davidl@tekadg.UUCP (Dave) (10/05/85)
Well, I haven't had any choice. For the past couple of years, I've been forced to use Unix to get my job done - the choice was made for me. And, despite repeated reassurances from Unix-people that "you'll really like it once you get up to speed", it's still at best an uneasy truce. There's no question that it has its good points. Structured directories. Pipes. History mechanism (yes, I'm sure everyone's yawning). But, the documentation... I'm really tired of illiterate ramblings and cute little social commentaries and other trash (which seems to be particularly endemic to Berkeley "documentation") - especially when what real information is therein is so sketchy that one ends up having to struggle for days to figure out how do things with Unix that could be determined in a few minutes with a DEC or IBM manual. One simply can't do anything very sophisticated with Unix without (a) the source code, and (b) a (shudder) "UNIX-person", which has already spent the better part of its adolescence blundering across all the stupid little quirks which users end up fighting on their way to trying to accomplish in 2 weeks what would take 3 days with a good commercial operating system. It works just fine for sending mail around, or for editing (as long as you don't try to do anything very sophisticated with any of the plethora of editors). I notice it has at long last learned about some little things like memory management (or has it, really?) and task-to-task communication (barely) and... how 'bout shared resident memory, and, and, and... And it's hardly possible for anyone to apply what little Unix has in the way of such "sophisticated" features (they're fundamental to most other O.S.'s), without having to become a "Unix-wizard" - the term itself being testimony to the infantile mentality of Unix-people. Unfortunately, despite its undesirability in other respects, there's considerable incentive to use Unix due to its portability. When an O.S. is needed for a new system, Unix can be brought up quickly, since most of it is written in C. What gets overlooked by the naive management which allows the thing into the company, of course, is that (1) they're going to be forever tweaking and grooming and hassling and hacking in an effort to get it to run efficiently - which is hopeless, since it will never be as efficient as a completely native O.S. no matter how long one fiddles with it - and (2) as long as they keep attempting to use it, they're going to have to put up with Unix-people... (The commercial mainframe manufacturers could take a lesson from this... If a package is portable, people will buy it even though it's trash - and that situation is not going to change. It's a big selling point.) Of course, just as often, it gets used for little or no reason: for instance, because a gang of Unix compunerds, again characteristically from Berkeley or some similarly virulent seedbed, infiltrated a computer-center dragging Unix in its wake, snowed the appropriate set of ignorant bureaucrats, and then proceeded to inflict Unix on the resident mainframe and its unfortunate users. After all, it's inexpensive, compared to a real commercial product (you get what you pay for, of course) - and the Unix-people are more than happy to sit up all night eating Twinkies and hacking yet another fully-customized installation into existence, all the while congratulating each other upon their wizardliness... A large proportion of the people one finds "supporting" Unix systems grew up with Unix and have never used anything else - Unix is their religion, and they have no perspective at all on operating systems or even software in general. As an experiment, try discussing another O.S. with one of them - and observe the scandalized, intolerant looks you get, as if to say, "How DARE you even even SUGGEST that any O.S. other than Unix even exists!!!" They generally have a very limited skill set - very few of them can be described as software engineers or computer scientists. If anyone ever markets a really well documented Unix which doesn't require babysitting by a phalanx of provincial Unix clones, there'll be a lot of unemployable, Twinky-braindamaged misfits out deservedly pounding the pavement. For a real eye-opener, check out a Usenix convention. I went to the last one because it was right here in town - "why not?", I thought - (I soon found out...). Are those the people who keep calling themselves "Unix professionals" ? I couldn't believe the inane, sophomoric contents of what passed for papers at that convention. Try reading some of the IEEE or ACM proceedings on computer science and then read some of that Usenix trash. I wouldn't be able to face myself in a mirror if I put garbage like that in print. Furthermore, the sociological phenomena to be observed at Usenix are appalling. Comparing Usenix with an IEEE, ACM, or other truly professional convention is like comparing an oligarchy with a democracy. Socially, Usenix is like a spherical glob, with a handful of original software authors at the center (the ones who wrote the original code, like the developers of Unix, C, etc. - the ones whose names are always being bandied about). Around these, there's a surrounding shell of what has been aptly called "Unix groupies" trying to associate themselves, both logically and physically, with the "illuminati" at the center. Typically, these loathsome little insects are system administrators and hackers who spend their time either on the net or endlessly rewriting UUCP or NROFF or, or, or... And, I'm told, there are even some real, honest-to-goodness groupies (of the rock-star variety) who spend their time trying get near the "inner circle" for - never mind... it's believable, though - it's certainly consistent with the demeanor of the rest of the proceedings. Finally, around the outside, of course, are the peasants, as it were - the users, of whatever variety, some of whom are trying to wiggle their way inside, most of whom are just there to get a free ride out of their company, and a few of whom are desperately trying to learn something about the undocumented, flakey O.S. upon which their job depends... Sigh, and aria.......... ******************************************************************************** Voluntary disclaimer: If this article in any way represented the opinions and policies of Tektronix, Inc., I wouldn't have had to write it.
