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"What UNIX Cost Us" - Benno Rice (LCA 2020)
linux.conf.au
32K subscribers • 14 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 5 people: 3 on Hacker News and 2 on Lobsters.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2020 to 2025.
- Presented by Benno Rice
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.
217K views6 years ago5 recommendations
Systems programmingHistory and cultureOperating systemsHistory of computing
Benno Rice critiques the long-term architectural costs of the Unix philosophy, particularly the 'everything is a file' abstraction, and explores historical alternatives.
Benno Rice lca2020.linux.org.au/schedule/presentation/28/ UNIX is a hell of a thing. From starting as a skunkworks project in Bell Labs to accidentally dominating the computer industry it's a huge part of the landscape that we work within. The thing is, was it the best thing we could have had? What could have been done better? Join me for a bit of meditation on what else existed then, what was gained, what was lost, and what could (and should) be re-learned. linux.conf.au is a conference about the Linux operating system, and all aspects of the thriving ecosystem of Free and Open Source Software that has grown up around it. Run since 1999, in a different Australian or New Zealand city each year, by a team of local volunteers, LCA invites more than 500 people to learn from the people who shape the future of Open Source. For more information on the conference see linux.conf.au/ Produced by NDV: youtube.com/channel/UCQ7dFBzZGlBvtU2hCecsBBg?sub_confirmatio… #linux.conf.au #linux #foss #opensource Wed Jan 15 2020 at Room 5Why it's here
5 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as an insightful and witty critique of Unix design limitations and the 'everything is a file' philosophy.
pxcon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Systemd, 10 years later: a historical and technical retrospective (2020)”
I'll second this recommendation! Benno Rice is an insightful, energetic, witty, and just plain enjoyable tech speaker. 'What UNIX Cost Us'1 is another favorite of mine that the audience on this post might enjoy: link to this video
favoritedon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Exploring Polymorphism in C: Lessons from Linux and FFmpeg's Code Design (2019)”
> for instance, Linux handles network socket, special files (like /proc/cpuinfo) or even USB devices as files. This is a powerful idea that can make easy to write or use programs for linux since we can rely in a set of well known operations from this abstraction called file. Benno Rice gave a fantastic talk a few years ago called "What UNIX Cost Us," which he starts off by showing how to write some USB device code in macOS, Windows, and Linux. It only takes a few minutes to demonstrate how pretending that everything is a file can be a pretty poor abstraction, and result in far more confusing code, which is why everyone ends up using libusb instead of sysfs. link to this video
sphon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Reforming Unix”
Not the author but I recommend: "What UNIX cost us" by Benno Rice: link to this video In fact, this video argues that file descriptors are not as good as the author claims in their opening paragraph. They are another runaway idiosyncrasy borne out of the "everything is a file (but not really)" philosophy that underpins Linux.
u/GeorgeneKeckin r/C_Programming • Mentions
On “ioctl is pronounced 'eyeocktl' --- does that mean fcntl...?”
I've been listening to this dude. Watched 2 -of his talks. One about systemd and this one. But I am now dubious if he's sane or not because he said PDP-11 'did not have a clock' which struck me as odd and I asked r/ECE and they told me PDP-11 DID INDEED have a clock? This dude also champions himself the white knight of the oppressed. I don't know why you would bring Twitter bullshit about colonialism into a systems talk!
ddulaneyon Hacker News • Mentions
On “A Linux Evening”
…on exit 0? Or has a config file with an extremely complex format 1? Or I need to poke several /sys files in a particular order 2? Both systems are hard to reason about, especially if you don't know them. But Linux isn't easy to approach for the first time, and there are advantages to the way Windows does things. 0: link 1: link 2: link to this video…
DonHopkinson Hacker News • Mentions
On “Everything Is a File”
Even PowerShell's flawed and limited execution definitively proves how terribly misguided and morally bankrupt the pin-headed one-dimensional "everything is a file" Unix philosophy is, especially with its the ridiculously hard-to-parse ad-hoc non-standard mixed-bag syntax of /proc and /etc files, which would have been much better simply using xml or json, yet which don't even come close to achieving that low bar of machine readability and ease of scripting. If everything is a file, then why the fuck is the insufferable abomination of ioctl so crucial to haphazardly papier-mâché and duct tape over all the uncanny gaps and gaping cracks? Yet another strike against the mindless cargo cult nonse…
throwaway1194on Hacker News • Mentions
On “Ask HN: Performance of Apple Sillicon vs. ThinkPads (Or Other Linux Laptops)”
> I get that in abstract improvements "could" trickle down from that but once again without any performance benchmarks that is the definition of speculation. Fair enough, I am not sure whether CPU schedulers are shared across architectures, I am also not aware of any recent benchmarks other than: link Where I was going with my original statement/post is that I wouldn't be surprised to see Linux doing better in some benchmarks due to improvements in the kernel, there has been many recent developments such as io_uring0, MGLRU, etc. that could make a difference compared to other systems. 0 link to this video
u/spizzikein r/C_Programming • Mentions
On “Getting started with Graphics in C”
All of these things you're saying made me think of this excellent talk: link to this video