From: bqt@update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Subject: [TUHS] etymology of cron
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2015 18:09:56 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <567AD564.1030003@update.uu.se> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.20.1450886678.3292.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
On 2015-12-23 17:04, norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson) wrote:
> John Cowan:
>
> Wikipedia is by nature a*summary of the published literature*. If you
> want to get some folklore, like what "cron" stands for, into Wikipedia,
> then publish a folklore article in a journal, book, or similar reputable
> publication. Random uncontrolled mailing lists simply do not count.
>
> ======
>
> That sounds fair enough on the surface.
>
> But if you follow the references cited to support the cron
> acronyms, you find that random unsupported assertions in
> conference papers do count. That's not a lot better.
I've had similar experiences with Wikipedia in the past. At one point I
was trying to get the PDP-11 article corrected, as it said that the
PDP-11 was an architecture that disappeared in the 80s (paraphrasing). I
pointed out that the last *new* PDP-11 model from DEC itself was
released in 1990, and that others are still making new PDP-11 CPUs.
My corrections were reverted, and I was asked for citations. I went
through a silly loop of requests for sources for my claims, while there
seems to have been no demand for citation for the original claims, more
than the "knowledge" of someone. It wasn't until I dug up the system
manuals and documentation from DEC about the PDP-11/93 and PDP-11/94
(which have actual time of original publishing date printed) that my
claims were (somewhat) accepted.
I've also had numerous fights about the Wikipedia articles about virtual
memory, where the original authors on the article clearly had not
understood the difference between virtual memory and demand paged
memory. The articles are better today, but when I last looked, they
still had some details wrong in there. And getting anything corrected is
hell, as any silly statement that is already in is almost regarded as
gospel, and anything you try to correct is questioned to hell and back
before anyone will accept it. (Hey, according to Wikipedia, a PDP-11 do
not have virtual memory... I wonder what it has then. Fake memory?
Although, the article might now actually accept that a PDP-11 do have
virtual memory, although no OS I know of implements demand paging, but
that could be done as well, if anyone wanted to.)
Nowadays, I use Wikipedia to find information, but just take everything
in there with a large grain of salt when it comes to details. There are
just too many ignorant people who are writing stuff, and who seem to get
anything accepted, and too much hassle to get anything corrected when
you actually knows the subject.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
next parent reply other threads:[~2015-12-23 17:09 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 58+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <mailman.20.1450886678.3292.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
2015-12-23 17:09 ` Johnny Billquist [this message]
2016-01-13 20:31 Noel Chiappa
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2016-01-03 14:26 Noel Chiappa
2016-01-02 23:14 Norman Wilson
2016-01-02 23:18 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
[not found] <mailman.1.1451005554.3365.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
2015-12-25 18:41 ` David
2015-12-25 20:46 ` Marc Rochkind
2015-12-25 22:22 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2016-01-02 19:56 ` Marc Rochkind
2016-01-02 21:06 ` Clem Cole
2016-01-02 22:22 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2016-01-03 1:26 ` Ronald Natalie
2016-01-03 10:30 ` Jacob Goense
2016-01-03 15:32 ` Ronald Natalie
2016-01-03 18:00 ` John Cowan
2016-01-03 12:10 ` Jacob Goense
2016-01-03 15:22 ` Ronald Natalie
2016-01-13 19:48 ` Jeremy C. Reed
2016-01-13 20:02 ` Ronald Natalie
2016-01-04 2:26 ` Kurt H Maier
2015-12-23 17:19 Norman Wilson
2015-12-23 19:04 ` John Cowan
2015-12-23 19:41 ` SZIGETI Szabolcs
2015-12-23 14:38 Noel Chiappa
2015-12-23 18:58 ` John Cowan
2015-12-23 13:36 Norman Wilson
2015-12-23 13:53 ` Clem Cole
2015-12-24 15:01 ` Clem Cole
2015-12-24 15:17 ` John Cowan
2015-12-24 23:05 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2015-12-25 0:52 ` scj
2015-12-25 1:05 ` Larry McVoy
2015-12-25 2:07 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2015-12-25 2:28 ` Dave Horsfall
2015-12-25 16:21 ` Marc Rochkind
2015-12-23 16:04 ` John Cowan
2015-12-23 23:49 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2015-12-23 13:30 Norman Wilson
2015-12-23 1:44 Norman Wilson
2015-12-23 2:07 ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2015-12-23 2:19 ` Milo Velimirovic
2015-12-23 2:27 ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2015-12-23 2:36 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2015-12-23 4:53 ` Larry McVoy
2015-12-23 13:45 ` Clem Cole
2015-12-23 0:27 Doug McIlroy
2015-12-23 0:40 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2015-12-23 1:11 ` John Cowan
2015-12-23 1:59 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2015-12-23 2:01 ` David Ryskalczyk
2015-12-23 2:14 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2015-12-23 2:32 ` jason-tuhs
2015-12-23 2:44 ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2015-12-23 2:59 ` John Cowan
2015-12-23 4:05 ` Random832
2015-12-23 4:27 ` John Cowan
2015-12-23 0:46 ` Warren Toomey
2015-12-23 6:47 ` Dave Horsfall
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