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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 13:44:39 -0700
Organization: Me
Lines: 78
Message-ID: <317BEFB7.72D52E7@lambert.org>
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David Fox wrote:
] As a systems person who is struggling to become an applications
] person, I must strenuously disagree. "Getting the cursor to the
] right screen location" isn't less challenging, its just a very
] different sort of challenge. Finding a SCSI driver race condition
] is a well delineated, unambigouous task, you know exactly when
] you've done it.
It's less challenging because you don't crash your system as a
result of a failed attempt (assuming you are running a protected
mode OS with memory protection and resource tracking -- unlike
DOS, MacOS, Windows, or Windows95 -- even then, VMS is a post
event error tracking because of hteir debugging architecture).
It's less challenging because you can use a source level debugger.
It's less challenging because after a memory fault, you can
post-mortem the problem instead of having to repeat it up to
the point it occurs and remember what happened just before it
lost its mind... and then reboot. For cascade errors, reboot
iteratively until you find the source of the cascade.
It's less challenging for a lot of reasons.
] Much of applications work tends to involve aesthetic judgement,
] which is something that puts off a lot of people in the systems
] crowd, including me.
Aesthetics are a seperate problem, and usually reflects a need
to include a graphic designer, or at least tools which generate
code in strict conformance to style guidelines.
] The hitch is, to do it well also requires the skills that are
] required to do good systems work. The problem we're having
] with applications is that it is done best by people who fall
] into the intersection of the two groups, and that's hardly
] any group at all.
Free applications, certainly, fall into the intersection. I
have been amazed at the number of collegues I have had over
the years who claim they program only because it is their job,
don't program for themselves, ever, and fully intend to get
onto the management track as quickly as they possibly can.
It explains why the "burnout" period for a programmer is supposed
to be 2-4 years on average.
I don't think writing useful applications takes the same skills
(or as much skill, anyway) as writing good systems code. Of
course, I'm a systems person, so I could be a teensy bit
prejudiced there. 8-).
Applications code is *significantly* more forgiving of a lack
of talent for code... at the applications level, you can treat
the computer as a black box and not have to understand the
fundamentals of how it operates. To a large extent, thanks
to modern tools, you can even fail to understand the code
that the compiler will generate, and produce working application
code.
Certainly system space is not free from this intrusion... one
obvious example is ANSI C, whose prototypes render it unnecessary
to have a good memory or full knowledge of the system interfaces
with which you are working. Just like calculators have
black-boxed arithmatic for many students. But the system space
intrusion (so far, at least) has remained very small.
Maybe I'm just getting old? 8-).
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.