[TUHS] [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view

[Larry McVoy]

As I started reading it I found plenty to disagree with in the first few
paragraphs but they completely lost me at "After all, moving from System
V init scripts to systemd has arguably improvedthe Linux boot sequence."

Um, no, just, no.


On Fri, Jul 02, 2021 at 03:24:20PM -0600, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:
> In this week's BSDNow.tv podcast, available at
> 
>         https://www.bsdnow.tv/409
> 
> there is a story about a new conference paper on the Unix shell.  The
> paper is available at
> 
> 	Unix shell programming: the next 50 years
> 	HotOS '21: Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems, Ann
> 	Arbor, Michigan, 1 June, 2021--3 June, 2021
> 	https://doi.org/10.1145/3458336.3465294
> 
> The tone is overall negative, though they do say nice things about
> Doug McIlroy and Steve Johnson, and they offer ideas about
> improvements.
> 
> List readers will have their own views of the paper.  My own is that,
> despite its dark corners, the Bourne shell has served us
> extraordinarily well, and I have been writing in it daily for decades
> without being particularly bothered by the many issues raised by the
> paper's authors.  Having dealt with so-called command shells on
> numerous other operating systems, at least the Unix shells rarely get
> in my way.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
> - University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
> - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
> - 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
> - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
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Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm