Hacker Conceit and Unix

[utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!mhtsa!ihnss!ihuxl!jej]

Subject: Fallacious Argument Forms

Concerning the following message:

	Date:      20 Aug 81 22:53:18-EDT (Thu)
	From:      Stephen Wolff <steve at bmd70>
	To:        bruce at Bmd70, howard at Bmd70, mike at Bmd70
	Subject:   The Truth about UNIX
	
	At a "retirement community" not too long ago, I saw tacked to the door
	of one the apartments a neatly lettered sign that read:
			"Old age is not for sissies"
	
	Neither is UNIX.
							-steve

This is totally irrelevant to the criticisms of the Unix user interface
in the datamat!rumor file. Putdowns of those who find the Unix (user interface
inclusive or documentation) cryptic and confusing, while perhaps satisfying
to the source, do not answer anything. I assume that the author of this
message has never inadvertantly destroyed a file system and has always been
able to figure out how to make Unix do what he wants.

The implication of this message, as well as a response I got to complaints
about lax, vague, and flippant documentation of programs that come with Unix,
is that Unix is REALLY for the "true hackers", and anyone else, such as those
who think that one should be able to use a program without reading the source
code, or who think that programs released to the outside world should consider
human factors of someone other than their author, may use Unix by their conde-
scension. If that is the prevalent attitude, then Unix will come to a
well-deserved oblivion at the hands of an operating system which will pay
attention to documentation and human factors while keeping those features
of Unix which make it useful to homo faber (which is distinct from homo
C-programmaticus (apologies to speakers of Latin), one should keep in mind).

				James Jones (ihuxl!jej)