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Ask Unix Co-Creator Rob Pike
Today we return to our Slashdot interview roots with a "Call for questions" for Rob "Commander" Pike, who has been involved in the development of many modern programming concepts, GUI advances, character sets, and operating systems. We'll email 10 - 12 of the highest-moderated questions to Rob and post his answers as soon as he gets them back to us.
How do I get to my C:\ drive on a Unix box?
M
Hi Rob,
Based on your tremendous impact to the history of computing, I really can only think of one question for you.
Wouldn't you like to get a Totally Free iPod?!?!?!?
Probably to match up with the "creat" system call
Ahh, you see, UNIX was created back in the day when we couldn't afford vowels, and many consonants.
As such, common commands had to be shortened a little bit:
"Copy" becomes "cp"
"List" becomes "ls"
"Rename" becomes "mv" and so on.
That was bcaus the -ky on my kyboard was not working as it should in thos days.
Mr. Pike, a few questions if you will...
There have been several quotes back in the era of "Big Unix" before the dilution of a certain company's intellectual property. Specifically, one relating to "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes." My first question relates to this quote. To the best of your knowledge, was Unix source or object code ever backed up and transported via this method, possibly through Finland?
What are your feelings on Lucy's younger brother from the Peanuts(TM) cartoon?
Do you feel that the Communist Hippies in Berkley were involved in a mass conspiracy to doctor previously released copies of source code to attempt to dilute the value of the Unix operating system?
And finally, someone were to want to subpoena an individual very much like yourself, where and when would the best place to do so be?
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
As a longtime Multics user (around 35 years), I've been hearing more and more about "Unix" over the past decades. Can you convince me to switch? In particular, I rely heavily on access control lists and PL/I code. What advantages can Unix offer me? My home computer is a GE-645, and at work we use Honeywell 6180-series machines.
If you know what's wrong and know how to fix it, why don't you fix it already! The source is out there.
I usually just blame it on the drugs. It was the 70's after all...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That would explain the problem with the creat(2) system call too.
Oh wait, that would be crat(2).
-- Alastair
How does it feel driving around in that little buggy only being able to respond to questions with a simple yes or no?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Hmm let's see: hiring a hitman to get a young hippy programmer working at MIT AI Lab in 1976 before he even started to type "vi /home/richard/great_new_projects_I_have/emacs/main .c" would have been nice... That would have saved 2 generations of programmers early onsets of carpal tunnel...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That was bcaus the -ky on my kyboard was not working as it should in thos days.
:-)
If you're getting KY on your keyboard, maybe you should look for a girlfriend instead
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
emacs or vi?
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
in other words, we bicker too much to be taken seriously.
No we don't!
exactly 11 characters? As opposed to filenames 11.0001 characters long?
It would seem that the developers of Unix had a lot of fun trying to skew the statistics so that e would not be the most common English letter.
If it weren't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate.
Don't you feel you owe an appology to a decade of 80s UNIX novices for wasted hours before discovering you weren't talking about the shell *they* were using in "The UNIX programming environment"?
Not that I'm still bitter 20 years on...
You stole the source code for UNIX from SCO, didn't cha?
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.