"The incredible bogosity of unix is one of the best kept 'open secrets' in the business." - Oct 1991

Unix-Haters Mailing List Archive

Click here to download the archive.

Unix Admin Horror Stories

Items of Interest

• Re: C++: The COBOL of the 90s.html - A calm, rational, well-supported post on some of the problems with C & C++
• The Sons of Martha, by Rudyard Kipling - The "Anti-Unix" Spirit
  
• I Miss VMS - Some of the essentials that unix lacks.


• I Accuse Unix! - If unix wasn't so bad that you can't give it away, Bill Gates would never have succeeded in selling Windows.
  
• Requiem for a Dying Operating System - A Starlink mole has suggested to me that project staff are not unaware of the sort of Unix failing detailed here, but that the change to Unix was largely mandated by external pressures. Canute could not hold back the tide (and knew it), and obviously neither can Starlink, even it wants to. It's a pity however that the tide seems to be largely composed of lemmings --- that is, slightly computer-literate users, who are persuaded by the Unix hype, fancy joining the grep-awk priesthood, and mistakenly confuse the time spent learning how to use Unix with productive work. Unfortunately they never have to suffer the defects of the system they have foisted on the rest of us.
  
  Original Site: Requiem for a dying operating system
  Mirror Site: Requiem for a dying operating system
  Alternate Mirror Site: Requiem for a dying operating system
  
  
• The Top Ten Ways to get Screwed by C
  
  The Top Ten Ways to get Screwed by C (local copy)
  
  
• MPCSL: probably the most prestigious computer science laboratory in the world. - Expensive PhD researchers regularly waste *days* trying to get files to come out of a printer or sitting around waiting for NFS to get fixed so their machine will unwedge. It's officially acknowledged both that this is a disaster and that it won't get fixed.
• Computer Risks Digest - Forum On Risks To The Public In Computers And Related Systems.
  "It's almost too easy to retransmit anything sent to Risks to unix-haters."

Suggested Reading

• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman,
  ISBN 0-385-26774-6, Copyright 1988,257pp, US $15.95 / $21.95 Can
  A Currency Book Published by Doubleday a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell publishing Group, Inc.
  
  1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
  2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
  3. Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and Evaluation.
  4. Get the mappings right.
  5. Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
  6. Design for error.
  7. When all else fails, standardize.


• the mythical man-month: Essays on Software Engineering
  by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., ISBN 0-201-00650-2, Copyright 1975, 1982, 195pp,
  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, US $23
• comp.lang.c Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  "This monthly posting is always good for a laugh. (You've got to laugh to keep from crying)."
• comp.unix.* Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  ditto

Unix-Hater Links

• Weise, Daniel - One of the authors listed on the cover of The Unix-Haters Handbook.
  The link to his web-page is at the bottom right of the MSN page.
• Don Hopkins - Received special thanks on page xxxi of The Unix-Haters Handbook.
  This link only seems to be up starting at about about 2200 Zulu time.
• Simson Garfinkel - One of the authors listed on the cover of The Unix-Haters Handbook.
• Computer Literacy Bookshop Online
• Australian mirror/cache of Unix-Haters Handbook Page
• German mirror/cache of Unix-Haters Handbook Page (slightly different)

Reviews of The Unix-Haters Handbook