From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [IPv6:2600:3c01:e000:146::1]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B036528C58 for ; Mon, 17 Jun 2024 01:47:05 +0200 (CEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A40A942A8A; Mon, 17 Jun 2024 09:47:00 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8B76A42A87 for ; Mon, 17 Jun 2024 09:46:55 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id A0B5E35EA11; Sun, 16 Jun 2024 16:46:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2024 16:46:54 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Luther Johnson Message-ID: <20240616234654.GB12821@mcvoy.com> References: <1841E020-8BDD-4997-A319-2FFEE75F84A5@pobox.com> <802b871c-2c5e-514c-f8d5-f3eef71d76d4@makerlisp.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <802b871c-2c5e-514c-f8d5-f3eef71d76d4@makerlisp.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Message-ID-Hash: QY5CS2Q36P6HR4DN6ZQWVLIVPWIJXJZH X-Message-ID-Hash: QY5CS2Q36P6HR4DN6ZQWVLIVPWIJXJZH X-MailFrom: lm@mcvoy.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: tuhs@tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' The Register List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Sun, Jun 16, 2024 at 04:34:34PM -0700, Luther Johnson wrote: > I think there's a parallel from the Unix/Linux systems that we think of > as more Unix-like, to the cars and airplanes and other machines of that > and earlier eras. It used to be that part of the design of a system, > alongside its operation, was the idea of normal, regular maintenance. > The system could be pretty simple, but there was some maintenance and > wearable parts replacement required. It was expected that there was an > administrator or mechanic checking in once in a while to keep things > tuned and in "good repair". This worked well, as long as people accepted > this responsibility as part of the deal. > > Now it seems like people want everything done for them automatically, > and not to have to know anything about the systems they are using. They > want the systems to be smarter so they don't have to know as much. It's > sort of like when the private airplane industry tried to engineer any > skill required on the part of the pilot, out of the airplane. The > results were not good. Planes became more complex, with more points of > failure, and pilots did not know how to react to unexpected situations. > I see this happening with our computer systems, and the people using > them now, too. Of course there's a reasonable middle ground, but I think > we've gone a little too far making things "easy", and in fact it's not > easier at all, we're just fiddling in a different way, often through > random trial and error, it all seems horribly indirect, opaque, and > irrational, to support some programmer's idea somewhere, of some perfect > abstraction. > > For example: CMake vs. just learning how to write makefiles properly. > You fiddle with CMake and you never really know why it does what it > does, especially from one version to the next, "but you don't have to > write makefiles". I could not agree more with this post, all of it, but especially the Cmake stuff. Writing Makefiles isn't that hard, if you are a programmer and can't do that, how good of a programmer are you? And is it really easier to learn shiny-new-make-replacement-du-jour every year?