One of the things that makes unix so special to me is how many different ways I had the "Aha" moment.

Viscerally, I got drawn in after I tried writing some Batch script for a windows machine and found bash so much easier.

Intellectually, ESR's Art of Unix Programming really shown a light onto what made unix feel so fun. Seeing the unix principles laid out shortly and clearly was world changing.

Then when Apple and Google pumped out 3 BILLION unix like devices and made unix mainstream, it just nailed it in that unix is a really special piece of software.

Tyler

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 1:56 PM Leah Neukirchen <leah@vuxu.org> wrote:

Warren Toomey <wkt@tuhs.org> writes:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

I'm not sure if this was *my* "Aha, Unix!" moment, but my Dad
complained once that he had some CSV file containing bills and needed
to do some computation, and it would be a hassle to do in Delphi
(which he is most proficient in). So I told him I could have a look
at it on my Linux system, and while he explained what computations he
needed, I would type in some awk oneliner and a bit of other pipe
stuff and he had his answer within minutes.

--
Leah Neukirchen <leah@vuxu.org> https://leahneukirchen.org/