specialized machines

["Robert S. Kirk" <rsk%samson.cadr.dialnet.symbolics.com@RELAY.CS.NET>]

    Date: Sun, 11 Jun 89 20:18:09 CDT
    From: "BUCKMAN%ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM"%ALAN.KAHUNA.DECNET.LOCKHEED.COM@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM
	  (BUCKMAN@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM)

    Received: from JOHN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM by ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 25189; Sun 11-Jun-89 18:17:18 PDT
    Date: Sun, 11 Jun 89 18:16 PDT
    From: Eric Buckman <BUCKMAN@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM>
    Subject: specialized machines
    To: slug@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM
    In-Reply-To: Your message of 11 Jun 89 08:11 PDT
    Message-ID: <19890612011655.7.BUCKMAN@JOHN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM>
 
	Date: Sun, 11-Jun-89 08:11:44-PDT
 
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	To: slug@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM
	Subject: specialized machines
	Date: Sun, 11 Jun 89 08:10:38 EDT
	From: bds@mbunix.mitre.org
 
 
	[ Of all the comments that I made ...]
	So I prefer the Symbolics machine for my work.  However, recently a
	decision was made to develop our system as a multi-user one, and to
	use a separate database machine in the network.  The dbms chosen was
	Oracle (much of the Air Force is going in this direction), and since
	Oracle won't run on a Symbolics, we chose the Sun 4 as the platform.
	Since we didn't want to get into writing lots of low level network
	code, we really had no choice but to use Oracle's built-in multi-user
	code and therefore run the Lisp code on other Suns (with Lucid 3.0).
	And so, one day we woke up with the realization that the future of the
	project was no longer with Symbolics, but instead with Sun.  The fact
	that Symbolics machines are not capable of running a relational dbms
	like Oracle killed it.
    Ever hear of Statice, Symbolics object oriented DATABASE system, designed to
    handle multiuser access to databases.  My guess is it would have solved you Database problems
    in a much more powerfull manner.

Yes, yes, we've all heard about it.  Thats just the problem, only
Symbolics users know about it, no one else.  There's a whole world of
DBMS programmers out there.  You know, the ones who use languages like
COBOL and who have never heard of Lisp, let alone Statice.

Our company has just become an unfortunate victim (oops, customer) of
Oracle.  I can assure you that there is *absolutely* no way you or
anyone can convince our management that they should even consider
Statice.

First, our management considers Symbolics a high risk investment and
secondly they would be worried about being able to hire Statice
programmers.

Now if Symbolics software ran on a Sun, then objection #1 would be
largely dismissed and maybe we could deal with objection #2.
 
	[Thankfully there are more projects, and nothing can touch a Symbolics
	for bringing up the initial, single-user, standalone system. ....]
	Barry Smith
 
    Eric Buckman