Neal Stephenson is good as a sci-fi writer, but I think he’s almost as good as an ethnographer of nerds. Pretty much everything he writes has something like this in it, and most of it is spot-on.
On the other hand, he does occasionally succumb to a sort of mild geek-supremacist streak (best observed in Anathem, unless you’re one of the six people besides me who were obsessed enough to read In The Beginning… Was The Command Line).
Of course I read In the Beginning was the Command Line. The supply of writing from witty bearded men talking to you about cool things isn’t infinite, you know.
I just re-read, well, re-skimmed it. Ah, the nostalgia. It’s very dated now. 15 years on, its prediction that proprietary operating systems would lose out to free software has completely failed to come true. Linux still ticks over, great for running servers and signalling hacker cred, but if it’s so great, why isn’t everyone using it? At most it’s one of three major platforms: Windows, OSX, and Linux. Or two out of five if you add iOS and Android (which is based on Linux). OS domination by Linux is no closer, and although there’s a billion people using Android devices, command lines are not part of their experience.
Stephenson wrote his essay (and I read it) before Apple switched to Unix in the form of OSX, but you can’t really say that OSX is Unix plus a GUI, rather OSX is an operating system that includes a Unix interface. In other words, exactly what Stephenson asked for:
The ideal OS for me would be one that had a well-designed GUI that was easy to set up and use, but that included terminal windows where I could revert to the command line interface, and run GNU software, when it made sense. A few years ago, Be Inc. invented exactly that OS. It is called the BeOS.
BeOS failed, and OSX appeared three years after Stephenson’s essay. I wonder what he thinks of them now—both OSX and In the Beginning.
you can’t really say that OSX is Unix plus a GUI, rather OSX is an operating system that includes a Unix interface
That’s is a debatable point :-)
UNIX can be defined in many ways—historically (what did the codebase evolve from), philosophically, technically (monolithic kernel, etc.), practically (availability and free access to the usual toolchains), etc.
I don’t like OSX and Apple in general because I really don’t like walled gardens and Apple operates on the “my way or the highway” principle. I generally run Windows for Office, Photoshop, games, etc. and Linux, nowadays usually Ubuntu, for heavy lifting. I am also a big fan of VMs which make a lot of things very convenient and, in particular, free you from having to make the big choice of the OS.
I suspect I would be able to bludgeon OSX into submission but I don’t see any reasons why I should bother. I don’t have to work with Macs and am content not to.
Can’t speak for Lumifer, but I was more annoyed by the fact that (the version I got of) OSX doesn’t ship with a working developer toolchain, and that getting one requires either jumping through Apple’s hoops and signing up for a paid developer account, or doing a lot of sketchy stuff to the guts of the OS. This on a POSIX-compliant system! Cygwin is less of a pain, and it’s purely a bolt-on framework.
(ETA: This is probably an exaggeration or an unusual problem; see below.)
It was particularly frustrating in my case because of versioning issues, but those wouldn’t have applied to most people. Or to me if I’d been prompt, which I hadn’t.
After some Googling, it seems that version problems may have been more central than I’d recalled. Xcode is free and includes command-line tools, but looking at it brings up vague memories of incompatibility with my OS at the time. The Apple developer website allows direct download of those tools but also requires a paid signup. And apparently trying to invoke gcc or the like from the command line should have brought up an update option, but that definitely didn’t happen. Perhaps it wasn’t an option in an OS build as old as mine, although it wouldn’t have been older than 2009 or 2010. (I eventually just threw up my hands and installed an Ubuntu virt through Parallels.)
So, probably less severe than I’d thought, but the basic problem remains: violating Apple’s assumptions is a bit like being a gazelle wending your way back to a familiar watering hole only to get splattered by a Hummer howling down the six-lane highway that’s since been built in front of it.
It’s a well-known essay. It even has a Wikipedia article.
Yeah, I bought a hard copy in a non-technical bookstore. “Six people” was a joke based on its, er, specialized audience compared to the lines of Snow Crash; in terms of absolute numbers it’s probably less obscure than, say, Zodiac.
If memory serves, Stephenson came out in favor of OSX a couple years after its release, comparing it to BeOS in the context of his essay. I can’t find the cite now, though. Speaking for myself, I find OSX’s ability to transition more-or-less seamlessly between GUI and command-line modes appealing, but its walled developer garden unspeakably annoying.
If memory serves, Stephenson came out in favor of OSX a couple years after its release
With some googling, I found this, a version of ITBWTCL annotated (by someone else) five years later, including a quote from Stephenson, saying that the essay “is now badly obsolete and probably needs a thorough revision”. The quote is quoted in many places, but the only link I turned up for it on his own website was dead (not on the Wayback Machine either).
I think everyone who belongs to a certain age group and runs Linux has read In the Beginning was the Command Line. And yes, that’s me admitting to having read it, and kinda believed the arguments at one point.
