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Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

cs.princeton.edu

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Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#41

Post by pjmlp »

msla wrote: post #39
Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

There's also the unavoidability of narratives, and how they influence what people look up to begin with. For example, there's a Unix history narrative which begins at Bell Labs goes to Berkeley and then out to the world; this is already extremely limited, in that it ignores Wollongong (where the first Unix port was done, to the Interdata/32, and where important work on TCP/IP networking was done) and what AT&T did wi…

Specially annoying with that narrative, for those that care about computing history, is as C and UNIX are sold as the first of their kind, invented on magic moment, hand-waving what everyone else was doing.

Since history belongs to winners, if it wasn't for the accessibility of old conference papers and computer manuals, that would be indeed the only one we had to believe on.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#42

Post by 4ad »

Myrmornis wrote: post #5

Anyone able to comment on his recent non-programming-language books? For example, how's "Understanding The Digital World"? http://kernighan.com/udw.html

They are great. I gifted them to my non-tech friends and they have thoroughly enjoyed them and learned something.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#43

Post by de_watcher »

verisimilitudes wrote: post #27
Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

That's interesting, because I also feel people don't appreciate computing history appropriately. If you'd care to learn some real history, I suggest you read The UNIX-HATERS Handbook : http://web.mit.edu/%7Esimsong/www/ugh.pdf With this book, you'll learn that UNIX and C are nothing admirable and have actually been responsible for successfully destroying much better systems and languages in the popular eye; languages…

UNIX-haters handbook talks about some weird stuff that naturally felt out of use.

RMS worked on EmacsLisp.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#44

Post by pjmlp »

onei wrote: post #35
madhadron wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I agree. At the same time, unless you immerse yourself in oral tradition and try to assemble a picture of the diversity of what was going on from it, it's hard to get a sense of what has happened on a scale larger than a particular community, and sometimes not even then. I occasionally think about trying to write a one volume history of computi…

I guess you could make the case that windows is written in C++, which is a superset of C which was designed while writing UNIX. Sure the OS is different, but it ended up being built from the same blocks. If we didn't have C, would we have Windows as it is today?

Looking back at what Xerox PARC and ETHZ were doing with their workstations, maybe that wouldn't have been much of an issue.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#45

Post by cestith »

acqq wrote: post #37
cestith wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largely agreed, but VMS by no means predates Unix. Unix was in development in 1969, had a manual released inside AT&T in 1971 and was announced publicly in 1973. The first source license was sold in 1975. VMS was released in 1977 as VAX/VMS on the VAX series of computers. Before VMS the DEC hardware ran various other operating systems such as RSX-11, TOPS-10, and optionally AT&T Unix (which was developed on the PDP s…

> Unix (...) first source license was sold in 1975. > VMS was released in 1977 as VAX/VMS on the VAX series of computers. Before VMS the DEC hardware ran various other operating systems such as RTX-11, TOPS-10, and optionally AT&T Unix Before VMS there was RSX-11 (note RSX not RTX): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX-11 "From 1971[5] to 1976 the RSX-11M project was spearheaded by noted operating system designer Dave C…

Thanks for pointing out the typo. I'll fix that.

Note "heavily influenced" doesn't make RSX-11 any more VMS than it makes Multics into Unix, or CP/M into MS-DOS, or the NeXT into a Mac, or an Alto into a Mac or Windows.

Also note that 1973 doesn't significantly predate 1973. Don't confuse the first source license same with the announcement of availability, which I also noted. And Unix was in use internally at AT&T the same year DEC started on RSX-11.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#46

Post by pjmlp »

bitofhope wrote: post #40
verisimilitudes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, because I also feel people don't appreciate computing history appropriately. If you'd care to learn some real history, I suggest you read The UNIX-HATERS Handbook : http://web.mit.edu/%7Esimsong/www/ugh.pdf With this book, you'll learn that UNIX and C are nothing admirable and have actually been responsible for successfully destroying much better systems and languages in the popular eye; languages…

The Handbook is a fine document and any computing history fan worth their salt should read it, but it's hardly the best analysis of Unix in a historical perspective. Blaming (or crediting, however you want to think about it) GNU for proliferation of Unix is anachronistic. RMS has repeatedly said he doesn't care for the design of Unix, but he chose it for the ease of implementation. GNU wasn't even bootable as a stand…

I used to have a couple of PC World articles about Windows winning the Workstation market, until about GNU/Linux started to be mature enough to allow easy porting of commercial UNIX stuff into them.

Had Microsoft and IBM kept serious about their POSIX compatibility subsystems instead of a bullet point to win government contracts, and history would have played out much differently.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#47

Post by QualityReboot »

segmondy wrote: post #11

I look forward to reading this I own and have read his following books and they were all superb! The Go Programming Language The Practice of Programming The C Programming Language The AWK Programming Language

Just out of curiosity, why awk? I've only ever used it for simple text splitting and didn't really know people did more with it. Is it a tool worth learning?

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#48

Post by pjmlp »

Natales wrote: post #31
pvg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. Why do you feel this way? ACM has had a History of Programming Languages conference since the late 70s where the well known History of Lisp paper was presented. All sorts of popular accounts are, well, popular. Soul of A New Machine was published in '81, Hackers in '84, Accidental Empires in '92, just as a few examples off the top of my head.

I love the ACM and everyone trying to make the effort to preserve our history. I see it from the perspective of someone working at a fast-moving, Silicon Valley-based software vendor. In that context, I don't see a lot of appreciation for history, in the day-to-day basis. But it's not because people intrinsically don't care about it. It's more about our daily lives. We not only have to do what we all have to do, but…

And best of all, reselling old stuff as having discovered the powder just now.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#49

Post by doctor_eval »

Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

Do you mean DG/UX? That was an awesome OS.
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