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The real author of: Unix Nightmare
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Randal Schwartz
Feb 15, 1990, 11:24:32 AM2/15/90
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In article <67...@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, wetmore@iris (Bradford Rice Wetmore) writes:
| Here's the unix nightmare.
|
| Brad
|
| P.S. My apologies to the VMS people out there, who should have
| upgraded a long time ago.
|
| .sig Seen outside a computer center in Washington DC several years ago:
|
| "This place guarded by a false sense of security"
|
| ==========================
|
| This has been hanging on the wall in the Comp Sci Lab here for some
| time, and I thought you all mught enjoy it. It claims to be from A.
| N. Onymous <Unk...@SU-Score.ARPA> by way of Calton Pu <CALTON@
| WASHINGTON.ARPA>, or possibly vice versa.
|
| **********************************************************************
| Last night I dreamed that the Real World had adopted the "Unix
| Philosophy."
|
| I went to a fast-food place for lunch. When I arrived, I found that
| the menu had been taken down, and all the employees were standing in
| a line behind the counter waiting for my orders. Each of them was
| smaller than I remembered, there were more of them than I'd ever seen
| before, and they had very strange names on theuir nametags.
|
| I tried to give my order to the first employee, but he just said
| something about a "syntax error." I tried another employee with no
| more luck. He just said "Eh?" no matter what I told him. I had
| similar experiences with several other employees. (One employee
| named "ed" didn't even say "Eh?," he just looked at me quizzically.)
| Disgusted, I sought out the manager (at least it said "man" on his
| nametag) and asked him for help. He told me that he didn't know
| anything about "help," and to try somebody else with a strange name
| for more information.
|
| The fellow with the strange name didn't know anything about "help"
| either, but when I told him I just wanted to order he directed me to
| a girl named "oe," who handled order entry. (He also told me about
| several other employees I couldn't care less about, but at least I
| got the information I needed.)
|
| I went to "oe" and when I got to the front of the queue she just
| smiled at me. I smiled back. She just smiled some more. Eventually
| I realized that I shouldn't expect a prompt. I asked for a
| hamburger. She didn't respond, but since she didn't say "Eh?" I knew
| I'd done something right. We smiled at each other a little while
| longer, then I told her I was finished with my order. She directed
| me to the cashier, where I paid and received my order.
|
| The hamburger was fine, but it was completely bare... not even a bun.
| I went back to "oe" to complain, but she just said "Eh?" a lot. I
| went to the manager and asked him about "oe." The manager explained
| to me that "oe" had thousands of options, but if I wanted any of them
| I'd have to know in advance what they were and exactly how to ask for
| them.
|
| He also told me about "vi," who would write down my order and let me
| correct it before it was done, and how to hand the written order to
| "oe." "vi" had a nasty habbit of not writing down my corrections
| unless I told her that I was about to make a correction, but it was
| still easier than dealing directly with "oe."
|
| By this time I was really hungry, but I didn't have enough money to
| order again, so I figured out how to redirect somebody eles's order
| to my plate. Security was pretty lax at that place.
|
| As I was walking out the door, I was snagged by a giant Net. I
| screamed and woke up.
| Here's the unix nightmare.
|
| Brad
|
| P.S. My apologies to the VMS people out there, who should have
| upgraded a long time ago.
|
| .sig Seen outside a computer center in Washington DC several years ago:
|
| "This place guarded by a false sense of security"
|
| ==========================
|
| This has been hanging on the wall in the Comp Sci Lab here for some
| time, and I thought you all mught enjoy it. It claims to be from A.
| N. Onymous <Unk...@SU-Score.ARPA> by way of Calton Pu <CALTON@
| WASHINGTON.ARPA>, or possibly vice versa.
|
| **********************************************************************
| Last night I dreamed that the Real World had adopted the "Unix
| Philosophy."
|
| I went to a fast-food place for lunch. When I arrived, I found that
| the menu had been taken down, and all the employees were standing in
| a line behind the counter waiting for my orders. Each of them was
| smaller than I remembered, there were more of them than I'd ever seen
| before, and they had very strange names on theuir nametags.
|
| I tried to give my order to the first employee, but he just said
| something about a "syntax error." I tried another employee with no
| more luck. He just said "Eh?" no matter what I told him. I had
| similar experiences with several other employees. (One employee
| named "ed" didn't even say "Eh?," he just looked at me quizzically.)
| Disgusted, I sought out the manager (at least it said "man" on his
| nametag) and asked him for help. He told me that he didn't know
| anything about "help," and to try somebody else with a strange name
| for more information.
|
| The fellow with the strange name didn't know anything about "help"
| either, but when I told him I just wanted to order he directed me to
| a girl named "oe," who handled order entry. (He also told me about
| several other employees I couldn't care less about, but at least I
| got the information I needed.)
|
| I went to "oe" and when I got to the front of the queue she just
| smiled at me. I smiled back. She just smiled some more. Eventually
| I realized that I shouldn't expect a prompt. I asked for a
| hamburger. She didn't respond, but since she didn't say "Eh?" I knew
| I'd done something right. We smiled at each other a little while
| longer, then I told her I was finished with my order. She directed
| me to the cashier, where I paid and received my order.
|
| The hamburger was fine, but it was completely bare... not even a bun.
| I went back to "oe" to complain, but she just said "Eh?" a lot. I
| went to the manager and asked him about "oe." The manager explained
| to me that "oe" had thousands of options, but if I wanted any of them
| I'd have to know in advance what they were and exactly how to ask for
| them.
|
| He also told me about "vi," who would write down my order and let me
| correct it before it was done, and how to hand the written order to
| "oe." "vi" had a nasty habbit of not writing down my corrections
| unless I told her that I was about to make a correction, but it was
| still easier than dealing directly with "oe."
|
| By this time I was really hungry, but I didn't have enough money to
| order again, so I figured out how to redirect somebody eles's order
| to my plate. Security was pretty lax at that place.
|
| As I was walking out the door, I was snagged by a giant Net. I
| screamed and woke up.
This was authored by David Levine, a co-worker of mine, during his
first few weeks of "exposure" to UNIX. It keeps showing up in the
strangest places with the strangest authorship tags, but it definitely
is his. I dunno Dave's current login, but he's probably working for
some company here in the Silicon Rain Forest (or Snow Forest this
week...).
Just another UNIX hacker (and bad joke teller),
--
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III |
| mer...@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/
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