Unfortunately -- probably due to UUNet being hosed for several
days -- I didn't get the original. However:
Bob Munck writes:
> To give just two counterexamples, Tim Berners-Lee did all of his
> development work on NeXTStep and Java was intended to supplant or
> replace Unix as well as Windows and AppleOS.
NeXT: Have you actually used a NeXT computer? I have. In fact,
my group was one of the first to use them outside of NeXT, because
we were a test site for them. I spent quite a bit of time on these
boxes, and they're essentially a glom of Mach and Unix. Much of
the kernel is Unix-like, and from the kernel scheduler up, it's almost
indistinguishable from Unix. All the things that are part of Unix,
from open() to ps to inodes to awk, are there. Unix programs port
to it with no more effort than porting between Unix versions.
Java: I didn't address the issue of *why* it was developed. I only
wrote about *where* it was developed, and that was on Unix.
Both of your "counterexamples" are nothing of the kind.
> I've come to believe that Rich really believes the fantastic
> things he says, and that he's not just making them up, but has
> heard them somewhere.
Well, duh! I'm not in the habit of writing at length about things
that I don't believe to be true. A great deal of what I write
about comes from first-hand experience; I've been lucky to
live through and sometimes participate in a lot of the
developments that have shaped the 'net.
I've come to believe that, unable to rebut my statements with
facts, you've resorted to rhetoric like "fantastic", "ghetto",
"paranoia", "ignorant", and so on, mixed with a variety
of personal attacks and unfounded assumptions. Nice try,
but frankly, your average resident of alt.flame can do better
than that.
> He seems to have spent his entire career
> deep inside the Unix ghetto, not only ignorant of the larger
> world outside but unaware of its existence.
Nice assumption. Totally wrong, of course, but nice assumption.
Outside the Unix world, I've written code used in life-critical
situations (real-time control of X-ray beam in CAT scanners) and in
commercial ones (restaurant point-of-sale terminals). I've done
Fortran and PL/1 programming on mainframes, written assembly language
routines on microprocessors, and all kinds of other stuff.
I don't tend to talk it about it much because, except for helping
to broaden my experience, it's all irrelevant: nearly all of these
technologies are dead and gone.
As to living in the Unix world: I make no apologies for working with
the best -- that's why I use Mitchell paddles and paddle Dagger
Composites whitewater kayaks, and that's why I use Unix and Linux.
Life is too short to waste it using inferior products.
And besides a great deal of useless pain, I don't see what's to be gained
from accumulating a lot of experience with second- and third-rate
technologies. So I will abandon *anything* as soon as something better
comes along. That applies to Unix, too: like I said, I'm a quality bigot.
Oh, and about "anti-Microsoft paranoia"?
WordNet gives this defintion:
paranoia n : a psychological disorder characterized by
delusions of persecution or grandeur
Persecution? I'd say that the Halloween documents et.al. demonstrate
that there's nothing delusional about the assertion that Microsoft is out
to stymie innovation of any kind in any way that it can. Unable to
innovate itself, it realizes that its only chance is to stop everyone else.
Grandeur? Well, I dunno. Unix *did* build the Internet -- that's
beyond argument, except for those clueless newbies that think
that Bill Gates owns it. And IMHO, the Internet is the single most
successful computing project ever undertaken. Looks pretty grand to me.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done
directly from our website for all our lists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
