Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Saturday December 16 2017, @03:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the #! dept.

Lifehacker has an Interview with Brian Fox, the author of the Bash shell.

Brian Fox is a titan of open source software. As the first employee of Richard Stallman’s Free Software Foundation, he wrote several core GNU components, including the GNU Bash shell. Now he’s a board member of the National Association of Voting Officials and co-founder of Orchid Labs, which delivers uncensored and private internet access to users like those behind China’s firewall. We talked to him about his career and how he works.

[...] I first recall being interested in technology at the age of 6. My father, a physicist at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, had a teletype machine in the basement of the house we were living in. It connected to BBN via a modem. The baud rate was probably around 110bps—quite low. I used to hold down the CTRL key while pressing “G”, which would cause the bell to ring.

[...] I joined with my other 4 co-founders in 2017 to create the Orchid Protocol for a truly decentralized, surveillance-free internet.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Saturday December 16 2017, @07:49PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 16 2017, @07:49PM (#610772) Journal

    shell scripts on linux REQUIRED bash features, sometimes even while referencing /bin/sh

    I don't know about all the linuces* in the world, but in Debian and derivatives, /bin/sh isn't bash. (it isn't sh either; it's dash.)

    $ cat /etc/debian_version ;file /bin/sh
    buster/sid
    /bin/sh: symbolic link to dash

    Dash is a smaller shell that loads faster/depends on fewer libraries/has fewer features than bash; the Debian folks say that switching to dash results in a faster system boot time given that (faster loading time) * (many scripts loaded during boot) = less time to boot.

    ---
    * operating systems based on linux kernel + gnu userland

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3