#unixphilosophy — Public Fediverse posts

It occurred to me that my Unix-iversary is somewhere around today. This year marks 35 years that I've been using Unix and its descendents and cousins and step-children. Small potatoes by the standards of anyone who was at Bell Labs in the '70s, but long enough for me.

So I've been thinking about Unix, the Unix philosophy, how things have changed and evolved - some for the better, some not - and inevitably, init systems.

I can't decide which flavour of #absurdity #systemd falls under - Monty Python? Or more Kafka?

It's kinda-sorta both. But to me, using it feels more like walking into what you think is the Argument Clinic office to ask for an #init system, but you are actually in the Abuse room, and they give you systemd.

#MontyPython #Kafka #kafkaesque #MeaningOfLife #absurd #ridiculous #ludicrous #Unix #UnixPhilosophy #InitSystem

> mount: (hint) your fstab has been modified, but systemd still uses
> the old version; use 'systemctl daemon-reload' to reload.

Ah yes, caching the contents of a tiny text file so that an extremely infrequently-run command doesn't have to read it at startup, but every other tool now has to take this into account and invalidate that cached copy.

F*cking #systemd.

#HardProblems #TwoHardProblems #CacheInvalidation #cache #Unix #UnixPhilosophy #FFS

@JdeBP @still

For real? Sigh...

The slop machine has brought a lot of publicity to this, but it's becoming apparent to me [1] that many of the developers working in Unix-like environments really don't understand or don't accept the "small tools doing one thing well" aspect of the Unix philosophy, even before slop.

[1] Maybe I'm slow.

#Unix #UnixPhilosophy #OneThing #OneJob #slop #complexity

Can someone be kind enough to explain why "everything is a file" is such a GREAT idea that LITERALLY EVERYONE keeps hyping it up?

I'm literally losing my mind here trying to understand what makes it so great.

#linux #unix #posix #filesystem #filedescriptors #unixphilosophy

Someone: "Life is easier without the monolithic systemd."

Linux kernel enters the chat.

Linux kernel: "What do you mean? I am a monolith as well."

Me: Oh, if we use "monolith," "monolith," "other software of different principles," "on top of others," that means we are still following the UNIX philosophy, regardless of the monolith parts' presence.

Thoughts? Feel free to comment.

#Linux #Systemd #UnixPhilosophy #Monolith #Kernel #OpenSource #SysAdmin #FOSS #TechHumour #OperatingSystems #LinuxKernel #SoftwareArchitecture #CodingLife #TechThoughts #GeekLife

So, I rescued a 12-year-old Macbook Pro, given up by its owner because Apple had orphaned it from security updates, and also it was suffering from Apple High-Qwality Spicy Pillow Syndrome.

I replaced the battery and installed Linux on it.

And I gotta say, this was the most satisfying thing I've done with a keyboard in years:

# apt-get purge systemd libnss-systemd

#Devuan Excalibur installed/upgraded from Debian Trixie like a champ. Now I don't have to deal with extraneous horseshit when Lennart adds systemd-mountd, systemd-sshd, systemd-bourne-shell, systemd-emacs, etc, etc...

Thanks to @landley for the post that finally convinced me to give Devuan a go. I'd been thinking about it for years, but didn't feel like setting aside a bunch of debugging time which I assumed would be needed.

Now to figure out how to switch to s6 from runit. ( @ska )

#Debian #systemd #UnixPhilosophy #runit #s6 #init #Unix #Linux

@pfr

Okay, now we just have to fork it to strip out the systemd.

#systemd #Unix #UnixPhilosophy #LennartPoettering #s6 #init #Linux #BSD

Unix philosophy is dead Long live something else?

https://sdomi.pl/weblog/27-manifesto-of-a-burnt-out-hacker/

#HackerNews #UnixPhilosophy #DeadLongLive #ChangeInTech #BurntOutHackers #HackerNews #Discussion

Post-OOP Imperative Functional Java.
Model the process. Not the domain.

Most Java code still asks the wrong question:
"What is this domain object?"
But production systems fail, scale, and burn because of processes, not nouns.

If your system is a sequence of irreversible steps, model it as a sequence,
not as interacting objects pretending to be immortal.

This follows ideas from Railway-Oriented Programming (ROP):
errors and decisions are values, not control-flow side effects.

