And Stallman who gave us Emacs and GCC 😃
@starbreaker vi? Yeah, that's a lot of Joy, Bill.
@redsPL Put yourself in the shoes of somebody bashing out code using ed or ex on a teletype connected to a BSD Unix machine in 1978 who finally upgrades to a proper terminal with a screen and can now use vi.
"What? You mean I can actually see WTF I'm doing? It's a fucking miracle!"
@starbreaker I'm not hating on vi or vi users, it's just the fact that it has a steep learning curve. But yeah, it was an awesome design for the 80s.
@redsPL It does, but so does Unix if you grew up on Windows or MacOS and never had a reason to tinker with a command line.
I don't think steep learning curves are necessarily a bad thing. Rather than lie about their existence or steer people toward "easier" alternatives, we should say, "these are powerful tools, and you'll have to work hard to learn how to effectively use them, but you can do it. We did, and we can help you."
But then we'd actually have to step up and help newbies out.
@starbreaker I grew up with Windows (okay, that's technically not true, but until I was 8, I haven't even touched linux), and I wouldn't call terminal's learning curve a very steep one. It's hard, but you can get the basics even from screaming `help' into it. Being fluent in bash is another thing, and you'll just need to spend time with it.
With vi, we have another problem - technically we have built-in docs, but you don't always get them. Without proper knowledge, you can't even start to learn
@redsPL This, believe it or not, is one reason I switched from Linux to OpenBSD last year. Everything in the OpenBSD base system comes with a well written and comprehensive manual page. Everything. Including vi. (Ports and packages are another story, but they try.)
Most Linux distributions have godawful documentation, and you're lucky if you get a manual page you can access with "man $COMMANDNAME". GNU shit uses fucking info pages instead. Most of the time you're stuck with a Readme file.
@kingu_platypus_gidora I didn't even know who Dennis Ritchie is, and that's sad
Now you know ! 😃
@kingu_platypus_gidora @Concerned_Catgirl
I approve, except: we would have no programs, read in binary? Someone needs to learn about Grace Hopper, stat.
@kingu_platypus_gidora I remembered and honored Dennis Ritchie. But let's not forget those who worked with him and are still with us:
Brian Kernighan
Ken Thompson
Rob Pike
And let's also remember Bill Joy, who gave us vi.