The UNIX- HATERS Handbook The UNIX- HATERS Handbook “Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix. I don’t think that is a coincidence.” Edited by Simson Garfinkel, Daniel Weise, and Steven Strassmann ® PROGRAMMERS IDG Illustrations by John Klossner BOOKS PRESS iv IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. An International Data Group Company San Mateo, California • Indianapolis, Indiana • Boston, Massachusetts The UNIX-HATERS Handbook Published by IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. An International Data Group Company 155 Bovet Road, Suite 310 San Mateo, CA 94402 Copyright 1994 by IDG Books Worldwide. All rights reserved. No part of this book (including interior design, cover design, and illustrations) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. 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At IDG, we value quality, and we have been delivering quality for over 25 years. You’ll find no better book on a subject than an IDG book. John Kilcullen President and CEO IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. ix x Table of Contents Foreword ................................................................................ xv By Donald A. Norman Preface ..................................................................................... xix Things Are Going to Get a Lot Worse Before Things Get Worse Who We Are............................................................................... xxi The UNIX-HATERS History...................................................xxiii Contributors and Acknowledgments........................................ xxix Typographical Conventions ....................................................xxxii The UNIX-HATERS Disclaimer ...........................................xxxiii Anti-Foreword............................................................... xxxv By Dennis Ritchie Part 1: User Friendly?............................................... 1 1 Unix .............................................................................................. 3 The World’s First Computer Virus History of the Plague..................................................................... 4 Sex, Drugs, and Unix .................................................................... 9 Standardizing Unconformity....................................................... 10 Unix Myths ................................................................................. 14 ix x 2 Welcome, New User! ..................................................17 Like Russian Roulette with Six Bullets Loaded Cryptic Command Names ...........................................................18 Accidents Will Happen................................................................19 Consistently Inconsistent.............................................................26 Online Documentation ................................................................31 Error Messages and Error Checking, NOT! ................................31 The Unix Attitude........................................................................37 3 Documentation? ...............................................................43 What Documentation? On-line Documentation ...............................................................44 This Is Internal Documentation? .................................................51 For Programmers, Not Users.......................................................54 Unix Without Words: A Course Proposal ...................................56 4 Mail..............................................................................................61 Don’t Talk to Me, I’m Not a Typewriter! Sendmail: The Vietnam of Berkeley Unix ..................................62 Subject: Returned Mail: User Unknown .....................................67 From: <[email protected]> ...........................74 Apple Computer’s Mail Disaster of 1991....................................85 5 Snoozenet...............................................................................93 I Post, Therefore I Am Netnews and Usenet: Anarchy Through Growth ........................93 Newsgroups.................................................................................96 Alt.massive.flamage ..................................................................100 This Information Highway Needs Information .........................100 rn, trn: You Get What You Pay for ............................................101 When in Doubt, Post .................................................................105 Seven Stages of Snoozenet........................................................106 xi 6 Terminal Insanity .......................................................... 111 Curses! Foiled Again! Original Sin ............................................................................... 111 The Magic of Curses .................................................................114 7 The X-Windows Disaster ......................................123 How to Make a 50-MIPS Workstation Run Like a 4.77MHz IBM PC X: The First Fully Modular Software Disaster..........................124 X Myths.....................................................................................127 X Graphics: Square Peg in a Round Hole .................................141 X: On the Road to Nowhere ......................................................142 Part 2: Programmer’s System?.................145 8 csh, pipes,