Some of the others though are less interesting. OK, so sendmail is weird and archaic. But a lot of those issues are actually related to SMTP or whatever RFC du jour (822?) specified email headers. I’m not sure of the connection to unix. Would LispMail or whatever be better?
The anti-foreward raises some good points. Some of the rants complain that unix isn’t modular and can’t be changed; other rants complain that unix is modular and different things are different. My experience with Lisp and Smalltalk machines is quite limited, but I find it hard to believe that they were both infinitely reconfigurable and yet all the same.
This is a good reminder that Unix is far from the end-all, be-all of
operating systems. One of the myriad variants may be the best current
operating system for my needs, but this doesn’t mean things have to end
here.
I still giggle reading the chapter on X.
Some of the others though are less interesting. OK, so sendmail is weird and archaic. But a lot of those issues are actually related to SMTP or whatever RFC du jour (822?) specified email headers. I’m not sure of the connection to unix. Would LispMail or whatever be better?
The anti-foreward raises some good points. Some of the rants complain that unix isn’t modular and can’t be changed; other rants complain that unix is modular and different things are different. My experience with Lisp and Smalltalk machines is quite limited, but I find it hard to believe that they were both infinitely reconfigurable and yet all the same.
Edit to add: a very cogent rant regarding the similar state of web development: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1403_02-08_mickens.pdf
This is a good reminder that Unix is far from the end-all, be-all of operating systems. One of the myriad variants may be the best current operating system for my needs, but this doesn’t mean things have to end here.
I wish more people would keep this in mind. The idea that computer opration basically achieved perfection in 1979 is farcical.
Unfortunately it has mostly gone downhill since then.
The same stupid shit, only faster. What could possibly go wrong?
You can learn a lot by reading this and then reflecting on what has changed and why the different complaints are still valid.
I like the fact that author of the Foreward Donald A. Norman switched to Mac - I wonder if the transition to Mac OS X worked for him…
Nice.