From: Tomasz Rola <rtomek@ceti.pl>
To: Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>
Cc: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2021 00:19:24 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210709221924.GA17181@tau1.ceti.pl> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NdVK1zGeACJW8jZfTm85CyWq8CZd6oZAAfRaRZgovNvg@mail.gmail.com>
On Tue, Jul 06, 2021 at 12:05:04PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
[...]
> Ouch!!! This is so much important that you have missed in this statement,
> as this is a great example of not seeing the forest because of all the
> trees. You are right that C and UNIX's success was intertwined but I think
> you are missing the drivers for that. They were successful because of
> other things and because they were successful, we have them today.
[...]
Clem, thanks a lot for writing this. I think I have connected few dots
now. Like, I was long aware that there were various groups of computer
users, but never before I had the thought about how this "divide"
contributed so much to creation and adoption of Unix.
I suppose I like Unix even more now.
[...]
> The idea of lots of little programs that cooperate with each other is not
> what IBM and the like wanted/was providing. They were selling closed
> 'solutions' complete SW systems ("walled gardens" controlled by them or
> their programming minions) and yes needed the big iron they sold. Note
> the IBM 'solutions were not sold to engineers, their products were sold on
> the golf course to the 'managers' of what we know call IT shops.
Ahem. I do not see myself selling or buying during golf
course... Especially if it has to do with computers...
[...]
> The important thing is that the latter group (not enterprise) did not have
> as much money but was a completely different population. UNIX is 100% a
> 'Christiansen style Disruption' ( read his book completely if you have
> not, please).
I will see if I can have my hand on it.
> It's a 'lessor technology,' running on smaller equipment,
> targeting a new and different consumer who does not care that it is 'not as
> good' as the established products. If you compare UNIX to IBM's OS or VMS
> for that matter, UNIX does not have the 'features' that are valued by the
> 'enterprise market.'
>
> Ken/Dennis, *et al*, clearly do not care -- they were building something
> they (the engineers) needed and wanted (thankfully). And yes it had to run
> on modest hardware because that is what they could afford and had access
> to. But because since the HW was modest, that forces a mindset of what are
> we really doing on the SW? How can we do it effectively. The designers
> are asking an important research question? *Maybe some of these other
> schemes are not necessary*.
I definitely like this attitude.
> You are correct the C grew because of UNIX, but you kind of have it
> backward. I'm a perfect example of what happened. These new
> microprocessors from Intel/Zilog/Moto/MOS Tech became available to us
> (engineers mind you). Hey, I was at CMU in the mid-1970s, I even had
> access to the BLISS sources, but most people did not. A BLISS cross
> compiler binary cost $5K per CPU!!!
Yikes. Five kilodollars, what a deal.
When I learned C, in middle/late 80-ties, it was my third language
after Basic and Pascal. I did not have computer at that time and I
wrote short programs in a notebook. I wonder if I could locate the
notebook and if any of this code would run. But, compared to the first
two, C had something fresh in it. Nowadays, however, this freshness is
a little bit trapped under a ton of supporting libraries. Back at the
time, the fact there was a C compiler on every computer I heard about,
and standard library gave it a bit of unified look, and I could write
C oneliners on less paper, more idiomatic (saves time! all those
begin/end words replaced by mere curly braces, very nice) - all of
this made C very interesting to me.
[...]
> The key point is that UNIX was inexpensive and worked on modest hardware.
> Yes C came with it and that is why I think we use it not BLISS, BCPL, or
> some flavor of PLx today.
I hope C would have been invented even without Unix.
