Re: OT - Shutting down an RS/6000 ? -- MIDRANGE-L

jpcarr=BXdtB8kxIH5Wk0Htik3J/w@public.gmane.org wrote:

OK, I'll come right out and say it: Yeah, I'm a Unix bigot.
Furthermore, Unix in general and Linux in particular are important
to my employer's business. Very important indeed!
Cheers!  Hans

Hmm.  You said it I didn't.
Note the similarities between the .Gif and yourself.
You work in the Toronto "Labs"  You are just missing the White Lab Coat.

Saying all this, You know I love ya (and Barbara and the rest. And all the
things you produce out of the "Lab"

But it is lightyear's away from the mind set of "Business" Programmers
by and large.

Different focuses, Different background.  Different measurements of
what "Being Good at your job" means.

Mine is how well I know Bill of Materials, Shopfloor, Inventory control,
Oh and BTW I also program.

The "I program"  part is the least of what the business expects from me.

IF anyone wants to see the SUN Unix Programmer .GIF I mentioned above send
me an email and I
will send it to you.

Ultimately, you're right. What matters is supporting your businesses
IT needs with the appropriate tools and services. And yes, the
OS/400 has traditionally been very good at supporting business
applications.

But things in this industry have a way of evolving. We're undergoing
yet another little paradigm shift these days, and factors that were
mere theoretical considerations years ago are now becoming much more
important to business programming. Today, since the same fundamental
services, such as databases and communications, are available in a
compatible manner on almost all boxes, it is now becoming much
easier to scale applications up and down the entire IBM hardware
product line, and not just within one particular family. The old
dream of software portability is now becoming a reality, thanks to
the growth of open standards in general, and Linux in particular.

And so, in a sense, factors which were considered advantages of
OS/400 years ago might now be considered as vestiges of a
proprietary system. Who knows, perhaps OS/400 will over time
disappear (as Joe fears). But then, that will happen *only* when
something better comes along. That something better will have to
have all the advantages of OS/400 (such as rock solid stability,
ease-of-setup, hands-off operation, etc.), but will also probably
look a lot like Linux (IMO).

Sure, I suppose Unix bigots might be considered "propeller-heads".
But it's those propeller-heads who are now at the leading edge of
the current evolution. (I've been listening to a few Linux marketing
pitches here during the past few days, and from what I've heard,
this company has some very good reasons to be serious about Linux.)

BTW, looking at that image you sent me, I'm really not quite sure
what Sun's message is. Yeah, it does look like Sun's logo, but do
they really expect to sell anything with that kind of ad?

Cheers!  Hans