Re: Why C for the Open Source Movement?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On 8 May 2006 02:13:22 -0700, 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 :)
> 
> But history showed that "worse is better", unfortunately for purists.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

I don't think that it was simplicity. UNIX never was simple, rather it was
simply bad. (:-))

P.S. It is illogical to express badness in a positive way, like
"simplicity", for example. If simplicity is the goal, then it is good, and
thus bad cannot be simple! In fact, to be really bad (as UNIX, or Windows
is) is much harder than to be any good. So many things can be considered
positive... It is very difficult to ensure that most combinations of them
were indeed wrong... (:-))

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de