UNIX Futures

[keith]

> The fact is, *both* job control and shell layers are brain-damaged.  Both
> do the easy part of multiplexing -- centralized input administration --
> without the hard part -- centralized output administration.  Programs should
> not have to redraw the screen themselves, when they have done nothing to
> mess it up!  Job control and shell layers are both cheap plastic imitations
> of real window systems.

You've touched the root of the problem: the model for running multiple jobs.

When I was demo-ing the HP Integral PC last year (its kernel is modified
to support windowing), the first question some people would ask is "Does it 
have Berkeley job control?" My response was "You don't need it!" I had to 
show them the value of running several programs, each in it's own window.
They had adopted a bad model for running multiple jobs.

(Maybe this is the effect Dijkstra was talking about in his comment
about Basic programmers being permanently brain damaged.)


			   Keith M. Taylor
			   Portable Computer Division
			   Corvallis, Oregon
			   hp-pcd!keith


[ps. I've programmed in Basic; you may want to disregard this response!]