“A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack.”
In a Usenet message to Linus Torvalds, 30 Jan 1992.
The "Linux is Obsolete" Debate
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Andrew S. Tanenbaum 22
Dutch computer scientist 1944Related quotes

In a Usenet message, 29 Jan 1992.
The "Linux is Obsolete" Debate

In a Usenet message, 5 Feb 1992.
The "Linux is Obsolete" Debate

“An unlimited-length file name is a file. The content of a file is its own best name.”
The Humane Interface (2001)

[linux.conf.au conference, http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/torvalds-pans-apples-os-x/2008/02/05/1202090393959.html, 2008-02-05]
2000s, 2008

Cited in: Haluk Demirkan, James C. Spohrer, Vikas Krishna (2011) The Science of Service Systems. p. 274.
1970s, Towards a System of Systems Concepts, 1971

Interview in Revolution OS http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308808/, documentary, 2001.
2000s, 2000-04

“A physicist must be able to saw with a file and to file with a saw.”
advising Heinrich Kayser to favor experimental physics above mathematical training, as quoted in the biographical memoir of Heinrich Kayser. [Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society, Royal Society, 1955, 135]

"Unix and Beyond: An Interview with Ken Thompson," 1999
Context: In Plan 9 and Inferno, the key ideas are the protocol for communicating between components and the simplification and extension of particular concepts. In Plan 9, the key abstraction is the file system—anything you can read and write and select by names in a hierarchy—and the protocol exports that abstraction to remote channels to enable distribution. Inferno works similarly, but it has a layer of language interaction above it through the Limbo language interface—which is like Java, but cleaner I think.
Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 3, Franchise Finances, p. 72.