[ale] please bow your head for a moment of silence...

Jerald Sheets questy at gmail.com
Fri Sep 8 07:28:45 EDT 2017


I avoid all the BS and just hate it for its design, layout, and intrusion into all sorts of things it shouldn’t be fiddling around in, breaking a myriad of tenets of the “UNIX way”.

The “UNIX Way” is to have a tool that does one thing, does it very well, has clearly defined input and output and doesn’t try to handle multiple responsibility domains.

	"This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.” — Doug McIlroy, the inventor of UNIX pipes


This is why grep doesn’t awk and vice-versa.  In case we’ve forgotten:

The Rule of Modularity:
	Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces.
Rule of Clarity:
	Clarity is better than cleverness.
Rule of Composition:
	Design programs to be connected with other programs.
Rule of Separation:
	Separate policy from mechanism; separate interfaces from engines.
Rule of Simplicity:
	Design for simplicity; add complexity only where you must.
Rule of Parsimony:
	Write a big program only when it is clear by demonstration that nothing else will do.
Rule of Transparency:
	Design for visibility to make inspection and debugging easier.
Rule of Robustness:
	Robustness is the child of transparency and simplicity.
Rule of Representation:
	Fold knowledge into data, so program logic can be stupid and robust.
Rule of Least Surprise:
	In interface design, always do the least surprising thing.
Rule of Silence:
	When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say nothing.
Rule of Repair:
	Repair what you can — but when you must fail, fail noisily and as soon as possible.
Rule of Economy:
	Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time.
Rule of Generation:
	Avoid hand-hacking; write programs to write programs when you can.
Rule of Optimization:
	Prototype before polishing, Get it working before you optimize it.
Rule of Diversity:
	Distrust all claims for one true way.
Rule of Extensibility:
	Design for the future, because it will be here sooner than you think.


I’ll stick with what has worked extremely well for almost 50 years.



—jms


> On Sep 8, 2017, at 3:10 AM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 7 Sep 2017 12:29:46 +0000
> "Lightner, Jeffrey" <JLightner at dsservices.com <mailto:JLightner at dsservices.com>> wrote:
> 
>> Caveman conversation:
>> Ug:  What that?
>> Zog:  Wheel.
>> Ug:  Why wheel?  Drag work for years.
>> Zog: More fast to use wheel.
>> Ug: Wheel made by false god to trap draggers.  It bad.
>> Ug then clubs Zog because Zog doesn't see the intrinsic "reason" of
>> Ug's opinion.
>> 
>> 
>> Move ahead 10,000 years:
>> Ug:  What that?
>> Zog:  Systemd.
>> Ug: Why systemd.  Init work for years...
>> 
>> :p
> 
> Let us count the falacies:
> 
> * Appeal to novelty: Being new, in and of itself, doesn't make
>  something better (or worse) than what came before.
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty>
> 
> * Ad hominem: Painting as superstitious change-haters those who don't
>  like systemd doesn't in any way prove systemd is good.
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem>
> 
> * False choice: Implying that the only alternative to systemd is
>  "init" (I think he means sysvinit) is wrong. I know of at least five
>  additional init systems that are excellent, and use one of them every
>  day (runit). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma>
> 
> I'll give you this: The caveman analogy is funny, it's clever, and it
> greatly appeals to those already on your side. But it actually says
> nothing.
> 
> The real crackup is that these same falacies pop up in almost every
> defense of systemd, starting with LP himself. Read PID EINS, you'll see
> what I mean.
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt
> September 2017 featured book: Manager's Guide to Technical
> Troubleshooting Brand new, second edition
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr <http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr>
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