Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 21:42:50 -0600 (CST) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com> Cc: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, "Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: OT: non-Unix history (Was: FreeBSD vs linux) Message-ID: <14968.56122.941575.354322@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <3A78D708.5F5873C8@nisser.com> References: <14957.31196.939559.889627@guru.mired.org> <3A6F43F7.E43C6CA0@nisser.com> <14959.23870.728403.859934@guru.mired.org> <3A78BA39.8A14F8F@nisser.com> <14968.49854.189652.128754@guru.mired.org> <3A78D708.5F5873C8@nisser.com>
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Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com> types: > Mike Meyer wrote: > > I've moved this to -chat, as it's off topic for -questions. > Fine, but I unsubscribed chat some time ago. So? > > ... > > I would suggest you read the full thing before commenting on it. Both > > approaches described in Gabriel paper are KISS approaches. I don't > > know of any names to describe them, other than the ones used there. At > > least one of those - Do The Right Thing - is in common use, but I'm > > not sure if that's where it originated. > Proper suggestion, but who has the time to read 'all'? Anyway, I've > been told KISS originated (at least) as a term used by the US infantry > - genie troops - during WW2. Well, if you want to discuss the paper, it behooves you to read it. > > Exactly - what are you looking at? Remeber, an OS - or a programming > > language - may be a product, but it's not a solution. It's a tool for > That, too, is a boundary question. If the goal is world peace and no > more hunger all the rest are mere products... Ah, so you're moving from solutions to goals, huh? In that case, it's all irrelevant. > > I'm not sure what you think they meant by CL, but they actually meant > > Common Lisp. Both CL and Scheme came from the LISP community, and had > > a LISP-like syntax on an Algol-like structure. > Not quite. At least, as far as I know. My first introduction(s) to > CS was by a book about designing TTL (and core :) computers as well > as one by a Dutch professor about teaching Algol '68. For Scheme, I was quoting the R[n]RS, which describe Scheme as an Algol-like language. > Now Algol was about block structures, something traditional. So was Scheme. > John > McCarthy's LISP OTOH was about Lambda calculus. Though not Typed > Lambda Calculus whereas Algol was in fact typed. In as far as typing > went in those days. Mind you, polymorphism and overloading were > concepts introduced in the early '60s. Yup, shortly after objects. > CL is LISP extended and standardized as far as can be. Not KISS. > Scheme, in contrast, just took one aspect of LISP - can't remember > which, most likely closures - and extended just that. That is KISS. I wouldn't call it extended. They left out some of the more interesting features of INTERLISP, for one. They also said explicitly that everything was statically scoped, whereas the previous major LISPs had been statically scoped when compiled, but dynamically scoped when interpreted. In that sense, CL is simpler than it's predecessors. Scheme, on the other hand, tended to add power by removing restrictions instead of adding features. At least until they tried to add macros. > > Well, of course worse is better says that KISS will win the battle - > > both methodologies are KISS methodologies. > Yeah, well, when Windows gets mentioned... I thought Windows was winning the marketing battle because it provided the simplest solutions for the user? Ain't that just KISS again? > > They only say the same thing if you never use tools you didn't create > > yourself. > Well, maybe. But some of the things you ascribe to Windows could also > be ascribed to, say, MVS. I tend to look at some of those 'success > stories' as signs of the times. More a matter of fashion and timing > than anything else. Not to mention location. Just imagine Bill Gates > having been born in Beijing! He would've been (materially) successful, > no doubt! But... If you ask the DOJ, they're the result of monopolistic marketing tactics. So what? > > In '93, there were more VMS systems around than any single Unix > > platform. Sure, there may have been more Unix systems, but you > > couldn't write a "Unix version" of a competitive product and sell > > that, you had to have a SunOS version, and a Solaris version, and an > > HP version, and an Ultrix version, and an OSF version, and a MIPS > > version, and .... > Hm. In that same '93 we also had the heralded - by Bill Gates, no > less! - OS/2 besides DOS and Windows 3.x. So you were saying? That, contrary to your claim, Unix didn't rule. You might be able to claim that the Unices ruled. > > These days, VMS seems to have been replaced by NT, whereas a few of > > the Unix versions are gone, and have been replaced by various Linux > > distributions and of course the BSDs. > As have DOS, OS/2, Win-16x, Win CE, Win... Let's face it, porting > "Windows" apps is breaking glass, mostly. I wouldn't know - I don't do windows. I'd rather sell cars for a living. > I'm just pointing out, at least in this message, that there's a > whole world of differences between a technical point of view and > a marketing point of view. Well, why didn't you say so? That's an obvious point. Both papers were reflecting on how marketing affected technical competitions. > We can debate the impact of Algol not having had the equivalent of > LISP's EVAL() statement to our hearts content, yet would that > statement - or even the design principles underlying the choice > of whether or not to include that statement - account for the > advent of C or Pascal. Neither of which have an EVAL() statement, > b.t.w. BASIC could've had! Heck, even COBOL. I'd actually rather not. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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