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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!hplabs!hp-pcd!keith
From: keith@hp-pcd.UUCP (keith)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: UNIX Futures
Message-ID: <57700002@hpcvlo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Mar-86 13:13:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hpcvlo.57700002
Posted: Thu Mar 27 13:13:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Mar-86 10:44:37 EST
References: <3289@sun.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard - Corvallis, OR
Lines: 26
Nf-ID: #R:sun:-328900:hpcvlo:57700002:000:1144
Nf-From: hpcvlo!keith    Mar 27 10:13:00 1986

> The fact is, *both* job control and shell layers are brain-damaged.  Both
> do the easy part of multiplexing -- centralized input administration --
> without the hard part -- centralized output administration.  Programs should
> not have to redraw the screen themselves, when they have done nothing to
> mess it up!  Job control and shell layers are both cheap plastic imitations
> of real window systems.

You've touched the root of the problem: the model for running multiple jobs.

When I was demo-ing the HP Integral PC last year (its kernel is modified
to support windowing), the first question some people would ask is "Does it 
have Berkeley job control?" My response was "You don't need it!" I had to 
show them the value of running several programs, each in it's own window.
They had adopted a bad model for running multiple jobs.

(Maybe this is the effect Dijkstra was talking about in his comment
about Basic programmers being permanently brain damaged.)


			   Keith M. Taylor
			   Portable Computer Division
			   Corvallis, Oregon
			   hp-pcd!keith


[ps. I've programmed in Basic; you may want to disregard this response!]