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Leo Laporte On UNIX As the Future
TractorJector writes "In a well-written interview with Mad Penguin, techmeister Leo Laporte (formerly of G4/TechTV fame) discusses his vision of the future of proprietary and open platforms: 'I think there's a lot of hope for Linux, although I don't think that Linux is the answer. I think that UNIX is the answer, in some form or fashion. It might be BSD, it might be Linux, it might be some third thing. But UNIX is such a well understood and smart to handle the issues that an operating system has to handle that it ultimately will prevail.'"
Unix is very flexible, and it certainly outlive Windows. However, its development will only take it through the near future. In the long term, the very idea of unmanaged code will disappear. As will the traditional concept of the Desktop.
:-)
My predictions are:
1. Desktops will be replaced with Browser simulations of a Desktop that can work anytime, anywhere.
2. The traditional PC will then be replaced by a home server through which all activity will happen.
3. Components for Music, Television, Desktop, and Video Game consoles will (in many cases wirelessly) interact with this server.
4. The server itself will run an OS based on a managed code environment, making remote attacks difficult if not impossible. (Many Unix concepts would probably be reused in this system, but it won't *be* Unix.)
That's my thoughts anyway. Sometime in the near future, I'll get them blogged down in detail.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
MacOS X and operating systems that can marry the power of a good command line with the ease of an excellent GUI shall inherit the earth. I'm interested in how the new windows command line stacks up.
"In a well-written interview with Mad Penguin..."
;-)
"'But UNIX is such a well understood and smart to handle the issues that an operating system has to handle that it ultimately will prevail.'"
Yep, seems pretty well-written to me
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Playstation, XBoxes, Mobile Phones, DVDplayers type of operating system are the future. The OS has been developped far ahead of most people abilities. The future is going towards less and less user control on this OS. Quite the opposite of UNIX.
\u262D = \u5350
PC as a thin client browser?
I don't know about you, but that doesn't satisfy me and I think there will always be room for people who want a traditional desktop.
As a gamer and just fan of controlling the computer in front of me completely without all this abstractness, I don't think that everyone is going to bite on this kind of stuff.
I'm sure it has its place, but for everyone?
Talk about ignoring the elephant in the lounge room.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
the future is the HURD. Even in the future, the future will still be the HURD.
"Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell bad."
--- Rob Pike
...is that back in the day when really only technically savvy types owned or operated computers, is when MS gained their stranglehold on the market.
We would like to think MS somehow bamboozeled the teeming masses, but that is BS. It was us they bamboozled with MS-DOS of all things.
We did this to ourselves.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
But until Linux's GUI developers get a contract with Video Card manufacturers to produce better device drivers, or until GUI developers get their act together and make the GUI's faster and more user friendly, I'm afraid to burst your bubble.
Mac OS X is in a position no operating system has been in for 10 years. In 1995 when Microsoft brought out Windows 95, the operating system shattered the market because it was faster, prettier, and just plain cool. Now, OS X is in the same position. And they're going to have to screw up just as bad as Microsoft did with Windows to lose this creative lead.
On top of this, OS X is based on Unix, meaning that it's going to stay secure for a long, long time. As time goes by, bugs will be found and squashed, as no software is perfect, but UNIX by design has less issues with bugs, and the bugs are harder to exploit.
Linux has promise, but it's being held back by developers that simply don't care, because they aren't paid to care. They're doing their own, individual thing, and not working towards what a User wants, they're working towards what a developer wants. And if they took a minute to have an objective look at things, they're not too different. Mac OS X mastered this with XCode. And the only good IDE I've found for Linux is KDevelop, which requires me to install another set of GUI libraries, just to use it.
It's really past time to have Linux desktop-ready. It's time to replace X with something that renders faster, or to simply get Cairo and the other eyecandy, GL-rendering, bad-ass GUI systems up and running. You guys are five years behind Mac OS X, and about a year or so behind Windows in this department.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Merely because something is old does NOT mean it should be replaced. We're still building houses out of wood after thousands of years. Our cars run on internal combustion engines. And after all these years we're still carbon based life forms.
