From - Thu Nov 12 11:13:40 1998 Path: canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca!not-for-mail From: Brian Fristensky Newsgroups: bionet.software Subject: Re: Weaknesses of Microsoft. Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 20:03:41 -0600 Organization: University of Manitoba Lines: 230 Message-ID: <3648F07D.4DA70F50@cc.umanitoba.ca> References: <3647F94C.C1E1135F@pharm.uu.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: brassica.cc.umanitoba.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4u) Xref: canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca bionet.software:21334 Content-Length: 8034 Status: RO > Luis R Viteri wrote: > > > > Who can list 5 weaknesses of Microsoft? > > > > --LRV-- I shouldn't jump into this, but since this is a bionet group, I'll try to stick to reasons why MS-Windows is a bad place to do molecular biology. 1. The single user PC model. ---------------------------- The concept that a computer is used by a single user, who has all his/her software and files on one machine, is inextricably entrenched in Windows. Even though NT now allows a user to have a home directory of sorts, no software that I have seen defaults to it. Windows software always wants to write files to a directory, usually named 'Documents' or 'Data' deep within the 'Programs' hierarchy. If multiple users use a machine, every time you open a file you have to do an awful lot of clicking to get to a directory you own. Unless you could afford to put each specialized molecular bio. software package onto each person's PC, you are stuck with the task of having data from numerous users mingling in the same directory. 2. The one window owns the screen model. ----------------------------------------- I guess commercial software vendors want to show how important their programs are by making them default to taking up the entire screen. Yes, you can click at the top of a window to make it take up only part of the screen, but every time you start another task, you have to keep doing that. This kind of behavior prevents people from learning how to work with multiple windows (eg. a sequence generating several windows, a web browser in another, a database in another window). Also, most windows apps are written with the intention that they should take up the entire screen, so they use a lot screen real estate, especially at the top of the window. Many Windows apps look pretty ugly if you try to make them take up less than a full screen. In contrast, apps written for X-windows tend to economize on screen real estate. (xv and acedb are champs, here). 3. The each program owns the system model. ------------------------------------------ NT claims to have preemptive multitasking. However, there are still lots of situations in which a program is waiting to do something, or the program hangs, and the entire screen freezes up. You literally can't do anything else at this point, except, of course, to reboot. In a research environment, you have to be able to do a lot of tasks at the same time. With NT, it seems that the more simultaneous tasks are going on, the higher the liklihood that one of them will freeze the system. While I have, a few times in my life seen an X11 application freeze up the screen, requiring me to log in from another terminal to cancel the job (which I don't think is possible in NT), these occurrences have been rare. 4. Poor command line functionality. ----------------------------------- Well, NT is better than DOS, but not by much. Compared to the thousands of Unix commands, the improvement in NT is barely significant. Lots of the more sophisticated sequence tools don't have graphic interfaces, and need to be run from the command line. With GDE, it has been possible to automate the process of running text-based/command line programs from a graphic interface, solely because the underlying commands were available in Unix to do so. I use a GUI for most things, but when I want a robust command line, Unix has what I need. 5. File dis-organization ------------------------- I run a multiuser sequence analysis resource called BIRCH, for 'Biological Research Computer Hierarchy'. (see http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~psgendb). Notice the word hierarchy. In a well organized Unix system, the entire system throughout the campus or corporation behaves as a single hierarchy. To make programs and databases available to our users, I put them into a world-readable directory structure. To access the programs, the first time user has to run a single setup script, that adds lines to his/her .login and .cshrc files that tell the shell to look to the BIRCH global cshrc and login scripts for setup commands. That way, even when the configuration has to be changed, (eg. new environment variables, telling programs where to find files), the changes take effect the next time the user logs in, without them having to do a thing. I have been managing BIRCH as a multiuser system since 1991, and we now have over 140 users campuswide. In all that time, I have never once had to login to user accounts, one by one, to make some change take effect. NT still has drives (C:, H:, S: etc) that can be redefined by each user on their own PC, unless every PC is individually configured by somebody with enough time to go to each machine and configure it. I presume there are still environment variables as DOS had, but I don't know. When one considers how many different configurations of PCs there are on a campus, the idea of trying to implement a BIRCH-like system on NT makes me queasy. I don't know that it's impossible, but I wouldn't want to make the attempt. 6. Installed base of software ----------------------------- It is still true that more molecular biology software is developed on Unix than any other platform, largely because for serious computing, and in particular, for serious programming, development is easier. The same is probably true in many other areas of science. A funny irony, when you consider the fact that the main reason Windows has such a strong monopoly is because of its market share of office desktop software. I can't imagine trying to do serious science on an NT platform. If software vendors would get serious about writing desktop applications for Unix, we could say good riddance to Windows and the messy computing model that it forces people to work with. 7. The START button --------------------- This comment is not really germane to biology, but the start button is a damned inconvenient thing to use, because it makes you move all the way to one corner of the screen. All X11 window managers have a floating workspace menu, which you get simply by holding down the right mouse button ANYWHERE on the screen. 8. The sea of icons -------------------- Who thought it would be a good idea for every application on the system to take up a little bit of the screen, EVEN WHEN IT ISN'T RUNNING? Install a Windows app, and lose more screen real estate to a colorful icon. And you still have to move to a specific place on the screen to launch it. And THEN, when you do launch it, a button at the bottom of the screen takes up even more real estate! This is better? 9. Windows doesn't have a concept of a current working directory. ------------------------------------------ In Unix, start a program in any directory it will read and write files, by default, within that directory. This makes it easier to keep your directories organized by topic, rather than by program. For example $home courses cyto pmg pmpp research grants NSERC95 NSERC98 papers sti stii yw1 At best, a Windows program might start you out in the root directory. Now I have a question. Is there anybody out there actually doing real science on the NT platform -- and loving it? Maybe NT has some hidden charms that have been lost on me. =============================================================================== Brian Fristensky | "...literature... is like stopping your car Department of Plant Science | on the highway at night and stepping out and University of Manitoba | walking alone into dark damp woods because Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 CANADA | it's unbearable to only know what's in your frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca | headlights. Art calls us out of the regulated Office phone: 204-474-6085 | life into a life that is dangerous, free." FAX: 204-474-7528 | Garrison Keillor, WE ARE STILL MARRIED http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~frist/ ===============================================================================