[TUHS] FD 2

[Dan Cross]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 11:18 AM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 11:09:03AM -0500, Dan Cross wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 10:45 AM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 10:35:25AM -0500, Dan Cross wrote:
> > > > Plan 9 was different, and a lot of people who were familiar with Unix
> > > > didn't like that, and were not interested in trying out a different
> > > > way if it meant that they couldn't bring their existing mental models
> > > > and workflows into the new environment unchanged.
> > > >
> > > > At one point it struck me that Plan 9 didn't succeed as a widespread
> > > > replacement for Unix/Linux because it was bad or incapable, but
> > > > rather, because people wanted Linux, and not plan9.
> > >
> > > Many people make that mistake.  New stuff instead of extend old stuff.
> >
> > Some would argue that's not a mistake. How else do we innovate if
> > we're just incrementally polishing what's come before?
>
> I didn't say limit yourself to polishing, I said try and not invalidate
> people's knowledge while innovating.
>
> Too many people go down the path of doing things very differently and
> they rationalize that they have to do it that way to innovate.  That's
> fine but it means it is going to be harder to get people to try your
> new stuff.
>
> The point I'm trying to make is that "different" is a higher barrier,
> much, much higher, than "extend".  People frequently ignore that and
> that means other people ignore their work.
>
> It is what it is, I doubt I'll convice anyone so I'll drop it.

Oh, I don't know. I think it's actually kind of important to see _why_
people didn't want to look deeper into plan9 (for example). The system
had a lot to offer, but you had to dig a bit to get into it; a lot of
folks never got that far. If it was really lack of job control, then
that's a shame.

        - Dan C.