phipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (08/07/84)
I have come to the conclusion that many of UN*X's shortcomings
derive from its creation by computer science and other *researchers*
as a system to support their research efforts.
These people are presumably primarily interested in their research,
secondarily interested in the software developed to support it,
and almost not at all in the more mundane aspects of software development,
such as documentation and standards, which impede production of "results"
and "stifle creativity".
It's great fun :-( trying to fix a UN*X-based compiler
when all the documentation you have on it,
aside from the source code (thank generic deity that it's not written
in assembler or FORTRAN or COBOL), is a research paper written to
illustrate (but not describe) the "interesting" parts of a related compiler,
and a document based on empirical knowledge of the intermediate code.
Having the original developers actually *describe* the intermediate code
interface wouldn't be any fun for them, now would it ?
There are alleged to be some useful papers stashed away at Bell Labs.
Nonetheless, I can do a lot more with UN*X than I can with MS-DOS.
[These opinions are my own, and may not reflect those of my employer]
-- Clay Phipps
--
{ amd hplabs!hpda sri-unix ucbvax!amd }
!fortune!phipps
{ ihnp4 cbosgd decvax!decwrl!amd harpo allegra}kurt@fluke.UUCP (Kurt Guntheroth) (08/10/84)
What is this about unix only being for ivory tower acedemics? The fact that
you are using unix on this huge network should be an obvious testamonial to
the fact that unix is easier to deal with than other available systems.
You complain about not having any documentation so when you have to delve
into the sources you get lost? Try it on some other OS. They don't have to
provide documentation because they don't give you the sources either. If
you want to make a change you are out of luck. Unix is the first operating
system that lets you fix bugs instead of just working around them like on
other OS's. Unix is the first OS that lets you make improvements and share
them with other sites. In short, unix is the OS of the proletariat. The
peoples' OS that frees us from the tyranny of the corporate bosses. Long
live Unix, long live the glorious revolution.
(the sound of gunfire.)
--
Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!kurt