The Daemon, the GNU & the Penguin, Ch. 14, by Dr. Peter H. Salus (Groklaw)

Posted Jul 4, 2005 21:14 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Well, he might have included some detail as to what makes Plan 9 different from Unix, and how Inferno is different from Java. It's not as if he were in any way cramped for space, and surely it would be worth waiting two or three weeks for a new installment of the book if it actually contained some technical information. He doesn't even deign to give URLs to where the original Plan 9 papers may be found on the Net (hint: http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/). Of course we can always Google for ourselves but I wouldn't exactly consider this the scholarly way to write a book.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't know what people see in this »book«; in my opinion it is mildly entertaining but far from what it's cracked up to be. I mean, it's great to have someone like Dr. Salus tell us about the history of Unix, but from someone who was actually there for much of it it would be even nicer to actually find out something new, rather than »I went to ... and did ..., and in the meantime Ken Thompson retired to California«. I do get the feeling that Dr. Salus could do a whole lot better if he applied himself to the task more. In school I would probably give this a »D«.