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

[Tomasz Rola]

On Mon, Jul 05, 2021 at 12:26:04PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 3:15 AM Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> 
[...]
> By the way, did anyone else start out on Unix-alikes before using actual
> Unix?  I read the BSTJ issue and became an instant convert, but only when
> $EMPLOYER got a MicroVAX was I able to work like that.  Next came the MKS
> Toolkit on DOS, and then Cygwin for many years.  I suppose it's only my
> last two $EMPLOYERs standardizing on the Mac that has left me running,
> like, actual Unix.

Not quite a Unix-lookalike, but AmigaDOS was a mix of ideas - named
volumes (a bit) like in CP/M, multitasking (a bit) like in Unix (but
on my model, I only had M68K and no memory protection), command line
tools allowing for batch programming more sophisticated than what
MSDOS had on table (well, I really never got to the point of abusing
this). Also, Aztec C came with a suite of programs resembling what I
could later find on Unix: cc, ld, make, ar and few others I forgot. At
one point my workflow on Amiga looked similar to my workflow on
Solaris and I could help myself with some Amiga programs after reading
matching man pages on big box.

Better Amigas also had memory protection and newer Workbench
(graphical interface and stuff in ROM) and allowed for AREXX (yes,
clone of mainframe REXX, never learned it) and with AREXX one could
manipulate applications which sported so called REXX-port (if memory
serves) and do things very much resembling what one could today do
with COM/DCOM objects on Windows. I.e. your AREXX script could perform
batch process with painting program, with word processor, perhaps with
desktop publishing and so on.

[...]
> True.  But then, many of us geeks make our choices not on technical
> criteria but on tribal loyalty.  Which is *technically* superior, vi or
> emacs?  (Please don't answer that.)

Mu!

[

 Mu (negative) / The Mu-kōan :

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)#The_Mu-k%C5%8Dan

]


> > Of course I could not be using specialised note
> > taking program. Instead, I went with Emacs and org-mode. In the
> > process I had to learn a bit of Elisp and dot-emacs file. Some
> > defaults in Emacs are not comfy for my eyes - fonts, colors, it had to
> > be fine tuned to my liking.
> >
> 
> Note that Emacs is probably the oldest import into the Unix ecosystem from
> outside, and it bears the marks of its origin: monolithic (but
> programmable), one tool does it all.

Well, when "everything" was small enough I really liked it. Nowadays
there seems to be a trend of making Emacs into another OS, like with
abomination we call the browser.

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsApplicationFramework

As long as I am able to trim it during compilation, they may put
whatever they want inside, but when I tried to unpack one of the
latest browser source code, it took more than 2.5 gigabytes (I am not
sure, it could have been a nightmare). I hope they will not apply this
crazyness to Emacs. I hope Emacs version 23 will keep compiling for a
while. 

[...]
> Without doubt.  I am not loyal to a kernel or a set of utilities, I simply
> follow the Way of Unix: <http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan/upc/> (sadly
> incomplete)

Oh. I think you just need to bath in Tao, sink deep and breathe it
in. After that, words will form themselves out of the void and fall
right into the void opened with editor, all without any effort on your
side. 

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **