4 ms·

Somewhat tangential: this reminded me of Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" [1] which speaks highly of BeOS. I liked the bug report "R4:

Somewhat tangential: this reminded me of Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" [1] which speaks highly of BeOS. I liked the bug report "R4: BeOS missing megalomaniacal figurehead to harness and focus developer rage" (: [1] https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt

troyvit 1y ago
Man I read that during my formative years as a computer guy and it helped me big-time make the switch from MacOS to Linux. That and "The Cathedral and the Bazaar."[1] I don't know how well that one stands up to the test of time though. I'm going to re-read your link now. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral...
- ameliaquining 1y ago
  The most immediately obvious answer to that question, shared by Stephenson himself, is that the essay quickly failed the test of time because it did not anticipate Mac OS X, which breaks the dichotomy of user-friendly-but-anemic Classic Mac OS vs. powerful-but-forbidding Unix. (I personally still don't really like Apple systems and don't use them, but I think it's clear that by the standards of the time OS X squared this circle.)
  - troyvit 1y ago
    I was speaking to ESR's essay holding up to the test of time but you have a good point. I'd argue however that the lock-down Apple imposes on OS X, such as signed system volumes, keeps them firmly planted in a cathedral. That said I don't know why I'd argue with Neal Stephenson about this stuff to begin with so maybe I should stop typing :)
    - ameliaquining 1y ago
      IIUC cathedral-style development of open source projects (i.e., intermediate development versions aren't publicly available, you can only get official releases) is now very rare; Android is the only project I can think of off the top of my head that works that way. So in that respect ESR's perspective clearly won out. Of course an essay of that length makes any number of claims and some will have aged better than others.
      - interroboink 1y ago
        I think one could argue that FreeBSD is more cathedral-style than Linux, and there are other examples, especially for programming languages, where the inventor(s) want to avoid it being pulled in too many directions at once (extreme example: Jai). I don't know that it's really such a binary either/or decision, more of a spectrum of "more cathedral-y" and "more bazaar-y."

troyvit 1y ago

Man I read that during my formative years as a computer guy and it helped me big-time make the switch from MacOS to Linux. That and "The Cathedral and the Bazaar."[1] I don't know how well that one stands up to the test of time though. I'm going to re-read your link now. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral...

ameliaquining 1y ago
The most immediately obvious answer to that question, shared by Stephenson himself, is that the essay quickly failed the test of time because it did not anticipate Mac OS X, which breaks the dichotomy of user-friendly-but-anemic Classic Mac OS vs. powerful-but-forbidding Unix. (I personally still don't really like Apple systems and don't use them, but I think it's clear that by the standards of the time OS X squared this circle.)
- troyvit 1y ago
  I was speaking to ESR's essay holding up to the test of time but you have a good point. I'd argue however that the lock-down Apple imposes on OS X, such as signed system volumes, keeps them firmly planted in a cathedral. That said I don't know why I'd argue with Neal Stephenson about this stuff to begin with so maybe I should stop typing :)
  - ameliaquining 1y ago
    IIUC cathedral-style development of open source projects (i.e., intermediate development versions aren't publicly available, you can only get official releases) is now very rare; Android is the only project I can think of off the top of my head that works that way. So in that respect ESR's perspective clearly won out. Of course an essay of that length makes any number of claims and some will have aged better than others.
    - interroboink 1y ago
      I think one could argue that FreeBSD is more cathedral-style than Linux, and there are other examples, especially for programming languages, where the inventor(s) want to avoid it being pulled in too many directions at once (extreme example: Jai). I don't know that it's really such a binary either/or decision, more of a spectrum of "more cathedral-y" and "more bazaar-y."