4 ms·

i think the windows registry probably sucks because windows was primarily built to enable developers and end users to use microcomputers to make money (where me

by a-dub 4y ago

i think the windows registry probably sucks because windows was primarily built to enable developers and end users to use microcomputers to make money (where messes are acceptable as long as it makes money) and unix differs in that it was built to enable telephony engineers to operate a telephone network reliably and efficiently. so if you're an engineer or scientist or care about operations, you like unix style systems because they were built with you in mind. you, like internal bell system engineers and researchers, are the end user. if you only care about money, windows is your jam because who cares you can always use money to make people suffer whatever horrendous mess that results from using windows and everybody dumping crap in the registry because who cares it makes money.

woodruffw 4y ago
> unix differs in that it was built to enable telephony engineers to operate a telephone network reliably and efficiently. This is a corporate revision of Unix's history: it was originally created to run a video game[1]. Later, when Bell Labs gave that team some more resources (in the form of a PDP-11), the first "business" applications they wrote for it were primarily for typesetting and text editing. Telephony was never a primary design goal for Unix, even if telephone networks were later retrofitted onto it. This is evidenced by the fact that Bell gave early versions of Unix away, as they were forbidden to charge for non-communications technologies and services under a federal consent decree. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!
- a-dub 4y ago
  perhaps the kernel, but i suspect that much of the userland (which is a lot of what i reference here when i say "unix"- all the command line utilities, shells, the C programming language) was influenced by the needs of both the research community and the technical operation of the telephone network itself.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    I'm more than happy to be corrected about this, but my understanding is that the groups at Bell Labs that created and matured Unix were not closely tied into the telephony groups, if at all. The lack of interest in telephony use cases is evidenced by early releases and "workbench" distributions for Unix: PWB/Unix[1] focused on providing a development environment for programmers, and WWB[2] was aimed at technical editors and writers. (The functionality of the basic Unix tools reflects this lineage: there a lot of tools for munging text, and very few tools for interacting with peripherals and hardware that isn't a teletype or line printer.) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWB/UNIX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWB/UNIX [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_Workbench https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_Workbench
    - a-dub 4y ago
      good question. i sent al aho an e-mail. hopefully he'll reply with some interesting history. watch this space!
      - a-dub 4y ago
        Was there anything specific about Bell Labs or working for the Bell system that influenced the design of UNIX and the userland tools? Did the needs of the Bell system influence any of this work, or was it pure computer science research (and the needs of the computer science research community) that influenced these designs? If awk were "designed for someone" who was it designed for? Did anyone who worked on UNIX or the computing stuff at Bell labs care about building things for telephone network operations or was it pure research and technology development for the art of it? -- Good question! Many books have been written about why Bell Labs was so successful in creating research innovations that changed the world. Bell Labs was interested in building operating systems even before the 1950s for use in AT&T's operations support systems for the global telephone network. (You might look at the Wikipedia article on BESYS.) In 1964 Bell Labs joined with MIT and General Electric to create an advanced operating system called the Multics project. (The article Unix and Multics at https://multicians.org/unix.html https://multicians.org/unix.html provides a lot of useful background. Also see Dennis Ritchie's article, The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System, which is a must read on the early development of Unix.) In the 1960s Ken Thompson at the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ worked on the Multics project. When Bell Labs pulled out of the Multics project in 1969, Ken Thompson on his own decided to build a much simpler operating system which became known as Unix. Dennis Ritchie, also in the CSRC at Bell Labs, joined Ken in creating Unix. Dennis invented the C programming language for this effort. Subsequently, many people in the CSRC and elsewhere contributed to the development of Unix. Doug McIroy (Ken Thompson's boss and the inventor of coroutines and pipes) deserves a lot of credit for shepherding the development of Unix. The reason Unix and C became so successful is that they were designed by individuals with very good technical taste and not by committees. The Bell Labs research culture also let individuals have great discretion in determining what direction their research should take and one of the important functions of management was to provide adequate resources to make research projects successful and ultimately beneficial to the development of the global telecommunications infrastructure. Another motivating force for Bell Labs research was to create a patent portfolio for the company that could be used to get access to patents of other companies by cross-licensing. What I found immensely gratifying by being involved with Unix was what Don Knuth had once told me. He said, the best theory is motivated by practice and the best practice by theory. As for the motivation behind awk, I recommend looking at https://www2.computerworld.com.au/article/216844/a-z_programming_languages_awk/ https://www2.computerworld.com.au/article/216844/a-z_program...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by a-dub 4y ago

