On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 2:27 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

Linux is weird. It's not elegant like the early unix systems, it's
not as well put together if you look at it through unix glasses (and
don't get me started on plan 9 glasses). But it is *useful*. They
favored useful over elegant. I don't think they disliked elegant,
I suspect that many of us would say they didn't have the good taste
to do elegant, whatever. It's useful. I'll take that. And it's
really not that bad. Unless you are grumpy and want a perfect world.

I'll accept that and may be add - it's practical and get the job done. Not pretty, but damned good for what you get.

That said, I do agree with Ron, it lacks elegance and some of the the "cool" (like monokernel vs ukernel which has always pained me a little). But useful and practical is hard to argue -- darned glad to have it around.