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The impression I got was that the guys behind Unix were annoyed when their operating-systems research was stalled in the name of "API compatibility", so they st

The impression I got was that the guys behind Unix were annoyed when their operating-systems research was stalled in the name of "API compatibility", so they started Plan 9 and actively resisted commercialisation for as long as possible (for example, they gave it the least marketable name they could think of). There's so many interesting ideas in Plan 9, I'm occasionally tempted to install it and try it out... but then I read things like the list of keyboard shortcuts in the standard editor acme¹, and I get cold feet. ¹: http://acme.cat-v.org/keyboard http://acme.cat-v.org/keyboard - in particular, note that there are no keyboard shortcuts for 'move the cursor to the next/previous line'. Think about that.

4ad 15y ago
The problem wasn't that the Plan 9 guys opposed commercialization, quite the contrary, the problem was that AT&T never let the system become open source. For some time it wasn't even available outside universities. That killed it. Yes, acme doesn't have keyboard shortcuts, I use it every day.
- hollerith 15y ago
  >the problem was that AT&T never let the system become open source. The whole thing except the fonts was put under a very liberal open-source licence 10 or 12 or so years ago. (By then it was owned by Bellcore or Lucent, not AT&T.) Before then there were severe restrictions; is your opinion that by time the severe restrictions were lifted, it was too late because Linux had already become entrenched?
  - 4ad 15y ago
    Yes, it was made open source in 2000, 8 years after the first release of 1992, far too late.
jff 15y ago
Regarding acme, everyone comes in and goes "Yuck, you mean I can't type 'C-c M-x undoify'?" However, once you get used to it, it's actually rather nice. I have something like 30-40 files open in acme right now, and I find it far, far easier to manage open buffers than in Emacs. Arranging and re-arranging buffers (to use the emacs term, since it's familiar) is very convenient and helps me keep things organized. It also has "mouse shortcuts" (chords) that tend to reward using the mouse more--meaning you don't need to switch from mouse to keyboard as often, because you can do cut, copy, paste, search, command execution, etc. all with a click of the mouse (and no hunting through menus, either). It's hard to explain... you really have to use Acme, or even better, watch someone use it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopu3ZtdCsg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopu3ZtdCsg seems to be a decent intro, although I haven't had time to watch the whole thing yet.
- gnosis 15y ago
  C-c M-x undoify ? In vim it's just: u Much simpler and quicker than stretching your arm to the mouse, futzing around with the cursor to find god knows what menu option, clicking on it, and moving your hand back to the keyboard. Having 30-40 files open in an editor is not impressive either. You can easily have hundreds of files open in vim, and navigate between them without a problem. The mouse chords might make the mouse more functional, but it's certainly a far cry from having over 100 keys and thousands of key combinations at your fingertips. Not that using the mouse excludes the possibility of using the keyboard, but as a vim user I almost never have need to use the mouse -- except when I've switched to vim from another application that requires mouse use and want to paste something. After that, my hand goes right back to the keyboard, because using the keyboard is just far more efficient. Acme's forcing mouse use on the user is one reason I am really not very interested in using it. However, I am interested in seeing if there is anything it can do that doesn't absolutely require mouse use that could be integrated in to vim.
bitwize 15y ago
If AT&T could successfully market an OS with a name that sounds like "eunuchs", they weren't going to be dissuaded by something innocuous like Plan 9. And indeed, Plan 9 is conceptually cool as balls, but Acme and Sam make me want to chuck expensive electronic equipment out the window.

4ad 15y ago

The problem wasn't that the Plan 9 guys opposed commercialization, quite the contrary, the problem was that AT&T never let the system become open source. For some time it wasn't even available outside universities. That killed it. Yes, acme doesn't have keyboard shortcuts, I use it every day.

hollerith 15y ago
>the problem was that AT&T never let the system become open source. The whole thing except the fonts was put under a very liberal open-source licence 10 or 12 or so years ago. (By then it was owned by Bellcore or Lucent, not AT&T.) Before then there were severe restrictions; is your opinion that by time the severe restrictions were lifted, it was too late because Linux had already become entrenched?
- 4ad 15y ago
  Yes, it was made open source in 2000, 8 years after the first release of 1992, far too late.

jff 15y ago

Regarding acme, everyone comes in and goes "Yuck, you mean I can't type 'C-c M-x undoify'?" However, once you get used to it, it's actually rather nice. I have something like 30-40 files open in acme right now, and I find it far, far easier to manage open buffers than in Emacs. Arranging and re-arranging buffers (to use the emacs term, since it's familiar) is very convenient and helps me keep things organized. It also has "mouse shortcuts" (chords) that tend to reward using the mouse more--meaning you don't need to switch from mouse to keyboard as often, because you can do cut, copy, paste, search, command execution, etc. all with a click of the mouse (and no hunting through menus, either). It's hard to explain... you really have to use Acme, or even better, watch someone use it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopu3ZtdCsg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopu3ZtdCsg seems to be a decent intro, although I haven't had time to watch the whole thing yet.

gnosis 15y ago
C-c M-x undoify ? In vim it's just: u Much simpler and quicker than stretching your arm to the mouse, futzing around with the cursor to find god knows what menu option, clicking on it, and moving your hand back to the keyboard. Having 30-40 files open in an editor is not impressive either. You can easily have hundreds of files open in vim, and navigate between them without a problem. The mouse chords might make the mouse more functional, but it's certainly a far cry from having over 100 keys and thousands of key combinations at your fingertips. Not that using the mouse excludes the possibility of using the keyboard, but as a vim user I almost never have need to use the mouse -- except when I've switched to vim from another application that requires mouse use and want to paste something. After that, my hand goes right back to the keyboard, because using the keyboard is just far more efficient. Acme's forcing mouse use on the user is one reason I am really not very interested in using it. However, I am interested in seeing if there is anything it can do that doesn't absolutely require mouse use that could be integrated in to vim.

bitwize 15y ago

If AT&T could successfully market an OS with a name that sounds like "eunuchs", they weren't going to be dissuaded by something innocuous like Plan 9. And indeed, Plan 9 is conceptually cool as balls, but Acme and Sam make me want to chuck expensive electronic equipment out the window.