[TUHS] Proper use of TUHS (was Re: Typesetter C compiler)

[Dan Cross]

On Fri, Feb 3, 2023 at 9:16 AM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 03, 2023 at 09:11:35AM -0500, Chet Ramey wrote:
> > On 2/2/23 8:44 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> > >>So, the question becomes: what _is_ that forum, if such a thing exists
> > >>at all?
> > >
> > >A new list?  Social media is for the birds; Usenet is dead, film at 11.
> >
> > A new list, if it serves its purpose of providing interesting content, will
> > eventually undergo the same thing. It's always going end up being some
> > variant of Yogi Berra's famous "nobody goes there anymore, it's too
> > crowded."
>
> In my opinion, Warren has been threading the needle nicely.  He lets stuff
> go into the weeds a bit but has a pretty good sense of when it is annoying
> people that we all want to keep around.  He's very understated about it
> all but he keeps this list pretty sane.
>
> If you haven't joined COFF, maybe consider it, if that got big enough
> then the other stuff could be done over there.

Some folks have given good suggestions, which I appreciate, but
perhaps it would help to explain exactly what I'm looking for.

I think that new system designs remain important, but without a
historical perspective, they run the risk of repeating old mistakes,
ignoring prior art, etc. Something I appreciate about TUHS is how one
has access to so many of the key players in Unix as well as other
systems: the perspective those people bring to the discussion is
illuminating.

But TUHS is clearly meant to be a Unix history list, not a "list about
new systems where we can ask about history because that helps us build
those new systems". In that sense, I'm not looking for COFF or a retro
or classic computer list, either, but for something explicitly modern
yet informed by history.

I don't believe such a thing actually exists.

        - Dan C.