Asri-unix.447 net.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!mo@LBL-UNIX Wed Jan 6 21:18:11 1982 Flaming From: mo at LBL-UNIX (Mike O'Dell [system]) Well folks, after Bernie's last harangue, I have to put my two cents in. Yes, a few well designed libraries would certainly be useful (regular expressions, etc). PWB had a feeble attempt and there may be some such progress in future 4.Xbsd releases. To get some idea of what "the second time around" would look like, I strongly suggest you look at the Software Tools (not the book, but the software) which were done here at LBL (yes, in Ratfor, but amazingly portable). They had the benefit of not having historical baggage to carry, and were free to steal only good ideas! The arguments are more consistant and many such things cleaned up. It is interesting to see a "second pass" which was written by the same 3 people over a short time span. That for sure encourages uniformity. On another level, however, I think there is another quite interesting phenomenon in the evolution of Unix. Other systems "evolve" at fairly uniform rates. Unix as a whole, however, exhibits a very high instantaneous entropy but really changes (in a global sense) very slowly. Part of this comes from the merciful lack of a "development group" madly gluing frobs on the system to improve its "functionality." (Such local groups can only screw themselves.) Another process, however, is a bit of real "fanatical" dedication to the idea that whatever goes in EVERYWHERE should be done as right as we know how. I am certainly not claiming this always operates (e.g. the multiplexor), but the reason some things haven't been put in is because noone knew the "right" way to do it. Many people knew "a way" to do something and did it, thus providing the large entropy, but more importantly, providing the experimental base which eventually lead to a good solution being discovered. One other point. I really believe the only way to not get holes in your stomach is to increase your acceptance of the fundamental anarchy in the universe (entropy). Networks provide the best example: there ain't gonna be no winner and many systems will end up supporting several different kinds of networks, so spending time fretting because UUCP builds non-RFC733 headers in counterproductive. Building programs to translate between various "standards" is the only way to keep sane, because no amount of wishing will make the heterogenaity go away. Likewise, so you don't like Unix's "cat", well I don't like the VMS APPEND command. Do things better in the future if you want, but realize you are talking about displacing a large mass if you try to change the past. Drivel off. -Mike ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.