jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) (10/01/89)
In article <Sep.30.21.29.38.1989.9534@elbereth.rutgers.edu> bschwart@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Not a Rich Republican) writes: >In article <20226@usc.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes: >>In article <IZ9Hkde00WB58=V2pf@andrew.cmu.edu> mg32+@andrew.cmu.edu >>(Michael Ginsberg) writes: >> >>>what DOES grep stand for??? > >It is named after the author of the program: Gregula Rex Pression, Ph.D. No, it is named after the names of the four authors who worked on the original regular expression matching code for the UNIX editor 'ed'. Their names are Gregior, Ritchie, Ebersol, and Pike. Micheal Gregior is the creator of the UNIX regular expression matching grammar [ he invent the *, ., and [] syntax BTW ] Dennis Ritchie we know all about. Ralph Ebersol [ who died two years later on the NYC to DC Metroliner at age 24 ] was the youngest person to ever work at Murray Hill on PWB UNIX and 'ed' was just one of his many contributions, his least famous being the `tacky bit' on directories. Pike, of Kernighan and Pike fame [ The UNIX Programming Environment ], write quite a few of the UNIX system utilities. He was probably the number four UNIX programmer involved in the evolution of 7th Edition UNIX, just after Ritchie, Thompson, and Kernighan. He and Dennis worked together on the 'pr' text formatting utility. These were just four of Al Aho's employees [ Aho, BTW is the 'A' in 'AWK' - Aho, Weinberg, and Kernighan ] in the late seventies. A little known piece of trivial is that sales of Aho's 'Dragon Book' financed the purchase of the original PDP-11 Thompson and Ritchie worked on. -- John F. Haugh II +-Things you didn't want to know:------ VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | The real meaning of MACH is ... InterNet: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org | ... Messages Are Crufty Hacks. UUCPNet: {texbell|bigtex}!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) (10/02/89)
In article <1858@texsun.Central.Sun.COM> jthomp@wintermute.Central.Sun.COM (Jim Thompson Sun Dallas IR) writes: >'sticky bit', John, 'sticky'. And back then it was on files, >not directories. (Well, ok, you could probably set it on >a directory (damn, where did I put that V6 listing?) but it >had no meaning. If you set it on an executable file, that file's >swap image would stay on the swap area after the program exited. >It was a wonderful hack to reduce overhead of often used programs. > >In recent BSD editions, the sticky bit has be overloaded for >directories to (not) permit 'unlink' operations in directories >otherwise writtable by the process in question. I can't believe I have to explain tacky bits to Jim. Jim Thompson, for those of you who -have- had your heads under rocks all your lives is the inventor of the Set-GID bit. Dennis Ritchie was giving a lecture on his recently patented Set-UID bit [ which was one of the first software patents -ever- ] and Jim very sarcastically said `Why don't you do it for groups too', and the idea was born. The purpose of the ``tacky bit'' was to get around the incredibly small disk partitions which were prevalent in the early 1970s. Any PC user is painfully aware of how small PC disks were [ typically around 10MB ]. Well, PDP-11 disks ran as small as 5MB each, often requiring 10 or 20 disk drives just to make a reasonably large /usr partition. What the tacky bit did was cause /unix to scan each subdirectory of a directory on file name lookups. So it would be possible to have ten or twenty subdirectories each with a different mounted file system all look like a single system image. The introduction of the RK07 disk drive did away with the need for the tacky bit, and it faded into obscurity with a few other worthless ideas, like `Save Stack on Swap', which saved a process's stack on the swapper after it exited. -- John F. Haugh II +-Things you didn't want to know:------ VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | The real meaning of MACH is ... InterNet: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org | ... Messages Are Crufty Hacks. UUCPNet: {texbell|bigtex}!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (10/03/89)
In article <17090@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: >What the tacky bit did was cause /unix to scan each subdirectory >of a directory on file name lookups. So it would be possible to >have ten or twenty subdirectories each with a different mounted >file system all look like a single system image. ... It worked very nicely, except that when you had the arms on your five RK05 disks seeking in unison, the cabinet in which they were mounted tended to shake and fall over. So what's the real reason early versions printed a semicolon before login: ? -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, Levine@YALE.edu Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old. -The Globe
libes@cme.nbs.gov (Don Libes) (10/03/89)
In article <1989Oct2.205642.5715@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: >So what's the real reason early versions printed a semicolon before login: ? This question is answered by the monthly posting of "Frequently Asked Questions about UNIX" which suggests that you read "Life With UNIX". According to its index, ";login:" is explained on page 204. Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (10/04/89)
In article <1989Oct2.205642.5715@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: >So what's the real reason early versions printed a semicolon before login: ? Just on the off-chance that you really want an answer to this one, "ESC ;" would put a Tektronix 4014 into small-font mode.
