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@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ The main highlights of Unix are possibly these:
Unix is greatly connected to software [minimalism](minimalism.md), however most unices are still not minimalist to absolute extreme and many unix forks (e.g. [GNU](gnu.md)/[Linux](linux.md)) just abandon minimalism as a priority. So the question stands: **is Unix [LRS](lrs.md) or is it too [bloated](bloat.md)?** The answer to this will be similar to our stance towards the [C](c.md) language (which itself was developed alongside Unix); from our point of view Unix -- i.e. its concepts and some of their existing implementations -- is relatively good, there is a lot of wisdom to take away (e.g. "do one thing well", modularity, "use text interfaces", ...), however these are intermixed with things which under more strict minimalism we may want to abandon (e.g. "everything is a file" requires we buy into the file [abstraction](abstraction.md) and will often also imply existence of a file system etc., which may be unnecessary), so in some ways we see Unix as a temporary "[least evil](least_evil.md)" tool on our way to truly good, extremely minimalist technology. [DuskOS](duskos.md) is an example of operating system more close to the final idea of LRS. But for now Unix is very cool, some Unix-like systems are definitely a good choice nowadays.
There is a semi humorous group called the *UNIX HATERS* that has a mailing list and a whole book that criticizes Unix, arguing that the systems that came before it were much better -- though it's mostly just [joking](jokes.md), they give some good points sometimes. It's like they are the biggest boomers for whom the Unix is what [Windows](windows.md) is to the Unix people.
## History
In the 1960s, Bell Labs along with other groups were developing [Multics](multics.md), a kind of [operating system](os.md) -- however the project failed and was abandoned for its complexity and expensiveness of development. In 1969 two Multics developers, [Ken Thompson](key_thompson.md) and [Dennis Ritchie](dennis_ritchie.md), then started to create their own system, this time with a different philosophy; that of [simplicity](minimalism.md) (see [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)). They weren't alone in developing the system, a number of other hackers helped program such things as a file system, [shell](shell.md) and simple utility programs. At VCF East 2019 Thompson said that they developed Unix as a working system in three weeks. At this point Unix was written in [assembly](assembly.md).