This is A-bit-of-perspective,-please. in view mode; [Up]
Date: Sun 26-Sep-1989 17:55:08 From: Unknown Subject: A bit of perspective, please. With all the grumbling about NeXT bugs and things, there is one thing people *must* remember: This is version 1.0 of a radically new system! Have you ever sworn at a 128k Mac? Have you ever seen MS-DOS 1.anything? NeXT are doing amazing things, and if they can't fix all the bugs people find in a couple of hours, or write every possible program net.people might ever need, so what? Give them time. Let the system develop and mature. Let's keep things in perspective, please. ...laura >From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Date: Sun 26-Sep-1989 20:15:25 From: Unknown Subject: Re: A bit of perspective, please. In article <5125@ubc-cs.UUCP> halliday@cc.ubc.ca (Laura Halliday) writes: > This is version 1.0 of a radically new system! > >...Give them time. Let the system develop and mature. I heard Steve Jobs say (more than once) that 1.0 was going to be "bug-free, commercial quality software", not like typical UNIX releases. In point of fact, 1.0 is just as buggy as a SunOS release. In the three days I've had 1.0 up, I've been bitten by half a dozen bugs, and paniced the system once. It seems clear to me that the decision to call this release 1.0 was simply a bow to marketing pressure. 0.95 is more like it. Don't get me wrong; I LIKE my cube, I LIKE the software. I think NeXT is making reasonable progress. But it's not what NeXT claimed it would be, and that does bother me a little; I don't like being misled.
Date: Sun 27-Sep-1989 13:12:24 From: Unknown Subject: Re: A bit of perspective, please. In article <1989Sep26.201525.3069@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes: > In article <5125@ubc-cs.UUCP> halliday@cc.ubc.ca (Laura Halliday) writes: > > This is version 1.0 of a radically new system! > > > >...Give them time. Let the system develop and mature. > > I heard Steve Jobs say (more than once) that 1.0 was going to be "bug-free, > commercial quality software", not like typical UNIX releases. > > In point of fact, 1.0 is just as buggy as a SunOS release. In the three > days I've had 1.0 up, I've been bitten by half a dozen bugs, and paniced the > system once. It seems clear to me that the decision to call this > release 1.0 was simply a bow to marketing pressure. 0.95 is more like it. Gosh, I don't suppose one of y'all who are having all these problems with their cubes would be interested in donating it to a worthy cause? :-) Seriously, are things REALLY this bad? I've been working on the powers that be here to get a NeXT so I could set-up an expert system to write the lion's share of our Interactive Courseware (after all, there's only so many ways to run a touch-screen in concert with a laserdisk player). However, if the thing is going to be crashing every few minutes... Ewan Grantham - Centec Advanced Tech. (...uunet!centec!egranthm) Confronting the impossible with the unthinkable >From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Date: Sun 27-Sep-1989 15:25:36 From: Unknown Subject: Re: A bit of perspective, please. In article <36@centec.UUCP> egranthm@centec.UUCP (Ewan Grantham) writes: >> [partial quote of my article] >Seriously, are things REALLY this bad? No, and *I* never said they were *bad* at all. I said they weren't what Jobs said they would be, which was *well-nigh perfect*. Let me set the record straight, publicly and unequivocally: 1. I LIKE MY CUBE. 2. Some of the applications have some bugs, but nothing disastrous. I've been using a cube as my main squeeze since December, and have been on the whole very satisfied, starting with 0.8. 3. My 1.0 cube has paniced EXACTLY ONCE. Mach/UNIX have been very good all the way back to 0.8. 4. Buy them. Buy LOTS of them. Buy so many of them that NeXT makes a ton of money, and can go on offering more bang/buck than anyone else in the industry. I have absolutely no connection with NeXT other than as a customer. I am not part of the UIUC Workstation Support Group, which provides support for them. I do not get one thin dime of any money, prestige, or fame from the sale of any cube anywhere. Put THAT in your Kama Sutra looseleaf...
Date: Sun 27-Sep-1989 18:09:00 From: Unknown Subject: Re: A bit of perspective, please. In article <36@centec.UUCP>, egranthm@centec.UUCP (Ewan Grantham) writes... >Seriously, are things REALLY this bad? [...] However, >if the thing is going to be crashing every few minutes... Well, I have been running my NeXT for about 4 months now. I find the software to be remarkably reliable. In fact, despite full-time operation, I can count the system crashes under 0.9 in this time on two hands. I would expect that the 1.0 operating system is even better. Yes, a NeXT can still crash, but it is certainly not flakey. I suspect that you would see very few crashes. Now, if I only could figure out how to ensure hardware reliability... /ivo welch iwelch@agsm.ucla.edu phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu >From: chari@nueces.cactus.org (Chris Whatley)
Date: Sun 27-Sep-1989 21:16:33 From: Unknown Subject: Re: A bit of perspective, please. egranthm@centec.UUCP (Ewan Grantham) writes: >Seriously, are things REALLY this bad? I've been working on the powers that >be here to get a NeXT so I could set-up an expert system to write the >lion's share of our Interactive Courseware (after all, there's only so >many ways to run a touch-screen in concert with a laserdisk player). However, >if the thing is going to be crashing every few minutes... No, they are not that bad. In fact, I don't know what these people are talking about. I use my NeXT for everything it is good for and I can count the number of crashes since January on my left hand. Four were from a hardware problem, namely a bad optical. The others were caused by Scene. That's it! I compile, do math, index, read news, unbatch news telecommunicate with a trailblazer etc... Granted, many Unix systems are bulletproof enough so that they can be up for months but, the limited scope of the software on those machines should explain at least part of it. Really, if you are considering buying a NeXT for development purposes and are putting it off to a later date because of "reliability issues", you should have bought one in January. It works fine! Chris
Date: Sun 28-Sep-1989 00:04:01 From: Unknown Subject: Re: A bit of perspective, please. chari@nueces.cactus.org (Chris Whatley) writes: >talking about. I use my NeXT for everything it is good for and I can >count the number of crashes since January on my left hand. Four were ^^^^ >from a hardware problem, namely a bad optical. The others were caused ^^^^^^ >by Scene. That's it! I compile, do math, index, read news, unbatch news >telecommunicate with a trailblazer etc... Of course, I forgot to say that I have six fingers on my left hand.:-) Oops! Chris
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.