UNIX Haters

April 28, 2003 D. H. McKee

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The funny thing is Micro$oft’s hosting it.

“I liken starting one’s computing career with Unix, say as an undergraduate, to being born in East Africa. It is intolerably hot, your body is covered with lice and flies, you are malnourished and you suffer from numerous curable diseases. But, as far as young East Africans can tell, this is simply the natural condition and they live within it. By the time they find out differently, it is too late. They already think that the writing of shell scripts is a natural act.”

“Modern Unix is a catastrophe. It’s the “Un-Operating System”: unreliable, unintuitive, unforgiving, unhelpful, and underpowered. Little is more frustrating than trying to force Unix to do something useful and nontrivial. Modern Unix impedes progress in computer science, wastes billions of dollars, and destroys the common sense of many who seriously use it. An exaggeration? You won’t think so after reading this book. ”

http://research.microsoft.com/~daniel/unix-haters.html

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