This is what I meant by that parenthetical about not being general purpose.
A computer used for a single task is a bit like a 4WD truck that only stays inside the city limits. It could do those things, sure, but it never does, so it hasn't really proven anything.
> A computer used for a single task is a bit like a 4WD truck that only stays inside the city limits. It could do those things, sure, but it never does, so it hasn't really proven anything.
Not really. That's very different from a very application specific hardware+software being used for the exact purpose vs a very general purpose hardware+software being used for all sorts of things.
It's more like using a F1 car to race vs taking your average sporty car to a race track.
Sure that F1 car will race better, but at the end of the day you can't drive home in it or move kids/groceries around in it.
My argument was towards the network/IT equipment, but Voyager is even more special since it's a very application specific system.
Generalization itself is hard, it gets MUCH harder when you have to care about back compat and random executables that can alter system state because previous versions allowed that behavior and it needs to be supported for the common cases moving forwards.
