From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,b5d24fafdd53e815 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "Ludovic Brenta" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Why C for the Open Source Movement? Date: 6 Jun 2006 08:35:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1149608115.891178.212520@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> References: <1146943727.180033.286070@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1147079601.989647.132200@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1149603855.960131.195200@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.123.3.11 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1149608121 8276 127.0.0.1 (6 Jun 2006 15:35:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 15:35:21 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <1149603855.960131.195200@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; fr-FR; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040116,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) X-HTTP-Via: 1.1 KUUPXS02 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=212.123.3.11; posting-account=ZjNXewwAAADyBPkwI57_UcX8yKfXWOss Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:4698 Date: 2006-06-06T08:35:15-07:00 List-Id: thvv writes : > Ludovic Brenta wrote: >> zeta_no writes : >>> Isn't the Unix tradition based on well crafted design mecanisms? >> >> No, it's not. It started as a hack made by a few long-haired, rebel >> programmers in their spare time, bazaar-style. In contrast, MULTICS was >> intended to be a beautiful cathedral of software, and I think it was >> written in PL/I not C. MULTICS is still not complete, and I think it'll >> take as long to complete as it took actual cathedrals :) > > Dick Gabriel is welcome to his opinion, Who is Dick Gabriel? > but as someone who worked on Multics with the creators of UNIX in > the 60s I have to say that I don't see it that way. Multics was not > rigorously planned first and then executed; our design and > implementation evolved over 20 years. We did have this pattern of > writing something and discussing it before coding, and often the > discussion led to an improved design. Multicians felt that we were > rebels, back in the 60s, fighting against batch processing, writing > systems in assembler, and using human waves of programmers. We > advocated flexibility, virtual memory, interactiveness, and powerful > tools. Ken and Dennis did not have the longest hair or wildest > beards on the Multics development team. :-) Thanks a lot for correcting me. I am honoured that you gave us this first-hand information. Multics is quite a legend to me, a bit like dragons; now I feel like I've just met an actual dragon slayer :) Still, would you agree that Multics used The Right Thing approach, as opposed to Unix which uses Worse Is Better? -- Ludovic Brenta.