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See Neal Stephenson's IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE COMMAND LINE. It's all symbol manipulation.
by pagekicker 14y ago
See Neal Stephenson's IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE COMMAND LINE. It's all symbol manipulation.
- npsimons 14y agoFull text: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html TL;DR: "Unix is the Hole Hawg of operating systems, and Unix hackers, like Doug Barnes and the guy in the Dilbert cartoon and many of the other people who populate Silicon Valley, are like contractor's sons who grew up using only Hole Hawgs. They might use Apple/Microsoft OSes to write letters, play video games, or balance their checkbooks, but they cannot really bring themselves to take these operating systems seriously."
- dredmorbius 14y agoThat whole essay is eminently quotable. You've picked up one of my two favorite sections (with "Ronald Reagan is your Web browser" being a close third). Describing operating systems, using the inevitable automobile analogy. Windows (mopeds, crappy station wagons, and lumbering SUVs), Apple (stylish Euro-sedans), BeOS (batmobiles), and ... "Linux ... is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free."