bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (07/16/83)
Moments from USENIX for those who could not make it: (probably not in the procedings) - A nasty session with the AT&T rep. Hissing whenever he said that some new system was "truly a sophisticated ....", which he did, several times. Alex White asked why they didn't send anybody real, he got a round of applause. - "Sex, Drugs and UNIX(TM)" buttons were a hot item. You did not get these from people at HCR, and they were not worn by non-hcr high-ups whose initials are not M.T. or R.B. - Also popular were the old Waterloo "There's only 1 TRUE brace style" buttons and ones that said "If SOURCE is outlawed, then only outlaws will have SOURCE". A person very similar to me had on a button that said "Nuke Lady Arwen for Christ". No offense to L.A. - A good reception at the Science Centre. With this great fancy place to explore, several people could think of nothing better to do than to look at the Science Centre's Vax. A rather interesting laser display, where Usenauts, pretending they were from the great unwashed, suggested you would make a laser lens out of wood, very small rocks or a duck. - Two Andy Tannenbaums, which caused some confusion. If the one from Vrije (sp) university had not worn a BTL badge, it might have helped clear things up. I made this mistake myself. - Not at all a complete set of unix box vendors at the show. - B NEWS SUCKS buttons, even one for Mark Horton, although I'm not sure he put it on. - Good IMAX show at the Cinesphere. All the standard ones plus a few I had not seen. Hail Columbia was quite good. David Yost of Fortune gave alb@harpo a Hail Columbia button at the show. Many die-hards stayed to 3 am. I hope they did not show up at the 8:30 am session! Thanks to Fortune systems. Renting the Cinesphere must have cost them one. IMAX may become a regular USENIX feature. We learned that Americans and Canadians are both capable of making strongly moralistic IMAX documentaries. - The balance of the sexes in the UNIX community is getting better, but only slightly. Only a couple of women were at Gred Wood's net.singles party. - Only one vicious session, that on "cat -v considered harmful" by Rob Pike of BTL. The UCB vs. BTL split in the unix community seems to be getting nastier! -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (07/17/83)
What, no mention of the Virtual Bill Joy phenomenon? I counted at least
six people who advertised themselves as "Bill Joy", with at least six different
organizations and nodenames listed...
Guy Harris
{seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guyalb@alice.UUCP (07/18/83)
If you counted only six, you weren't looking very hard... Bill Joy Bell Labs research!wnj
fair@ucbvax.UUCP (07/18/83)
I was told that the virtual "Bill Joy" syndrome was a joke... Good thing that I
know what Bill really looks like. I might have gotten confused otherwise!
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucb-arpa
{ucbvax,amd70,zehntel}!dual!fair
Dual Systems Corporationpaulsc@tekecs.UUCP (Paul Scherf) (07/19/83)
I DON'T know what Bill Joy looks like. So I was confused for a while when I saw several of him (them?). I even put "NOT Bill Joy" on my name badge so I wouldn't confuse anyone else. Paul Scherf tektronix!tekecs!paulsc Tektronix
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/19/83)
The "virtual Bill Joy" syndrome may have been a joke to the folks
involved (and I must admit I found it funny too), but I know some
people who have been seriously confused by such antics in the past.
They are rather annoyed by this sort of thing and I must admit that
I sympathize somewhat; it is somewhat inconsiderate in the presence
of strangers.
--
Henry Spencer
U of Toronto
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henrymo@ucbvax.UUCP (07/20/83)
On the contrary - I suspect and hope that over time, people will see some convergence between BTL and UCB systems. There will probably always be incompatabilities, but the order of magnitude can be dramatically reduced, and the parties involved are all interested in seeing that happen. As for Rob's talk being viscious, I heartily disagree (even being on the receiving end of things). Most of his points are truly right and large systems do suffer from "excessive creativity" over large time. Rob used his usual flair for hyperbole to make a strong point, but I certainly agree much more than I disagree. I do disagree with the abstract included in the schedule (for my money, autoconfig alll by itself is a factor of 10 improvement, but arguing that is another day), but the real content of his talk hit several nails squarely on the head. From looking at other "computer science mainstreams" (dare I say ADA?), I am glad we have people strong enough in conviction and intellectual integrity to stand up and point out "truths which may be unpleasant". Whether they are truths may be the subject of vigorous debate, but I thank Rob for the service he did. -Mike O'Dell PS - the quote from the Lion books was priceless. PSS - my old boss had a saying well worth repeating in a world where some people seem to find it easier to pogram than to think about what they are trying to do: "Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you are doing."
dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (07/22/83)
Indeed, the only vicious event at USENIX was the stand-up commentary attacking Rob Pike that someone in the audience made after the "future of UNIX" talk. I was amazed how personally this guy (couldn't see who he was) took Pike's intentionally overstated comments. I must remember to add UNIX to my list of taboos along with sex and politics.
eric@aplvax.UUCP (07/22/83)
After hearing the gospel according to Pike, my friends and I saw the light, and upon returning, removed the option for a multi-column who which had recently been installed. Hallelujah, we have been saved! eric
padpowell@wateng.UUCP (PAD Powell[Admin]) (07/22/83)
Vicious? Nasty? Come on people!!! You clearly have not been to any
sort of contract negotiations with some of the big boys like IBM,
Univac, etc. At least the arguments were technical in nature, and to a
certain extent attacking a philosophical/technocratic bias. Wait until
you get down to the "Where the hell is that junk you promised us? We paid
real money for it, and you guilty-of-incestuous-and-buggery-offsprings
have sat on this, we are 6 months/years/decades behind schedule, and now
you tell us we have to buy a complete new hardware suite to run the thing?"
Persons who have lived with IBM will remember several occaisions when the
egg was on their faces... and red ink was the order of the day.
Patrick ("I think that Bob Pike has heard a lot worse") Powellmark@cbosgd.UUCP (07/22/83)
I suppose we could all find some inconsistency in V6 UNIX to counter Rob (e.g. ed regular expressions are different from shell regular expressions), and I do wish I had had my set of 6x9 Berkeley manuals there so I could have pulled them from my briefcase as a counterexample, but he did make many good points, and the gist of his talk was well worthwhile. (I suppose I should point out that, even though he considers cat -v to be wrong, I consider his Blit code to be wrong. It's all in the eye of the beholder.) I would like to see someone go through the manuals of system V and 4.2BSD and heartlessly throw out as many options as possible. Many of the options to, say, ls are just burying the poor user. Notice I said options, not features. Many features can be turned on, with no way to turn them off, and almost nobody would mind. (Of course, some zealot will complain about every one no matter what you do.) For example, the 4.2BSD "ls -g" option could be always turned on, showing both owner and group. The -i option could be part of -l. The -F option could be on unless -1 is on. Similar arguments could be made for the tty driver - while it's good to have all those strange bits to control at the ioctl level, the user stty command needs only a few options. Things like ctlecho, crterase (or echoe for system V), should probably always be on. I do strongly agree with Rob that page mode in the tty driver (or in the terminal, if at least one manufacturer could be made to do it right) would obviate the need for every program in the world to filter its output through more. Even the author of more felt the code really belonged in the tty driver (although certainly not as fancy as the more command is), but neither Berkeley nor USG will consider it. Too bad - a half dozen UNIX systems have it (including the Fortune) and it's a real win. Mark Horton