Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site enea.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!mcvax!enea!sommar From: sommar@enea.UUCP (Erland Sommarskog) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Unix from a snob's point of view! Message-ID: <951@enea.UUCP> Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 17:07:55 EDT Article-I.D.: enea.951 Posted: Wed Oct 23 17:07:55 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 04:19:45 EDT References: <298@weitek.UUCP> Reply-To: sommar@enea.UUCP (Erland Sommarskog) Distribution: net Organization: Enea Data, Sweden Lines: 56 Keywords: valid and invalid criticisms In article <298@weitek.UUCP> mmm@weitek.UUCP (Mark Thorson) writes: >It's become soooo fashionable to put down Unix. So why don't you ever hear >valid criticisms of Unix? You always hear chicken---- like: > >1. It has cryptic command names. (So what? They work! Alias them if > you'd rather say 'search' to call 'grep'! What do you want, a menu-driven > shell? It would be easy to give you one if that'll put this stupid > criticism to rest!) So you want me to find out what "grep", "awk" and the rest stands for, to see if if it's something useful and then rename it, filling my .login with kilobytes of alias. One basic problem with the cryptic names, is that you just grow tired and give a damn in the whole thing. Another point is the one-letter options Unix provides. I would say it's a quite inhuman task trying to remember but quite a few. What do you want me to do? Try to find out which I will be likely to use and increase the list aliases? Or should check "man" every time? Which takes an eternity because I have to scan the text until I find the options. (Compare VMS: You do HELP command, and there you have all qualifiers.) I could say more, but I'll summarize: You can call it chicken talk or whatever, but I insist on these points are so serious, that I refuse do anything on a Unix machine than writing News. >2. It has bad documentation. (Have you tried to read it? It is oriented > to working programmers so it does tend to be terse and easy to scan. > But if you need some one to hold your hand, there is an abundance of > books at your local technical bookstore. The books range from ultra- > beginner to advanced topics, specialized to generalized, verbose "user > friendly" to dry reference tomes. What do you want? Unix has been > described from every conceivable angle.) > Why should I have run around book stores to get good documentaion. I think it should come with the system. I think you should show some solidarity with us "chickens" who don't the same skill as you. > >I'm not love-blind to the weaknesses of Unix. There ARE valid criticisms of >Unix, but you won't hear them from these pseudo-intellectual snobs. > >3. Unix security is eggshell-thin. In practice, Unix is usually run about > as securely as other OSes. But it is intrinsically easy to break. This > is one problem that Unix can't run away from. As Unix matures the other > problems will become less important, but this one will become more. > >Mark Thorson (...!cae780!weitek!mmm) Yes, this an very severe problem. (Not only for Unix, but most other OS's are at least a little safer. Erland Sommarskog ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The company I work for is deeply involved in the Unix business. As you might guess, these views are perfectly my own.