Comment

Comment by musicale

> they match, more or less, those of UNIX's philosophy

     1. Good design is innovative
        UNIX innovated by simplifying Multics -
        throwing away ring security and PL/I's memory safety features.
        Linux innovated by cloning UNIX, giving it away for free,
        and avoiding the lawsuit that sidelined BSD.
     2. Good design makes a product useful
        Yet somehow people managed to use UNIX anyway.
     3. Good design is aesthetic
        UNIX threw away clear, long-form command forms and kept
        short, cryptic abbreviations like "cat" (short for "felis cattus") 
        and "wc" (short for "toilet").
        Its C library helpfully abbreviates "create" as "creat",
        because vowels are expensive.
     4. Good design makes a product understandable
        See #3
     5. Good design is unobtrusive
        That's why UNIX/Linux enthusiasts spend so much time
        configuring their systems rather than using them.
     6. Good design is honest
        The UNIX name indicates it is missing something 
        present in Multics. Similarly, "Linux" is the
        gender-neutralized form of "Linus".
     7. Good design is long-lasting
        Like many stubborn diseases, UNIX has proven hard to eradicate.
     8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail
        UNIX/Linux enthusiasts love using those details
        to try to figure out how to get Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,
        and GPU support partially working on their laptops.
     9. Good design is environmentally-friendly
        Linux recycles most of UNIX's bad ideas, and many
        of its users/apologists.
    10. Good design is as little design as possible
        Linux beats UNIX because it wasn't designed at all.
parent musicale 1 year ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton