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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2024 10:40:32 +0200
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On 19/08/2024 09:37, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 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. 

What sort of time-frame are you thinking of here, what were the 
alternatives that you think were "better", what markets or uses are you 
considering, and in what way were other OS's "better" ?

There's no doubt that non-technical issues have had a big influence on 
which OS's or types of OS have succeeded, but you seem to have something 
specific in mind.


> 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...
> 

The success of the x86 was very much a race to the bottom - it was 
picked specifically to give a cheaper system rather than the technically 
superior architecture (m68k) preferred by the engineers.  Momentum and 
backwards compatibility has kept it going ever since.

I am not as convinced with respect to C.  It certainly has its flaws, 
and it certainly has been, and continues to be, used in situations where 
it is not a good choice of language.  But I think much of the bad 
reputation of C is the result of poor C programmers and poor use of the 
language, rather than the language itself.  Good programmers will write 
good code in any language, bad programmers (or badly managed 
programmers) will write bad code in any language.

>>>> 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.

Windows has locks on files, which are a different thing.  While I can 
understand the point of them, they can be a real inconvenience (try 
deleting a directory tree when a file from that tree is in use).

> Under Linux you must log in as the root 
> and remove the stray file lock manually. It happens in UNIX 
> administration all the time.

As someone who has administrated Linux servers for decades, and used it 
as my desktop OS on many machines, I am not sure I can ever remember 
removing a stray lock file.  Certainly needing to do so "all the time" 
is a very wild exaggeration.  Linux, like all systems, undoubtedly has 
its flaws and weaknesses, but this is not one of them IME.

> 
>> 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.
> 

Times change.  Needs and uses change.  Hardware changes.

Keeping things separate and modular has advantages in scalability, 
security and stability.  Keeping things monolithic has advantages in 
efficiency (speed and memory) and consistency.  There is no "right" answer.

> 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.
> 

I do almost all my gaming under Linux.  Some games do work better under 
Windows, but that is primarily because most games developers target 
Windows as their main platform.  It may also be because Linux systems 
are more varied.

>>> 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.
> 

I thought by "drive letters", he meant "drive letters" - "c:", "d:", etc.