On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:03:06 -0500 (CDT), Mike Miller <mbmiller at taxa.epi.umn.edu> wrote: > On Wed, 20 Oct 2004, Jeff Nelson wrote: > > > Mike Miller wrote: > > SNIP > I guess we agree, but did you understand my point? My point was not that > it is impossible to write software for VMS, or that it is harder to write > for VMS than for Linux/UNIX, my point was that thousands of people have > developed hundreds or thousands of programs to run on Linux/UNIX and these > programs are freely available on the internet. VMS is not undergoing any > of this development. It is stagnating. Sure, someone could reverse that > trend and port R, Octave, and other programs to VMS, but it looks like > isn't going to happen. At any rate, it hasn't happened, and this is the > chief reason why I already prefer Linux/UNIX to VMS. Linux is a lowest common denomenator operating system. It runs on commodity hardware that everyone and their dog has. VMS doesn't. That makes it more likely that things get ported to it first. That doesn't mean Linux is better than VMS in quality only that more stuff is ported to it. Incidentally, portability has been why UNIX has expanded while other "superior" OS's have shrunk in market share. C is portable assembly for the most part, so UNIX could be made to run on any hardware that came down the pipe easily or at least easier than almost anything else. SNIP _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list