UNIX as a working environment
ucbvax!works
Local: works at mit-ai
Via: Mit-Ai; 11 Mar 82 22:10-EDT
Via: Brl-Bmd; 11 Mar 82 22:31-EDT
UNIX is a nice homey system but it is not a lot different from
something like CP 67. Like a half a dozen other systems I have
used it has a nice subroutine library so you can get at the OS
from a higher level language and it provides a weak form of
dynamic linking (using process forking) so you can write your
own command processor like programs. Multics did it better,
OS/360 MVS did it about as well except the terminal support was
worse, early Primos blew it because their high level language
was Fortran, Magic 6 did this pretty well but was a bit big for
the processor and so on. Some of these systems felt more
comfortable than others. UNIX is usually the first decent
system people get to use and they usually fall in love with it
and never question it. [1] Having put up with a dozen
operating systems so far I put UNIX in the much better than
average category but am constantly reminded of the saying, "If
English was a good enough language for the Lord to write the
Bible in then it's good enough for me."
As far as the future? My favorite system today consists of a
hairy EMACS. I login, enter EMACS and stay there. Why?
Because, with a few extensions we have put in, there is no
reason not to work in an environment in which the screen is
well managed and I can do the things I do all the time easily.
Is EMACS the answer? I doubt it.
What does a good system need?
Dynamic linking: UNIX almost has this, but you still have
to work to fix a bug in a library. Multics, Magic 6,
SMALLTALK systems and the Lisp Machine have this.
Screen Management: You don't NEED bit mapped screens to do
something nice to your screen. You need imagination.
Personally, I like bit mapped screens, they can be treated
device independently, but what you really need is to think
in terms of screens, not teletypes.
Memory Management: I have seen several good approaches.
Language oriented systems use "object" orientation which
will probably be the winner, but segmentation provides a
number of useful advantages. The Lisp Machine uses both
and, of course, you PAGE underneath the whole thing. [2]
I agree that there is a software problem and I think there is a
software problem because most systems programmers and most
systems hackers are NOT IMAGINATIVE and INNOVATIVE enough.
Wow, that ought to get the bath
water a-bubbling,
Great balls of fire ...
Seth Steinberg
USELESS FOOTNOTES
[1] Why else does everyone say: UNIX is just like Multics
except better and ignore all of the work on capabilities and
scaling large systems back on CTSS and the PDP-1? It's simple,
they know UNIX but they haven't even read about Multics.
[2] SMALLTALK does not page. It loads objects from the disk
which is NOT the same. They tried a BIBOP scheme and when it
failed threw out the baby too. As you may have gathered I
think they made a mistake with their VERY CLEVER scheme but I
may be wrong.