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From: "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2024 09:37:39 +0200
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On 2024-08-19 01:14, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Aug 2024 10:10:09 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> On 2024-08-17 23:51, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 17 Aug 2024 12:58:31 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>>
>>>> Windows inter-process API are far more advanced than what UNIX ever
>>>> had. It would be enough to mention famous file locks.
>>>
>>> Except those file locks are more of a liability than an asset.
>>
>> Like so many things in UNIX...
> 
> People voluntarily choose to use Unix-type OSes. There’s a reason why
> Unix-type OSes are the official de-facto standard in the computing world,
> not Windows.

Both OSes contributed to the Dark Ages of computing. The reasons are not 
technical, because both were worst on the market. The similar process 
happened with programming languages, e.g. C and with the hardware 
architectures, e.g. x86. It is always a race to the bottom...

>>> They are what prevent you from continuing to use a Windows system while
>>> it is being updated, for example.
>>
>> Windows mutex gets collected when the last process using it dies. UNIX
>> file lock does not.
> 
> What happens to a file lock when there is no file for it to lock?

Windows does not use lock files. Under Linux you must log in as the root 
and remove the stray file lock manually. It happens in UNIX 
administration all the time.

> Remember, the current Windows (aka Windows NT) was masterminded by Dave
> Cutler, who came from the nest of Unix-haters at DEC. He carried over many
> of the characteristics of his last major brainchild there, VMS. One of
> them is that creating multiple processes is expensive, so you try to avoid
> it.

A wise decision. The look of UNIX SysV process list was a sheer horror 
to any user of RSX or VMS. No wonder UNIX was many times slower on same 
machines. A VMS 1Mb machine supported 4 users running an interactive IDE 
sessions (in LSE). UNIX users enjoyed Vi and permanent fatal crashes. 
The early filesystem rewrote the master block, so after the crash you 
could not boot anymore and have to restore the system from the tape. 
Under RSX you could turn the main disk off and on without reboot.

The reason why Windows NT could no compete Linux on servers is 
unbearable maintenance and being fat. Linux had a monolithic kernel. I 
compiled it for each machine to include only drivers I needed. I did not 
install X11 stuff. The result was twice leaner than Windows NT.

On the other hand you still cannot have decent gaming under Linux.

>> Windows has a pipe object named and anonymous. No problem.
> 
> One problem: you can’t use them with poll/select calls.

You can. See overlapped I/O.

>> P.S. It is no wonder that Windows process API are far beyond UNIX.
> 
> Linux has clone(2). This can create regular POSIX-style processes, as well
> as regular POSIX-style threads. And quite a few things in-between.
> 
>> On the other hand, Windows NT was developed by people influenced with
>> the VMS design. VMS had a very elaborated process communication API.
> 
> And single drive letters?

They are dozens characters long actually, if you mean the device names.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de