aglew@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Andy-Krazy-Glew) (10/04/89)
I do not know about the tacky bit John F. Haugh II describes, but it
sounds similar to the directory continuation that Korn(?) and friends
have played around with recently - except directory continuation is
more general.
--
Andy "Krazy" Glew, Motorola MCD, aglew@urbana.mcd.mot.com
1101 E. University, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. {uunet!,}uiucuxc!udc!aglew
My opinions are my own; I indicate my company only so that the reader
may account for any possible bias I may have towards our products.rmyers@net1.ucsd.edu (Robert Myers) (10/04/89)
In article <17085@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: >In article <Sep.30.21.29.38.1989.9534@elbereth.rutgers.edu> bschwart@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Not a Rich Republican) writes: >>In article <20226@usc.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes: >>>In article <IZ9Hkde00WB58=V2pf@andrew.cmu.edu> mg32+@andrew.cmu.edu >>>(Michael Ginsberg) writes: >>> >>>>what DOES grep stand for??? >> >>It is named after the author of the program: Gregula Rex Pression, Ph.D. > >No, it is named after the names of the four authors who worked on >the original regular expression matching code for the UNIX editor >'ed'. > >Their names are Gregior, Ritchie, Ebersol, and Pike. Micheal NO, "grep" does not stand for the so-called author's names. It is a more intuitive or UNIX-ish type of abbreviation. If you think in terms of ed/ex/vi you can see that "grep" is actually "g/<re>/p". The g stands for "global search", the <re> for "regular expression", and the p for "print". The /'s are separators, required by the syntax. Executing such a command in ed or at the ":" prompt in vi (or ex) will result in the search and display (ie printing) of any line satisfying the regular expression. This is also the result of using the UNIX utility "grep". Actually, "Gregula Rex Pression, Ph.D.", in a twisted way, sums it up nicely. Raul Rathmann raul@sdnp1.ucsd.edu (Using and abusing this account in lieu of R. Myers)
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (10/04/89)
What has this world come to? We recently hired a new programmer,
fresh out of a highly respected computer science at a highly respected ivy
league school. Burrowing through the mess on my desk, I discovered an
announcment of a talk Ken Thompson gave last week at a local Unix user's
group meeting. "Hey Brent, you want to go see Ken Thompson last week?"
"Who?" "Ken Thompson." "Who's that?" "You never heard of Ken Thompson!?"
"No, who is he?"
Either they don't teach kids anything in school any more or I'm
older than I thought.
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"abh0@GTE.COM (Andrew Hudson) (10/06/89)
In article <4027@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > > What has this world come to? We recently hired a new programmer, >fresh out of a highly respected computer science at a highly respected ivy ^^^ >league school. Burrowing through the mess on my desk, I discovered an ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >announcment of a talk Ken Thompson gave last week at a local Unix user's >group meeting. "Hey Brent, you want to go see Ken Thompson last week?" >"Who?" "Ken Thompson." "Who's that?" "You never heard of Ken Thompson!?" >"No, who is he?" > > Either they don't teach kids anything in school any more or I'm >older than I thought. >Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute Until the last year or two the Ivy schools have been predominantly Non-UNIX oriented. Schools with lots of money to spend traditionally spent it on big hardware (read IBM/Honeywell/Cyber/Univac/Pr1me) whereas spendthrifty schools purchased PDP's and VAXen. Only recently with the invention of the workstation have large scale purchases of UNIX boxes become prevalent. And even so a lot of Computer Centers have opted for Macintosh and PC clusters in lieu of UNIX workstations. But then maybe your programmer concentrated in Mathematics instead of Systems Programming. Consider this a gross characterization. - Andrew Hudson abh0@gte.com -- "I remember, darkness doubled, I recall, lightning struck itself."
