The UNIX-haters handbook

Edited by Simson Garfinkel, Daniel Weise, and Steven Strassmann Illustrations by John Klossner......Page 4
The UNIX-HATERS Handbook......Page 5
By Donald A. Norman......Page 18
Things Are Going to Get a Lot Worse Before Things Get Worse......Page 22
Deficient by Design......Page 23
Who We Are......Page 24
The UNIX-HATERS History......Page 25
You are not alone......Page 30
Contributors and Acknowledgments......Page 31
Typographical Conventions......Page 34
The UNIX-HATERS Disclaimer......Page 35
By DennisRitchie......Page 38
The World’s First Computer Virus......Page 44
History of the Plague......Page 45
Accumulation of Random Genetic Material......Page 47
Sex, Drugs, and Unix......Page 49
Standardizing Unconformity......Page 50
Why Unix Vendors Really Don’t Want a Standard Unix......Page 51
1. It’s standard.......Page 54
Like Russian Roulette with Six Bullets Loaded......Page 58
Cryptic Command Names......Page 59
1. The Unix file system lacks version numbers.......Page 60
“rm” Is Forever......Page 62
Changing rm’s Behavior Is Not an Option......Page 64
Consistently Inconsistent......Page 66
Impossible Filenames......Page 69
Amuse Your Friends! Confound Your Enemies!......Page 70
Online Documentation......Page 71
To Delete Your File, Try the Compiler......Page 72
Error Jokes......Page 76
The Unix Attitude......Page 78
1. Read the source code.......Page 84
1. catman, in which programmers had the “breakthrough” realization that they could store the man .........Page 85
“I Know It’s Here … Somewhere.”......Page 86
No Manual Entry for “Well Thought-Out”......Page 89
Shell Documentation......Page 90
This Is Internal Documentation?......Page 92
How to Get Real Documentation......Page 93
For Programmers, Not Users......Page 94
The Source Code Is the Documentation......Page 95
Unix Without Words: A Course Proposal......Page 97
Don’t Talk to Me, I’mNotaTypewriter!......Page 102
Sendmail: The Vietnam of Berkeley Unix......Page 103
1. Sendmail had to be compatible with existing mail programs.......Page 104
1. Figure out which part of the message is the address and which part is the body.......Page 108
STEP 1: Figure out what is address and what is body.......Page 109
STEP 2: Parse the address.......Page 110
STEP 3: Figure out where it goes.......Page 111
STEP 4: Put the mail into the correct mailbox.......Page 113
From: ......Page 115
Not Following Protocol......Page 117
>From Unix, with Love......Page 119
uuencode: Another Patch, Another Failure......Page 122
Error Messages......Page 123
Apple Computer’s Mail Disaster of 1991......Page 125
Netnews and Usenet: Anarchy Through Growth......Page 132
Death by Email......Page 133
Newsgroups......Page 135
Hurling Hierarchies......Page 136
The Great Renaming......Page 137
Alt.massive.flamage......Page 138
This Information Highway Needs Information......Page 139
rn, trn: You Get What You Pay for......Page 140
When in Doubt, Post......Page 143
Arrogance......Page 144
Resignation......Page 145
Ossification......Page 146
Nostalgia......Page 148
Original Sin......Page 150
The Magic of Curses......Page 152
1. The format of the termcap file—the cursor movement commands included, those left out, and the .........Page 153
Senseless Separators......Page 154
Customizing your terminal settings......Page 157
How to Make a 50-MIPS Workstation Run Like a 4.77MHz IBM PC......Page 162
The Nongraphical GUI......Page 163
Ice Cube: The Lethal Weapon......Page 164
Myth: X Demonstrates the Power of Client/Server Computing......Page 166
Myth: X Makes Unix “Easy to Use”......Page 168
Myth: X Is “Customizable”......Page 171
Myth: X Is “Portable”......Page 173
Myth: X Is Device Independent......Page 177
X Graphics: Square Peg in a Round Hole......Page 179
X: On the Road to Nowhere......Page 180
Power Tools for Power Fools......Page 186
The Shell Game......Page 187
Shell crash......Page 188
The Metasyntactic Zoo......Page 189
The Shell Command “chdir” Doesn’t......Page 192
Shell Programming......Page 193
Shell Variables Won’t......Page 197
Error Codes and Error Checking......Page 198
Pipes......Page 199
Find......Page 203
Hold Still, This Won’t Hurt a Bit......Page 212
The Wonderful Unix Programming Environment......Page 214
Programming in Plato’s Cave......Page 215
Parsing with yacc......Page 216
“Don’t know how to make love. Stop.”......Page 217
Header Files......Page 220
Utility Programs and Man Pages......Page 221
The Source Is the Documentation. Oh, Great!......Page 224
Dealing with the Core......Page 225
The Bug Reliquary......Page 226
Filename Expansion......Page 228
Robustness, or “All Lines Are Shorter Than 80 Characters”......Page 229
Exceptional Conditions......Page 232
Catching Bugs Is Socially Unacceptable......Page 235
If You Can’t Fix It, Restart It!......Page 236
The COBOL of the 90s......Page 240
The Assembly Language of Object-Oriented Programming......Page 241
Pardon Me, Your Memory Is Leaking…......Page 242
Hard to Learn and Built to Stay That Way......Page 244
Syntax Syrup of Ipecac......Page 245
Abstract What?......Page 247
C++ Is to C as Lung Cancer Is to Lung......Page 250
New professional......Page 252
Manager......Page 253
Unix’s Hidden Cost......Page 258
Keeping Unix Running and Tuned......Page 260
Unix Systems Become Senile in Weeks, Not Years......Page 261
You Can’t Tune a Fish......Page 262
Disk Partitions and Backups......Page 264
Partitions: Twice the Fun......Page 266
1. Partitions must not overlap.......Page 267
Down and Backups......Page 268
More Sticky Tape......Page 270
Configuration Files......Page 271
Multiple Machines Means Much Madness......Page 272
Maintaining Mail Services......Page 275
Where Did I Go Wrong?......Page 277
The Oxymoronic World of Unix Security......Page 280
Holes in the Armor......Page 281
The Problem with SUID......Page 282
The Cuckoo’s Egg......Page 283
The Other Problem with SUID......Page 284
Processes Are Cheap—and Dangerous......Page 285
The Problem with PATH......Page 286
Trusted Path and Trojan Horses......Page 287
Compromised Systems Usually Stay That Way......Page 288
Cryptic Encryption......Page 289
Denial of Service......Page 290
Disk Overload......Page 292
The Worms Crawl In......Page 293
Sure It Corrupts Your Files, But Look How Fast It Is!......Page 296
Meet the Relatives......Page 297
Visualize a File System......Page 298
UFS: The Root of All Evil......Page 299
Automatic File Corruption......Page 302
No File Types......Page 304
File and Record Locking......Page 305
Only the Most Perfect Disk Pack Need Apply......Page 308
Don’t Touch That Slash!......Page 309
Moving Your Directories......Page 311
Disk Usage at 110%?......Page 312
Performance......Page 313
Nightmare File System......Page 316
Not Fully Serviceable......Page 317
Broken Cookie......Page 318
No File Security......Page 320
The Exports List......Page 322
Not File System Specific? (Not Quite)......Page 324
Virtual File Corruption......Page 325
Freeze Frame!......Page 327
Not Supporting Multiple Architectures......Page 330
Enlightenment Through Unix......Page 336
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE......Page 338
By Richard P. Gabriel......Page 342
Just When You Thought You Were Out of the Woods…......Page 348
Index......Page 350