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I'm a loyal unix guy but as a millenial without much actual hands-on experience with VMS I always love to hear anecdotes like that :) The first time I read about it was in Clifford Stoll's Cuckoo's Egg where it seemed as if there was constant competition between UNIX/VMS folks over which was the more sophisticated/elegant operating system - mostly good hearted competition of a more civilized age of course ;) I vividly remember the one encounter I had with it's weird shell where I had to re-configure an application running on an Alpha machine which had a consecutive uptime of something like 12 years...

One of humanity's biggest enemies to progress are "Not invented here" and the cult of youth. It's often better to start with a blank slate ("being ignorant") because amongst other things like simply having a different perspective (worth 100 IQ points ~Alan Key) it helps with actually starting to build something. Eventually though we should still be aware of what we as a collective have learned already.

To be fair I think Github folks should know their history so this project might be one of the exceptions - looking forward to it! <3



How do you differentiate "the cult of youth" from "it is better to start from a blank slate"?

Side note: Neither of the two issues you mentioned are "one of humanity's biggest enemies to progress."


I guess it boils down to respect - for both sides, young and old. Thanks for the compiler error ;)


being ignorant

"Ignorance is Strength" (1984)




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