[geeks] Postscript question

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Dave McGuire wrote:

>    I can sit and write "UNIX-ish" code in C all day on an OS X box and
> have things Just Work.  And I sit at this machine all day, every day,
> and I have yet to even notice the existence of multiple forks, though I
> haven't exactly gone looking for them.

As I understood it, we were specifically discussing tools for
maintaining and repairing an OS X installation.  My code runs just fine
on OS X, as well; however, if you were writing a tool that digs about in
the file system (below the C-library layer), you'd have to pay attention
to the forks, or any Carbon apps whose directory entries you happened to
modify wouldn't work.  You can't just take an analogous tool for ffs or
ufs and merely instruct it about hfs btrees, unless you're working
read-only.

Tools like pwcheck can't simply be recompiled over to diagnose user
database errors, because the user database isn't -in- /etc/passwd or
any other flat file--it's in a netinfo-managed XML database.  And, more
to the point, this stuff -isn't- readily documented and is prone to
change (ie: from 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2).

>    I've been a UNIX bigot since X10 (yes, X release TEN) was
> current...and OS X is UNIX enough for me.

Not for me.  I'm still contemplating going back to IRIX for my
day-to-day stuff.  I have yet to have an IRIX installation simply
explode at me without warning, and at least there, the recovery
procedures are well-documented.  You don't get "There has been an error
in the installation.  Please restart" or "You need to restart your
computer."  You get -real- error messages that actually mean something
and give you a clue about what you need to fix in order to get running
again.

Remember that I switched -away- from Windows so that I could get away
from unstable crap, undocumented secrets, and artificial obsolescence,
and so far the explanations I've been given for this OS just acting
-weird- have been:

  1) You're trying too hard.  Be more like Ellen Feiss.  You don't
     -need- to know what's going on in your computer, so what does it
     matter if it doesn't tell you?
  2) You're trying to do too much at once.  Stop abusing the computer.
  3) Oh, well, you're running a G3.  It runs -much- more stably on a G4.
  4) Oh, that motherboard revisions sucks.  Of course you're going to be
     getting problems.
  5) Works fine for me.  Maybe you should back up, format, and reinstall.

Now:
  sed -e 's/Ellen Feiss/Steve Johnson/' -e '/G/Pentium /g'

And tell me where the difference is.  So far, yes, OS X is a Good Idea
and it has a pretty UI, but it's no more a Real Unix on a Real Unix box
than Linux is on an Ultra 10.  I'll be all ready to jump up and down
cheering for Apple when they stop shipping PCs with PowerPC CPUs and
their OS has a disaster-detection and recovery plan beyond "You need to
restart your computer with the OS X installation CD".  For now, though,
color me unimpressed with the revolution.

It works for you, and I can respect that, but, frankly, Windows 2000 has
been more stable for me, and the Registry is far better documented than
OS X's myriad of configuration plists and netinfo hives.  All OSes suck,
and, so far, IRIX sucks the least for me.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke
  "Albert Einstein nailed space-time, but the wild thing had him stumped.
   Al, baby, two and two make five-and-a-quarter; that's why people fall
   in love." -- Thomas Dolby, "That's Why People Fall in Love"