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.
gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>) (10/08/85)
Well, that article really doesn't deserve much of a response, but anyway: I agree that sloppy workmanship should not be tolerated, although (official) UNIX is not necessarily worse than many other OSes in this regard. (Yes, some of us have used other OSes. Indeed, some of the people behind UNIX were working in computing before there WERE departments of Computer Science.) One "problem" is that there has been a lot of free exchange of user-written code in the UNIX community, much more so than I have seen for other OSes. This is both good (if you get some use out of it) and bad (if you have to maintain it). Now that UNIX is becoming commercial, there is much less of this "problem". The idea that an operating system should closely reflect the underlying hardware architecture is so unenlightened as to make one wonder whether the flamer has read any of the classic papers on the subject. I strongly disagree with the idea that computer workers should not enjoy what they do. UNIX system software is much more INTERESTING than usual, since the people who developed it cared about their work. The image projected of boring, stuffy meetings attended by people in three- piece suits (UniForum is closer than USENIX to that ideal) and mountains of dull documentation aimed at the reader who cannot conceptualize does not seem to be a desirable goal to me!
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
ded@aplvax.UUCP (Don E. Davis) (10/11/85)
In article <97@tekadg.UUCP> davidl@tekadg.UUCP (Dave) writes: > >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... > Let me say first that I thought Dave's diatribe was well written and mostly accurate (if one gives allowance for hyperbole). UNIX does have flaws; many of us, in fact, delight in finding those flaws. But he missed the point with portability. UNIX will never be as efficient as a completely native O.S., true, but with the speed of current hardware this issue is largely moot. With a good "user/machine power" ratio, the OS stuff occurs so fast that the speed advantage of the native OS is imperceptible to users. Most users care only that when they type "ls" a bunch of filenames immediately appears on their terminal. They don't care if a native operation system could have done so 5 milliseconds faster. What looms increasingly important in this modern era is portability, standands, the human-software interface... We are withdrawing from our machines. We want to carry our interface with us, even if that interface is as klutzy as UNIX. Its hard enough getting people to try out new word processors, much less entire operating systems. The politics of marketing ("gimmee MS-DOS", gimmee UNIX") dictates a limited number of operating systems rather than one for every machine. For various reasons UNIX has gained a large following. We probably could have made a better choice, but we didn't, so tough. In fact, we didn't really make a choice, it just happened. We could have done worse. -- Don Davis JHU/APL ...decvax!harpo!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!ded ...rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!aplvax!ded
jbs@mit-eddie.UUCP (Jeff Siegal) (10/12/85)
In article <165@aplvax.UUCP> ded@aplvax.UUCP (Don E. Davis) writes: >For various reasons UNIX has gained a large following. We probably >could have made a better choice, but we didn't, so tough. In fact, >we didn't really make a choice, it just happened. We could have done worse. > Why all of this talk in the past tense? Is the evoluntion of an "the O/S of choice" really over? Even if UNIX is here to stay forever, it is unlikely that the UNIX of several years hence will share much more with today's UNIX than its name. Jeff Siegal
boston@celerity.UUCP (Boston Office) (10/14/85)
In article <165@aplvax.UUCP> ded@aplvax.UUCP (Don E. Davis) writes: >In article <97@tekadg.UUCP> davidl@tekadg.UUCP (Dave) writes: >> >>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... >> > >Let me say first that I thought Dave's diatribe was well written and >mostly accurate (if one gives allowance for hyperbole). UNIX does have flaws; >many of us, in fact, delight in finding those flaws. > >But he missed the point with portability. UNIX will never be as efficient as >a completely native O.S., true, but with the speed of current hardware >this issue is largely moot. Who says UNIX can't BE the native OS? The Celerity C1200, for example, is an engine designed and integrated to run 4.2BSD, and as such, does it very efficiently. (I don't mean this as a plug, merely as my nearest point of reference.) And as for operating systems written in C or other higher-level languages suffering from good portability at the expense of efficiency, obviously the solution is good compilers. Years ago, Dartmouth started to migrate its DTSS (at the time) to PL/I, the best compiler it had, from assembler, and in many cases GAINED efficiency, since the compiler generated better code than many of its systems programmers. --- Roger Klorese Celerity Computing