Rob Pike: Difference

“I started keeping a list of these annoyances but it got too long and depressing so I just learned to live with them again. We really are using a 1970s era operating system well past its sell-by date. We get a lot done, and we have fun, but let's face it, the fundamental design of Unix is older than many of the readers of Slashdot, while lots of different, great ideas about computing and networks have been developed in the last 30 years. Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy.”

Rob Pike

Rob Pike (2004) in interview http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1153211&tid=189 at slashdot.com, Oct 18 2004

Music , Idea , Learning , Past

“One odd detail that I think was vital to how the group functioned was a result of the first Unix being run on a clunky minicomputer with terminals in the machine room. People working on the system congregated in the room - to use the computer, you pretty much had to be there. (This idea didn't seem odd back then; it was a natural evolution of the old hour-at-a-time way of booking machines like the IBM 7090.) The folks liked working that way, so when the machine was moved to a different room from the terminals, even when it was possible to connect from your private office, there was still a "Unix room" with a bunch of terminals where people would congregate, code, design, and just hang out.”

Rob Pike

The coffee machine was there too.
Rob Pike (2004) in interview http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1153211&tid=189 at slashdot.com, Oct 18 2004

People , Books , Way , Coffee

“On a related topic, let me say that I'm not much of a fan of object-oriented design. I've seen some beautiful stuff done with OO, and I've even done some OO stuff myself, but it's just one way to approach a problem. For some problems, it's an ideal way; for others, it's not such a good fit. […] OO is great for problems where an interface applies naturally to a wide range of types, not so good for managing polymorphism (the machinations to get collections into OO languages are astounding to watch and can be hellish to work with), and remarkably ill-suited for network computing. That's why I reserve the right to match the language to the problem, and even - often - to coordinate software written in several languages towards solving a single problem. It's that last point - different languages for different subproblems - that sometimes seems lost to the OO crowd.”

Rob Pike

Rob Pike (2004) in interview http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1153211&tid=189 at slashdot.com, Oct 18 2004

Beauty , Way , Nature , Problem