RE: Thats all folks! -- MIDRANGE-L

> From: James Rich

> I have experienced database corruption due to sudden power loss on the
> AS/400.  By this I mean corrupted logical files.  The physical files were
> fine.  This has happened several times, most recently two weeks ago.  When
> this happens it does require (sometimes lengthy) rebuilds.

If you let your machines power down, you get what you get. <grin>


> But most interestingly is the idea that the AS/400 changes faster than ony
> other platform over the last 10 years.  That's just plain wrong.  11 years
> ago linux didn't even exist.  The GNU project didn't have a whole lot.
> Most PCs run running DOS 5.0.  A System 36 looked much like an AS/400
> today.  The idea that an OS which had much of its groundwork laid in 1991
> has changed faster than on OS which was hatched on an undergrad's PC in
> 1991 is ludicrous.

James, you and I fundamentally disagree on what constitutes change in an
operating system.

To me, there's very little "new" in Linux as opposed to any other *nix
variant.  It's open source, yes, but is there something fundamentally new
about Linux as opposed to, say, FreeBSD or AIX or HP/UX?

GNU isn't about operating systems, it's tools.  Now, in this particular
space Unix outshines OS/400 - the sheer bulk of third party and open source
tools available for the platform is awesome.  At the same time, though, you
can run into some pretty nasty incompatibility issues when you try to cobble
those disparate applications together.  This, though, is the argument of
open vs. proprietary and is best left to another day.

As to Windows, yes it's new, but much of the time they're just changing the
APIs in order to make you rewrite the code.  There were three version of the
Wintel OS: DOS, Windows and NT (aka OS/2).  NT has begotten Win2K and WinXP,
while WinME was just a marketing platform.  The only thing new in MS land
has been the .NET initiative.

On the other hand, IBM has consistently upgraded and evolved its midrange
OS, from CCP to SSP to CPF to OS/400.  Then, within each OS, there have been
great internal changes.  Transparent CISC to RISC was pretty cool.
Externalization of the SQL API while leaving the native I/O intact was
another one.  ILE is far beyond any simple link/loader.  The JVM integration
in OS/400 surpasses any other platform (right Blair?).

These are real changes.

Anyway, given our stands, I doubt that further argument will go anywhere.  I
wonder, though, if you and I can't somehow figure out a common ground.  Your
thoughts are every bit as valid as mine, despite our differences, and any
successful marketing strategy will have to, I think, take both viewpoints
into consideration.

Well, I'm too tired to worry about it today.  I still didn't get to
shopping, and now the streets and malls are going to be quite ...um ...
FESTIVE <grin>.

Talk at you later.

Joe