ihaka@diamond.tmc.edu (Ross Ihaka) (10/06/89)
In article <7604@bunny.GTE.COM> abh0@GTE.COM (Andrew Hudson) writes: |Until the last year or two the Ivy schools have been predominantly |Non-UNIX oriented. Schools with lots of money to spend traditionally |spent it on big hardware (read IBM/Honeywell/Cyber/Univac/Pr1me) whereas |spendthrifty schools purchased PDP's and VAXen. My experience as a faculty member at Yale was that that particular big money school had rooms full of Apollo machines and Vaxen, almost none of them running Unix. The vice-provost I lobbied about changing things told me that there was no demand for Unix and he couldn't see why I was interested in it. It didn't seem to be a question of bucks. Things do seem to have changed in CS, they have replaced their Apollos with Suns. The rest of the university is probably still stuck with PCs, VMS and VM. Ross
libes@cme.nbs.gov (Don Libes) (10/07/89)
In article <14920@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> ihaka@diamond.UUCP (Ross Ihaka) writes: >In article <7604@bunny.GTE.COM> abh0@GTE.COM (Andrew Hudson) writes: >|[Discussion of Ivy league schools using non-UNIX computers deleted] > >[Discussion of Yale as an example of such a school, and >administration not appreciating the problem - deleted] Irrelevant. Any computer scientist worth his salt should know every person who has won the Turing Award, and they should have a reasonable understanding of why. I don't care if they have never used UNIX. Seeing as how Thompson was awarded this most prestigious prize in computer science during the time this person was a "highly respected computer scientist", it is hard to understand how they wouldn't know the name and the accomplishment associated with it. This is like a physicist not being aware of a contemporary Nobel laureate in physics. Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes
dan@dsi.COM (Dan Mick) (10/07/89)
>grep
Gee, I'd always thought it was generalized regular-expression
pattern-matching...borg@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (daniel.w.meeks) (10/07/89)
>Until the last year or two the Ivy schools have been predominantly >Non-UNIX oriented. Schools with lots of money to spend traditionally >spent it on big hardware (read IBM/Honeywell/Cyber/Univac/Pr1me) whereas >spendthrifty schools purchased PDP's and VAXen. Only recently >with the invention of the workstation have large scale purchases >of UNIX boxes become prevalent. And even so a lot of Computer Centers >have opted for Macintosh and PC clusters in lieu of UNIX workstations. ---------------- Even so I would have thought that Computer Science is old enough now to start instructing on the history of operating systems etc and UNIX along with Ken would have been mentioned. +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Daniel W. Meeks @ att!iexist!dwm | |``Computer..Computer.. Ah, a keyboard! How quaint...''| +-------------------------------------------------------+
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (10/07/89)
In article <17108@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: -In article <1694@muffin.cme.nbs.gov> libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes) writes: ->Irrelevant. Any computer scientist worth his salt should know every ->person who has won the Turing Award, and they should have a reasonable ->understanding of why. I don't care if they have never used UNIX. -Somehow I doubt this. I don't recall having an instructor tell -me I needed to know who Ken Thompson was prior to teaching data -structures or interrupt handling. The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. I don't recall anybody (except possibly you) claiming that attending college courses in "computer science" sufficed to make one a computer scientist.
jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) (10/07/89)
In article <1694@muffin.cme.nbs.gov> libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes) writes: >Irrelevant. Any computer scientist worth his salt should know every >person who has won the Turing Award, and they should have a reasonable >understanding of why. I don't care if they have never used UNIX. Somehow I doubt this. I don't recall having an instructor tell me I needed to know who Ken Thompson was prior to teaching data structures or interrupt handling. Ken Thompson is the only person I know of who received the Turing Award. But then I'm not all that impressed with Turing. Can't find tapes long enough to run on his machines ;-) -- John F. Haugh II +-Things you didn't want to know:------ VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | The real meaning of MACH is ... InterNet: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org | ... Messages Are Crufty Hacks. UUCPNet: {texbell|bigtex}!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang) (10/09/89)
In article <3717@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> borg@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (daniel.w.meeks) writes: >Even so I would have thought that Computer Science is old enough now >to start instructing on the history of operating systems etc and UNIX >along with Ken would have been mentioned. Just 'cause it was mentioned doesn't mean that any given person in the class actually listened.... :-) +----------------------------------+------------------+ | Anton Rang (grad student) | rang@cs.wisc.edu | | University of Wisconsin--Madison | | +----------------------------------+------------------+
jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) (10/10/89)
In article <11239@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, >Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, >you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. Why not? Do I have to know that Alexander the Great's father is the inventor of the Phillip's screwdriver to use one? >I don't recall anybody (except possibly you) claiming that attending >college courses in "computer science" sufficed to make one a computer >scientist. I'm only claiming that a course in The Great Names and Faces in Computer History would be a waste of my time. Sure, I knew what Backus did [ and I even know what to do with it ]. But I don't need to know that he didn't play Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Isle. I also know that a programmer who is going to spend his entire life working in COBOL writing payroll programs has no need for Backus' or Thompson's Greatest Hits. Point is, to present a seemingly arbitrary list of computer greats and claim this list is the basis for true computer professionalism is pretty snooty. Why is Thompson up there, for example, but Ritchie isn't? Go read that Turing Award paper again. What has Jensen been doing all these since he and Wirth worked on Pascal? I know what Wirth has been doing and I'm not impressed. As for Dijkstra, I used 2 goto's just last week and exited at least one loop in the middle. Is he going to have me fired? On the other hand, anyone who hasn't read ``The Mythical Man Month'' should be fired. As arbitrary statements go, that's one I can really believe in. -- John F. Haugh II +-Things you didn't want to know:------ VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | The real meaning of MACH is ... InterNet: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org | ... Messages Are Crufty Hacks. UUCPNet: {texbell|bigtex}!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
abh0@GTE.COM (Andrew Hudson) (10/11/89)
In article <1694@muffin.cme.nbs.gov> libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes) writes: > >Seeing as how Thompson was awarded this most prestigious prize in >computer science during the time this person was a "highly respected >computer scientist", it is hard to understand how they wouldn't know >the name and the accomplishment associated with it. This is like a >physicist not being aware of a contemporary Nobel laureate in physics. > >Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes No, this is like a history-oriented physicist not being aware of a contemporary Nobel laureate in physics. I think that if you poll recent Computer Science graduates you will find very few who can identify 'highly prestigious' Computer Scientists. And this is more by their work than by their awards. - Andrew Hudson abh0@gte.com -- "I remember, darkness doubled, I recall, lightning struck itself."
dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt) (10/11/89)
In article <11239@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: -In article <17108@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: --In article <1694@muffin.cme.nbs.gov> libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes) writes: -->Irrelevant. Any computer scientist worth his salt should know every -->person who has won the Turing Award, and they should have a reasonable -->understanding of why. I don't care if they have never used UNIX. - -The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, -Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, -you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. - Will it be on the final exam? I guess 25 years of university level teaching made me into a terrible cynic. In another article reference was made to physicists and Nobel prize winners in physics. Don't expect better levels of knowledge there. You are bound to be disappointed. The real test is whether the person originally mentioned in this tread now knows who Thompson is, or did he just dismiss it with a question from the same family as that above. -- Dan Schlitt Manager, Science Division Computer Facility dan@sci.ccny.cuny.edu City College of New York dan@ccnysci.uucp New York, NY 10031 dan@ccnysci.bitnet (212)690-6868
ari@kolmogorov.physics.uiuc.edu (10/11/89)
In my field, physics, I don't know every Nobel prize lauriate, (sure, I know many, but not near most). There are some who won, that I can't remember what for, and then there are some physicist who didn't win, that I think have. However, this doesn't seem to interfere with doing physics. Oh well, I guess I'm not a scientist after all. ari
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (10/12/89)
In article <11239@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: |The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, |Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, |you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. You are mistaken. While I admit that knowledge of what they have done will aid you in being a computer scientist, that knowledge will not make you one and lack of it does not necessarily degrade your ability (although it probably will, especially for certain applications). This is just another lesson in history: you can be more effective if you know of the successes and failures of your predecessors, but you can get the same job done that they did without knowledge of them -- it may just take a lot longer. I only wish that politicians would learn this lesson. jim frost software tool & die madd@std.com
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (10/12/89)
In article <17123@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: |On the other hand, anyone who hasn't read ``The Mythical Man Month'' |should be fired. Agreed. Learn the mistakes from someone who had to make them the hard way. jim frost software tool & die madd@std.com
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (10/12/89)
In article <8600002@kolmogorov> ari@kolmogorov.physics.uiuc.edu writes: >this doesn't seem to interfere with doing physics. Oh well, >I guess I'm not a scientist after all. If you had no idea who Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, or Feynman were, then yes I would have to say you weren't qualified as a physicist! Remember, this thread started when somebody reported that his colleague, who billed himself as a professional computer scientist, said that he had no idea who Ken Thompson is or what he had done. To me (and others) that is comparble illiteracy to a "physicist" not knowing the names I mentioned above. Nobel prizes, Turing awards, etc. are of course only loosely correlated with genuinely great names in their respective fields.
richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) (10/12/89)
In article <11239@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, >Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, >you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. You certainly shouldn't call yourself a computer scientist if you don't understand the major principles expounded by these people, but to believe that knowledge of the people is important smacks of episodism. -- Richard -- Richard Tobin, JANET: R.Tobin@uk.ac.ed AI Applications Institute, ARPA: R.Tobin%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Edinburgh University. UUCP: ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!R.Tobin
bet@orion.mc.duke.edu (Bennett Todd) (10/12/89)
(Re: a fresh young CS major hadn't heard of Ken Thompson) It should be remembered that different schools have different approaches to undergraduate instruction. Some places emphasize teaching a foundation of theory, and never mention current practice as part of the formal curriculum, though students might accidentally pick up odd tidbits. I can't say I am entirely unsympathetic to this trend; where do you draw the line between giving a healthy understanding of current events in the profession and giving an unhealthy emphasis on how-to? You have *got* to cover a lot of the boring *why* unless you are a trade school trying to crank out piecework programmers. Unfortunately this concern can be taken too far. In some places I have the feeling someone like Ken Thompson would be looked down upon as a mere technician with dirt under his fingernails, figuratively speaking. A lot depends on the political makeup of the university as a whole and the CS department in particular. Given the stresses universities have always enjoyed on the budget side, who can tell where they are going to attempt to find financial security? -Bennett bet@orion.mc.duke.edu
dhesi@sun505.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) (10/13/89)
In article <11266@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >...Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, or Feynman... ... >Remember, this thread started when somebody reported that his colleague, >who billed himself as a professional computer scientist, said that he >had no idea who Ken Thompson is or what he had done. To me (and others) >that is [comparable] illiteracy to a "physicist" not knowing the names I >mentioned above. The true test of greatness is how people remember you after you die and for how long. Let's give Ken Thompson some more time. There is every possibility that he will pass the test, but it will remain for another generation to decide that. I also tend to believe that the real *unsung* heroes of this saga are the unassuming folks at Berkeley. Thompson and Ritchie may be the proud (and talented) biological parents of the child, but the teenage UNIX really grew up on the west coast with foster parents where it acquired some badly-needed training in how to survive in the real world. Rahul Dhesi <dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com> UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi
libes@cme.nbs.gov (Don Libes) (10/13/89)
