9 ms·

The truth about C and Unix history

119 points by tracyma 12y ago

seiya 12y ago
I must confess that for a moment you got me there. https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/unix-hoax.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/unix-hoax.html
- barosl 12y ago
  It seems that the GNU version slightly differs from the OP. It includes a joke on IBM RS-6000 and their virtual machine, and have different spellings (Nichlaus vs. Niklaus, AT&&T vs. AT&T). I wonder which one precedes.
lifthrasiir 12y ago
A well known hoax. For that matters, the quoted source code is a part of Carl Shapiro's submission to IOCCC 1985 [1] which produces a maze. This alone is enough for debunking the story, right? [1] http://www.ioccc.org/1985/shapiro.c http://www.ioccc.org/1985/shapiro.c
kakakiki 12y ago
Heck! I so wish this is true! It would have been the prank of the century; and even the centuries to come!
spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
Now if we could all get back to using real Languages like Fortran and PL1/G :-)
- a3n 12y ago
  But you can write Fortran in any language! :)
  - spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
    Funny you soudl mention that my prefered comenting style in perl has similarities to the one use by NAG for thoer fortran Libs back in teh day :-) And when I write a small perl utilities I still use a program ident string that losk very like RT11 ones :-) No who rembers the comandline argumenst for PIP (the real one not the CP/M rip off) to rebuild a floppy's directory
- coldcode 12y ago
  APL will solve all the world's programming problems in just one line. Then it will take the world to figure out what the hell it does.
  - jschwartzi 12y ago
    But it's concise, and therefore elegant, so who cares?
  - leoc 12y ago
    Not even Deep Thought will be sufficient.
- mindcrime 12y ago
  I'll stick to RPG/400. And none of this ILE stuff either, I want my column oriented code entry using the SEU.
thaumaturgy 12y ago
This particular April Fool's joke goes back at least 30 years. I remember getting a chuckle out of it a long time ago. For context for younger readers, it might be worth pointing out that there was for a while a sort of rivalry between C and Pascal adherents. C was the more "modern" and "professional" language, while Pascal was a "teaching" language (or so some of the arguments went). Windows was coded in C, while MacOS -- before it was called MacOS -- was largely Pascal, with a lot of hand-coded 68k assembly for flavor. Pascal devotees would make fun of C in about the same way that a Python programmer might make fun of Perl. C devotees responded by writing an awful lot more code than Pascal programmers did, which eventually shut them up pretty good. Pascal got a boost out of OOP, but by 1995 or thereabouts Pascal didn't really have much of a future left, which was sort of a shame.
- dvirsky 12y ago
  I learned Pascal when I was in my teens (not my first language, but the first "serious" one after Basic and LOGO) so to me it's always associated with my childish hacking attempts and very bad code IN ALL CAPS. I remember a couple of my friends bought a C book and their code looked so cryptic and weird in comparison, so I didn't bother learning it, and then I kinda lost interest for a few years before picking up more serious programming in my 20s. In the mid-late nineties everyone was doing C++ and Java, so I never got back to Pascal. I had some good fun with it for a few years.
- mojuba 12y ago
  You could have called me a "Pascal devotee" back then, but I had eventually come to realize verbosity kills creativity and dumped Pascal for good. This { int a[10]; ... } wins over this begin var A: array[0..9] of Integer; ... end; quite simply because the latter takes longer to both read and write. The proof being that none of the more or less serious languages created in the past few decades dared to adopt e.g. begin ... end again.
  - merrua 12y ago
    ruby does begin, end. But maybe you were joking? ruby does ommit where it can though.
las_cases 12y ago
I believe that Linus Torvalds said something[1] in the spirit of this article about how Git was only adopted by the community due to how arcane it looks. [1] http://typicalprogrammer.com/linus-torvalds-goes-off-on-linux-and-git/ http://typicalprogrammer.com/linus-torvalds-goes-off-on-linu...
- vruiz 12y ago
  notice the "Satire" category.
- kyberias 12y ago
  You must realize it's satire too.
barosl 12y ago
Wow, it's been a long time since I checked this joke for the last time! At that time I read the version that was translated into my mother tongue (Korean). Now I read this in its native form.
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  Impressed that people can progress in foreign languages to the point that they can get obscure and obtuse sarcasm!
- sho_hn 12y ago
  Do you have a link to the Korean translation? I've been studying Korean for the past year and would be curious to nibble on a text like this a little.
UserRights 12y ago
here is an interesting talk that will make you better see the doublespeak of this old hoax: http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6574_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201412301245_-_why_are_computers_so_and_what_can_we_do_about_it_-_peter_sewell.html#video http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6574_-_en_-_...
anuraj 12y ago
Truth is - UNIX/C and clones run the world :)

