[TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)

[norman@oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)]

Larry McVoy:

  Looking at git like that is sort of like looking at the size of
  a dynamically linked app.  Ya gotta add in libc and all the extensions
  people use to make it not suck.

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In which case one should also add the size of the kernel, or at
least the code paths exercised by a given program.

Not to mention the layers of window systems, networking, desktops,
message buses, name-space managers, programs to emulate 40-year-old
terminal hardware, flashy icons, and so on.

I say all this to underscore Larry's point, not to dispute it.

Everything has gotten more complicated.  Some of the complexity
involves reasonable tradeoffs (the move toward replacing binary
interfaces with readable text where space and time are nowhere
near critical, like the /proc and /sys trees in modern Linux).
Some reflects the more-complex world we live in (networking).
But a lot of it seems, to my mind that felt really at home when
it first settled into UNIX in 1981, just plain tasteless.

There are certainly legitimate differences in aesthetic taste
involved, though.  I think taste becomes technically important
when it can be mapped onto real differences in how easily a
program can be understood, whether its innards or its external
interface; how easily the program can adapt to different tasks
or environments; and so on.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON