Re: Unix not the Only Place for "Vanguard" Applications

[alex <cp@proust.suba.com>]

MS-Windows boxes and Macs still don't do multitasking well;  that's going
to change soon, and when it does, I'm sure that a lot of nifty new tools
well appear.  But multitasking is important if you want to run servers
(like remailers), and it's very helpful if you want to tie different
programs together (ie., elm talks to premail which starts pgp 5 times and
hands the result to sendmail, all without my noticing). 

The preeminence of unix in a lot of the work that's being done isn't the
result of snobbishness or even personal taste.  It's just a nice,
convenient platform to do the work on.  

People pick the tools they feel comfortable using, and they match them to
the job at hand.  I can't run Pagemaker on my linux box so if I need to do
some layout work I use a mac or ms-windows.  But if I want to set up a web
server I use linux because it's quick and cheap.  If you want to edit a
feature film, use an SGI workstation.  If you want to set up a word
processing system that someone from the temp service will be able to run,
use ms-windows and word.

I'm sure that when windows-95 comes out officially, good tools will appear
for that platform.  But the lack of solid multitasking and freely
available development tools in ms-windows 3.11 is the reason that more
robust crypto tools for that platform don't exist, not an ivory tower
mentality on the part of the people doing the work.