[TUHS] The most surprising Unix programs

Dave Horsfall dave at horsfall.org
Sat Mar 14 10:40:45 AEST 2020


On Fri, 13 Mar 2020, Doug McIlroy wrote:

[ List elided ]

For me coming from RSX-11D and RSTS/E it would have to be the shell; I 
never realised that the command interpreter could be divorced from the OS, 
along with the concept of building new tools with pipes.

Don't like how the shell works?  Then just write your own, as there was 
nothing special about it...

> Originators of nearly half the list--pascal, struct, parts, eqn--were 
> women, well beyond women's demographic share of computer science.

I never realised that; it is indeed worth remembering.

-- Dave


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