Closed-source considered harmful (was: JavaScript considered harmful)

[Karl M. Syring]

"Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it> schrieb
> "Karl M. Syring" <syring at email.com> wrote in message
> news:a1kfl6$quf8e$1 at ID-7529.news.dfncis.de...
> > "Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it> schrieb
> > > "Karl M. Syring" <syring at email.com> wrote in message
> > > news:a1ibhn$qt4bg$1 at ID-7529.news.dfncis.de...
> > >     ...
> > > > Once upon a time, there was a company that controlled the hardware
and
> > the
> > > > software market. Although some people say that it induced a statsi
of
> 20
> > > > years, it was finally toppled.
> > >
> > > Interesting -- WHICH "twenty years" were the "stasis"?  Perhaps those
> > > which saw the birth and wildfire-like spread of Unix, C, relational
> > > database management systems, Pascal, interactive terminals, ... ?-)

Well, PDP-7 assembler, a.k.a C is an ab...normality and Algol60 was very
similar to Pascal.
ITS systems had interactive terminals, remember emacs was born there and
made it's way form there to Multics (http://www.multicians.org/mepap.html)
and then to Unix systems.

> >
> > I will not engage in alternative history lines, but I think bad
languages
> > and bad computer architectures have prevailed for a very long time, even
> as
>
> Ah yes -- no doubt the emergence of VMS from Digital Equipment, Pascal
> from Zurich ETH, Unix and C from AT&T, etc, were all due to that "company
> that controlled the hardware and the software market".

Hmm, VMS is a very endangered species these days and Delphi's creator has
defected to the evil empire. Nothing to C.

> > people knew better (*). Of course, the bad language problem has got even
> > worse.
>
> Indeed -- today, we're reduced to using Python... oh woe is me!

Even in the darkest times, there is a glimmer of reason.

Karl M. Syring