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From: Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>
To: M Douglas McIlroy <m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other?
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2020 10:40:19 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PXZY9aWgDf-RknROs6JbKEUjzbQ2BRzfTgTR07pXni3g@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKH6PiUsk4zLsQNX2fhVpxrbA89RpzbyPBAL_yA7qnNExO8E1g@mail.gmail.com>

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Amen Doug.

On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 11:36 PM M Douglas McIlroy <
m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> To paraphrase John Cocke (speaking about Fortran): one must understand
> that Unix commands are not a logical language. They are a natural
> language--in the sense that they developed by organic evolution, not
> "intelligent design".
>
But I offer a suggestion that another dimension that should be forgotten in
time scale and the economics within.

When things evolve they do so on different clocks that are not
necessarily linear.   *i.e. *what was 'better' (winning) today, but might
not be considered so tomorrow, however could yet prove otherwise sometime
later.  I use programming languages as a great example...   There was a
huge C vs Pascal debate, that C 'won' - but I've always said the rise of
C++ came from the Pascal folks that could say "C didn't win."  From the
ashes of C++ we have Java, Go, and Rust.

My point is that   "intelligent design" doesn't necessarily guarantee
goodness or for that matter,complete logical thinking.

My own take on this is what I call "Cole's Law"   *Simple economics always
beats sophisticated architecture.*
What you call *organic evolution* is what I think of what makes the *best
economic sense* for the user and that is a function of the time scale and
available resources at the time of creation/deployment.

Clem

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  reply	other threads:[~2020-12-09 15:41 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 49+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-12-09  4:35 M Douglas McIlroy
2020-12-09 15:40 ` Clem Cole [this message]
2020-12-09 15:46   ` Niklas Karlsson
2020-12-09 16:01   ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-09 16:11     ` Clem Cole
2020-12-09 17:05       ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-09 17:42         ` Dan Stromberg
2020-12-09 23:46           ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-12-14 20:28     ` Dave Horsfall
2020-12-14 22:23       ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-12-14 23:04         ` Andrew Hume
2020-12-14 23:59       ` Harald Arnesen
2020-12-17  4:08         ` John Cowan
2020-12-15  2:57       ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-15  3:05         ` Warner Losh
     [not found]   ` <CAC20D2PXZY9aWgDf-RknROs6JbKEUjzbQ2BRzfTgTR07pXni3g@mail.g mail.com>
2020-12-09 16:04     ` John Foust
2020-12-09 16:40   ` Warner Losh
2020-12-09 16:53     ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-09 16:58   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-09 19:58     ` Dan Cross
2020-12-09 20:30       ` Will Senn
2020-12-13  1:07       ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-13  1:56         ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-13  2:58           ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-13  3:07             ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-13 16:49               ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-13 19:06                 ` [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other? [ really linux and filesystems ] Jon Steinhart
2020-12-13  3:02         ` [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other? Dan Cross
2020-12-09 23:22     ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-09 23:44       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-12-09 23:51         ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-12-10  0:19   ` [TUHS] Cole's Slaw John Gilmore
2020-12-10  0:29     ` Larry McVoy
2020-12-10  0:53       ` Erik E. Fair
2020-12-10  3:10         ` George Michaelson
2020-12-12 21:11       ` Dave Horsfall
2020-12-10  1:49     ` John Cowan
2020-12-10  2:12       ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-12  2:56   ` [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other? Dave Horsfall
2020-12-12 19:10     ` scj
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2020-12-13  2:02 Noel Chiappa
2020-12-13  2:08 ` Clem Cole
2020-12-09 19:25 Noel Chiappa
2020-12-08 18:11 ron minnich
2020-12-08 18:51 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-12-08 19:05   ` Larry McVoy
2020-12-08 19:20     ` Michael Kjörling
2020-12-09  2:00       ` Dave Horsfall
2020-12-08 19:39   ` Clem Cole

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