woodruffw 4y ago

> unix differs in that it was built to enable telephony engineers to operate a telephone network reliably and efficiently. This is a corporate revision of Unix's history: it was originally created to run a video game[1]. Later, when Bell Labs gave that team some more resources (in the form of a PDP-11), the first "business" applications they wrote for it were primarily for typesetting and text editing. Telephony was never a primary design goal for Unix, even if telephone networks were later retrofitted onto it. This is evidenced by the fact that Bell gave early versions of Unix away, as they were forbidden to charge for non-communications technologies and services under a federal consent decree. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!

a-dub 4y ago
perhaps the kernel, but i suspect that much of the userland (which is a lot of what i reference here when i say "unix"- all the command line utilities, shells, the C programming language) was influenced by the needs of both the research community and the technical operation of the telephone network itself.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I'm more than happy to be corrected about this, but my understanding is that the groups at Bell Labs that created and matured Unix were not closely tied into the telephony groups, if at all. The lack of interest in telephony use cases is evidenced by early releases and "workbench" distributions for Unix: PWB/Unix[1] focused on providing a development environment for programmers, and WWB[2] was aimed at technical editors and writers. (The functionality of the basic Unix tools reflects this lineage: there a lot of tools for munging text, and very few tools for interacting with peripherals and hardware that isn't a teletype or line printer.) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWB/UNIX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWB/UNIX [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_Workbench https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_Workbench
  - a-dub 4y ago
    good question. i sent al aho an e-mail. hopefully he'll reply with some interesting history. watch this space!
    - a-dub 4y ago
      Was there anything specific about Bell Labs or working for the Bell system that influenced the design of UNIX and the userland tools? Did the needs of the Bell system influence any of this work, or was it pure computer science research (and the needs of the computer science research community) that influenced these designs? If awk were "designed for someone" who was it designed for? Did anyone who worked on UNIX or the computing stuff at Bell labs care about building things for telephone network operations or was it pure research and technology development for the art of it? -- Good question! Many books have been written about why Bell Labs was so successful in creating research innovations that changed the world. Bell Labs was interested in building operating systems even before the 1950s for use in AT&T's operations support systems for the global telephone network. (You might look at the Wikipedia article on BESYS.) In 1964 Bell Labs joined with MIT and General Electric to create an advanced operating system called the Multics project. (The article Unix and Multics at https://multicians.org/unix.html https://multicians.org/unix.html provides a lot of useful background. Also see Dennis Ritchie's article, The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System, which is a must read on the early development of Unix.) In the 1960s Ken Thompson at the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ worked on the Multics project. When Bell Labs pulled out of the Multics project in 1969, Ken Thompson on his own decided to build a much simpler operating system which became known as Unix. Dennis Ritchie, also in the CSRC at Bell Labs, joined Ken in creating Unix. Dennis invented the C programming language for this effort. Subsequently, many people in the CSRC and elsewhere contributed to the development of Unix. Doug McIroy (Ken Thompson's boss and the inventor of coroutines and pipes) deserves a lot of credit for shepherding the development of Unix. The reason Unix and C became so successful is that they were designed by individuals with very good technical taste and not by committees. The Bell Labs research culture also let individuals have great discretion in determining what direction their research should take and one of the important functions of management was to provide adequate resources to make research projects successful and ultimately beneficial to the development of the global telecommunications infrastructure. Another motivating force for Bell Labs research was to create a patent portfolio for the company that could be used to get access to patents of other companies by cross-licensing. What I found immensely gratifying by being involved with Unix was what Don Knuth had once told me. He said, the best theory is motivated by practice and the best practice by theory. As for the motivation behind awk, I recommend looking at https://www2.computerworld.com.au/article/216844/a-z_programming_languages_awk/ https://www2.computerworld.com.au/article/216844/a-z_program...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]