Why does it always seem big news for Sun when they've done what is already available?
And they don't even redo it well.
Now, if dtrace were user/admin friendly, I could see why a new tool had to be reinvented. But dtrace is a step above writing a c program to use probe system calls - no imagination when it comes to what is useful to the user community.
No doubt, dtrace is a powerful tool, but so is crash and adb and just as user-unfriendly. Sun should read the technology history books and listen to the user community before they tout capabilities that have existed in other OS's for decades.
Instead they display their infancy to user-friendliness and mature OS capabilities. Kind of scary for an OS that's been around for 20+ years.
dtrace appears to be another Sun internal science project to make it easier for Sun's own engineers to figure out what's going on in their OS. Their engineers, being young pups, have no clue that what they "invented" is not unique and pound their chests to display their inexperience in relating to the business world and user community.
While IBM is touting technology that allows computers to read brainwaves, Sun is happy to give hackers yet another system monitoring tool (YASMT) and makes it front page news - no less. This is the type of tool IBM and others treat as ho-hum because they have much more relevant technologies to show off.
Actually, the dtrace concept and functionality is technology that was around about 20+ years ago in a Sperry OS (now Unisys) called VS/9. It was known as IDA (Interactive Debugging AID) and was much more user-friendly and powerful than dtrace. However, it was not for Solaris. IDA was designed integrated into VS/9 as a command language from day one - not some afterthought after a multitude of tools existed. Therefore, it's monitoring commands could be scripted into regular job control.
dtrace has potential if it is provided a more user-friendly interface. If not, it's essentially one step up from writing a c program to OS probe system calls. Not very inventive.
It's interesting how Sun feels the need to reinvent rather than embrace and augment existing tools - just adding to a confusing mix of paths of "which tool is best for which task". Why not provide a be-all tool with user friendliness to encompass user and sysadmin tasks that eleminates need for any other tools? Why the sprinkling of tools that don't quite do everything?
By the way,/IDA could crash a program when used by a user and/or the OS when used by the superuser - features that were sometimes desired but had to be enabled via an option.
As for creating a powerful tool for public use: I suspect dtrace was built for internal use and determined to be good enough for public. It has the user-unfriendly design feel as such.
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And they don't even redo it well. Now, if dtrace were user/admin friendly, I could see why a new tool had to be reinvented. But dtrace is a step above writing a c program to use probe system calls - no imagination when it comes to what is useful to the user community.
No doubt, dtrace is a powerful tool, but so is crash and adb and just as user-unfriendly. Sun should read the technology history books and listen to the user community before they tout capabilities that have existed in other OS's for decades.
Instead they display their infancy to user-friendliness and mature OS capabilities. Kind of scary for an OS that's been around for 20+ years.
dtrace appears to be another Sun internal science project to make it easier for Sun's own engineers to figure out what's going on in their OS. Their engineers, being young pups, have no clue that what they "invented" is not unique and pound their chests to display their inexperience in relating to the business world and user community.
While IBM is touting technology that allows computers to read brainwaves, Sun is happy to give hackers yet another system monitoring tool (YASMT) and makes it front page news - no less. This is the type of tool IBM and others treat as ho-hum because they have much more relevant technologies to show off.
Actually, the dtrace concept and functionality is technology that was around about 20+ years ago in a Sperry OS (now Unisys) called VS/9. It was known as IDA (Interactive Debugging AID) and was much more user-friendly and powerful than dtrace. However, it was not for Solaris. IDA was designed integrated into VS/9 as a command language from day one - not some afterthought after a multitude of tools existed. Therefore, it's monitoring commands could be scripted into regular job control. /IDA could crash a program when used by a user and/or the OS when used by the superuser - features that were sometimes desired but had to be enabled via an option.
dtrace has potential if it is provided a more user-friendly interface. If not, it's essentially one step up from writing a c program to OS probe system calls. Not very inventive.
It's interesting how Sun feels the need to reinvent rather than embrace and augment existing tools - just adding to a confusing mix of paths of "which tool is best for which task". Why not provide a be-all tool with user friendliness to encompass user and sysadmin tasks that eleminates need for any other tools? Why the sprinkling of tools that don't quite do everything?
By the way,
As for creating a powerful tool for public use: I suspect dtrace was built for internal use and determined to be good enough for public. It has the user-unfriendly design feel as such.