What makes Linux so wonderful? That it is yet different from all the others?
Just about all the UNIX GUIs are X-Windows or Motif , and that is not the problem with the standardization. I have ported code from UNIX to NT on two separate occasions, and both times it was a nightmare. The nightmare wasn’t going from UNIX to NT, rather it was all the different flavors of UNIX that had to be accommodated. Seems that under the hood, each has their own version of the kernel and what it should look like and software written for different UNIXes would be “#ifdef” up the yang to make up for these differences often resulting in code which would exhibit different behavior depending. Couple that with the fact that no two ‘c’ compilers are created equal. Additionally what aggravates the whole mess is that some of the worst c code I have ever seen in my entire life was written for UNIX. Those people have really built in their own job security. I swear, management hires bunched of college students who don’t know the first thing about pointers and/or the English language, sets them down in a cubicle, and say “Here make this work in this amount of time.”
Duh!
I’m not complaining by a long shot, because that is part of what makes me a “C++ Firefighter.” This is the type of thing that feeds lowly me with work. For it is lowly me and similar types who have learned to endure the sheer tortures of never-ending software frustration to make a few pennies to pay the rent.
Then along comes someone who wants to get this load of spaghetti-like ill-performing code to work on NT. Good luck. It often takes far less time to do the whole thing from scratch then it is to turn Lead into Gold. And when you argue with management and tell them the code is no good it needs to be rewritten, they don’t understand that and they let you go. Only six months later the entire project fails and the company looses millions because they didn’t listen to sound advice.
So the problem is not with UNIX, rather it is the multiple versions with code written by multiple versions of programmers, often not knowing what they are doing, helping to create a quagmire out of the whole thing. UNIX people used to say “Those who don’t know UNIX can’t c.” To that I add “And many who think they do can’t”
And along comes Bill Gates. I don’t care who hates him. He is a marvelous man who built the slickest empire ever by beheading all sorts of dark and dirty UNIX dragons. And through it all has emerges the sweetest suite of software tools and operating systems that man has ever known.
As the empire was expanding along comes c++ at the right time. For when all this UNIX code finally works using the Visual C++ compiler it is then real code like gleaming marble of the walls of a newly build fortress. Yes siree, yes indeedee, that’s how Billy did it. He slayed the wounded dragon then ate its meat and drank it’s blood. He feasted upon the ineptitude of the multitude.
So that is my vision of UNIX internals and of what made MS come to pass.
Your first challenge, Chuck, should you accept this Linux invitation is to learn everything about GREP and learn it until you are chanting endless streams of unpronounceable GREP command diction in your sleep. Only then will you know the true joys of UNIX.
Have fun on this first day of DST.
------------------
Allen Moulton from
Uechi-ryu Etcetera
