From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: downing.nick@gmail.com (Nick Downing) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2017 13:51:38 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Were all of you.. Hippies? In-Reply-To: References: <20170320214858.TIJoR%steffen@sdaoden.eu> <009301d2a1c9$cb604c70$6220e550$@ronnatalie.com> Message-ID: For me the nerd stage was a bit like the caterpillar whereas the hippy stage was the butterfly. So you know, I'm a proud ex-nerd and a proud ex-hippy, however I moved past both things a long time ago. If my kids were to become nerds or hippies though, I would understand, since we all need to make our own mistakes to move forward. As to the other topic of Ron's post, well "small is beautiful" continues here, however I find my ideas not gaining much currency on this forum. That could be, because it's a historical forum rather than a "how to develop and improve unix" forum. Or it could be, because people after using something for a lifetime tend to take for granted a lot of the design ideas in it. cheers, Nick On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 10:05 AM, ron minnich wrote: > At the time I got into Unix in 1976, E. F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" > book was fairly popular, with IBM and the BUNCH as the bloated counterpoint > (OS/MVS kernels were 256K!), and the idea of Unix as the small is beautiful > operating system was a common theme. > > It wasn't really about small. Small was the happy result of a way of > approaching problems. It was about putting in the time to think things > through, rather than just emitting gobs of code. Hence a common theme was > the idea you did your best to avoid writing code by spending time working > things through. RK05s, 16 bit address space, and Decwriter II terminals > tended to encourage that kind of economy. Those days are long gone of > course; I noticed the other day that on Linux there are 16 commands that > start with ls, that do roughly the same function, and nobody seems to think > this is a bad thing. The only place the original 'small is beautiful' Unix > ideas continue on that I know of is Plan 9. > > ron > > On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 3:32 PM Ron Natalie wrote: >> >> Just a bunch of Unix-smoking dope gurus. >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: TUHS [mailto:tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] On Behalf Of Dave >> Horsfall >> Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 6:11 PM >> To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society >> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Were all of you.. Hippies? >> >> Well, I certainly had long hair and a beard (still do, at 64!), a Unix >> user >> since about 1976 (basically when it first arrived in Australia), and have >> "liberal" views (as in: not conservative); does that count? >> >> -- >> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will >> suffer." >> >