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

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Thu, Jul 08, 2021 at 09:49:37PM -0700, Jon Steinhart wrote:
>  o  It's hard to imagine that the application of this technique is all that's
>     required for a 50-year life extension.  The title of this paper implies
>     that it's going to be comprehensive rather than just being a shameless
>     plus for an author's project.

Spelling nit: I believe you meant to say "shameless plug..." (s/plus/plug/)

> It appears that all of you are in academia.  I can't imagine that a paper
> like this would pass muster in front of any thesis committee, much less
> get that far.  Not only for content, but for lack of proofreading and
> editing.  The fact that the ACM would publish such a paper eliminates any
> regret that I may have had in dropping my ACM membership.

It looks like this was originally a position paper for the Workshop on
Hot Topics in Operating Systems (aka HotOS).  As a workshop paper, it
would have had a much lower standard of than say, if this was being
presented at say, SOSP or ASPLOS.  Workshop papers are supposed to be
provocative and suggest "new directions".  Sometimes new directions
turn out to just be dead ends, and while some things presented at
workshops will grow up to be a full paper at a highly respected
conference, other ideas get presented at a workshop and are never
heard from again.  :-)

I'd have to think to come up with examples, but I'm pretty sure I've
seen sillier ideas as workshops papers.  More impractical ideas, for
certain.

I have observed that the things that will get funding for academic
research, and things which are considered interesting from a industry
or practitioner's perspective, tends to diverge in any field, and the
divergence increases over time.

It might or might not be the case that "the shell is a promising area
of research".  Even if it is true, there are plenty of things which
generate research papers, and serve to help education graduate
students, but which ultimately end up being completely useless from
the industry practitioners perspective.  I may be overly cynical, but
there are plenty of papers at many a conference, even highly respected
ones by tenture-track committees, which inspires nothing but a yawn
from me, and personally, that doesn't bother me; what consenting
adults do within the confines of academia is their business.

Again, I've seen worse in terms of "my tax dollars at play".

If we're lucky, even if the actual object of the research is useless,
sometimes it can sparc some insight that makes my time spent at such a
conference not a complete waste --- and even if it isn't at least
it's fertile recruiting ground for new college grads for $WORK. :-)

      	   	   	      	     	     - Ted