[comp.software-eng] UNIX, like it or lump it

UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (02/25/88)

Let's distinguish

UNIX, the Operating System --- kernel, file system, i/o, etc.

UNIX, the environment --- the shell, grep, awk, pipes, sccs, rcs, make, etc.

UNIX, the applications available --- editors, design tools, compilers, etc.

There might not be a clean distinction here between the kernel, the
environment, and the applications, but it is clear that there is a qualitative
difference between things like record locking, the quality of the error
recovery in the compiler, and the command language in the editor.

So, when
in article <2673@ihlpe.ATT.COM>, daryl@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Daryl Monge) says:
>
>Lets see more discussion on things to be IMPROVED.
>        - Better syntax directed editing (>emacs has now)
>        - Improved syntactic and semantic compiler recovery
>        - Use of object oriented languages (C++ !)
>        - object oriented data bases for those object oriented languages.
>        - More powerful compiler compilers
>        - Better debugging
>        - Automation of regression testing
>        - Conversion of specification into code.
>

I see a list of things that mostly do not have anything to do with UNIX
the operating system or environment per se, but look mostly like
discussions of what commercial software is available for UNIX.  For
that matter, it is probably a comment on what is available on one or
two particular machines.