Re: [9fans] recreational programming of an evening

[ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 8:47 AM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:

> I got the hunch it wasn't designed at all, but more "hacked on" or evolved.

I shouldn't be so down on Linux, as it is arguably the most successful
OS out there. It runs on my e-reader, will be running on my next
phone, probably runs on things you own which you don't know about --
it's everywhere. It made a lot of what I do in HPC possible.

Linux's runaway success is part of the problem! It is almost
inevitable that when you run on *anything* and you open the gates to
lots of contributors your work will lose a certain intellectual
coherence, and that's what has happened with Linux. Add to the fact
that he started with a pretty old-fashioned design (classical Unix,
with it's "major and minor nodes" and so on) and it's not surprising
that it's not that pretty.

And there are parts of it that are quite elegant, such as lguest.

But it still gives me a splitting headache every time I have to
deep-dive to do anything :-)

ron