One of the things that makes unix so special to me is how many different ways I had the "Aha" moment. Viscerally, I got drawn in after I tried writing some Batch script for a windows machine and found bash so much easier. Intellectually, ESR's Art of Unix Programming really shown a light onto what made unix feel so fun. Seeing the unix principles laid out shortly and clearly was world changing. Then when Apple and Google pumped out 3 BILLION unix like devices and made unix mainstream, it just nailed it in that unix is a really special piece of software*.* Tyler On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 1:56 PM Leah Neukirchen wrote: > Warren Toomey writes: > > > All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome. > > A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you > > if the conversation goes a bit off-topic. > > > > So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you > > first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd > > previously used? > > I'm not sure if this was *my* "Aha, Unix!" moment, but my Dad > complained once that he had some CSV file containing bills and needed > to do some computation, and it would be a hassle to do in Delphi > (which he is most proficient in). So I told him I could have a look > at it on my Linux system, and while he explained what computations he > needed, I would type in some awk oneliner and a bit of other pipe > stuff and he had his answer within minutes. > > -- > Leah Neukirchen https://leahneukirchen.org/ >