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Non-Tech : Ashton Technology (ASTN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mst2000 who wrote (1847)	6/22/1999 11:54:00 PM
From: Sir Auric Goldfinger	Respond to of 4443

"this one goes to 11"

To: mst2000 who wrote (1847)	6/23/1999 12:38:00 AM
From: jackie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4443

Actually all of the debate about UNIX vs Windows reminds me of the raging debates we had in the 70s regarding which OS was best in the mainframe world, MVS or VM. At one point, some within the IBM empire wanted to get rid of VM as there should be one world view of the mainframe. The VP called upon to make this august decision noticed VM was being used by the developers of MVS to test new releases of MVS. Obviously, they were not going to do away with a system so useful to themselves. I have always likened the DP world to the New Guinea highlands. Strange geography inhabited by even stranger groups of people. All these people are divided up into tribes (VM, MVS, DOS, Windows, UNIX, AOS, etc.) and sub-tribes (COBOL, FORTRAN, APL, C, C++, BASIC, VISUAL BASIC) all speaking their own dialect and at constant warfare with each other. They're all jabbering at each other over a stolen pig or woman and every once in a while, someone throws a spear. Nothing is ever resolved because one part of New Guinea is pretty much like any other. But all involved are convinced they are right. "We of the so & so tribe are much better than those pigs in the them bad guys tribe because we wear mud hats from the big river." These seeming huge differences are simply due to familiarity. If you were trained with COBOL/CICS/JCL, you think that's best. If something else, that's the way to go. I've always taken the stance, whatever works for you works for me. So, I've gotten to work on a lot of different systems. It's been fun and enlightening to see how all these approaches can be made to work. The point is, each system carries its own culture. You have to respect the cultures you're working with, unless you're planning to get rid of everyone. Usually, the folks in any given environment get pretty good at what they do. So you let them decide, if you're smart, the technical details. By the way, VM was the first client server environment. Many of the concepts used today by the designers and developers of web sites, client servers and so forth were first addressed in the VM universe. Trivia point, which is not so trivial, is everybody aware of the fact the IBM mainframe, with its latest release of OS 390 can host Windows applications? Is there anyone doubting the scalability of the IBM mainframe for extra large capacity? I think it is ironic the salvation for many of the overtaxed web servers would be the adoption of IBM mainframes as servers. It was not that long ago everyone was predicting the demise of IBM mainframes because this huge web of PCs was taking over the DP universe. So, if the VTS system should become overtaxed with say, 50,000 transactions per day, which would translate to a minimum of 250,000,000 shares being traded per day, I would recommend a close look at the purchase or lease of an IBM mainframe, running OS 390, hosting the Windows based (assuming it's all Windows based) VTS system. I'm sure the local friendly IBM service technicians would be delighted to assist the technical staff of ASTN in the implementation. Also by the way, I would expect, if the true maximum of Windows NT is 100K transactions per day, the response time would be materially affected at around 80K. Regards, Jack