Linux Computers

Now it can be told

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
  In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken
Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix
operating system and C programming language created by them is an
elaborate April Fools prank kept alive for over 20 years.  Speaking at
the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the
following:
  In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/AT&T Multics
project.  Brian and I had just started working with an early release
of Pascal from Professor Nichlaus Wirth's ETH labs in Switzerland and
we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power.  Dennis had
just finished reading Bored of the Rings, a hilarious National Lampoon
parody of the great Tolkien Lord of the Rings trilogy.  As a lark, we
decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal.  Dennis
and I were responsible for the operating environment.  We looked at
Multics and designed the new system to be as complex and cryptic as
possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix
as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque allusions.

  Then Dennis and Brian worked on a truly warped version of Pascal,
called "A."  When we found others were actually trying to create real
programs with A, we quickly added additional cryptic features and
evolved into B, BCPL and finally C. We stopped when we got a clean
compile on the following syntax:

for(;P("n"),R=;P("|"))for(e=C;e=P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("|"+(*u/4)%2);

  To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that
allowed such a statement was beyond our comprehension!  We actually
thought of selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science
progress back 20 or more years.  Imagine our surprise when AT&T and
other US corporations actually began trying to use Unix and C!  It has
taken them 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate even
marginally useful applications using this 1960's technological parody,
but we are impressed with the tenacity (if not common sense) of the
general Unix and C programmer.

  In any event, Brian, Dennis and I have been working exclusively in
Pascal on the Apple Macintosh for the past few years and feel really
guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly bad programming that has
resulted from our silly prank so long ago.

  Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft,
Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time.
Borland International, a leading vendor of Pascal and C tools,
including the popular Turbo Pascal, Turbo C and Turbo C++, stated they
had suspected this for a number of years and would continue to enhance
their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C.  An IBM
spokesman broke into uncontrolled laughter and had to postpone a
hastely convened news conference concerning the fate of the RS-6000,
merely stating "VM will be available Real Soon Now."  In a cryptic
statement, Professor Wirth of the ETH institute and father of the
Pascal, Modula 2 and Oberon structured languages, merely stated that
P. T. Barnum was correct.

    <>!*''#
    ^@`$$-
    !*'$_
    %*<>#4
    &)../
    |{~~SYSTEM HALTED

Transliterated:
    Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
    Caret at back-tick dollar dollar dash,
    Bang splat tick dollar under-score,
    Percent splat waka waka number four,
    Ampersand right-paren dot dot slash,
    Vertical-bar curly-bracket tilde tilde CRASH.

    --Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese

Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear
witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity.  Their conviction results
from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences.
Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief
and new schisms among believers.  In the 16th century the printed book helped
make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants.  In the 20th
century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce.
Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM
PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded.  Each cult
holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other.  Each thinks that it
is itself the one hope for salvation.
                -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988

Writing software is more fun than working.

X windows:
        Accept any substitute.
        If it's broke, don't fix it.
        If it ain't broke, fix it.
        Form follows malfunction.
        The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence.
        The trailing edge of software technology.
        Armageddon never looked so good.
        Japan's secret weapon.
        You'll envy the dead.
        Making the world safe for competing window systems.
        Let it get in YOUR way.
        The problem for your problem.
        If it starts working, we'll fix it.  Pronto.
        It could be worse, but it'll take time.
        Simplicity made complex.
        The greatest productivity aid since typhoid.
        Flakey and built to stay that way.

One thousand monkeys.  One thousand MicroVAXes.  One thousand years.
        X windows.

X windows:
        It's not how slow you make it.  It's how you make it slow.
        The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1.
        Built to take on the world... and lose!
        Don't try it 'til you've knocked it.
        Power tools for Power Fools.
        Putting new limits on productivity.
        The closer you look, the cruftier we look.
        Design by counterexample.
        A new level of software disintegration.
        No hardware is safe.
        Do your time.
        Rationalization, not realization.
        Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest.
        Gratuitous incompatibility.
        Your mother.
        THE user interference management system.
        You can't argue with failure.
        You haven't died 'til you've used it.

The environment of today... tomorrow!
        X windows.

X windows:
        Something you can be ashamed of.
        30% more entropy than the leading window system.
        The first fully modular software disaster.
        Rome was destroyed in a day.
        Warn your friends about it.
        Climbing to new depths.  Sinking to new heights.
        An accident that couldn't wait to happen.
        Don't wait for the movie.
        Never use it after a big meal.
        Need we say less?
        Plumbing the depths of human incompetence.
        It'll make your day.
        Don't get frustrated without it.
        Power tools for power losers.
        A software disaster of Biblical proportions.
        Never had it.  Never will.
        The software with no visible means of support.
        More than just a generation behind.

Hindenburg.  Titanic.  Edsel.
        X windows.

X windows:
        The ultimate bottleneck.
        Flawed beyond belief.
        The only thing you have to fear.
        Somewhere between chaos and insanity.
        On autopilot to oblivion.
        The joke that kills.
        A disgrace you can be proud of.
        A mistake carried out to perfection.
        Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set.
        To err is X windows.
        Ignorance is our most important resource.
        Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems.
        Built to fall apart.
        Nullifying centuries of progress.
        Falling to new depths of inefficiency.
        The last thing you need.
        The defacto substandard.

Elevating brain damage to an art form.
        X windows.

X windows:
        We will dump no core before its time.
        One good crash deserves another.
        A bad idea whose time has come.  And gone.
        We make excuses.
        It didn't even look good on paper.
        You laugh now, but you'll be laughing harder later!
        A new concept in abuser interfaces.
        How can something get so bad, so quickly?
        It could happen to you.
        The art of incompetence.
        You have nothing to lose but your lunch.
        When uselessness just isn't enough.
        More than a mere hindrance.  It's a whole new barrier!
        When you can't afford to be right.
        And you thought we couldn't make it worse.

If it works, it isn't X windows.

X windows:
        You'd better sit down.
        Don't laugh.  It could be YOUR thesis project.
        Why do it right when you can do it wrong?
        Live the nightmare.
        Our bugs run faster.
        When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight.
        There ARE no rules.
        You'll wish we were kidding.
        Everything you never wanted in a window system.  And more.
        Dissatisfaction guaranteed.
        There's got to be a better way.
        The next best thing to keypunching.
        Leave the thrashing to us.
        We wrote the book on core dumps.
        Even your dog won't like it.
        More than enough rope.
        Garbage at your fingertips.

Incompatibility.  Shoddiness.  Uselessness.
        X windows.