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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!decwrl!sun-barr!ames!think.com!linus!linus.mitre.org!virtual
- From: pathak@mitre.org (Heeren Pathak)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.programmer
- Subject: Re: Win NT Dev, Conf. Report
- Message-ID: <pathak-210792145501@virtual.mitre.org>
- Date: 21 Jul 92 19:22:19 GMT
- References: <06!m_td.rcain@netcom.com> <62521@cup.portal.com>
- Sender: news@linus.mitre.org (News Service)
- Followup-To: comp.os.os2.programmer
- Organization: Mitre Corporation
- Lines: 67
- Nntp-Posting-Host: virtual.mitre.org
-
- In article <62521@cup.portal.com>, ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) wrote:
- >
- > > My biggest concern here has been the stability of the kernel. While the
- > > beta kernel looks good, you really don't know how well it works. Before
- > > somebody posts something about how it is a microkernel and thus small and
- > > easy to write well, let me point out that both NeXT and OSF spend a huge
- > > amount of time testing and debugging the Mach microkernel. From what I
- > > understand, the Mach kernel is now very stable but if it took time and
- > > people using in commercial situtations before all the bugs were found and
- > > taken out.
- >
- > Yeah, but compared to the number of people who develop for Microsoft
- > OSes, the number of Mach developers is insignificant. If Microsoft
- > can get a significant fraction of their developers to participate in
- > an NT beta, they should be able to get kernel stability before a general
- > release with no problem (assuming that any lack of kernel stability is
- > due to implementation bugs rather than design flaws).
- >
-
- Excuse me??? Please get your facts straight.
-
- Mach has been worked on by a large number of researchers world-wide as well
- as people at NeXT and companies associated with OSF. Granted NeXT doesn't
- have a huge user base but they have had a number of people spend several
- years working on the Mach kernal. NeXT has actually been shipping with a
- Mach kernal for several years and it was through this commercial shipment
- that many of the bugs were found. OSF also had a number of people working
- on the kernal and with OSF comes DEC, HP, IBM, and a bunch of other major
- workstation vendors. On the other hand, NT was JUST released in beta form.
- MS is planning on releaseing NT at the end of the year so that only leaves
- (at most) 6 months for developers to play around with the kernal. 6 months
- is actually optimistic since MS will need to make the code golden at least
- a few weeks ahead of time.
-
-
- > They can do what Apple did with System 7 for the Mac. Apple made sure
- > that alphas and betas of System 7 where widespread in the developer
- > community. They had many thousands of qualified alpha and beta testers.
-
- 1. System 7 is several orders of magnitude less complex than NT.
-
- 2. System 7 was based on an OS that has been in wide spread use for years.
- System 7 wasn't a totally new OS, it was a significant extension to a
- previous version of the OS (similar to the difference between OS/2 1.3 -->
- OS/2 2.0).
-
- 3. Apple had alpha versions of System 7 in developers hand almost a year
- before it was actually released. Come to think of it, even OS/2 2.0 had
- more than 6 months of pre-release testing.
-
- 4. Despite the testing both System 7 and OS/2 had bugs. Apple release
- System 7.0.1 and two "System Tune-up" extensions (patches) in less than 6
- months after release. IBM has already release a new kernal for OS/2 2.0.
- I would be extremely surprised if NT's kernal did not have bugs.
-
- > A system like Mach is not going to get this kind of testing until it
- > gets released.
-
- Like a stated before, get your facts straight.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Heeren Pathak | Television is a device that permits
- pathak@mitre.org | people who haven't anything to do to
- Mitre Corporation | watch people who can't do anything.
- (617) 271-7465 | -- Fred Allen
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Disclaimer: Mine not Mitre's.
-