From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: lm@bitmover.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:58:04 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com> > There's a reason Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson have been awarded > the U.S. National Medal of Technology (1998) and are fellows of the > Computer History Museum Online. Dave Cutler hasn't and isn't. > "You are not expected to understand this." And while I think this is a little unfair to Dave that's a great .sig It goes well with the recent post about Unix vs NT that concluded about NT "there is no there there". I live on both platforms and I couldn't agree more. Some day I'll post my view on this but here is the really short summary. There are two classes of people: those who derive answers and those who memorize them. As Mark Twain said, the latter group is much larger than the former. My claim is that Unix appeals to the first group - you can guess what it is going to do and you'll be right most of the time. Windows appeals to the other group. They don't have the ability to derive any answer and they are comfortable with a system that mostly works but has "no there there". They can't tell the difference. The sad part (and the good part!) is that all of us on this list are in the former group which is smaller. I think we (well, many of us) wish that more people thought like we do and figured stuff out for themselves but the reality is that most people aren't inclined to do that. So the good and bad part is that we're a small select group. Personally, I've come to accept that and like it. I've gotten to the point where I realize that people who can derive the answer are special, they are gift, and I consider myself lucky when I run into a concentrated group of them. Cough, cough, that would be you. :) -- --- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com