119 points by tracyma 12y ago

seiya 12y ago

I must confess that for a moment you got me there. https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/unix-hoax.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/unix-hoax.html

barosl 12y ago
It seems that the GNU version slightly differs from the OP. It includes a joke on IBM RS-6000 and their virtual machine, and have different spellings (Nichlaus vs. Niklaus, AT&&T vs. AT&T). I wonder which one precedes.

lifthrasiir 12y ago

A well known hoax. For that matters, the quoted source code is a part of Carl Shapiro's submission to IOCCC 1985 [1] which produces a maze. This alone is enough for debunking the story, right? [1] http://www.ioccc.org/1985/shapiro.c http://www.ioccc.org/1985/shapiro.c

kakakiki 12y ago

Heck! I so wish this is true! It would have been the prank of the century; and even the centuries to come!

spacecowboy_lon 12y ago

Now if we could all get back to using real Languages like Fortran and PL1/G :-)

a3n 12y ago
But you can write Fortran in any language! :)
- spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
  Funny you soudl mention that my prefered comenting style in perl has similarities to the one use by NAG for thoer fortran Libs back in teh day :-) And when I write a small perl utilities I still use a program ident string that losk very like RT11 ones :-) No who rembers the comandline argumenst for PIP (the real one not the CP/M rip off) to rebuild a floppy's directory
coldcode 12y ago
APL will solve all the world's programming problems in just one line. Then it will take the world to figure out what the hell it does.
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  But it's concise, and therefore elegant, so who cares?
- leoc 12y ago
  Not even Deep Thought will be sufficient.
mindcrime 12y ago
I'll stick to RPG/400. And none of this ILE stuff either, I want my column oriented code entry using the SEU.

thaumaturgy 12y ago

This particular April Fool's joke goes back at least 30 years. I remember getting a chuckle out of it a long time ago. For context for younger readers, it might be worth pointing out that there was for a while a sort of rivalry between C and Pascal adherents. C was the more "modern" and "professional" language, while Pascal was a "teaching" language (or so some of the arguments went). Windows was coded in C, while MacOS -- before it was called MacOS -- was largely Pascal, with a lot of hand-coded 68k assembly for flavor. Pascal devotees would make fun of C in about the same way that a Python programmer might make fun of Perl. C devotees responded by writing an awful lot more code than Pascal programmers did, which eventually shut them up pretty good. Pascal got a boost out of OOP, but by 1995 or thereabouts Pascal didn't really have much of a future left, which was sort of a shame.

dvirsky 12y ago
I learned Pascal when I was in my teens (not my first language, but the first "serious" one after Basic and LOGO) so to me it's always associated with my childish hacking attempts and very bad code IN ALL CAPS. I remember a couple of my friends bought a C book and their code looked so cryptic and weird in comparison, so I didn't bother learning it, and then I kinda lost interest for a few years before picking up more serious programming in my 20s. In the mid-late nineties everyone was doing C++ and Java, so I never got back to Pascal. I had some good fun with it for a few years.
mojuba 12y ago
You could have called me a "Pascal devotee" back then, but I had eventually come to realize verbosity kills creativity and dumped Pascal for good. This { int a[10]; ... } wins over this begin var A: array[0..9] of Integer; ... end; quite simply because the latter takes longer to both read and write. The proof being that none of the more or less serious languages created in the past few decades dared to adopt e.g. begin ... end again.
- merrua 12y ago
  ruby does begin, end. But maybe you were joking? ruby does ommit where it can though.

las_cases 12y ago

I believe that Linus Torvalds said something[1] in the spirit of this article about how Git was only adopted by the community due to how arcane it looks. [1] http://typicalprogrammer.com/linus-torvalds-goes-off-on-linux-and-git/ http://typicalprogrammer.com/linus-torvalds-goes-off-on-linu...

vruiz 12y ago
notice the "Satire" category.
kyberias 12y ago
You must realize it's satire too.

barosl 12y ago

Wow, it's been a long time since I checked this joke for the last time! At that time I read the version that was translated into my mother tongue (Korean). Now I read this in its native form.

throwawayaway 12y ago
Impressed that people can progress in foreign languages to the point that they can get obscure and obtuse sarcasm!
sho_hn 12y ago
Do you have a link to the Korean translation? I've been studying Korean for the past year and would be curious to nibble on a text like this a little.

UserRights 12y ago

here is an interesting talk that will make you better see the doublespeak of this old hoax: http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6574_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201412301245_-_why_are_computers_so_and_what_can_we_do_about_it_-_peter_sewell.html#video http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6574_-_en_-_...

anuraj 12y ago

Truth is - UNIX/C and clones run the world :)