You admit it's "fine," that it "works," and that there is "good stuff" in it. If all of that is true, then why replace it merely because it's old?! That kind of mentally makes no sense.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Laporte says:
"It's funny, because in the early days of UNIX, the philosophy of a program was, "do one thing well, and then pass the result along and interface with others." We've gotten to the complete opposite, which is do everything kind of okay, and interface with nobody. That was clearly a wrong turn. It's a response to market forces, not computer science forces."
In the case where there is just the CLI and a list of programs spawned from a single input line, having a whole collection of tools that work well together is a must. But when you move to a graphical interface, so huge is the change in interface mechanics that the idea of the end-user setting up a chain of programs to run from one mouse click should be alien.
The UNIX mentality of small, modular programs doing one thing well can still be maintained while a graphical environment is running, but his criticism that "do everything kind of okay, interface with nobody" can't be taken as criticism: it's just the way that GUI stuff appears to the user*. The computer system may be organised so that the GUI program you're using shares a lot of libraries and calls a lot of helper programs to do its work, but the user should only see the graphical interface, making his point moot.
*: Maybe he means something else: that an environment where one program does only one thing, from ground to GUI, does not help people to tinker, develop and hack new features into the software.
Isn't there going to be some sort of Unix failure in like 2038? How can it be the future if that's true?
If there is anything that drives me insane, it's people dribling on about what OS they use. Dude, it doesn't matter like it used to 20-30 years ago, we're past the OS era and what Linux or Unix really needs is some good quality, easy to use applications that complement a great graphics engine. Changing the OS is highly unlikely to change the success of a particular system, but changing how you think will...
Microsoft's platform is the standard because they focused on the business of the software products market. They promised something to independent software vendors and delivered it-- a single platform that any developer no matter how big or small can target. At the same time they pushed hard to get this platform on as many PCs as possible, breaking kneecaps along the way when necessary.
They achieved a form of write once run anywhere. In 1985.
It does not matter what's under the hood, it mattered that the ISV only had to write one binary and not have to spend the money supporting two dozen incompatible platforms. Even Java cannot match this (I know, because I have to deal with it).
Today there must be half a billion PCs that the ISV can generate one single binary for, and with that you've covered what, 90% of the market?
Linux needs to offer big marketshare (doesn't have) and good developer support (has, sorta) for ISVs to care about it, because Microsoft proved that most ISVs won't bother targetting more than one major platform.
One need only look over this book and do six months of desktop end-user support on Windows to see how insane an idea it is that Unix of any kind is going to win in the market over Windows as long as the Unix community remains ruled by sadomasochistic techie dweebs who love things based on how hard they are which is the exact opposite of the attitude that has allowed Microsoft and AOL to prosper and thrive in the common end-user market.
I love my FC3, but once again, don't mistake my technical abilities and the chance to flex them each day on it for meaning that everyone is going to take to it like a fish to water.
Apple's OSX most definitely is the best Unix-ish distribution ever conceived, built, and sold to end-users without any doubt in my mind. But do the Linux geeks get it as to why? No, they try mightily to avoid the BSD-ish ancestry of it and sit there wishing this beautiful *nix-style OS with such wonderful design and construction were a Linux distro.
Won't happen. Linux is dominated by the sort of people on whom it is still lost that ease of use, administration, and support are paramount over everything else for end-users. Windows XP and Mac OSX give them what Linux never will as long as the current crop of leaders and movers and shakers controls the Linux scene.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Is that programmers like to develop for an open source system. It's easier that way, and if they release their code as OSS, it just keeps building. People always ask me, "How do I do X?" where X is a semi-difficult task. I always find myself saying, "Well, I'd do it with this program in Linux, it would take about 5 minutes. The windows equivilent, on the other hand, takes the afternoon to figure out and get right." If there are any moderately useful programs for windows, they are usually cheap payware or annoying shareware. The reason that UNIX/Linux/BSD/OS X will work is that you can do almost anything for free.
It might be BSD, it might be Linux, it might be some third thing
So, its either option A, or option B, or an option C which can be anything.
He has given himself quite a bit of leeway there.
If Marshmallows evolve into the dominant lifeform on this planet, his dying breath will be, I was right I tell ya!!! Its the third thing!!
(yes I RTFA and yes he really says that)
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