Neal Stephenson is good as a sci-fi writer, but I think he’s almost as good as an ethnographer of nerds. Pretty much everything he writes has something like this in it, and most of it is spot-on.
On the other hand, he does occasionally succumb to a sort of mild geek-supremacist streak (best observed in Anathem, unless you’re one of the six people besides me who were obsessed enough to read In The Beginning… Was The Command Line).
Of course I read In the Beginning was the Command Line. The supply of writing from witty bearded men talking to you about cool things isn’t infinite, you know.
It’s a well-known essay. It even has a Wikipedia article.
I just re-read, well, re-skimmed it. Ah, the nostalgia. It’s very dated now. 15 years on, its prediction that proprietary operating systems would lose out to free software has completely failed to come true. Linux still ticks over, great for running servers and signalling hacker cred, but if it’s so great, why isn’t everyone using it? At most it’s one of three major platforms: Windows, OSX, and Linux. Or two out of five if you add iOS and Android (which is based on Linux). OS domination by Linux is no closer, and although there’s a billion people using Android devices, command lines are not part of their experience.
Stephenson wrote his essay (and I read it) before Apple switched to Unix in the form of OSX, but you can’t really say that OSX is Unix plus a GUI, rather OSX is an operating system that includes a Unix interface. In other words, exactly what Stephenson asked for:
BeOS failed, and OSX appeared three years after Stephenson’s essay. I wonder what he thinks of them now—both OSX and In the Beginning.
That’s is a debatable point :-)
UNIX can be defined in many ways—historically (what did the codebase evolve from), philosophically, technically (monolithic kernel, etc.), practically (availability and free access to the usual toolchains), etc.
I don’t like OSX and Apple in general because I really don’t like walled gardens and Apple operates on the “my way or the highway” principle. I generally run Windows for Office, Photoshop, games, etc. and Linux, nowadays usually Ubuntu, for heavy lifting. I am also a big fan of VMs which make a lot of things very convenient and, in particular, free you from having to make the big choice of the OS.
FYI: The ‘you can’t run this untrusted code’ dialog is easy to get around.
I suspect I would be able to bludgeon OSX into submission but I don’t see any reasons why I should bother. I don’t have to work with Macs and am content not to.
Can’t speak for Lumifer, but I was more annoyed by the fact that (the version I got of) OSX doesn’t ship with a working developer toolchain, and that getting one requires either jumping through Apple’s hoops and signing up for a paid developer account, or doing a lot of sketchy stuff to the guts of the OS. This on a POSIX-compliant system! Cygwin is less of a pain, and it’s purely a bolt-on framework.
(ETA: This is probably an exaggeration or an unusual problem; see below.)
It was particularly frustrating in my case because of versioning issues, but those wouldn’t have applied to most people. Or to me if I’d been prompt, which I hadn’t.
You do not need to pay to get the developer tools. I have never paid for a compiler*, and I develop frequently.
*(other than LabView, which I didn’t personally pay for but my labs did, and is definitely not part of XCode)
After some Googling, it seems that version problems may have been more central than I’d recalled. Xcode is free and includes command-line tools, but looking at it brings up vague memories of incompatibility with my OS at the time. The Apple developer website allows direct download of those tools but also requires a paid signup. And apparently trying to invoke gcc or the like from the command line should have brought up an update option, but that definitely didn’t happen. Perhaps it wasn’t an option in an OS build as old as mine, although it wouldn’t have been older than 2009 or 2010. (I eventually just threw up my hands and installed an Ubuntu virt through Parallels.)
So, probably less severe than I’d thought, but the basic problem remains: violating Apple’s assumptions is a bit like being a gazelle wending your way back to a familiar watering hole only to get splattered by a Hummer howling down the six-lane highway that’s since been built in front of it.
You can get it through the app store, which means you need an account with Apple, but you do not need to pay to get this account. It really is free.
I would note that violating any operating system’s assumptions makes bad things happen.
Yeah, I bought a hard copy in a non-technical bookstore. “Six people” was a joke based on its, er, specialized audience compared to the lines of Snow Crash; in terms of absolute numbers it’s probably less obscure than, say, Zodiac.
If memory serves, Stephenson came out in favor of OSX a couple years after its release, comparing it to BeOS in the context of his essay. I can’t find the cite now, though. Speaking for myself, I find OSX’s ability to transition more-or-less seamlessly between GUI and command-line modes appealing, but its walled developer garden unspeakably annoying.
With some googling, I found this, a version of ITBWTCL annotated (by someone else) five years later, including a quote from Stephenson, saying that the essay “is now badly obsolete and probably needs a thorough revision”. The quote is quoted in many places, but the only link I turned up for it on his own website was dead (not on the Wayback Machine either).
I think everyone who belongs to a certain age group and runs Linux has read In the Beginning was the Command Line. And yes, that’s me admitting to having read it, and kinda believed the arguments at one point.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.