1 May
2017
1 May
'17
5:25 p.m.
OK, I recall a note dmr wrote probably in the late 70s/early 80s when folks
at UCB had (iirc) extended the symbol name size in C programs to
essentially unlimited. This followed on (iirc) file names going beyond 14
characters.
The rough outline was that dmr was calling out the revisions for being too
general, and the phrase "BSD sins" sticks in my head (sins as a verb).
I'm reminded of this by something that happened with some interns recently,
as they wanted to make something immensely complex to cover a case that
basically never happened. I was trying to point out that you can go
overboard on that sort of thing, and it would have been nice to have such a
quote handy -- anyone else remember it?
ron
1 May
1 May
6:09 p.m.
On 2017-05-01 1:25 PM, ron minnich wrote:
OK, I recall a note dmr wrote probably in the late
70s/early 80s when
folks at UCB had (iirc) extended the symbol name size in C programs to
essentially unlimited. This followed on (iirc) file names going beyond
14 characters.
The rough outline was that dmr was calling out the revisions for being
too general, and the phrase "BSD sins" sticks in my head (sins as a verb).
I'm reminded of this by something that happened with some interns
recently, as they wanted to make something immensely complex to cover a
case that basically never happened. I was trying to point out that you
can go overboard on that sort of thing, and it would have been nice to
have such a quote handy -- anyone else remember it?
Not what you're looking for, but in recent times we'd just say YAGNI -
You Ain't Gonna Need It.
--T
ron
2 May
2 May
4:11 p.m.
I recall a paper Dennis wrote (maybe more like a note) that was titled
echo -c considered harmful
(I think it was -c). It decried the tendency, now completely out
of control, for everybody and their dog to piddle on perfectly good
code just because it's "open".
Let's face it, programming languages today are more like shells --
they rise or fall on the quality of their libraries, and the
expression of algorithms (or even simplicity or efficiency) are
secondary. And operating systems seem to exist mainly to host window
systems that vie for how deeply and obscurely they can hide vital
options, and pride themselves that striking any key at any time, no
matter how inadvertent, will cause some unexpected and unwanted
action.
I'm reminded of a friend of mine who took a math course, and said that
the professor "proved theorems by induction on the number of lemmas".
And yes, I'm sounding like a grumpy old fart this morning...
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "Toby Thain" <toby(a)telegraphics.com.au>
To:<tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Cc:
Sent:Mon, 1 May 2017 14:09:07 -0400
Subject:Re: [TUHS] dmr note on BSD's sins
On 2017-05-01 1:25 PM, ron minnich wrote:
OK, I recall a note dmr wrote probably in the late
70s/early 80s
when
folks at UCB had (iirc) extended the symbol name size
in C programs
to
essentially unlimited. This followed on (iirc) file
names going
beyond
14 characters.
The rough outline was that dmr was calling out the revisions for
being
too general, and the phrase "BSD sins"
sticks in my head (sins as a
verb).
I'm reminded of this by something that happened with some interns
recently, as they wanted to make something immensely complex to
cover a
case that basically never happened. I was trying to
point out that
you
can go overboard on that sort of thing, and it would
have been nice
to
have such a quote handy -- anyone else remember it?
Not what you're looking for, but in recent times we'd just say YAGNI
-
You Ain't Gonna Need It.
--T
ron
4:39 p.m.
There is also Rob Pike's USENIX paper "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered
Harmful"
http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/
which definitely called out UCB CSRG "sins" in the view of Pike & Kernighan.
Perhaps this is what you're thinking of?
Erik Fair
4:43 p.m.
well, my memory is dmr. But it was a long time ago ...
On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 9:39 AM Erik E. Fair <fair-tuhs(a)netbsd.org> wrote:
There is also Rob Pike's USENIX paper "UNIX
Style, or cat -v Considered
Harmful"
http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/
which definitely called out UCB CSRG "sins" in the view of Pike &
Kernighan. Perhaps this is what you're thinking of?
Erik Fair
8:28 p.m.
On 02/05/2017 19:11, Steve Johnson wrote:
I recall a paper Dennis wrote (maybe more like a note)
that was titled
echo -c considered harmful
(I think it was -c). It decried the tendency, now completely out of
control, for everybody and their dog to piddle on perfectly good code
just because it's "open".
There's definitely Rob Pike's talk "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered
Harmful", which he delivered at the 1983 Usenix Association Conference
and Software Tools USers Group Summer Conference. Unfortunately, I
can't find it online. It's interesting that the talk's date is now
closer to the birth of Unix than to the present.
Diomidis
8:34 p.m.
Thanks for the correction -- that is indeed the paper I was thinking
of...
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "Diomidis Spinellis" <dds(a)aueb.gr>
To:"Steve Johnson" <scj(a)yaccman.com>om>, "Toby Thain"
<toby(a)telegraphics.com.au>au>, <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
Cc:
Sent:Tue, 2 May 2017 23:28:25 +0300
Subject:Re: [TUHS] dmr note on BSD's sins
On 02/05/2017 19:11, Steve Johnson wrote:
I recall a paper Dennis wrote (maybe more like a note)
that was
titled
echo -c considered harmful
(I think it was -c). It decried the tendency, now completely out of
control, for everybody and their dog to piddle on perfectly good
code
just because it's "open".
There's definitely Rob Pike's talk "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered
Harmful", which he delivered at the 1983 Usenix Association
Conference
and Software Tools USers Group Summer Conference. Unfortunately, I
can't find it online. It's interesting that the talk's date is now
closer to the birth of Unix than to the present.
Diomidis
9:22 p.m.
On Tuesday, May 2, 2017, Diomidis Spinellis <dds(a)aueb.gr> wrote:
On 02/05/2017 19:11, Steve Johnson wrote:
This talk is today as legendary as Plato's "On the Good"
lecture[1].
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4182081
--Andy
I recall a paper Dennis wrote (maybe more like a
note) that was titled
echo -c considered harmful
(I think it was -c). It decried the tendency, now completely out of
control, for everybody and their dog to piddle on perfectly good code
just because it's "open".
There's definitely Rob Pike's talk "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered
Harmful", which he delivered at the 1983 Usenix Association Conference and
Software Tools USers Group Summer Conference. Unfortunately, I can't find
it online. It's interesting that the talk's date is now closer to the
birth of Unix than to the present.
2544
days inactive
2545
days old
7 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Andy Kosela -
Diomidis Spinellis -
Erik E. Fair -
ron minnich -
Steve Johnson -
Toby Thain