Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 08:48:06 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: A first encounter with 'vi' Message-ID: <199806171548.IAA05033@pau-amma.whistle.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 18:15:22 -0700 >From: Tim Gerchmez <fewtch@serv.net> >>Unix is user friendly. It's just not beginner friendly. Quite. It was, after all, (originally) written by its (original) users. >Unix isn't a cult or a fraternity with rites of passage, is it? I could >have sworn it was an operating system. Well, it is a (family of) operating system(s)... but there's more to it than that: in particular, it was designed and subsequently evolved from efforts by people with particular approaches to doing things. This is one of the reasons that -- historically -- UNIX-oriented tools have tended to be fairly special-purpose and (comparatively) small, vs. monolithic creatures that sing, dance, chew bubble-gum, walk a tightrope, while polishing your shoes and whistling a Bach sonata. For further information on the kinds of approaches, as well as people and events, involved in this, I recommend the following books: Kernighan & Pike, _The UNIX Programming Environment_ (Prentice Hall). A bit dated by now, and has an AT&T perspective on a few things (which ought not be a surprise), but a true classic. Has an interesting self-reference, which I leave the interested reader to find. Salus. _A Quarter Century of Unix_ (Addison Wesley). More about people & events (vs. approaches to solving problems). Peter Salus is somewhat of a raconteur... and tells stories well. david (who has, in fact, used Teletype model 33 KSRs -- some with paper tape) -- David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199806171548.IAA05033>