rdoty@lumiere.UUCP (Richard Doty) (10/08/85)
Sigh. I'm not Tek's personnel department, nor do I control who does and does not have access to news posting privileges. Long-time netters will recall similar outbursts from David in the past. There appears to be nothing that can be done about him here. FYI, tekadg does not receive news, the system administrator is Tony Rick (tektronix!tekadg!tonyr), and the user's last name is Levadie. rdoty (embarrassed) News Admin for Tektronix, Inc. Richard A. Doty uucp: tektronix!rdoty Small Systems Support Group tektronix!usenet Tektronix, Inc. CSnet: rdoty@tek Beaverton, OR 97077 ARPAnet: rdoty.tek@csnet-relay phone: (503) 627-6517
mike@hcradm.UUCP (Mike Tilson) (10/10/85)
I can just hear it now, across the continent: "Flamethrowers to full power,
shields up, aim, ...."
Actually, there are threads of truth in these observations about
the UNIX community, although these truths are embedded in a rather
one-sided commentary.
As a member of the Usenix board, I would like to follow up on just one
point that has a bearing on the directions taken by Usenix Association and
by the Usenix conferences. A somewhat unflattering comparison was made
between Usenix conferences and "real academic" conferences put on by
the IEEE or ACM. In fact, I don't believe it is reasonable to make
a direct comparison -- the Usenix Association is an organization of
users and implementors of a certain operating system product. You
come to Usenix because you work with UNIX and want to learn more about
UNIX or help to make it better. However, you don't come to a Usenix
meeting because you are the chairman of your university's "Department
of UNIX Science".
A more apt comparison would be to DECUS meetings. Usenix actually
tries quite hard to keep up the quality of presentations at its
meetings, and I think it compares very favorably with meetings
such as DECUS. A certain number of papers actually do have very
significant intellectual and academic content. However, not all
are up to this standard, *nor should they be*. The conferences must
have some tolerance for nuts-and-bolts items, news from the inner
sanctum, etc. Although I agree that this can become tiresome if
not controlled, I think that it would be wrong to treat Usenix
conferences as a fully refereed academic proceeding.
I am sure there is a spectrum of opinion on this matter, and my
opinion here is personal, and does not represent the official position
of the Usenix board. Usenix members (and other interested parties)
are welcome to provide additional input about the orientation of
the conferences.
(Although I've been involved with UNIX and Usenix for a long time, I
seem to have missed out on the Usenix groupies. Perhaps this is
fortunate. :-))
/Michael Tilson
/Human Computing Resources Corp.
/{utzoo,decvax}!hcr!hcradm!mikedave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (10/12/85)
I cannot say whether UNIX "groupies" exist or not. However, they have never bothered me, though I have attended a half-dozen USENIX conference. However, I am annoyed by someone who thinks his own opinion so important that he posts an overlong article to at least three different newsgroups individually. I must assume that he really just likes to hear himself talk, and wasn't trying to be helpful to the net at all. If the article was really intended to just let off steam, why wasn't it posted to net.flame (only)? Now, which behaviour is more immature, that of a "groupie" or of a "compunerd", or someone who insists on making everyone listen to what he's saying whether they want to or not?