Modeling the process means you can read this top to bottom
and understand exactly what happens.
No debugger. No IDE magic. No tribal knowledge.

Control flow is explicit.
You see the execution order.
Nothing hides in constructors, annotations, or overrides.

Failure is a first-class concept.
Once it fails or decides early, nothing else runs.
No exception archaeology.

Processes > Objects.
Real systems are workflows where refactoring is safe.

Steps are reordered, removed, or replaced
without collapsing a class hierarchy.
Testing is trivial, small stepwise context — even for an AI.

Feed input. Assert final result.
No mocking five layers of indirection.

GraalVM / native-friendly.
No reflection rituals.
The compiler smiles.

Objects are great for long-lived entities.
User actions, payments, rules, and failures are short-lived processes.

I model what happens,
not what pretends to exist forever.

Influenced by:
Railway-Oriented Programming,
Functional Core / Imperative Shell,
Workflow / Saga patterns,
Command pipelines,
Unix philosophy,
and value-oriented libraries like Vanilla-DI.

Don't be stuck in axioms.

#PostOOP
#ImperativeFunctional
#ProcessOverObjects
#ModelTheProcess
#WorkflowFirst
#RailwayOrientedProgramming
#FunctionalCore
#ImperativeShell
#CommandPipeline
#ExplicitControlFlow
#ValueOrientedDesign
#ProcessModeling
#FailFast
#NoExceptionArchaeology
#ComposableSystems
#NativeFriendly
#GraalVM
#NoReflection
#DeterministicCode
#RefactorSafe
#SagaPattern
#UnixPhilosophy
#VanillaDI
#ModernJava
#ArchitectureMatters

Orla – AI agent chạy trên máy cục bộ, tuân theo triết lý Unix: đơn giản, nhanh, có thể kết hợp. Không cần API key, đăng ký hay máy chủ. Mã nguồn mở, bảo mật dữ liệu trên thiết bị. Nếu bạn dùng grep, bạn sẽ dễ dùng Orla. #AI #OpenSource #UnixPhilosophy #Orla #AIcôngcộng #phầnmềmmở

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1q474ug/applying_the_unix_philosophy_to_agents/

The humble split command embodies Unix philosophy: doing one thing well. By fragmenting large files into manageable chunks, it enables efficient, transparent data processing without complex dependencies. Simple tools that respect developers' time deserve recognition. #Linux #UnixPhilosophy #DevOps

Dự án 'pipe' ra mắt: một framework "Agent as Function" (AasF) không trạng thái, tuân thủ Triết lý Unix. Nó xem tác nhân AI như hàm thuần túy, loại bỏ trạng thái ẩn và kiểm soát ngữ cảnh hoàn toàn. Được thiết kế để hoạt động liền mạch với các pipe Unix. Mục tiêu là làm việc với AI dễ dàng và xác định hơn. Mã nguồn mở CC0.

#pipe #AgentAsFunction #UnixPhilosophy #LLM #OpenSource #AI #CôngCụAI #MãNguồnMở

https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1p9lqvl/project_i_built_pipe_a_stateless_agent_as

The sentiment that the #UnixPhilosophy is dead or bygone (or whatever) seems not uncommon.

I want to assert that it is timeless, and not tied to Unix, nor any particular computing environment.

And I posit that breaking complicated tasks down into composable parts, each handled by a specific tool that does the one thing and exits is

… drum roll please …

Anticapitalist. Anarchic. Cooperative and socialist.

While big platforms dominate attention, GNU Coreutils still just works.

Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing

https://www.alephic.com/writing/the-magic-of-claude-code

#HackerNews #UnixPhilosophy #FilesystemAccess #ClaudeCode #TechInnovation #Programming

Those who fail to understand Unix are doomed to forever keep trying to turn it into Windows NT.

#Unix #UnixPhilosophy #simplicity #OneJob #systemd #Windows #WindowsNT

What brought you to #Emacs?

@myTerminal I was using Tmux, Vim, Bash, AWK, and FZF, and I kept trying to write scripts for all of these programs that would allow me more coordination between them. For example, I once wanted to launch a process from Vim in a second terminal in a Tmux split-screen, capture it’s output into a temporary file, then when the process exited, use AWK to select symbols from the file that I could later feed into FZF. Or I would write a little wrapper Bash script that would run a build process and send a notification and trigger Tmux to automatically switch to the shell when the process completed.

