From: rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo)
Subject: Re: Giles' Manual Mania (Was - Re: About the 'F' in RTFM)
Organization: none
Distribution:  world
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 19:26:10 GMT

jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:

(hunh?  Someone at lanl.gov posting this kind of thing?...)

>If UNIX were *really* more powerful, faster, or more flexible than the
>*real* alternatives in *modern* system design, then you'd have a point.
>It isn't.  You don't.

Okay, give some concrete examples of a better 'sed', a better 'yacc',
and a better 'awk'.

>*NOTHING*!!  With the alternatives I've seen, you *gain*: speed, features,
>user productivity, etc..

Err, these 'GUI's you keep referring to are faster than /bin/rc?

>[...].  The "pipe together simple tools" approach
>has *some* merit.  Too bad UNIX didn't stick to it.  More precisely, too
>bad UNIX didn't periodically winnow out all but the best tools and utilities
>and rewrite them to be compatible and orthogonal.  Might be an interesting
>system.

But they are.  sed, awk, perl, tr, pr, nroff, troff, ls, tbl, pic, eqn,
rm, and all the other programs in my /[usr/]bin perform completely correctly
and predictably when placed in pipes.  Maybe there's something integral
to the process which you're failing to understand.

>Increased it!!  No UNIX word processor is as capable as the simplest
>one available on other systems, for example (Oh, sure - emacs: if you
>want to write the features yourself - I don't have the spare two
>years to learn emacs - much less to write the features). 

The failure you're experiencing with UNIX is in thinking that it's
a business productivity tool like Windows 3.1 or Quicken, to be compared
with MSDOS color GUI programs.  UNIX and C are research and development
tools.

In some senses, vi (and certainly emacs, but let's not get into that)
is much more capable than FrameMaker.  For instance, you can't edit
C code in FrameMaker and push it out to the compiler directly.  You
can't pipe a paragraph through a binary and have the output replace
that paragraph.  You can't run it in 1 second on a non-windowing
terminal.

The problem with some people is that they look at their collection of
nails and assume that everything else is a hammer.  UNIX won't pop little
windows up and give you shadowed drop box choice menus with scrollbars.
It's got a completely different set of uses.  Let other programs do the
pretty stuff.

>[...] AT&T *also* selected MS/DOS for the 
>computer services contract it has with AMTRAC: because AT&T (the
>inventor of UNIX) determined that training and system administration 
>overhead for a UNIX installation were unacceptable.  

AT&T probably correctly determined that UNIX was not the correct
operating system for a non-research-and-development site.  Indeed,
UNIX makes a poor operating system for cash registers and business
management.  This doesn't make it a poor operating system.  Rather,
people who claim it's a poor operating system because it doesn't
have The Feature They Want are barking up the wrong tree.

>
>Just because AT&T agrees with me that UNIX takes more training and 
>administration overhead for the same capabilities [...]

This, however, doesn't follow.  For the particular capabilities
that AT&T was assessing, UNIX was inappropriate.  This doesn't imply
anything outside that certain context.  If you were starting a small
high-tech networked research institution, you'd be a fool to choose
MSDOS, wouldn't you?

>The tools *don't* decide, the user does.  The tools are just laid out so
>the choice is better structured and easier to make.  As well as being easier
>to learn.  You don't have to know about options you aren't using in order
>to use the ones you *are* interested in.

I've spent 13 years on computers now, and I must confess I have no idea
what these secret tools you're referring to are.  Could you provide
concrete examples of a tool that is as easy to use as, say, sed, that
provides just as much power, but whose documentation is 'better laid
out'?

>Yes, pipes are useful for rapid prototyping (or would be, if the UNIX 
>utility set was really complete, orthogonal, and mutually compatible - 
>they ain't).  No one said to give up pipes.  However, it would be
>nice if the UNIX tools were *designed* to fit together - or designed
>*at*all*.

The UNIX tools are obviously designed.  I'm afraid you're losing a lot
of points with the 'sane computer users set' by making these wild
statements about how UNIX is a lovecraftian nightmare of noneuclidean
surfaces and incomprehensible interfaces.  I can't think of a tool
offhand which I have trouble pipelining -- except those which are
designed for graphic interfaces.

>[...]  Many businesses would never have even considered using UNIX 
>without something *like* windows (or alternative utility sets,
>or alternative shells - anything to improve the crummy environment) 
>because UNIX is not cost-effective without them (too much training 
>and "guru" overhead).

Right, there's your problem again -- assuming that businesses have a
need for UNIX, or that UNIX was designed for use in the commercial
marketplace.  I think Roell Piper has this misnotion too.

>Yes, windows are popular in other environments as well because they
>are a good idea in their own right.  But, for UNIX, they're manditory.

Again, statements like these are really weird, Mr. Giles, especially
coming from a supposed braintrust like lanl.gov.  Millions of people
have successfully used UNIX without windows for the past fifteen
years or so.  Why do you think that a major revolution is called for?
What makes your opinion so right?

>Now, *if* you have a small, single-user (or few-user) machine; and
>*if* the machine has considerably more speed and memory than you 
>need for your applications; and *if* security is of little concern
>to you; and *if* you have some off-the-shelf GUI's and other
>integrated tools available - *then* UNIX may actually be a good
>choice for the system to run on your machine - if you don't mind
>the longer learning curve.

Again, you miss the point of UNIX entirely.  UNIX is designed for
a networked environment.  It is designed for multi-user machines.
It is designed to be modular, and text-based; there are few needs
for 'off-the-shelf GUIs', whatever that's supposed to mean.  The
toolset is integrated.   In fact, you can even *make your own
tools.*  Try that under Windows. :)

I'm currently running a UNIX clone on a 386/25 with 4M of memory.
This is hardly a massive workhorse, and, since the kernel is less
than 1.2M large, I can also run X.  The cost to me?  $0.00.  

>
>-- 
>J. Giles


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