System/6000 questions.

[Peter Jeffe 512.823.4091]

In article <1990Jul14.012752.15182 at ico.isc.com> rcd at ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>> If you had bothered to read the rest of my qualifying phrase, you would have
>> seen that I contend that it is fairly lean, *considering* all the junk that
>> has been added to support National Language Support, security, journalled
>> file system, etc...
>
>But wait...that means *I* can be considered lean, *considering* all the
>beer I drink, my love of chocolate, rich sauces, meat, sweets, etc.!  I'm
>really quite lean considering what I eat and drink; never mind that I'm 30
>lb heavier than I should be.
>
>Look, 80 Mb is *not* a lean system.  Leanness is a virtue to some people,
>but other folks would rather have a feature-rich system and don't care
>whether it's lean.  Fine.  For the ones who really want a lean system, your
>conditional definition of leanness isn't helpful, and doesn't prove
>anything.

The mistake you're making is in equating weight with fat.  But the reality
is that weight can be composed of either fat or lean tissue, and this is an
important distinction.  In your example, your extra 30 pounds are fat.
They are useless, and should be trimmed.  But a football player's "extra"
30 pounds are muscle, and serve a useful function given his profession.

This is the simple fact I was trying to make: that the relatively large
size of AIX is not due to inefficient code, or even to adding a lot of
useless functions; rather, it is (largely) due to adding functionality that
is important in the context of the existing and near-term market for Unix
boxes.

You are right that people may choose whether the extra functions put into
AIX are worth the extra disk space they require.  I'm not particularly fond
of the added bulk, but my contention is that it represents a trend, and
that IBM has chosen to implement features that other systems will probably
implement in the future.  I doubt that the folks at Sun et al are going to
let IBM just walk away with the international and government markets.  So
like it or not, things like national language support and security are
probably here to stay, and they do tend to tip the scales.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Jeffe   ...uunet!cs.utexas.edu!ibmchs!auschs!sandino.austin.ibm.com!jeffe
        first they want a disclaimer, then they make you pee in a jar,
                   then they come for you in the night