Try working in my field where any crash is unacceptable. That’s why hacks
such as Radisys’s InTime sell. Did the Matrox cards get past the WHQL?
Remember all the problems they had, especially when you had an Adaptec
2940/2940W SCSI card? Getting certification doesn’t exactly mean it works
well. It just passed MS test suite. I’ve had too many occasions where
driver writes never bothered to test their code on an SMP box. Do you know
how frequently that happens? They don’t use the appropriate locking
mechanism and BOOM, down comes the system in mysterious ways. When you call
their tech support, all you get is “We’ve never seen that problem before.
It must be another board in your system.” BULL! Do it right and you don’t
have to worry. I’m accustomed to OSes that don’t crash and downtime is
measured in seconds every 2-3 years. It is apparent that as long as there
are those that have the attitude they know better than those that wrote the
OS, the OS will never be stable enough for tier 1 applications.
Enough said. I think this is going to be a religious issue. I’ve said my
piece and I think you’ve said most of yours. We each have our points and I
don’t think either side is going to convince the other. I wish you luck and
that one day your position has wreaked havoc on those of us who have to
convince the powers that be to use NT/W2K in high availability applications.
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Moreira, Alberto
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 3:15 PM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: Mapping scattered pages into process address sp ace
Greg, video vendors routinely go through WHQL. It’s not likely that you’re
going to buy a machine from a reputable manufacturer without its video board
having gone through intensive and extensive testing and gotten the Microsoft
sticker via WHQL certification. Ask anyone involved in the process for the
massive amount of brainpower and resources every video card manufacturer has
to sink into it. So, I don’t buy this story that what video developers do is
any less safer than what anyone else does to their own drivers and hardware
peripherals. I’ve now been on both sides of that fence, and I actually
sometimes wish that other pieces of hardware and drivers in my machine had
gone through the extent of testing and QA that I know video people have to
go through to get their boards into those computers.
And some graphics boards do go through WHQL, they do get that magic sticker,
and yet they do go that 1MPH faster ! The dialetics between performance and
stability only exists inside your mind.
Alberto.
-----Original Message-----
From: Gregory G. Dyess [mailto:xxxxx@pdq.net]
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 3:33 PM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: Mapping scattered pages into process address space
Unfortunately we have to live with your shortcuts, not you. Your analogy is
very good. The NTSB doesn’t allow cars to be produced that blow up once a
month just so they can go 1 MPH faster. Just talk to Firestone about having
1 tire in over 1 million blow out and what is/isn’t allowed. It’s also
annoying when developers blame the OS for their own shortcomings. It’s
easier to throw up your hands and hack around the OS than to do things the
right way. It then becomes a pissing contest between the various
hardware/motherboard/BIOS vendors when things don’t work.
Software developers want to be held in the same esteem as engineers. Until
software developers become as disciplined and mature as the true engineers
they don’t deserve that category. It’s the poor craftsman that always
blames his tools rather than learning how to use them properly. On the same
token, it’s the poor software developer that always blames the OS.
Greg
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