Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site fortune.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!fortune!phipps From: phipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps) Newsgroups: net.micro Subject: UN*X Orientation / Re: S1 & NCC Message-ID: <3963@fortune.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 16:41:08 EDT Article-I.D.: fortune.3963 Posted: Tue Aug 7 16:41:08 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Aug-84 20:01:35 EDT References: <3940@fortune.UUCP> Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA Lines: 29 I have come to the conclusion that many of UN*X's shortcomings derive from its creation by computer science and other *researchers* as a system to support their research efforts. These people are presumably primarily interested in their research, secondarily interested in the software developed to support it, and almost not at all in the more mundane aspects of software development, such as documentation and standards, which impede production of "results" and "stifle creativity". It's great fun :-( trying to fix a UN*X-based compiler when all the documentation you have on it, aside from the source code (thank generic deity that it's not written in assembler or FORTRAN or COBOL), is a research paper written to illustrate (but not describe) the "interesting" parts of a related compiler, and a document based on empirical knowledge of the intermediate code. Having the original developers actually *describe* the intermediate code interface wouldn't be any fun for them, now would it ? There are alleged to be some useful papers stashed away at Bell Labs. Nonetheless, I can do a lot more with UN*X than I can with MS-DOS. [These opinions are my own, and may not reflect those of my employer] -- Clay Phipps -- { amd hplabs!hpda sri-unix ucbvax!amd } !fortune!phipps { ihnp4 cbosgd decvax!decwrl!amd harpo allegra}