Item Subject: cc:Mail Text
UNIX co-creator Ken Thompson was (recently?) interviewed by IEEE's Computer
magazine.  His thoughts on Linux:

        I view Linux as something that's not Microsoft-a backlash against
        Microsoft, no more and no less. I don't think it will be very
        successful in the long run.  I've looked at the source and there
        are pieces that are good and pieces that are not. A whole bunch of
        random people have contributed to this source, and the quality
        varies drastically.

Here, it appears he's gauging future success based on the technical merits
behind the scenes.  Unfortuntely, that doesn't work, even if the technical
problems are more apparent to the end user.

Continuing:

        My experience and some of my friends' experience is that Linux is
        quite unreliable. Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is
        worse. In a non-PC environment, it just won't hold up.  If you're
        using it on a single box, that's one thing. But if you want to use
        Linux in firewalls, gateways, embedded systems, and so on, it has a
        long way to go.

That's a surprise to me.  Perhaps those who use both Linux and MS operating
systems can comment.


There are several other interesting items as well.  For example, see how
they decide what to research at the Computing Sciences Research Center.

Also, regarding the language "Limbo" (new to me), he says

        In C++ and Java I experience a certain amount of angst when you ask
        how to do this and they say, "Well, you do it like this or you
        could do it like that." There are obviously too many features if
        you can do something that many ways--and they are more or less
        equivalent.

I wonder how he feels about Perl (whose *slogan* is "There's More Than One
Way To Do It").


It's quite a wide-ranging interview, even touching on MP3 and MiG-29
fighters (though not at the same time ;).


The full interview is at:

      < http://computer.org/computer/thompson.htm >

--Glenn