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The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

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Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

#51

Post by linguae »

mtraven wrote: post #38

I founded the mailing list the book was based on. These days I say, Unix went from being the worst operating system available, to being the best operating system available, without getting appreciably better. (which may not be entirely accurate, but don't flame me). And still miss my Lisp Machine. It's not that Unix is really that bad, it's that it has a certain model of computer use which has crowded out the more am…

When I discovered Linux and FreeBSD as a 15 year old, I was absolutely amazed by what I saw, coming from the world of Windows with some elementary school memories of the classic Mac OS sprinkled in. My exploring these *nix variants and learning about their development and history led to my decision to major in computer science and pursue a career in systems software research. I still have a high level of respect for people like Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Bill Joy, and Marshall Kirk McKusick. I had a dream of working for Sun before the Oracle acquisition and working on projects like ZFS.

But lately I’ve been studying systems that for whatever reason ended up losing out in the marketplace despite having really interesting design decisions and features that would be welcome today. Although I like the classic Mac OS, NeXT, and the modern macOS, I wish Steve Jobs would have “copied” all of Smalltalk and then added Mac-like touches to it. I also wish that Genera were open-sourced instead of the current situation where it’s difficult to obtain legally and inexpensively. I have a dream of writing a modern OS inspired by Genera, Smalltalk, and Apple’s OpenDoc, but writing a new OS is a major undertaking.

Maybe it’s my inner romantic speaking, or maybe I’m just drawn to beautiful things, but I’ve always been attracted to “what could have been” things. Hopefully one day we’ll have a “right thing” OS again, and maybe one day we’ll have an alternative to the Web that isn’t as much of a technology hodgepodge.

Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

#52

Post by kickingvegas »

mtraven wrote: post #38

I founded the mailing list the book was based on. These days I say, Unix went from being the worst operating system available, to being the best operating system available, without getting appreciably better. (which may not be entirely accurate, but don't flame me). And still miss my Lisp Machine. It's not that Unix is really that bad, it's that it has a certain model of computer use which has crowded out the more am…

Mary Shaw (http://spoke.compose.cs.cmu.edu/shaweb/) had a backhanded reference to Unix/AT&T Bell Labs as the "New Jersey School of Computing." The misery of it is that it was good enough to get to where computing is now. The downside is that is also what is holding computing back.

Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

#54

Post by ken »

mtraven wrote: post #38

I founded the mailing list the book was based on. These days I say, Unix went from being the worst operating system available, to being the best operating system available, without getting appreciably better. (which may not be entirely accurate, but don't flame me). And still miss my Lisp Machine. It's not that Unix is really that bad, it's that it has a certain model of computer use which has crowded out the more am…

I'm slightly too young to have lived through it myself, but from what my dad told me, pre-GNU Unix and post-GNU Unix are almost completely different in their user experience. Prior to GNU, Unix (the tools and the kernel) used to simply crash a lot, or drop data. It was not an especially good system in any regard.

As the GNU coding standards say:

> Avoid arbitrary limits on the length or number of any data structure, including file names, lines, files, and symbols, by allocating all data structures dynamically. In most Unix utilities, “long lines are silently truncated”. This is not acceptable in a GNU utility.

This never really clicked with me because I didn't live through a time when my primary Unix utilities weren't robust. The closest I got was using old (1990's) HP/UX and Solaris and AIX systems where the sysadmins had installed the GNU tools already. All I knew is that I shouldn't use the system tools, because they were worse.

Personally, I think what helped Unix succeed is that the implementations were bad but the architecture made it (mostly) possible to improve the implementations piecemeal. Accordingly, the parts that have had the most trouble improving (like X11, and C) are those where the design doesn't allow this.

Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

#55

Post by sandov »

DonHopkins wrote: post #8
dataflow wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this relevant joke about Linux which is that Linux is very user friendly... it's just very picky about who its friends are.

Linux is only free if your time is worthless. ;)

Using computers is free if your time and patience are worthless.

Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

#56

Post by pryce »

mtraven wrote: post #38

I founded the mailing list the book was based on. These days I say, Unix went from being the worst operating system available, to being the best operating system available, without getting appreciably better. (which may not be entirely accurate, but don't flame me). And still miss my Lisp Machine. It's not that Unix is really that bad, it's that it has a certain model of computer use which has crowded out the more am…

It's probably been a long while since you've gone back to it, but The "Worse is Better" chapter in this book seems to show rather amazing foresight; it basically predicts the situation you describe regarding Unix being "the best operating system available without getting appreciably better" and offers compelling reasons why that was likely.

25 years ago. Who the hell does that?

Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

#57

Post by f2f »

darkpuma wrote: post #35
cyberpunk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll assume you're talking about systemd here? How is linux being strangled? How is it Europe's fault? As far as I can see linux is booming and almost ubiquitous as far as backend OS's go...

> "How is [systemd] Europe's fault?" The only way that makes sense is if they're referring to Lennart being German, but that's kind of a bullshit argument because SystemD was not some novel idea; launchd was around first and came from the American west coast.

counterpoint: launchd works.

Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

#59

Post by _kst_ »

https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~weise/uhh-download.html

"We wrote the contract with our publisher to have the copyright revert to us once the book went out of print. So yes, we have the right to publish it online. Feel free to mirror it where ever you want, print it out, and bind it."

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