<<SNIP>>
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 21:47:38 +0000 (UTC)
From: Reginald Beardsley <pulask...@yahoo.com>
To: Hung Nguyen Gia via openindiana-discuss
<openindiana-discuss@openindiana.org>
Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] A rant
Message-ID: <1736447057.386921.1611956858...@mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
I have been ignoring this torrent of BS as patiently as I can, but I'm really getting tired of it.
First of all, computing has a 75 year old history. There have been many false
starts and mistakes along the way. The failure of the new arrivals to learn
from the past results in the same mistakes being endlessly repeated.
I shall cite a single example from 30 years ago, hard coded filenames. Motif came out
with the name of the keyboard configuration file hard coded "/etc/keysym.db"
IIRC. A the time it was my job to compile and distribute X11 and Motif binaries on all
company research lab systems that did not have vendor support for X11 and Motif.
This is a common mistake made frequently before the IBM 360 series appeared and led to "sysin=" and
"sysout=" in JCL for the 360 series (That may not be the exactly correct syntax, but this does not
merit my going into my library to check). But the "genius" who wrote the Motif code could not be
bothered with the past so he repeated the mistake.
No one here "hates" Linux, BSD, Windows or any other OS. We don't like various
operating systems for a variety of legitimate reasons which vary by task to be
accomplished, OS and individual.
Please read the original Bell Labs Unix papers before you subject us to more of
this. Linux has veered so far from the original principles as to be completely
unrecognizable. In any given day I may use Hipster/OI, Solaris 10 u8, Debian
9.3 or Windows. And I might well spin up Plan 9 or some other operating systems
by inserting the appropriate disk in the machine. In short, I can crush someone
with your attitude in minutes even if they have a PhD. And have done it more
than once.
At such time as you can write intelligently describing the differences in implementation
and philosophy about MVS (and its predecessors) , VM/CMS, VMS, RSX, Genix, Multics,
Perkin-Elmer 3200 OS and a few others you will have some credibility with me. But until
then you are just some child screaming that they will "hold there breath until they
turn blue". I am quite certain I am not the only one *very* tired of it. I know the
names of most of the people who have been replying to you and have the utmost respect for
all but perhaps a few. Possibly all, as I've not paid close attention to who replied. The
list is generally pretty quiet except for an occasional nut job.
If you have many years professional experience as a senior member of staff in
large system environments you care about what seems minutiae to novices. We
care because we either got bit or had to clean up after someone else got bit.
Most of the people on this list have been involved in large system environments
for longer than you have been alive.
It is certainly true that the organization of the filesystem in Illumos et al
is a bit of a mess. This is true in every extant OS. IRIX, CLIX, HP-UX, Ultrix
and a dozen other *nix systems I've used are long extinct. One of the great
problems during the workstation wars was dealing with all the conflicting paths
and file names. With xterms open on 6 or more different systems using a common
NFS mounted home directory I had a very elaborate system for hiding the
variations so I could work efficiently despite the variations. I supported
software, both proprietary and GNU packages across all of them.
Please reply to /dev/null.
Reg
<<SNIP>>
Reg I could not agree more. I started programming and system
administration on an IBM 1130, moved to OS/VS1, then to DEC
RSX-11/RT-11, then to Unix/V7, then 2BSD, BSD4.4, then to SunOS-4.1,
Windows/Windows-server, then to Solaris, OpenIndiana, Centos-7 and Rocks
Clusters. Each had their time and place. I now manage a large computing
facility that is both a research environment that allows supports
commercial customers with the attendant support for users and software,
both propriety and FOSS. I too am tired of the child who thinks they
know more than the collective wisdom of this and other communities.
to the child "pound salt"
--
Illegitimi non carborundum
RWP
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