I was always thinking to myself how I wished all of these separate tools, which were all doing one just thing and doing it well (the Unix philosophy), could be connected together without needing to use pipes or complicated message passing through temporary files or through DBus. And I also wished they were all written in the same programming language, instead of having a different language for Bash, AWK, VimScript, and the config languages for Tmux, or using long chains of CLI options stored into partial script files.

Then it hit me one day that this thing that I was wishing for, which coordinated between the terminal multiplexer, command shell, editor, and auto-completion framework and was all scripted with just one programming language, this thing already existed and it was called Emacs.

Then I finally understood what all the fuss was about, and switched to Emacs forever.

#tech #software #lisp #Emacs #EmacsLisp #UnixPhilosophy #FreeSoftware #FLOSS #FOSS #CLI #CommandLine

Listen at: https://archives.anonradio.net/202504020000_screwtape.mp3

This week we will talk about the Unix Philosophy and how it compares and contrasts with whatever one might call the “Emacs Philosophy.”

The impetus for the discussion is a series of blog posts by @ramin_hal9001 called “Emacs fulfills the UNIX Philosophy”:

• The original introductory blog post
• The show notes

…as well as a fascinating discussion that took place over this past week on ActivityPub on the topic of the Unix philosophy and history of Lisp on Unix in which some very knowledgeable people have contributed anecdotes and facts.

#technology #programming #SoftwareEngineering #RetroComputing #lisp #r7rs #SchemeLang #UnixPhilosophy

within each of us
our loved ones, in tiny form,
caring's innate yield
    company at a distance
    legacy in case of loss

#senryu #poem #ShortPoem #SmallPoem #SmallPoems

@cstross

Their "now with 42% less Unix philosophy" comment perfectly clarified that that they really, truly don't understand Unix.

Who was it said "Those who fail to understand Unix are doomed to reinvent it, badly." ?

#Unix #UnixPhilosophy

I'm daily using FreeBSD and Gentoo with "-systemd" global use flag, so I didn't closely watch to the latest news from the Linux world.

But, really?! They removing text logs from /var/log?? I bet, at 2026 there will be binary database for configuration instead of text files in /etc/ and /usr/local/etc/ 😁

https://messydesk.social/@robey/113689392683044802

#Linux #FreeBSD #Gentoo #UnixPhilosophy

@BradRubenstein @b0rk

The book The UNIX Philosophy by Mike Gancarz (quoted on the Wikipedia page) is a little gem: very brief, non-technical, strictly focused on the underlying design principles, expounded in simple language. Lovely. I have the habit of picking it up every once in a while and randomly re-reading one of its chapters.

#unix #UnixPhilosophy #MikeGancarz #design

“The more I use Lisp, the more I understand the Unix philosophy as something not for daily use, but as something to be lying on top seamlessly”

@anthk yes, I completely agree! I actually wrote a whole series of blog posts on this topic:

• Emacs Fulfills the Unix Philosophy

#Emacs #Unix #Linux #UnixPhilosophy

Recently I switched from the default keyboard on my Android phone to Simple Keyboard from the F-Droid app. It doesn't have autocorrect, word suggestions, swiping/gesture support, or spyware.

I originally switched for privacy reasons, but I've noticed that my frustration with phone typing has gone down drastically. I was always struggling against autocorrect to not replace the wrong thing, and the auto capitalization and such never allowed me to develop any skill in typing precisely.

I'm much slower in typing now, but I feel so much more in control of the experience.

#android #fdroid #foss #unixphilosophy #typing

The Unix Philosophy died when every major Linux distribution decided SystemD was a good idea, and embedded it deeply into everything.

Nowadays, it's hard to enumerate and nearly impossible to replicate what software expects from a SystemD distribution when it's not running on SystemD, so of course I'm running SystemD.

#unixphilosophy #linux #systemd

Sometimes you have to combine a few tools to get the job done #unixphilosophy

@Luisa_Donato

Related, this under-appreciated Gem of a book: The Unix Philosophy, by Mike Gancarz, Digital Press 1995. Deep insights into OS design and general UI design from a user/programmer perspective. Deceptive in its easy conversational style, very substantial in its actual insights.

#UnixPhilosophy #MikeGancarz