Why did the core UNIX utilities fail to become more mainstream?

C

CrazedNerd

Guest
Or maybe I should be asking, do most programmers use UNIX tools?

I'm asking this because even though I haven't been thrilled with using Linux every step of the way, the original command line tool set has for UNIX (like ls, sed, grep, cat) has impressed me so far in terms of usefulness and simplicity. It seems like they are really not THAT popular in the information technology professions...even though I couldn't imagine doing any of those jobs without at least something very similar.

For example, I had no intention of doing any sort of vim-learning or programming today, but I still used a combination of "ls" and "grep" to find a file that I desperately needed, whereas all my normal methods failed because i put it in a really weird place and both me and the background jobs are constantly altering files.
 


@CrazedNerd :-

That is, of course, the beauty of Linux. Although there ARE accepted, 'standard' locations for everything, it's flexible enough to let you implement non-standard stuff IF you want to...

We're always doing 'weird' things in Puppy! Try doing 'non-standard' stuff in Windows or Mac, and see what happens.... :p


Mike. ;)
 
MikeWalsh said:
@CrazedNerd :-

That is, of course, the beauty of Linux. Although there ARE accepted, 'standard' locations for everything, it's flexible enough to let you implement non-standard stuff IF you want to...

We're always doing 'weird' things in Puppy! Try doing 'non-standard' stuff in Windows or Mac, and see what happens.... :p


Mike. ;)
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Well yeah, that's the whole reason why I've experimented with dropping windows, but i intend to install it dual boot again pretty soon (probably in a few days). I hate the total lack of transparency with both of those companies, to be honest with you the whole linux model isn't even transparent enough for me. Puppy is cool because it's such a microscopic operating system, not that I would even understand it after either just installing or analyzing the source code. I REALLY LOVE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE WITH A FEW SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS!

I also still like nano better than vim and emacs even though i'm very well acquainted with a lot of the things you can do with vim...I wish I were currently capable of making something that's even better than both of them.
 
CrazedNerd asked:
do most programmers use UNIX tools?
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I can't answer that directly because the programmers are so spread throughout industry, academia, science, government etc. My guess is that they use the programming tools available for their purposes, and since there's so much MS about, there's a lot of programming using their tools.

What I can say is that UNIX like programming tools, including linux of course, are extensively used in scientific and research contexts and especially in academia for both training and research. Scientific research in many different disciplines uses linux and linux-like tools where so many specialised small programs can be created with linux tools by the researchers to manage and resolve the particular needs they have. This was particularly made clear when the scientific research institute management of the research organisation CSIRO wanted to change the institute's IT from a version of UNIX and linux to MS. The backdraft from the scientists was so furious, the plan was dropped because so much of the work the researchers were doing used the linux programming suites. Bear in mind that most of the science is not research into IT. At a university I'm familiar with, the servers and mainframes are predominantly linux, but various departments choose their own operating systems according to their needs, but any research students, regardless of their department's preferences, are able to use the linux facilities to satisfy their own academic needs. So for example, economics, medical, epidemiology and psychology students can use linux tools for statistical analyses, linguistics students can use linux tools for lexical analyses, literature students can use linux programming tools for textual analyses. The IT departments cover the tools to one degree or another.

The way I see it in the computing universe, with linux being just a small boutique in the shopping strip and a giant in the less visible backend server world, it means that the linux programming tools extensively used in that latter context are just not so visible because it's not shopfront.
 
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osprey said:
The way I see it in the computing universe, with linux being just a small boutique in the shopping strip and a giant in the less visible backend server world, it means that the linux programming tools extensively used in that latter context are just not so visible because it's not shopfront.
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Yeah, that's how I see it too...front end is all graphic art, html, etc., back end are obscure instruction sets. In terms of back end "solutions", that's where a lot of the money is made...if you can come up with some tool set that either seems to give a competitive advantage to clients or does...
 
MikeWalsh said:
Try doing 'non-standard' stuff in Windows or Mac, and see what happens.... :p
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The various forums over at bc are full of those who have tried in one way or another !
 
Condobloke said:
The various forums over at bc are full of those who have tried in one way or another !
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You can do registry changes in windows, and finding other hacks isn't too hard even though their directory tree is set up in such a wierd way that cmd is cumbersome and strange, along with comparatively wierd FS navigation otherwise.

And with apple you might as well jist be a good customer and keep hitting the "buy" button.
 
