Top all-time · #7104
Ian Murdock
Personal blog · ianmurdock.comsystemshistory
Ian Murdock's personal blog at ianmurdock.com covers systems and history. Since 2009, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 11 times, most often “How package management changed everything”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ian Murdock's blog for his account of Linux and Unix history and for his writing on backward compatibility, such as the SimCity and DOS-era Windows examples.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /platforms/on-the-importance-of-backward-compatibility/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-02-13
- How package management changed everything2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-01-31
- How I came to find Linux2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-08-18
What Hacker News says?
For a little on the history of Linux and unix in Mr. Murdock's life, I found this piece by him a very nice read. http://ianmurdock.com/post/how-i-came-to-find-linux/
Comment linking /post/how-i-came-to-find-linux/
on “In Memoriam: Ian Murdock”Submitted How I came to find Linux as a story · 317 points
HN discussionMore on that: http://ianmurdock.com/platforms/on-the-importance-of-backwar... Original ASP.NET blog entry was gone, best I could find.
Comment linking /platforms/on-the-importance-of-backward-compatibility/
on “-2000 lines of code”Submitted Any Interest in a FOSS History Project? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHell don't look at IE, look at Windows, Windows guys had to rewrite a CORRECT implementation of logic check if SimCity was running and turn of a special flag to run the old version of allocator. http://ianmurdock.com/platforms/on-the-importance-of-backwar... Now multiply that story for every badly written WebKit site that relies on some backward ass crazy bug that no maintainer sees fit to fix.
Comment linking /platforms/on-the-importance-of-backward-compatibility/
on “WebKit is the jQuery of Browser Engines”Submitted How package management changed everything as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> It drives me crazy that Apple removed one the most amazing features of *nix systems: a unified software repository. It's not a feature of unices, it's a feature of _Linux_ (Ian Murdoch called it "the single biggest advancement Linux has brought to the industry"[0]). The vast majority of unices never had a "unified software repository", and BSDs (probably the least indirect ancestor of OSX) have port trees, which a…
Comment linking /solaris/how-package-management-changed-everything/
on “How to Distribute Binaries for OS X Using Homebrew”Submitted Linux Family Tree as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMS has gone to great lengths to reach that goal. There is even special code in Windows to ensure the DOS version of SimCity works: http://ianmurdock.com/platforms/on-the-importance-of-backwar...
Comment linking /platforms/on-the-importance-of-backward-compatibility/
on “If there's no 16-bit layer in 64-bit Windows, how come 16-bit installers run?”Submitted Art and Linux family trees as a story · 1 points
HN discussionDoes anyone have a citation for and/or the full original words of Andreesen's famous and important "poorly debugged set of device drivers" remark? The best I can find is http://ianmurdock.com/cloud/windows-as-a-poorly-debugged-set... .
Comment linking /cloud/windows-as-a-poorly-debugged-set-of-device-drivers/
on “The Education of Marc Andreessen (1998)”
