Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!spool2.mu.edu!think.com!barmar From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: UNIX mind-set (was: How wrong is MS-DOS?) Message-ID: <1991Jan14.033957.7289@Think.COM> Date: 14 Jan 91 03:39:57 GMT References: <11267@lanl.gov> <1991Jan13.113349.21937@ims.alaska.edu> Sender: news@Think.COM Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA Lines: 28 In article <1991Jan13.113349.21937@ims.alaska.edu> floyd@ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) writes: >It hardly seems correct to associate bad programming with a >particular OS. At least not without backing it up with some >statement about what characteristics of the OS lead to bad >programming. It may or may not be true that UNIX encourages >bad programming, but you are saying something to the effect >that UNIX is bad because it has C compilers available for >it and C uses goto's, therefore UNIX is bad. May be, but >not for that reason, because it is basically true of all OS's. I didn't start reading this thread until its name changed to "UNIX mind-set", so maybe I missed the precise remark you are referring to. However, what I've seen since then were complaints about the design of user interfaces to utility commands, not about "bad programming" per se. In this case, it *is* reasonable to associate it with the OS, even though the problem doesn't actually stem from any technical aspect of the OS. Implementors of commands for an OS are generally encouraged to model them after existing commands, to maintain consistency. From the earliest days the journal papers about Unix have stressed a particular style of UI design. I'm sure that if I used the phrases "Unix-style pipe" or "Unix-style filter" when talking to a knowledgeable computer user they would understand the reference; there's more commonly associated with Unix than just inodes and fork(). -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar