From: arnold@skeeve.com
To: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu, gnu@toad.com
Cc: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] non-blocking IO: Simplicity has been subtituted for efficiency
Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2020 00:27:10 -0600 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <202006040627.0546RAMW020424@freefriends.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <8066.1591233892@hop.toad.com>
John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> wrote:
> I just happened to open a binder today of old papers about UNIX(tm),
> including Ken Thompson's "Unix Implementation" paper, which says at the
> bottom of the introduction:
>
> "What is or is not implemented in the kernel represents both a great
> responsibiity and a great power. It is a soap-box platform on "the
> way things should be done." Even so, if "the way" is too radical, no
> one will follow it. Every important decision was weighted carefully.
> Throughout, simplicity has been substituted for efficiency. Complex
> algorithms are used only if their complexity can be localized."
Words to live by. I remember reading that paper early on in my
career and that this statement certainly influenced my subsequent
thinking about programming in general.
Arnold
prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-06-04 6:27 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-06-02 20:13 [TUHS] non-blocking IO Noel Chiappa
2020-06-02 20:43 ` Clem Cole
2020-06-02 22:14 ` Rich Morin
2020-06-03 16:31 ` Paul Winalski
2020-06-03 19:19 ` John P. Linderman
2020-06-04 1:24 ` [TUHS] non-blocking IO: Simplicity has been subtituted for efficiency John Gilmore
2020-06-04 6:27 ` arnold [this message]
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