From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 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=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,HTML_MESSAGE,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 5025 invoked from network); 4 Jul 2021 14:58:04 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 4 Jul 2021 14:58:04 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 609CA9C8B9; Mon, 5 Jul 2021 00:58:02 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3696F9C873; Mon, 5 Jul 2021 00:57:28 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=fail reason="signature verification failed" (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=gmail.com header.i=@gmail.com header.b="PV6zubT5"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 5C54F9C873; Mon, 5 Jul 2021 00:57:26 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-ot1-f48.google.com (mail-ot1-f48.google.com [209.85.210.48]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3BDE19C871 for ; Mon, 5 Jul 2021 00:57:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-ot1-f48.google.com with SMTP id f12-20020a056830204cb029048bcf4c6bd9so3493910otp.8 for ; Sun, 04 Jul 2021 07:57:25 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=Ai3iFbDNrjmysMg5MibwJnieNt4PLtF/h6i+gbUNobE=; b=PV6zubT5x8BYuwjyz19mEMrjXp/c/wNjAkgXQ+V7c1Qyn0HDcby9pfeeP5j56mtPlC n7D1SIQmh7ve8lSy2meZwlVc22ygSVCM1uBepQlMnCOzwLSZuKvN+cRuHv/02XHI2P1Q 6fWd7ikzv42I3shhK7C0i9wcUPLALKG9HFg1cowNLOWgH+3Hbei3O9dK6nFTPA2k/LBx 4XfkwFjaxxECpziD6570ez/sm2BpO0+07c1/r33lHSLnmYHhF4JxCPaTh1GzT/Xdot4y ZeC7HgCNfsvzgKYAfjgH+xV18zRK5CCGnwH3XuUPXxQeL+6us4fRi8a9bkvIRRdxVzWZ hh3A== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=Ai3iFbDNrjmysMg5MibwJnieNt4PLtF/h6i+gbUNobE=; b=ms/wlTM4v6XOLFYJQ+6y0wkefmBXH2PqRUmLOFIBgG7saMTlo2qMBIdd01pbIvAMyI WSZpJEnIYiq+K8C3Mj5PbF4hNfduXhJOrkDtlZvpf0Tg89ZbeL5/3ycPUn7ShuuNaaPt o4FjxQ9ktQbQW/5Zyhs7KLPoU5W4ewhhSreQyh139Xxp1z3kdkOr/ecPbcpPI9qETu9k bCEF7wRCpLO+rRbdyEI0qLjFZ7KcfYp5/wRkp++QGsdvSD5pW9VUuGKEDNyAiOC4n2ZO Dcowt6tdRKfVFfkU/OCzHAYBUh4G2FR78LK5BZlpMo1C82U21eJ7uIoL3pjOFT/fMfQA 9TUA== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM533+sURCjPrA+91YQbpzBQPqR37e8r1r7FjEJ8Dt43OSZfKhgu+H DjdPhaJrRxI1j3sxsXV/3KCMZ5aX7Pf13cZc5RLeFHeNOTEfPw== X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJxz10rkOJUCDGnluHdHKIWuLSbTJh76C2z6ATnCBILJ4sI2DHx9SrO9bXEtiaj+0On0OkHVFgwgd5cypsi402A= X-Received: by 2002:a9d:589:: with SMTP id 9mr7306624otd.65.1625410644456; Sun, 04 Jul 2021 07:57:24 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20210702213648.GW817@mcvoy.com> <396911b232bae5938068a14fe0f7181e@firemail.de> <20210704004757.GB24671@tau1.ceti.pl> <20210704043615.GE817@mcvoy.com> In-Reply-To: <20210704043615.GE817@mcvoy.com> From: Dan Cross Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2021 10:56:48 -0400 Message-ID: To: Larry McVoy Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000013b8c305c64d684d" Subject: Re: [TUHS] [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" --00000000000013b8c305c64d684d Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" On Sun, Jul 4, 2021 at 12:37 AM Larry McVoy wrote: > On Sun, Jul 04, 2021 at 02:47:57AM +0200, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > On Sat, Jul 03, 2021 at 09:20:57AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote: > > [...] > > > Much of Unix's early evolution and thus architecture and philosophy, > came > > > from addressing a set of problems that people had in a historical > context > > > that, one could argue, aren't that relevant anymore. > > This is a response to Cross. Uh oh. I know I'm in trouble when I'm referred to by my last name only. :-) You are sort of right in that we are not on > uniprocessors where we disable interrupts to manage things. > > Unix still matters. It has mattered for a very long time, I could argue > it is the most important operating system in the world. Yeah, windows > won, but it didn't win on merits. > Whoa hold on now. I never said that _Unix_ doesn't still matter. It emphatically does. I agree with you that it, or perhaps more precisely the evolutionary tree of systems that fit under it's rather large umbrella, is indeed the most important operating system family in the world. It runs everywhere and it runs everything; it's literally out of this world. You will get no argument from me there. In my opinion you couldn't be more wrong. We still have the same problems, > we are still trying to grep an answer out of a bunch of info that has just gotten bigger. > We still want to do the same things and we are doing them better with faster > CPUs, memory, disks, etc. > But this I disagree with. We may still be trying to solve many of the same problems, but entirely new categories of problems have sprung up since Unix was invented, those problems have grown to frankly dwarf the size of the previous problems, and our modes of interaction with the machine have totally changed. Consider that the median interaction these days is some RPC-ish call over HTTP between a user using a gesture interface on a phone or tablet or something, and some service running somewhere "in the cloud". Both sides of this (and the myriad stages in between) might be running on machines that are running "Unix", but this emphatically is _not_ grep, at least no more than extracting data out of IMS in COBOL under OS/360 was also a glorified form of "grep". I maybe think the reason you think that things aren't relevant anymore are > because young people don't get Unix, they just pile on to this framework > and that framework, NONE OF WHICH THEY UNDERSTAND, they just push more > stuff onto the stack. > Yes, that was kind of my point. But not only do they not get Unix, they don't want to, either. Why is that? I think that's the interesting question. > If you actually have a clue, if you can do stuff, all of that other stuff > becomes fluff. Yep, some of it is useful but most of it is just there > because it wants to feel important. I agree with that last statement, but I'm not sure I agree with the former. I'm not a front-end person; I'll never be a front-end person. Frankly, I lack the artistic and aesthetic ability to ever be good at that kind of work. My web site is frankly ugly; I don't care. But I've had the opportunity to interact with folks who are actually good at front-end stuff, and they're really sharp. They definitely have a clue. But it's an entire type of clue that I simply do not nor ever will have. Many of those people choose to use Linux as their daily driver environment; bully for them. However, they don't reach for the compliment of tools that many of us take for granted as being part and parcel of the Unix environment are not what they reach for first. Most folks aren't using `sed` to extract something from a typescript program or CouchDB or whatever. Unix matters, the way that you can compose stuff still matters, people > who can do that run circles around the people who say Unix doesn't work. > My first job, they said 6 months, I did it 3 weeks by using what Unix > gave me. > Forgive my saying this, but that was then, this is now. The kinds of automation that I used to wow folks with when I was starting out by being moderately facile with Unix tools just don't apply to entire classes of problems anymore. And if the job is working on one of those problems.... This doesn't mean that Unix isn't still important. It obviously is. But it means that what people are using it for, and how they're using it has changed. And that does inevitably raise questions about system evolution. - Dan C. --00000000000013b8c305c64d684d Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Sun, Jul 4, 2021 at 12:37 AM Larry McV= oy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 04, 2021 at 02:47:57AM +0200, Tomasz Rola wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 03, 2021 at 09:20:57AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote:
> [...]
> > Much of Unix's early evolution and thus architecture and phil= osophy, came
> > from addressing a set of problems that people had in a historical= context
> > that, one could argue, aren't that relevant anymore.

