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From: Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com>
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 16:17:18 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <202002180017.01I0HI0I1415945@darkstar.fourwinds.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAFH29tofawAMrywyW=S5ZW2F-U-1tbOm55+PMN+_vg=uDWFUNg@mail.gmail.com>

Richard Salz writes:
>
> > 'The problem is that the ecosystem has been fragmented by people doing
> their "documentation" in their preferred formats instead of in a common
> (man) format.
>
> Damn those unauthorized developers.  How dare they write code that doesn't
> meet standards.
>
> Get off my lawn.

The relevant TUHS part of it that maybe some folks here can speak to is how
did UNIX remain so cohesive for so long?  How were decisions made?  Of course,
this started to fall apart with System III and such as things got more clunky.

I've probably said this before, but today I see way too much "string theory
programming".  What I mean by that is the "I have an idea so I'll just start
my own universe that doesn't play well with others rather than extending the
existing ecosystem" model.  That's my beef with texinfo; there was already
an existing functional system and rather than making some improvements a new
incompatible universe was created.

Noel Chiappa writes:
> I am _sooo_ tempted to say 'What do you think source is for?' :-)

I think that this is part of the problem, have you looked at the source for
any modern package?  It's pretty impenetrable.  I see a lot of overly complex,
poorly written code with no documentation.  That makes it really difficult for
someone to extend or otherwise modify it.  It's probably easier to create a
new universe than understand an existing one.

Jon

  reply	other threads:[~2020-02-18  0:17 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 83+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-02-17 15:20 Doug McIlroy
2020-02-17 16:47 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-17 18:09 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-17 18:39   ` Jon Steinhart
2020-02-17 21:16     ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-17 22:50     ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-17 23:22       ` Warner Losh
2020-02-18  0:56         ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-18  3:33         ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-18  7:27           ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-18  0:03       ` Richard Salz
2020-02-18  0:17         ` Jon Steinhart [this message]
2020-02-18  0:54           ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-18  1:05           ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-18  7:40           ` Greg A. Woods
2020-02-18  7:45             ` arnold
2020-02-18 20:24               ` Greg A. Woods
2020-02-18 11:22             ` Rich Morin
2020-02-18 12:28               ` arnold
2020-02-18 12:49                 ` U'll Be King of the Stars
2020-02-18 13:23                   ` arnold
2020-02-18 15:11             ` Clem Cole
2020-02-18 15:28               ` arnold
2020-02-18 15:36                 ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-18 15:43                 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-02-18 15:52                   ` Clem Cole
2020-02-18 16:40                   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-02-18 18:39                     ` Steve Nickolas
2020-02-18 21:26                       ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-18 21:29                       ` Wesley Parish
2020-02-19  4:52                       ` [TUHS] Open source or free software? (was: man Macro Package and pdfmark) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2020-02-18 15:48                 ` [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark Clem Cole
2020-02-18 16:02                   ` Chet Ramey
2020-02-18 16:28                     ` Clem Cole
2020-02-18 17:49                   ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-18 21:46                 ` Rich Morin
2020-02-18 16:47               ` Henry Bent
2020-02-18 20:22               ` Greg A. Woods
2020-02-19  4:44                 ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-19 18:01                   ` Earl Baugh
2020-02-19 18:12                     ` Emile Bye
2020-02-19 20:18                       ` Michael Huff
2020-02-19 20:34                         ` Jon Steinhart
2020-02-19 21:09                         ` Henry Bent
2020-02-20  7:27                         ` arnold
2020-02-20  7:43                           ` Rich Morin
2020-02-20 13:15                             ` Dan Cross
2020-02-20 16:23                           ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-20 16:34                             ` Arthur Krewat
2020-02-20 17:06                             ` Al Kossow
2020-02-20 17:24                             ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-20 17:48                               ` Rich Morin
2020-02-20 20:10                                 ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-20 20:18                                   ` Rich Morin
2020-02-20 16:48                           ` Nemo
2020-02-20 17:00                             ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-20 19:16                           ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-20 23:45                         ` Doug McIntyre
2020-02-21  0:18                           ` Warner Losh
2020-02-21  1:14                             ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-02-21  8:19                             ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-21  8:17                           ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-21 10:17                             ` arnold
2020-02-21 10:37 ` Ed Bradford
2020-02-21 18:34   ` Heinz Lycklama
2020-02-21 18:59     ` Warner Losh
2020-02-21 21:10       ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-21 21:46         ` David Barto
2020-02-22  6:48     ` Ed Bradford
2020-02-22 10:42     ` Al Kossow
2020-02-22 11:01       ` Ed Bradford
2020-02-22 16:38         ` Warner Losh
2020-02-22 18:11           ` arnold
2020-02-22 23:41             ` [TUHS] Mini-UNIX Warren Toomey
2020-02-22 11:08       ` [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark Ed Bradford
2020-02-22 16:40         ` Warner Losh
2020-02-22 16:46         ` Clem Cole
2020-02-22 17:51           ` Heinz Lycklama
2020-02-17 18:55 Noel Chiappa
2020-02-17 20:13 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-17 21:06   ` CHARLES KESTER
2020-02-18  0:36 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-18 13:13 Don Hopkins

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