The Unix Hierarchy (The Eight Stages of Unix Knowledge)

Name

Description and features

beginner

- insecure with the concept of a terminal

- has yet to learn the basics of vi

- has not figured out how to get a directory

- still has trouble with typing <RETURN> after each line of input

novice

- knows that "ls" will produce a directory

- uses the editor, but calls it "vye"

- has heard of "C" but never used it

- has had his first bad experience with rm

- is wondering how to read his mail

- is wondering why the person next to him seems to like Unix so very much.

user

- uses vi and nroff, but inexpertly

- has heard of regular-expr.s but never seen one.

- has figured out that "-" precedes options

- has attempted to write a C program and has decided to stick with pascal

- is wondering how to move a directory

- thinks that dbx is a brand of stereo component

- knows how to read his mail and is wondering how to read the news

knowlegable user

- uses nroff with no trouble, and is beginning to learn tbl and eqn

- uses grep to search for fixed strings

- has figured out that mv(1) will move directories

- has learned that "help" doesn't help

- somebody has shown him how to write C programs

- once used sed to do some text substitution

- has seen dbx used but does not use it himself

- thinks that make is a only for wimps

expert

- uses sed when necessary

- uses macro"s in vi, uses ex when neccesary

- posts news at every possible opportunity

- write csh scripts occasionally

- write C programs using vi and compiles with cc

- has figured out what "&&" and "||" are for

- thinks that human history started with "!h"

hacker

- uses sed and awk with comfort

- uses undocumented features of vi

- write C code with "cat >" and compiles with "!cc"

- uses adb because he doesn't trust source debuggers

- can answer questions about the user environment

- writes his own nroff macros to supplement std. ones

- write scripts for Bourne shell (/bin/sh)

- knows how to install bug fixes

guru

- uses m4 and lex with comfort

- writes assembly code with "cat >"

- uses adb on the kernel while system is loaded

- customizes utilities by patching the source

- reads device driver source with his breakfast

- can answer any unix question after a little thought

- uses make for anything that requires two or more distinct commands to achieve

- has learned how to breach security but no longer needs to try

wizard

- writes device drivers with "cat >"

- fixes bugs by patching the binaries

- can answer any question before you ask

- writes his own troff macro packages

- is on first-name basis with Dennis, Bill, and Ken

Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.

E Pluribus Unix

The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April 1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user- friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis "cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we could tell them.

-- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June "84

Making files is easy under the Unix operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all Unix systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.

-- System V.2 administrator's guide

Megabyte: (n.) more than you can comprehend and less than you'll need. See: Unix.

Q: How many Unix gurus does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: One, but first he has to determine the correct path.

Q: How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb?

A: As many as you want; they're all virtual, anyway.

There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and Unix. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.

-- Jeremy S. Anderson

Unix: (n., v.) a DOS which needs more memory than you have and run more slowly than you can bear. To Unix: to grossly enlarge and slow down out of all proportion, esp. by using C.

Unix was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).

-- (after) Andy Tannenbaum

Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection:

(1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it.

(2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete.

(3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2)

(4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator.

(5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless.

• -- Rich Kulawiec

You mean I can put stuff past column 72? WOW! Unix is great!