Re: In and under

[Stephen Victor <svictor -at- LGC -dot- COM>]

> On Wed, 17 May 1995, douglas_thayer wrote:

> >      My colleague has posed the following questions, for which I have no
> >      authoritative answer:
> >
> >      In the sentence, "XXX runs in the Windows environment and under UNIX,"
> >      is there any difference in usage between "in" and "under"? Could these
> >      be swapped without affecting the meaning of the sentence?

> Yes.  No. Windows is an environment, UNIX is a platform or shell.  You can't
> operate under an environment. You can work in a platform, but, strictly
> speaking, you work under a shell. Whether you want to use 'in' to
> describe running under the UNIX shell depends on how stricly you wish to
> speak.  This depends on context.  For most technical contexts, you speak
> verey strictly.

> I hope this helps.

> james {:>l3


Actually, Windows is a shell running under DOS. UNIX is an operating system. I
 would suggest "XXX runs on both Windows and UNIX platforms" since platforms is
 a fairly vague term, connoting (in various contexts) both hardware or a
 software operating environment. Alternatively, you could say "XXX runs in both
 Windows and UNIX environments."

My two cents' worth...

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Stephen P. Victor      svictor -at- lgc -dot- com       http://www.cda.ulpgc.es/steve.html
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