And for the benefit of non-Australians (which is most of you)

osprey said:
the research organisation CSIRO
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is our own Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

To put into perspective what the proposed changes would have affected, below is a list of what CSIRO is involved with

PlOASzg.png


No wonder there was a big stink. :)

Wiz
Avagudweegend
 
wizardfromoz said:
And for the benefit of non-Australians (which is most of you)



is our own Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

To put into perspective what the proposed changes would have affected, below is a list of what CSIRO is involved with

PlOASzg.png


No wonder there was a big stink. :)

Wiz
Avagudweegend
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Yah know, i ain't too happy about academic science, but for some reason i feel a sense of pride that those scientist like the same command line tools i do...
 
Condobloke said:
The various forums over at bc are full of those who have tried in one way or another !
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Uh-huh. Tell me about it....

Haven't used Windows for almost a decade, but I'm still expected to "police" their damn forums.

(*sheesh*)

It's a hard life being a mod..!

Mike. :rolleyes:
 
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MikeWalsh said:
Uh-huh. Tell me about it....

Haven't used Windows for almost a decade, but I'm still expected to "police" their damn forums.

(*sheesh*)

It's a hard life being a mod..!

Mike. :rolleyes:
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Have not used Windows either when XP died
 
Here is a helpful list of operating systems and the years when they were first released. I found it educational. Some of the operating systems I used predate Unix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_operating_systems

The modern versions of Windows have their roots in MS-DOS. VMS is in its genes, too. I find it interesting that Microsoft has been trying to play nice with Linux/Unix in various ways over the years. The latest is the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Microsoft is trying to give Windows users @CrazedNerd's favorite Unix/Linux commands. At least they are trying:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about

Adding: I haven't tried WSL myself. I have not yet found a need for it.
 
sphen said:
Here is a helpful list of operating systems and the years when they were first released. I found it educational. Some of the operating systems I used predate Unix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_operating_systems

The modern versions of Windows have their roots in MS-DOS. VMS is in its genes, too. I find it interesting that Microsoft has been trying to play nice with Linux/Unix in various ways over the years. The latest is the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Microsoft is trying to give Windows users @CrazedNerd's favorite Unix/Linux commands. At least they are trying:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about

Adding: I haven't tried WSL myself. I have not yet found a need for it.
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To me it seems like what happened is that MS just played the corporate technology game better overall, by creating cheap solutions for technology intensive businesses and marketing directly towards people who don't want to learn about computers. I don't have any resentment towards microsoft, i was just wondering why the legions of programmers don't appear to be using UNIX tools on a more massive scale. I don't think i'm really any good at programming, i'm still learning and i might not make it to being professional in all honesty, it's a slow process and good software often requires a few people working together.

The best option out there i've found in terms of utilizing the UNIX goodiness on windows is "Git for Windows", you don't even need to use it in an isolated subsystem that has much fewer privledges that you would get in comparison to fully running a linux distro.
 
CrazedNerd wrote:
To me it seems like what happened is that MS just played the corporate technology game better overall, by creating cheap solutions for technology intensive businesses and marketing directly towards people who don't want to learn about computers.
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The history from the 1980s, where the MS dominance on PCs began, was a result of MS having its DOS become the default software on IBM PCs which were beginning to saturate the market. IBM replaced their own PC-DOS with MS-DOS on machines in a business deal. Once MS had that hold over PCs, when it moved into GUIs, it was just a straight forward progression for IBM to keep the MS software as default. There's lots of business details to all of this and info on wikipedia, but in essence, MS had a DOS that worked well enough for IBM to sell their machines with it installed as the default, and the rest is history.
 
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osprey said:
CrazedNerd wrote:

The history from the 1980s, where the MS dominance on PCs began, was a result of MS having its DOS become the default software on IBM PCs which were beginning to saturate the market. IBM replaced their own PC-DOS with MS-DOS on machines in a business deal. Once MS had that hold over PCs, when it moved into GUIs, it was just a straight forward progression for IBM to keep the MS software as default. There's lots of business details to all of this and info on wikipedia, but in essence, MS had a DOS that worked well enough for IBM to sell their machines with it installed as the default, and the rest is history.
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Yah, well; IBM still resent what happened all those years ago, trust me. They hold a grudge well, that bunch.....and they have LONG memories, despite appearances to the contrary.

Remember; IBM were king of the hill during the 50s & 60s. And then along comes this upstart Gates kid, and completely upsets the apple cart.....using the American legal system in a hitherto-unconsidered way. And Gates used it with a vengeance, didn't he?

I've often heard it said that Microsoft's legal team have a bigger financial stipend than the GDP of some small nation-states..!

Mike. :rolleyes:
 
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MikeWalsh said:
I've often heard it said that Microsoft's legal team have a bigger financial stipend than the GDP of some small nation-states..!
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All I'm gonna say in response to that is that it has become obvious in recent years that social media and software companies have powers that nation states simply don't have.
 
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