world ahead of the PC
world in terms of quality, speed, and features - and a different world
in terms of price.

I went from mainly 8-bit systems (Spectrum and BBC micro), to SunOS then
Solaris at university, and then to Windows 3.1.  I have to agree with
Boltar - going to Windows after Solaris was huge leap backwards in both
hardware and software.  The SPARCStations had vastly better screens and
graphics than anything you got in the PC world - and if you needed more
screen space, you logged into the computer next to you and treated its
screen as an extension to your own.  (The network transparency of X
might make it poor for 3D graphics and videos, but was excellent for
that kind of thing.)  Virtual desktops were standard in the *nix world
over 30 years ago, and only with Windows 10 is there a limited version
in the Windows world.

The Windows world has never been close to the Unix world in terms of
quality, solidity, or professionalism.

> 
> And even when the display worked, it looked dreadful, like a cheap 80s
> home computer. That's probably not surprising considering Windows was
> backed by a multi-billion dollar company, and supported by multitudinous
> hardware vendors, while Linux was hacked together by amateurs in their
> spare time, it seemed. (And with dozens of different distributions.)
> 
>> so I was used to using HP-UX and Solaris at 21.
> 
> If you were writing software for use by the general public, then Windows
> machines were obtainable anywhere at any PC store, all ready to go.
> 
> That was a huge advantage compared to having software relying on obscure
> workstations (where did you even buy such a thing).
> 
> I suspect such machines were more expensive too.
> 

Of course they were more expensive.  They were worth more, and did more.
 But they were used by companies (and universities) willing to pay for
their tools, rather than those that wanted the cheapest machines they
could get and didn't care how much time and effort was wasted with
reboots, reinstalls, crashes, crappy hardware, crappy software, etc., -
or by companies that knew workstations were better but couldn't afford
them, or when they needed hardware or software that only existed in the
Windows world.  Anyone with the choice would have gone for a Unix
workstation over Windows.

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#70401

On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 16:01:32 +0100
David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>hardware and software.  The SPARCStations had vastly better screens and
>graphics than anything you got in the PC world - and if you needed more
>screen space, you logged into the computer next to you and treated its
>screen as an extension to your own.  (The network transparency of X
>might make it poor for 3D graphics and videos, but was excellent for
>that kind of thing.)  Virtual desktops were standard in the *nix world
>over 30 years ago, and only with Windows 10 is there a limited version
>in the Windows world.

Indeed. Such a shame though that Sun management had such myopia and didn't
see both the PC and Apple creaping up on them as they treaded water with their
hardware in the 00s, but instead kept charging silly money for their 
workstations instead of pitching the price at Apple levels where they could 
have shared the professional graphics market. Instead Apple (and to a lesser
extent Windows) ate their lunch, ironically with their own version of Unix in 
the end. Plus they didn't really see Linux coming in the server space until
it was too late. 

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#70363

On 2019-12-09, Ned Latham <nedlatham@woden.valhalla.oz> wrote:
> rep_movsd wrote:
>
> ----snip----
>
>> MS did it before - remember the Singularity OS, Sing# and Spec# ?
>>
>> MS keeps trying many things, but there is still Windows 3.1 code in
>> Windows 10
>
> I very much doubt that. Windows 3.1 is a M$ kludge. Windows 10 is
> descended from Windows NT, which was written by DEC.

kernel only.
>
> ----snip----


-- 
press any key to continue or any other to quit...
U ničemu ja ne uživam kao u svom statusu INVALIDA -- Zli Zec
Svi smo svedoci - oko 3 godine intenzivne propagande je dovoljno da jedan narod poludi --  Zli Zec
Na divljem zapadu i nije bilo tako puno nasilja, upravo zato jer su svi 
bili naoruzani. -- Mladen Gogala

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#70364

Melzzzzz wrote:
> Ned Latham wrote:
> > rep_movsd wrote:
> >
> > ----snip----
> >
> > > MS did it before - remember the Singularity OS, Sing# and Spec# ?
> > >
> > > MS keeps trying many things, but there is still Windows 3.1 code in
> > > Windows 10
> >
> > I very much doubt that. Windows 3.1 is a M$ kludge. Windows 10 is
> > descended from Windows NT, which was written by DEC.
>
> kernel only.

Actually a DEC team who had worked on VMS and were hired for the job.

I read in BYTE (Aug. 1985, IIRC) that after taking delivery, M$ set
about "improving" it. The example given by BYTE was the removal of
code that tested the graphics card before every write. For the speedup.

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#70366

On 12/9/2019 4:25 PM, Ned Latham wrote:
> Melzzzzz wrote:
>> Ned Latham wrote:
>>> rep_movsd wrote:
>>>
>>> ----snip----
>>>
>>>> MS did it before - remember the Singularity OS, Sing# and Spec# ?
>>>>
>>>> MS keeps trying many things, but there is still Windows 3.1 code in
>>>> Windows 10
>>>
>>> I very much doubt that. Windows 3.1 is a M$ kludge. Windows 10 is
>>> descended from Windows NT, which was written by DEC.
>>
>> kernel only.
> 
> Actually a DEC team who had worked on VMS and were hired for the job.
> 
> I read in BYTE (Aug. 1985, IIRC) that after taking delivery, M$ set
> about "improving" it. The example given by BYTE was the removal of
> code that tested the graphics card before every write. For the speedup.

The true speedup was moving the graphics device into ring 0.  And the 
cause of many crashes due to buggy video device drivers.

Lynn

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#70367

Lynn McGuire wrote:
> Ned Latham wrote:
> > Melzzzzz wrote:
> > > Ned Latham wrote:
> > > > rep_movsd wrote:
> > > >
> > > > ----snip----
> > > >
> > > > > MS did it before - remember the Singularity OS, Sing# and Spec# ?
> > > > >
> > > > > MS keeps trying many things, but there is still Windows 3.1 code in
> > > > > Windows 10
> > > >
> > > > I very much doubt that. Windows 3.1 is a M$ kludge. Windows 10 is
> > > > descended from Windows NT, which was written by DEC.
> > >
> > > kernel only.
> > 
> > Actually a DEC team who had worked on VMS and were hired for the job.
> > 
> > I read in BYTE (Aug. 1985, IIRC) that after taking delivery, M$ set
> > about "improving" it. The example given by BYTE was the removal of
> > code that tested the graphics card before every write. For the speedup.
>
> The true speedup was moving the graphics device into ring 0.  And the 
> cause of many crashes due to buggy video device drivers.

Way to go, M$!

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