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From: jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.wizards,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Free Software Foundation (was: Re: Mach, the new standard?)
Message-ID: <677@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 2-Sep-87 07:27:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: stracs.677
Posted: Wed Sep  2 07:27:04 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Sep-87 02:17:37 EDT
References: <8520@utzoo.UUCP> <1883@encore.UUCP>
Reply-To: jim@cs.strath.ac.uk
Organization: Comp. Sci. Dept., Strathclyde Univ., Scotland.
Lines: 29
Xref: mnetor comp.arch:2100 comp.unix.wizards:4100 comp.os.misc:148

In article <1883@encore.UUCP> adamm@encore.UUCP (Adam S. Moskowitz) writes:
>.................................... trying to squeeze complex programs into
>small spaces is a waste of effort.  It often results in programs that either
>a) have some (often unusable) limits (file name sizes, # of files, &c.), or
>b) are hard to read/maintain, because too much thought had to go into trying
>to fit the damn thing into a small space, and not enough effort was left to
>making the program functional/maintainable.  I'm not saying you can't write
>a program that does everything including wash the dishes, has no limits, is
>easy to maintain, and fits in 640K (or whatever), but why add the size limit?

I agree with the gist of what you say, essentially that programmers
need not have to worry too much about the underlying hardware. However,
we should not forget that sometimes these "artificial" hardware
constraints can be a benefit. Remember that the UNIX kernel in the days
of V7 (and before) fitted into 64K because that was as big a program
that a PDP could run (notwithstanding sep I/D or fancy overlays or
extended addressing). To quote Ritchie and Thompson's original CACM paper:
"the size constraint has encouraged not only economy, but also a certain
elegance of design". Where would UNIX be today without that minimalism?

Another case in point would be the evolution of the UNIX spell command
and how a 30,000 word dictionary was squeezed into 64 Kbytes (the PDP
limitations again) for an efficient and quick spelling checker.

Now we have editors that easily guzzle a megabyte (or more) of memory
and take forever to start up. So much for progress. A program's quality
or usefulness is not necessarily related to its size.

		Jim