BSD tty security, part 4: What You Can Look Forward To

[der Mouse]

In article <1991May17.142928.28492 at sceard.Sceard.COM>, mrm at sceard.Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) writes:
> I also wonder from time to time how much of the security software,
> no, amend that to system software in general comes from people who,
> even if they RTFM, don't UTFM and certainly don't understand the
> philosophy behind  TFM. You'd hope, if they did, that the solutions
> would be a whole lot simpler.  Or wouldn't be needed in the first
> place.

That's why the really good, elegant, clean systems (and I don't mean
just UNIX) always spring from a very few minds.  One, two, perhaps
three, probably not more.  The actual implementation may be the work of
many, but the design must be the work of only a few, preferably only
one.  (It helps if the implementation is, too, but systems are getting
a bit big for that nowadays.)

Fred Brooks talks about this a bit (in The Mythical Man-Month, which I
think everyone interested in any aspect of systems design should read).

					der Mouse

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