In article <1218@skye.ed.ac.uk> richard@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin) writes: >In article <11239@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >>The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, >>Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, >>you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. >You certainly shouldn't call yourself a computer scientist if you don't >understand the major principles expounded by these people, but to >believe that knowledge of the people is important smacks of episodism. I originally said that any computer scientist ought to know the Turing award winners. Hey, folks...I'm not talking biographies here. I'm talking familiarity with fundamental computer science literature! If you don't know who Knuth is, you're telling me you are unaware of an essential reference on algorithms. If you don't know the name Backus, you couldn't possibly know very much about language translation. All of these names come up so frequently in references, or algorithm names, that it is inescapable you become familiar with them. I never meant to suggest that you had to read their biographies or take a class in the subject. Rather, such knowledge is simply an inevitable part of learning the field of computer science. Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes
bet@orion.mc.duke.edu (Bennett Todd) (10/13/89)
In article <8600002@kolmogorov>, ari@kolmogorov writes: > >In my field, physics, I don't know every Nobel prize lauriate, >(sure, I know many, but not near most). There are some >who won, that I can't remember what for, and then there >are some physicist who didn't win, that I think have. I think folks are missing the point here. The Turing Award is important, though perhaps not as important in some absolute sense as the Nobel Prize. However, the question was about a new hire with a degree in Computer Science who had *never heard* of Ken Thompson. Depending on your background and interests you might or might not be expected to have an extensive background in UNIX; however there is a long list of names that should at least be familiar. Besides Thompson and Ritchie and Kernighan and Pike and all that gang I would tend to expect that computer scientists would have at least *heard* of Grace Hopper, Fred Brooks, Andy Tanenbaum, and many others. Likewise I would be surprised at a physicist who hadn't *heard* of Nobel, Pauli, Rutherford, Feynman, and several zillion others. The point is that a good background in Computer Science should in *my* opinion (though not that of some Computer Science departments!) include a reasonable exposure to high points of the practice of computer science in its history, as well as the theory. Sure, unless your interests lean in that particular direction you might be little more than vaguely familiar with the name, but at least that much seems reasonable to expect! I haven't tried to make a list, so this part here is pure guesswork, but I would tend to expect that most computer scientists would at least recognize some 40 or 50 names of scientists who made major, fundamental contributions to the art, over and above the potentially very long list of specialists in your chosen field. -Bennett bet@orion.mc.duke.edu
benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) (10/16/89)
<warning -- semi-sarcartic comment follows> Computer scientists spend their time writing down meta-programs in incomprehensible greek letters to prove the computation equivalent of the inability of bumblebees to fly. They don't write operating systems. <end of sarcasm> seriously, Unix has almost nothing to do with the bulk of computer SCIENCE, as opposed to the engineering of operating systems. One could be the world-wide expert in LR(4) grammars or Petri Nets and have no good reason to know Ken T. from Richard Nixon. -- Benson I. Margulies
andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) (10/17/89)
this strand about ken is silly enough without me adding to it but ken is famous for more than unix. he did some important work early on (1960's) with regular expressions, establishing a formal method to transform finite-state machines into equivalent non-deterministic finite automata. this is related to the patent he holds for implementing regular expression recognisers.
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (10/19/89)
In article <10027@alice.UUCP> andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) writes:
-this strand about ken is silly enough without me adding to it
-but ken is famous for more than unix. he did some important
-work early on (1960's) with regular expressions, ...
Yup. He's also famous in the world of computer chess.dwc@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (Malaclypse the Elder) (10/21/89)
In article <10027@alice.UUCP>, andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) writes: > > > this strand about ken is silly enough without me adding to it > but ken is famous for more than unix. he did some important > work early on (1960's) with regular expressions, establishing > a formal method to transform finite-state machines into > equivalent non-deterministic finite automata. this is related > to the patent he holds for implementing regular expression recognisers. its been about ten years since i took my finite state automata class so i'm not clear about the difference between finite state machines and finite automata, but are you referring to the method of transforming a non-deterministic finite state automaton into a deterministic one? it involves creating new states that are the cross products of the states of the non-deterministic machine. if so, i did not know that ken thompson was the "inventor" of this method. i school, it was presented as a proof that the two are equivalent in power. which i guess brings me to my point. it is quite *centric (fill in the * with anything that matches an appropriate personality) of the people arguing about what constitutes a scientist. it is silly to say that one is only a scientist if one knows what i know. but there are a couple of things that are "useful" to know (in my *centric view): scientific method and in a related way, where/how to find things out. this is my opinion. danny att!hocus!dwc