From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!G:cliff
Newsgroups: net.cms
Title: Re: CP PER, Student CMS, Batch, Etc.
Article-I.D.: populi.172
Posted: Fri May 14 11:05:39 1982
Received: Sat May 15 03:44:46 1982

Actually, Waterloo's Student CMS is a special CMS that requires HEAVY
modifications to CP to run.  So it can't really be compared to a class
of students using almost unmodified CMS.  I was surprised to hear that
someone feels strongly about CMS over UNIX.  My experience is that UNIX
provides a far nicer environment to work in, but I have to use CMS to 
do things that UNIX doesn't provide, such as SPSS or any of a multitude
of packages not running on UNIX.
	Let's do a survey (if anyone is interested in this group this
will certainly show it), of what people like about UNIX over CMS or
vice-versa.  To start:

Nice things about UNIX totally unavailable on CMS:
	A file system. 
        I/O redirection and pipes.  I can't believe that there are
		operating systems being designed today that don't have
		this.  CMS' excuse is it's extreme old age...

Things that CMS does better:
	Lots of software available (most of the good stuff not from IBM).
	Better system security in that there are no 'priveleged' programs
		floating around.  Password security is always lousy on any
		system...
	Runs on faster systems.
	Editors tend to not be CPU intensive because they rely on smart
		terminals.  (Note that the editors are pretty bad though).
	Virtual Machine nice for much testing.

More about UNIX:
	Program maintanence tools.
	Word processing stuff that is wonderful, especially when compared
		to the IBM stuff.  
	Vi or Emacs editor.  Xedit and Edgar are fine for many programming
		applications, but fall flat on their faces when faced with
		preparing a document.

More about CMS:
	A reasonable scheduler that gives priority to real I/O so that
		number crunchers wait while editors can go merrily on.
		UNIX doesn't seem to do this as well.

This could go on all day, I don't think I could come up with much more
in favor of CMS though.  Please note that I think CMS is reasonable for
doing lots of kinds of work, I just MUCH prefer the enviroment provided 
by UNIX.  Also, please excuse much of the grammer and spelling, I have
no editor escape.  There is an  above that should be , but
the split infinitive is there because I like them.
	I can't wait to hear what people like about CMS and see as the
drawbacks of UNIX.
		-Cliff (ucbvax!g:cliff)