UNIX-WIZARDS Digest V5#066

[Stephen Samuel]

>From article <8806120245.aa01039 at SEM.BRL.ARPA>, by Unix-Wizards-Request at arpa.brl (Mike Muuss):

>> ... This is not an attempt to pick on Henry Spencer...
 
> Who, me, criticize Berkeley?  Nah. :-)
....
> useful changes; Berkeley's problem is an excess of enthusiasm for new
> and nifty ideas, without adequate consideration of whether they are
> *good* ideas.  This enthusiasm is no problem -- indeed, it's desirable --
> in a research lab that produces papers instead of software.  But when the
> end product is software that thousands of sites end up depending on, one
> could wish for a bit more restraint.
Yeah, but they WERE a research lab that produced papers. I have this funny 
feeling that, when they started out, they weren't expecting the number of
people that ended up using BSD to do so..
It's kinda like FORTRAN: You can't really blame them for the wonderful leap
that they made possible, but you can sure as shootin' scream bloody murder
about all the stumbles that came after the leap.
The only reason we're here, complaining abbout 4.X now, is that it was good
enough that it's progeny are proliferating about the whole UNIX world
(both the good and the bad, but the bad are SLOOOL...Y being stomped out).
 We can't throw out the baby with the bathwater, but I agree that we 
shouldn't keep the bathwater just because the baby's in it.
-- 
-------------
 Stephen Samuel 
  {ihnp4,ubc-vision,vax135}!alberta!edm!steve
  or userzxcv at uofamts.bitnet