[TUHS] On Graduation from (VI) to (I)

[Douglas McIlroy via TUHS]

With hindsight, I see the Section 1/Section 6 dichotomy as being
generally aligned with the idea of software tools vs other programs, a
term that was not yet in the air at the time of v1. I do not recall
any particular stigma or honor attached to the distinction.

A couple of notable exceptions are sort and crypt.

I suspect Ken put the original sort in Section 6 because he deemed it
unfinished. The man page said "wide options are available". When I
asked Ken what they were, he told me one can add them to the source.
This may well correspond to Matt's model of juvenile programs in 6
growing to adulthood in 1. Yacc is another such example.

A move in the opposite direction was Fred Grampp's demotion of crypt
to the status of toy after it was shown to be easily broken. In fact,
Bob Morris had created it as a cryptographic challenge: could people
break a basic rotor machine? (Crypt had 1 rotor; Enigma had 4.)

Another Section 6 program that may fit the designation of  "juvenile"
is the disassembler das, present only in v1 and v2. I have no
recollection of the program, and know of its existence only because
it's on the list of all man pages; I

My text-to-speech program, speak, began in 1, then moved to 6, and
eventually disappeared from distributions because it depended on
hardware that few Unix installations had. We used it mostly for fun,
hence 6, but it might be called a software tool, because it could be
used to add speech capability to any program. And it was central to
the work of blind programmers elsewhere who obtained it.

The change in designation of section 6 from "user maintained" to
"games" smoked some compilers or interpreters for little-used
languages (APL, Basic, TMG) out of Section 6, where I believe they had
been placed because there was no felt need to keep them alive as the
system evolved.

Factor, which certainly is not a software tool, reveals that the
distinction between 1 and 6 was rather capricious. It began in 1,
sojourned in 6, and came back to 1. I am not aware of any change in
perception of its purpose or importance over time.

cal, a program that I use practically daily, spent much of its life in
Section 6. There's no way it can be regarded as a software tool, nor
juvenile, nor "user-maintained".. It finally found a home in the
rechristened Section 7, "Databases and language conventions", which
was broadly construed to include information sources.The related
category of astronomy programs got similar treatment.

Many programs moved from 1 to 6 and back again, especially in v5 and
v6. This cohort included several graphics programs, none of which
became standard.

Speaking as the author of speak and of the options in sort, as well as
the editor of v7, I think that at the time of v1 I understood the
distinction as Matt suggests, but later saw it as a measure of how
closely the programs aligned with the central mission of fostering the
creation of software and the general utility of computers.

Doug

On Thu, Oct 30, 2025 at 9:23 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>
> Present from the beginning, Section VI of the UNIX Programmer's
> Manual was the gathering place for all those little programs
> folks involved in the system had authored for fun and frolic
> rather than work and business, mostly.  In-progress works and
> experimental features also often found themselves relegated to
> this section.  If a feature was lucky (and not too "fun"), it
> earned the distinction of graduating then to the big leagues in
> Section I.
>
> Something I'm curious about is what sorts of decisions were
> involved in what section between the two to slot any given
> program at any given time.  Of course the arbiters of the
> original manuals would've been folks at Bell/AT&T, but we also
> see this convention retained in other vendor's offerings, with
> them also relegating certain additions and components to this oft
> overlooked section.
>
> For me I'm also curious if there was a sense of pride, or on the
> flip side, a sense of selling out when/if one's program ascended
> the marble steps from section VI to section I.  On one hand, I
> would feel proud that my work was appreciated enough to make it.
> On the other hand, I am a very diy person and would feel
> similarly proud of how much volume I could shove into section VI
> without concerning myself with the haughty expectations of those
> snooty section I programs.
>
> Anyone have any fun stories related to this dichotomy in the
> manual?  Have your feelings ever been hurt because what you
> thought was section I work was banished to section VI?  Was it
> less of a big deal than my dramatic delivery would suggest?
>
> - Matt G.