drummyfish/less_retarded_wiki
5
1
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity

Update

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
Miloslav Ciz 2023-01-01 14:58:49 +01:00
parent 4b7428db54
commit b5006e62e5
19 changed files with 131 additions and 28 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

2
unix_philosophy.md
View file

@ -30,6 +30,8 @@ In the command the pipes (`|`) chain multiple programs together so that the outp
Compare this to the opposite [Window philosophy](windows_philosophy.md) in which combining programs into collaborating units is not intended or even purposefully prevented, and therefore very difficult, slow and impractical to do -- such programs are designed for manually performing some predefined actions, e.g. painting pictures with a mouse, but aren't made to collaborate or be automatized, they can rarely be used in unintended, inventive ways needed for [hacking](hacking.md).
**Watch out! Do not misunderstand Unix philosophy.** There are many extremely dangerous cases of misunderstanding Unix philosophy by [modern](modern.md) wannabe programmers. One example is the hilarious myth about "[React](react.md) following Unix philosophy" ([LMAO this](http://img.stanleylieber.com/src/20872/img/small.1527773532.png)), supposedly the "devs" think that having billion of dependencies or focusing on doing one huge thing ([GUI](gui.md)) somehow implies Unix philosophy -- **nothing based on [JavaScript](js.md) can ever follow Unix philosophy!** Unix philosophy can NOT be built on top of non-unix philosophy technology, and focusing on a very broad goal does not mean doing one thing.
{ One possible practical interpretation of Unix philosophy I came up with is this: there's an upper but also lower limit on complexity. "Do one thing" means the program shouldn't be too complex, we can simplify this to e.g. "Your program shouldn't surpass 10 KLOC". "Do it well" means the programs shouldn't bee too trivial because then it is hardly doing it well, we could e.g. say "Your program shouldn't be shorter than 10 LOC". E.g. we shouldn't literally make a separate program for printing each ASCII symbol, such programs would be too simple and not doing a thing well. We rather make a [cat](cat.md) program, that's neither too complex nor too trivial, which can really print any ASCII symbol. By this point of view Unix philosophy is really about balance of triviality and huge complexity, but hints that the right balance tends to be much closer to the triviality than we humans are tempted to intuitively choose. Without guidance we tend to make programs too complex and so the philosophy exists to remind us to force ourselves to rather minimize our programs to strike the correct balance. ~drummyfish }
## See Also