RE: Question Re: Piping and Redirection -- MIDRANGE-L

| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
| [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of James Rich

<snips throughout>

|
| There are fundamental differences.
|

I may be a dinosaur, James, but even dinosaurs can learn new trix...;-)

I actually DO understand the difference between a DB file, text file and
byte stream...  My question was more whether there was ENOUGH of a
fundamental difference, to prevent them from being converted back-and-forth.

Take, for example, a Source *PF.  You and I know that they have SRCSEQ,
SRCDAT, and SRCLIN...  But what's the complexity to "shell out" to *nix,
convert one member to a text file, run various *nix commands and convert it
back again...?

>From my understanding of this thread, it's do-able.. but looking for more
info on where the difficulties are.



| So most unix commands are kept general on purpose so that they can be
| flexible.  This is where I feel IBM has messed up.

Well, I s'pose some still consider this a matter of opinion.  I don't,
because IBM is running *nix and CPF/OS/400 on the same hardware...  The 400,
not to even include the pSeries, does a decent job of running *nix, and was
Best-of-Show at LinuxWorld.

So, (while IBM has have messed up in some respects), I don't see how the
architecture designed into the 400 can be considered  flawed in this
respect, whatsoever.  You can get the best of both worlds (as fer as I ken
tell...;-)...



| So unix commands are designed with flexibility in mind.  This doesn't
| necessarily make them better or worse that OS/400 commands, just a
| different paradigm.  And while flexibility may be one more rope to hang
| yourself with, it may also be the rope that pulls you out of the
| quicksand.

Nice analogy that doesn't really fit.

Look...  I know the numbers, and the vast majority of the computer industry,
and just about all 4-year graduates, will agree with You, James.

But, of those who have seriously studied CPF/OS/400, my gut-feeling is that
most see the advantages over *nix.  Sure, there are always trade-offs...
But the idea that any one paradigm is just about as good as another
COMPLETELY ignores TCO in the equation, as well as industry-leading customer
satisfaction surveys year after year.



And, frankly, if IBM Open Sourced an old version of OS/400 (which'd still
probably be ahead of the current version of Linux), and donated some excess
processing capacity to Universities (and with Grid systems, there should be
a lot more-a that)...

..Well I firmly believe that the smartist kids would be doing their *nix
homework like always, but spending a lotta their spare time on (a superior
OS/) 400.  Just my guess, of course, and IBM may never do it
anyhoo............


jt

(Go Bucks..!! BEAT MICHIGAN!!!)