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The 'Unix Haters Book' has some too: https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf

marcodiego 5y ago
The UHHB has very few points that are still valid. It is a humorous piece and was written about 3 decades ago. We shouldn't continue citing it as valid criticism.
- ReleaseCandidat 5y ago
  > The UHHB has very few points that are still valid. I disagree. Yes, nobody uses sendmail anymore, filesystems vastly improved and X isn't a resource hog any more. I've reread it some months ago and the main points still hold. For example the part about `kill`: Most operating systems have a “kill” command. So does Unix. In most operating systems, the kill command kills a process. The Unix implementation is much more general: the “kill” command sends a process a message. This illustrates the first Unix design principle: • Give the user power by making operations fully general. The kill command is very powerful; it lets you send all sorts of messages to processes. For example, one message you can send to a process tells it to kill itself. This message is -9. -9 is, of course, the largest single-digit message, which illustrates another important Unix design principle: • Choose simple names that reflect function.
  - monroeclinton 5y ago
    I don't find the argument about kill convincing. You can use `kill pid` and it will send a SIGTERM signal to the process. The -9 option is only necessary when you want to send a SIGKILL signal. I don't think it is a bad thing that kill gives users the option to choose which signal to send. I only use the -9 option when I want to terminate a process without it being handled.
  - Athas 5y ago
    While I agree that there's much of the UHHB that is still valid (and what's not valid is still funny), I don't think that's a good example. Modern kill allows you to provide the signal name if you wish. I don't think it's a particularly good criticism of kill that it also allows you to use a numeric shorthand if you wish (even if that shorthand is very popular). I think the UUHB is mostly worth reading to understand the absolutely dismal state of proprietary Unix in the 90s. It explains why technical reasons contributed to the growth of both Windows NT and GNU.

The UHHB has very few points that are still valid. It is a humorous piece and was written about 3 decades ago. We shouldn't continue citing it as valid criticism.

ReleaseCandidat 5y ago
> The UHHB has very few points that are still valid. I disagree. Yes, nobody uses sendmail anymore, filesystems vastly improved and X isn't a resource hog any more. I've reread it some months ago and the main points still hold. For example the part about `kill`: Most operating systems have a “kill” command. So does Unix. In most operating systems, the kill command kills a process. The Unix implementation is much more general: the “kill” command sends a process a message. This illustrates the first Unix design principle: • Give the user power by making operations fully general. The kill command is very powerful; it lets you send all sorts of messages to processes. For example, one message you can send to a process tells it to kill itself. This message is -9. -9 is, of course, the largest single-digit message, which illustrates another important Unix design principle: • Choose simple names that reflect function.
- monroeclinton 5y ago
  I don't find the argument about kill convincing. You can use `kill pid` and it will send a SIGTERM signal to the process. The -9 option is only necessary when you want to send a SIGKILL signal. I don't think it is a bad thing that kill gives users the option to choose which signal to send. I only use the -9 option when I want to terminate a process without it being handled.
- Athas 5y ago
  While I agree that there's much of the UHHB that is still valid (and what's not valid is still funny), I don't think that's a good example. Modern kill allows you to provide the signal name if you wish. I don't think it's a particularly good criticism of kill that it also allows you to use a numeric shorthand if you wish (even if that shorthand is very popular). I think the UUHB is mostly worth reading to understand the absolutely dismal state of proprietary Unix in the 90s. It explains why technical reasons contributed to the growth of both Windows NT and GNU.