This is a response to Cross.

Uh oh. I know = I'm in trouble when I'm referred to by my last name only. :-)
=

You are so= rt of right in that we are not on
uniprocessors where we disable interrupts to manage things.

Unix still matters.=C2=A0 It has mattered for a very long time, I could arg= ue
it is the most important operating system in the world.=C2=A0 Yeah, windows=
won, but it didn't win on merits.

W= hoa hold on now. I never said that _Unix_ doesn't still matter. It emph= atically does. I agree with you that it, or perhaps more precisely the evol= utionary tree of systems that fit under it's rather large umbrella, is = indeed the most important operating system family in the world. It runs eve= rywhere and it runs everything; it's literally out of this world. You w= ill get no argument from me there.

In my opinion you couldn't be more wrong.=C2=A0 We still have the same = problems,
we are still trying to grep an answer out of a bunch of info that has just= =C2=A0
gotten= bigger.
= =C2=A0
W= e still want to do the same things and we are doing them better with faster=
CPUs, memory, disks, etc.

But= this I disagree with. We may still be trying to solve many of the same pro= blems, but entirely new categories of problems have sprung up since Unix wa= s invented, those problems have grown to frankly dwarf the=C2=A0size of the= previous problems, and our modes of interaction with the machine have tota= lly changed. Consider that the median interaction these days is some RPC-is= h call over HTTP between a user using a gesture interface on a phone or tab= let or something, and some service running somewhere "in the cloud&quo= t;. Both sides of this (and the myriad stages in between) might be running = on machines that are running "Unix", but this emphatically is _no= t_ grep, at least no more than extracting data out of IMS in COBOL under OS= /360 was also a glorified form of "grep".

I maybe think the reason you think that things aren't relevant anymore = are
because young people don't get Unix, they just pile on to this framewor= k
and that framework, NONE OF WHICH THEY UNDERSTAND, they just push more
stuff onto the stack.

Yes, that was kin= d of my point. But not only do they not get Unix, they don't want to, e= ither. Why is that? I think that's the interesting question.
= =C2=A0
If you actually have a clue, if you can do stuff, all of that other stuff becomes fluff.=C2=A0 Yep, some of it is useful but most of it is just there=
because it wants to feel important.

I agree= with that last statement, but I'm not sure I agree with the former. I&= #39;m not a front-end person; I'll never be a front-end person. Frankly= , I lack the artistic and aesthetic ability to ever be good at that kind of= work. My web site is frankly ugly; I don't care. But I've had the = opportunity to interact with folks who are actually good at front-end stuff= , and they're really sharp. They definitely have a clue. But it's a= n entire type of clue that I simply do not nor ever will have.
Many of those people choose to use Linux as their daily driver= environment; bully for them. However, they don't reach for the complim= ent of tools that many of us take for granted as being part and parcel of t= he Unix environment are not what they reach for first. Most folks aren'= t using `sed` to extract something from a typescript program or CouchDB or = whatever.

Unix matters, the way that you can compose stuff still matters, people
who can do that run circles around the people who say Unix doesn't work= .
My first job, they said 6 months, I did it 3 weeks by using what Unix
gave me.

Forgive my saying this, but th= at was then, this is now. The kinds of automation that I used to wow folks = with when I was starting out by being moderately facile with Unix tools jus= t don't apply to entire classes of problems anymore. And if the job is = working on one of those problems....

This doesn= 9;t mean that Unix isn't still important. It obviously is. But it means= that what people are using it for, and how they're using it has change= d. And that does inevitably raise questions about system evolution.

=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 - Dan C.

=
--00000000000013b8c305c64d684d--