Complex and bloated

Posted May 10, 2025 16:04 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Complex and bloated by bferrell
Parent article: A kernel developer plays with Home Assistant: general impressions

> Odd... the basic premise of *IX (UNIX, Linux and all the IX-alikes) is they are small and do one thing well;

Never. Even very early Unixes are bloated, sprawling, monsters if you compare them with a well-designed systems. The premise was always “do one thing and do it well” for one program, not for the whole thing.

> Then chain them together.

Nope. Direct quote from Doug McIlroy: To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new "features".

That advice doesn't reduce size of the mess, it just moves it from one place to another.

> And that premise has lasted from before the bloated monster began

Seriously? Need I remind you that the whole Unix project was a reaction to issues with that one “bloated monters” called Multics?

> shows ever sign of outlasting them

Oh, absolutely. But that's because Linux is much more bloated and monstrous. Multics kernel has 250k lines of code. Linux have near 40 million. That's two order of magnitude difference (as in: Linux is hundred times larger).

Compared to Linux bloated monsters of yesteryears are not tiny, they are outright minuscule. Today we are discussing whether minimal install should be 40MiB or 50MiB… both would fill storage of monstrous system from yesteryear that was result of one of largest projects ever attempted by mankind. Both would leave some small amount of space for the users… that's something, I guess.

> I also have a Mycroft. It doesn't use ANY cloud service and has none of the hype or community. So I build it all myself in my copious spare time.

Well… as I have said: if there ever would be a time where the majority of devices would be supported by both competition on quality may start… till then the bigger mess wins.