--
Regards,
Tomasz Rola
--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
** **
** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com **
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-07-09 22:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 109+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-07-02 21:24 Nelson H. F. Beebe
2021-07-02 21:36 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-02 21:56 ` Henry Bent
2021-07-02 23:12 ` Steve Nickolas
2021-07-02 23:49 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-03 13:34 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-03 13:56 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-03 12:04 ` Thomas Paulsen
2021-07-03 13:20 ` Dan Cross
2021-07-03 17:37 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-07-03 17:57 ` Warner Losh
2021-07-03 18:10 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-07-03 20:02 ` Dan Cross
2021-07-04 0:47 ` Tomasz Rola
2021-07-04 4:36 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-04 14:56 ` Dan Cross
2021-07-04 16:07 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-07-04 20:10 ` David Barto
2021-07-05 0:25 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-05 1:23 ` John Cowan
2021-07-04 12:48 ` Dan Cross
2021-07-05 7:14 ` Tomasz Rola
2021-07-05 16:26 ` John Cowan
2021-07-06 23:17 ` Tomasz Rola
2021-07-06 23:47 ` Steve Nickolas
2021-07-06 23:49 ` Warner Losh
2021-07-06 23:48 ` John Cowan
2021-07-07 0:46 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-07-07 0:58 ` George Michaelson
2021-07-07 2:48 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-07 18:32 ` Tomasz Rola
2021-07-07 20:50 ` Michael Kjörling
2021-07-08 6:46 ` [TUHS] Overgrown ffox (was: The Unix shell: a 50-year view) Tomasz Rola
2021-07-08 13:59 ` Derek Fawcus
2021-07-08 19:25 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-08 19:37 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-08 20:40 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-08 22:23 ` Kevin Bowling
2021-07-08 21:47 ` [TUHS] [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view Theodore Ts'o
2021-07-09 20:14 ` Michael Kjörling
2021-07-07 13:54 ` Tony Finch
2021-07-06 16:05 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-09 22:19 ` Tomasz Rola [this message]
2021-07-04 20:10 ` Tony Finch
2021-07-05 3:59 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-07-05 15:08 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-05 3:52 ` Bakul Shah
2021-07-04 18:17 ` John Dow via TUHS
2021-07-04 19:46 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-05 1:33 ` Noel Hunt
2021-07-05 2:38 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-05 2:51 ` Warner Losh
2021-07-05 3:03 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-05 3:01 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-05 5:22 ` Noel Hunt
2021-07-06 5:10 ` Nevin Liber
2021-07-06 13:30 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-06 16:23 ` Theodore Ts'o
2021-07-07 1:57 ` Dan Cross
2021-07-07 2:52 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-07 5:19 ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-07-07 18:28 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-10 11:51 ` [TUHS] " Ralph Corderoy
2021-07-10 13:54 ` Henry Bent
2021-07-10 14:12 ` Ralph Corderoy
2021-07-10 16:57 ` [TUHS] Death by bug [formerly The Unix shell: a 50-year view] Jon Steinhart
2021-07-11 8:53 ` [TUHS] Death by bug Ralph Corderoy
2021-07-11 9:04 ` arnold
2021-07-12 1:42 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2021-07-12 2:57 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-12 6:39 ` arnold
2021-07-12 9:56 ` Ralph Corderoy
2021-07-11 16:10 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-07-12 10:37 ` Ralph Corderoy
2021-07-06 13:40 ` [TUHS] [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view John Cowan
2021-07-06 14:12 ` Chet Ramey
2021-07-07 0:53 ` Nevin Liber
2021-07-07 13:08 ` Chet Ramey
2021-07-07 15:15 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-03 0:09 ` Andrew Warkentin
2021-07-03 15:49 ` Andy Kosela
2021-07-04 23:24 ` [TUHS] Is C obsolete? (was Re: [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view) Derek Fawcus
2021-07-04 23:50 ` Nemo Nusquam
2021-07-05 0:15 ` Dan Stromberg
2021-07-05 0:21 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-05 2:36 ` John Cowan
2021-07-05 2:59 ` Richard Salz
2021-07-05 3:47 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-05 4:02 ` Dan Stromberg
2021-07-05 13:45 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-05 20:15 ` Dan Stromberg
2021-07-05 21:05 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-05 21:29 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-05 22:22 ` Brantley Coile
2021-07-06 4:35 ` Dan Stromberg
2021-07-06 4:44 ` Warner Losh
2021-07-06 5:58 ` Rico Pajarola
2021-07-06 13:05 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-05 12:11 ` Thomas Paulsen
2021-07-05 4:08 ` Dan Stromberg
2021-07-05 4:23 ` George Michaelson
2021-07-05 14:43 ` Larry McVoy
2021-07-05 15:17 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-05 15:36 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-07-05 15:53 ` Mike Markowski
2021-07-05 16:39 ` Warner Losh
2021-07-05 19:02 ` Clem Cole
2021-07-02 22:27 ` [TUHS] [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view Chet Ramey
2021-07-02 23:09 ` Steve Nickolas
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