From VMS to UNIX

[mat at hou5d.UUCP]

Well, I will allow myself ONE public reply in this arena ... and anything
further that I have to say will go to net.flame.

THE PROBLEM WITH ANY LANGUAGE THAT TRIES TO BE VERY GOOD ON * O N E *
MACHINE IS THAT IT WILL INEVITABLY BE WORSE (OR UNUSABLE) ON OTHERS.

C just barely avoided that trap.

I believe that Bliss qualifies ... although it is nowhere as bad as some
``systems programming languages'' that I have seen.  Most of THOSE were
written by Hardware Jocks.  What is a hardware jock?

Manager:	H J has just pointed out that if we replace the model
		xxxyyy processor made by Mungotronics with the bbmm
		that Standard Semi makes, we can knock 5% off the cost of
		That Board.

	(``That Board'' represents 1/12 of the cost of the product.  The
	Standard Semi processor uses a 9 register general purpose
	architecture for which approximately 40,000 lines of code have been
	written and debugged and documented.  The Mungotronics machine is
	a stack machine with one index register that must be loaded a byte
	at a time, and no multiply or divide instructions.  It is also
	35% slower than the Standard Semi chip and one of That Board's
	functions is communications.)

Programmer:	We can't do that!  The processors are totally incompatible!

Hardware Jock:	What do you mean, incompatible!  They're both NMOS!?


Hardware Jocks write a lot of ``systems programming languages''.  They
often call them ``Systems Programming Language'' or some such drivel.

Real Hardware Men ask BEFORE they build.  Brassboards mean never having
to say you're sorry!

						Mark Terribile
						DOdN