Re: [MacPerl] Perl Shared Library (was Re: [MacPerl] ports and builds)

[Matthew Langford <langfml [at] eng [dot] auburn [dot] edu>]

On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Xah Lee wrote:

> unix is a fantastic pile of patches and viruses that results from
> decades of brainless hacks by slouches and imbecilic system admins.

Interesting.  Every recent major operating system, including MacOS X,
Windows NT/2000, OS/2, and to some extent Win9x, Linux, Solaris, and so
on, draws from ideas generated by the freely available Unix kernel source
code.  The Mach microkernel would not exist except as a response, a
refinement, to the Unix monolithic kernel and its ideas.  Ditto for Linux.

In fact, their respect for the value of the Unix collection is seen
because they maintain compatibility--they value it so much they work to
get Unix to run on top of these kernels. 

The FFS (Fast Filesystem) written for BSD has been the foundation of most
major filesystems.  Its dominance is not so complete, but it has been very
influential--imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

TCP/IP networking would not exist without Berkeley Unix development.  The
Internet would not exist in anything like its current form without Unix.
To my knowledge, there is no TCP/IP programming API which does not use
some form of sockets, which originated in Berkeley Unix.  Mentat STREAMS
is but a generalization of sockets.

The Internet would not currently run without the Unix implementation of
DNS (is there any other independent source base?), nor would most email
get delivered if all the sendmail servers disappeared, nor would most web
pages come up if apache web servers disappeared.

Perl, as mentioned by others, started on Unix and embodies much of the
ideals of the Unix community.

All this is the work of slouches and imbecilic sys admins?  What have you
done that puts them to shame?  Something better than sockets?  than Perl? 
a new, faster filesystem?  an Internet which will become more popular than
the current one?  Or how about even a more modest goal:  something as
full-featured as the "ls" command (have you seen all its switches?) or a
complete telnet client/server?  You've set a high standard for yourself. 

Or perhaps you had in mind, but did not specify, a specific piece of Unix
code which was less than worthy.  Was it the code, or the interface, that
you meant to criticize?  Which sources are you familiar with?

> Youngsters: Ironically, GNU stands for Gnu's Not Unix. At least, there
> are some groups in the unix community who actually care about quality
> and design. 

GNU was a reaction against companies (e.g., AT&T and Sun) taking the
public Unix source code, adding proprietary no-source-available
extensions, and charging for it.  GNU was about licensing and
intellectual property rights, not about coding styles.

> Don't know what I'm talking about? Ok, newbies, read up:
<snip>

Have you used both Common Lisp and Scheme?  Have you seen the traits in
each of these languages referred to in these papers?  Do you understand
where this religious war was coming from?  I haven't heard of provably
correct implementations for operating systems, except real time OSen.
Most of it is typical advocacy crap:  generalizations which only have
meaning for those who agree, and which can't be pinned down to measurable
specifics.

Having said all that, Unix does not befriend new users.  Interface is not
its strong point; power is.  Apple, as you've said, comes from a radically
different mindset:  the "power to accomplish things" can be extended even
to new users, and progressively more power comes with experience.  Each
side has much to learn from the other, much to give.  No need for
selfworth-threatened-advocacy here. 


--
MattLangford 


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