119 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
119 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<title>Usenix Notes Issue 15</title>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY >
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<center>
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<H2>USENIX Notes</H2>
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<H4>By Arnold D. Robbins,
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<a href="mailto:arnold@gnu.ai.mit.edu">arnold@gnu.ai.mit.edu</a></H4>
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</center>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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Sun, 19 Jan 97 <BR>
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I am writing this on my Linux portable after USENIX. I hadn't been
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to USENIX in four years, and had been looking forward to it for a while.
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Some things were really great, and others were disappointing. Overall,
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I enjoyed it and it was worthwhile.
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<P>
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I took two tutorials. The first was on Win32 programming, and it was most
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of the justification for getting my company to pay for the conference, since
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I'll be doing a lot of Windows NT programming starting soon after I return.
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The tutorial was good, but the notes were not in sync with the slides, which
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was very frustrating.
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<P>
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The second tutorial, well, the less said about it the better; it was below
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the usual standard for USENIX tutorials, which are usually quite good.
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<P>
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Of course, the best part of the conference is the conference. There are
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several components: the refereed papers, the invited talks, the vendor
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show, and then the general "networking" (not the computer and wires kind,
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the other kind) that goes on.
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<P>
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The refereed papers didn't seem that exciting. They all either dealt with
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enhancements to proprietary versions of Unix, or had WWW in their title.
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Of course, maybe when I get to read some of the papers, I'll revise my
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opinion.
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<P>
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The invited talks were better, particularly from the guys at Bell Labs;
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Matt Blaze on why encryption isn't used more often, Rob Pike on Inferno
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(they gave out an Inferno CD to all registrants) and Bill Cheswick's
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"Stupid Net Tricks" talk.
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<P>
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The vendor show was ok. O'Reilly, and especially the San Diego Technical
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Bookstore did a bang-up business. All the Linux CD-ROM vendors were there
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and did OK too. The biggest hit was SSC's t-shirt (see photos elsewhere),
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which sold like hot cakes. Fortunately, I got mine early.
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<P>
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This was the first joint USELINUX conference. I must say, Linux is
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certainly invigorating the USENIX community. The Linux talks I went too
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were all well attended. Dave Miller and Miguel de Icaza (sp?) gave a
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neat talk on Linux/SPARC. It doesn't yet support the Minix filesystem,
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due to endian issues. Most people in the room didn't seem to mind...
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Otherwise, it's Linux, and it's cool. You can get a real distribution
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from Red Hat.
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<P>
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It was particularly interesting that Linus's talk on the future of Linux
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overflowed the smaller conference room into the very large main speaking
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hall. The majority of the conference attendees were there. As always, I
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found Linus amusing, intelligent, and very insightful about the computer /
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desktop industry. Linus's goal: World Domination. But to achieve this,
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we need real end-user applications (spreadsheets, word processors, etc).
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Linus made the insightful observation that the Unix vendors have made a
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mistake concentrating on the market for the server in the back room; no-one
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sees it, and no-one cares if it's replaced with something else.
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<P>
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And last, but not least, the "networking" part. Figuring that I probably
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wouldn't get to another USENIX for a long time, I took advantage of the
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opportunity to chat with Dennis Ritchie for a few minutes, and thank him
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for the courtesy with which he always replies to my email. I enjoyed it;
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he's a really neat person.
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<P>
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I got to meet Jeffrey Friedl (author of O'Reilly's new book on regular
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expressions); he had found a number of strange cases in gawk's behavior
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(that have since been fixed). I also finally met Larry Wall, author
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of Perl. Larry is one of the few people who generally doesn't wear a
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name badge at USENIX; otherwise he wouldn't be able to move around much.
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<P>
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I was there when Greg Wettstein (sp?) of the Roger Maris Cancer Center
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came over, introduced himself to Larry, and told him that many cancer
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patients were having an easier life thanks to Perl. It was a humbling
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experience, since I certainly haven't made that kind of an impact on
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anything, and Larry too seemed a bit awed. Larry's a neat guy; I hope
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to get to know him better in the future.
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<P>
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Conclusions: 1. It's worthwhile for Linux people to be involved in USENIX;
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we're all on the same Open Systems / Free Software team, even if we don't
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realize it. 2. Linux is invigorating USENIX, it's brought the fun back
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into the Unix world.
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<P>
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Arnold Robbins -- The Basement Computer <BR>
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Internet: arnold@gnu.ai.mit.edu <BR>
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UUCP: dragon!skeeve!arnold <BR>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Arnold D. Robbins <BR>
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Published in Issue 15 of the Linux Gazette, March 1997</H5></center>
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