anton (06/13/82)
Drat ! eagle!jerry said it all, quite definitively. In fact he sounds like my old boss telling the new kids the difference between private and public programmes. If Charles and Andy want to argue dictionaries and puns, they are welcome to. I may even find it amusing not to tell readnews I am not interested - at least until the pressure of work builds up. Cotton shirts and all that ? Well, I like English worstered wool suits and english brogue shoes. For walking in town they beat sneakers, and as any tailor worth his salt will tell you, wool breaths. But then I also like donuts and not-the-nine-oclock-news. De Gustibus.... I don't give a damn if Andy wants to call himself a Hacker; I do object if UNIX IV has piles of his stuff with the same kind of comment density as V7; I do object to all the V7 drivers with wired in tables that I spend long hours unwiring and generalising so our customers can - even as we do - use the one controller and one driver for a number of different types of disk (e.g. RM80, RM05 & RM02 all on the same controller). I do object to having our customers phone up wanting to use a spare line on a DZ-ll to drive a diablo and having to edit and recompile the source so as to tell them what binary patches to put into their kernel (Lets face it guys, I plain disapprove of patching the kernel !). I do object when our poor PASCAL guru locally spends about 4 times as long as he should have done trying to port the Whitesmith's PASCAL translator because it was written following *none* of the design principles Kehrnigan expounded in ST. I don't give a damn if people want to go to hell on horseback. I do object if they insist on taking me along for a groom. So why am I flaming in the UNIX context ? Isn't UNIX the best thing we've got ? Sure it is. If you ever forget, go and use TSO for a few months. That doesn't mean it perfect though. There are poor but very competent programmers working for pitances here at UofT cleaning up remanants of V6; and there are still idots coming in having done 6 months worth of BASIC as PhD thumbtwiddling trying to tell those UNIX freaks how an opeating system OUGHT to work. There are the whizz kids growing up on apple that are being let loose on avionic software - hey *I* worked with them, they frightened me; when they asked me why I wasted my time writing documentation and "antibugging" I decided I needed a healthier working environment. We have to keep screaming about the quality of the code or someone will come up with another ADA. If we were all of the mentality Charles, Andy Jerry and myself are claiming, the basis that DOD had for forcing ADA on us wouldn't be there in the first place. Since it is, I am forced to conclude that there are "hackers - people who program with bludgeons" out there. We can make some prety shrewd guesses who they work for - mainly since "we" have the self respect not to ! Lets see now, digital watches, CP/M, blue whales, speed merchants, bug-free code.... There are people nieve enough to believe these are all real neat things. This started out being consise; I have tried to keep it from being a flame; Parable: When hardware freaks get together at a conference for drinks, they talk about the latest chips from Intel, NS & TI. When software freaks ............................................ talk about all the awful systems & programmes they have used and how to get around their ideosyncracies. The hardware guys are heralding new problems (when has a new chip *NOT* brought new problems ?) whereas the software guys are trying to pool their experience. Isn't that what UNIX is about ? /anton aylward
kenig (06/15/82)
A wise man once said:
"FORTRAN is like dirty underware, it can get real comfortable if
it's all you've got to wear".
Look, anton (I mean Anton - UNIX is going to drive me nuts unless it quits
this UPPER/lower case nonsense) UNIX is just about as much bullcrap as TSO
is. Have I spoken (typed?) a sacrilege?
It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the programmer/hacker.
I feel soory for you and many of my co-workers like you who are caugth in
the UNIX womb, and view everything in the world from a UNIX light. Do
you really think that UNIX is a be-all and end-all? If you do, might I
suggest that you have mentally joined the ranks of FORTRAN programmers (who
do it as a profession). What will you do when something better comes along?
Will you be able to recognize it?
As a science we know less about operating systems and what makes them
effective tools than we do about programming languages and what makes for
a good programming language. TSO, TOPS-10, or even RT-11 could all be
made to do the same thing (granted there would be more work in some cases).
None presents more than an esthetic improvement over the other when it comes
to getting the job done. Each runs FORTRAN, too.
One of the most important aspects of a hacker (in the good sense - heretofor
``haquer'') is the ability to have an open mind - to be able to work on
different systems, languages, and in different environments. A haquer does
not work in a vacuum (most haquers are sociable, affable, and like to help
others), and would mold themselves to working in a group. I did. Most of the
B.S. you pander about as professional style (be it from UNIX or anywhere)
simply strikes me as goddamned common sense. Who would want to incur the
wrath of the people you see every dey, be they fellow employees or
customers by not providing documentation with the code? Every human likes
to show off cleverness, and in a large ``professional'' environment, this
(documentation) is one of the best ways to do it. Haquers learn. Quickly.
Use UNIX - if you think it's the best you've got. I use it when I think
it's proper - not due to a prevalent asthetic dogma. UNIX programmers
have a good tool, but I wouldn't want them in another situation< say
use COBOL to invert a matrix.
One last word (Gee I didn't mean to flame so long...):
However they manage to do it a good hacker - Haquer gets things done!