Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!Mark_G_Woodruff
From: Mark_G_Woodruff@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: OS features
Message-ID: <1971@cup.portal.com>
Date: 13 Dec 87 08:42:21 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 225
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.2332
Following are the replies to my query about operating system features people
liked. Comments followed by a bullet (yes, it's really a lower case o)
are summaries of what the person said. Comments followed by a right
arrow (yes, it's really a greater-than sign) are more-or-less verbatim
(minor editing changes only). Anything in brackets are my own remarks.
From: Michal Young
o Device-independent stream I/O, for files and for terminals (a la Curses)
o A shell command language with control structures and job control (a la
csh)
o Remote command execution and remote file systems (a la Sun NFS)
o Reentrant libraries (a la Vulcan [a HORRIBLE os])
o Dynamic run-time linking (a la MVS [or Smalltalk])
> Command completion (The DEC OS's get this better than Unix)
[Could you please elaborate?]
o History substitution (a la csh)
> Synchronous mail notification (before a prompt)
[Again, please explain.]
From: sun!RUTGERS.EDU!uwvax!ncc!alberta!edson!tic!ruiu (dragos)
> The one thing I miss on unix from VMS more than anything is pressing
> control T and seeing the cpu time or the i/o changing in my program,
> and knowing wether it's just the system thrashing or wether something
> is seriously hung. It's a little thing... Boy, if I had Kernel
> source... :-)
> VMS has another nice feature... it degrades gracefully under pressure.
From: Paul Fuqua
> Tops-20: the COMND jsys -- completion and help in every command.
[Please explain.]
> (MIT version) Chaosnet as a device -- "copy foo cha:xx.send_pf" would
> copy the foo file as the text of a "send" ("write" in BSD Unix) to user
> "pf" on host "xx" via Chaos."
> Lisp Machines: No clear distinction between OS, environment, and
> programs -- all functions are treated equally, all processes are visible.
> Easy accessibility to all functions, variables, and constants --
> prototyping is much easier when one can steal from existing examples.
[Smalltalk does this well.]
From: ian@sq.com (Ian F. Darwin)
> For a brief description of the salient features that I like
> about UNIX, please read the paper
> The UNIX Time-Sharing System
> D. M. Ritchie, K Thompson
> CACM 17 N 7, July 1974, pp 363.
> Revised edition in Bell System Tech J, V57, N6, July-Aug 1978.
> I have used more operating systems than I have fingers, and the
> reasons I prefer UNIX are in the paper, for the most part.
From: meissner@xyzzy.DG.COM
Features in AOS and AOS/VS
o Generalized searchlists (where the searchlist is searched for all file
accesses instead of just for execution requests)
o More powerful access control and more permissions
[The best example I've seen of this is the Novell Advanced Netware
package. Novell allows you define multiple groups of
individuals, name them, then give various rights for each file
or directory according to group as well as individual names. The
result is effective, powerful, and, when combined with their user
interface, very easy to use.]
o Screen-editing in all console I/O (so that your basic editing functions
are always available)
From: John Hanley
> Most important feature: coherent design
o A standard calling convention so that programs in one language can
call programs in other languages (a la VMS)
o Integrated security
From: gerry@uunet.UU.NET (G. Roderick Singleton)
> I still like CP/M. For all its faults, it provided phenomenol control
> over the installed evironment even without sources. The CP/M community
> added to its usefulness.
o A rich tool set (a la UNIX)
From: uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter
> Setuid bit in UNIX. Brilliance.
> UNIX directory structure. Inodes/links.
> Berkeley symbolic links.
[Please explain.]
> VMS/AmigaDOS symbolic names.
[Please explain.]
> RMD in RSX.
[Please explain.]
> Signals in UNIX: in general being able to write interrupt-like handlers
> in a process context in a high level language.
> Message passing between totally isolated parts of the O/S in AmigaDOS.
> Makes it easy to add drivers.
> Being small and tight is good. Taking features out if it helps is good.
> Version 7 is a better designed O/S than either System V or Berkeley.
From: marzullo@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Keith Marzullo)
o An integrated environment, and an open architecture
> I also have really appreciated all systems that support spy hooks, or
> what Jeff Mogul calls packet filters in his paper in the latest SOSP.
> Not only have they served as another way to quickly prototype protocol
> families, they allow one to write some very powerful monitoring tools.
[Can you tell us more?]
From: sun!texsun!killer!jfh (The Beach Bum)
> RT-11. I liked having real hardware sitting under my software. When I
> wanted it.
From: sun!rutgers.edu!moss!ho95e!wcs (Bill Stewart)
> Features I've liked/disliked
>
> Good-Automagic version files, a'la VMS. Whenever you change a file,
> the old one is kept until you explicitly remove it.
>
> Bad-Hierarchical file systems where you need different syntax for each
> level, or need to know what disk something is on, like DOS or VMS.
>
> Bad-Operating Systems that "know" what your files look like
> (e.g. records). It can be valuable to have headers in the
> file that identify it, but the OS should stay out of the way.
From: uunet!pwa-b!mmintl!franka (Frank Adams)
> I was very fond of the command processing on TOPS/20. In particular:
>
> Typing part of a command and question mark, the system tells you what
> commands start with the given prefix.
>
> Typing escape in mid-command, the system guesses what you want next,
> complete with "guide words". (If you don't like it, you can back up, of
> course.)
>
> The fact that the commands were well-named was also a big plus.
From: hoptoad!pdnbah!reggie (George Leach)
o A hierarchical file system
o Heuristic command processing (a la above and Unix 8th edition)
From: "Michael A. Patton"