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Except there's nothing about that command line that wouldn't work in Windows CMD/PowerShell, Google Fuchsia, or any other OS that has piping, as long as the bin

Except there's nothing about that command line that wouldn't work in Windows CMD/PowerShell, Google Fuchsia, or any other OS that has piping, as long as the binaries are there. This is the most irritating thing about Stephenson's little tract and the "UNIX is the best" mindset that its fans have: the things the he praises is just the user environment, a surface level feature which can be significantly replicated on any modern OS. Now, don't get me wrong; the UNIX user environment deserves its praise but it says nothing about the merits of UNIX/Linux itself at an architectural level. Most people can't even describe the differences between Linux, Windows, OS X, Fuchsia, Haiku, Midori etc. in an architectural sense.

ObscureScience 5y ago
I agree with this. I don't use Linux because of its architecture, but because it provides me the environment I appreciate, on the platforms I want to use, under the terms I can accept. The BSDs are close to the mark, and I would consider them for specific tasks. Linux is just where development is faster.
gopher_space 5y ago
> Most people can't even describe the differences between Linux, Windows, OS X That's because Unix won. When he wrote this article Linux was just moving out of the hobbyist realm, we were on OS 9 (or 8?), and Windows was busy "finding itself". The landscape was different.
dredmorbius 5y ago
I sincerely hope you're aware that none of those options existed 22 yeara ago when this particular essay was written. Microsoft were trying to sell Windows NT to chip designers on the premise that they didn't need to use scripts. MacOS at the time didn't even have a commandline or interactive text-driven shell. MVS TSO/ISFP had JCL, but the principle mechanism for interprocess communication was DASD and structured datafiles, not piplines. (VM/CMS more closely approached the Unix model, but was far less widely used.) VMS had COMfiles and DCL, but lacked the full nuance of Unix scripts. And none of those systems were available on commodity x86 hardware. Linux (and numerous proprietary Unix clones) could run on 386s, and in some cases 286 systems. Need a system at low cost and with sufficient flexibility that the disadvantages of low-power were largely obviated? Unix had you covered. MacOS and Andriod adopted Unix or Linux because the were clearly superior options. Fuschia ... I think ... is following similar lines (I've not followed it closely). Microsoft introduced Powershell after it became clear that no, GUI toolbuilding simply lacks the flexibility of the commandline. (And they still came up with something incompatible. So WSL got bolted on as part of the stock build.)
- ThrowawayR2 5y ago
  I would have sincerely thought it was obvious I was referring to the reposting of "In the Beginning was the Command Line" long, long after its original publication, including this most recent one. > "MacOS and Andriod adopted Unix or Linux because the were clearly superior options" If by "superior" you mean "free as in beer", yes, they were the superior option.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    For what it's worth, no, it was not obvious.

ObscureScience 5y ago

I agree with this. I don't use Linux because of its architecture, but because it provides me the environment I appreciate, on the platforms I want to use, under the terms I can accept. The BSDs are close to the mark, and I would consider them for specific tasks. Linux is just where development is faster.

gopher_space 5y ago

> Most people can't even describe the differences between Linux, Windows, OS X That's because Unix won. When he wrote this article Linux was just moving out of the hobbyist realm, we were on OS 9 (or 8?), and Windows was busy "finding itself". The landscape was different.

dredmorbius 5y ago

I sincerely hope you're aware that none of those options existed 22 yeara ago when this particular essay was written. Microsoft were trying to sell Windows NT to chip designers on the premise that they didn't need to use scripts. MacOS at the time didn't even have a commandline or interactive text-driven shell. MVS TSO/ISFP had JCL, but the principle mechanism for interprocess communication was DASD and structured datafiles, not piplines. (VM/CMS more closely approached the Unix model, but was far less widely used.) VMS had COMfiles and DCL, but lacked the full nuance of Unix scripts. And none of those systems were available on commodity x86 hardware. Linux (and numerous proprietary Unix clones) could run on 386s, and in some cases 286 systems. Need a system at low cost and with sufficient flexibility that the disadvantages of low-power were largely obviated? Unix had you covered. MacOS and Andriod adopted Unix or Linux because the were clearly superior options. Fuschia ... I think ... is following similar lines (I've not followed it closely). Microsoft introduced Powershell after it became clear that no, GUI toolbuilding simply lacks the flexibility of the commandline. (And they still came up with something incompatible. So WSL got bolted on as part of the stock build.)

ThrowawayR2 5y ago
I would have sincerely thought it was obvious I was referring to the reposting of "In the Beginning was the Command Line" long, long after its original publication, including this most recent one. > "MacOS and Andriod adopted Unix or Linux because the were clearly superior options" If by "superior" you mean "free as in beer", yes, they were the superior option.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  For what it's worth, no, it was not obvious.