[runn1ng]

I found it funny that random decisions from 60s, 70s, 80s still have repercussions on how we use computers today, because backwards compatibility beats cleanliness every time.

Be right back, solving some Windows backslash and CRLF issues.

[mch82]

It’s not just software. A mechanical engineer once explained to me that the size of the Space Shuttle was influenced by the width of a Roman road, which was influenced by the width of two horses walking side-by-side.

[skxx]

It's a fun myth but it's not true. The SRBs for the Space Shuttle were designed to satisfy their mission criteria. While any similarity between US rail widths today and Roman roads is due more to happenstance than a direct result.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/

[Piskvorrr]

Um, nope. The choice of railroad gauge was a historical artifact: in the beginning, everyone had a different gauge, then we had like 15 gauge standards and "standards", and one of them eventually prevailed (through British administrative fiat). The choice was not due to an inherent superiority of this particular gauge, but due to a campaign by George Stephenson. From there, it was mostly network effect: popularity breeds popularity.

Gauge is, most of all, a tradeoff between construction costs (tunnels, bridges, cuttings, oh my! Every additional inch of the gauge gets real expensive in Actual Terrain; ditto for train stations: narrow gauge can fit many more tracks next to each other), and between operating costs (wider gauge cars can be wider _and_ higher, as they're inherently more stable; thus, more cargo on same number of cars).

( ObXkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ )

[m463]

On another note, human intelligence is limited by the width of the birth canal.

[jhanschoo]

Interestingly, some distros have undone/are undoing the usr split, fedora around 2012 and Debian still ongoing, see https://wiki.debian.org/UsrMerge and its associated links

[microtonal]

On NixOS:

    % find /bin /usr
    /bin
    /bin/sh
    /usr
    /usr/bin
    /usr/bin/env

/usr and /bin are only there to provide sh and env for compatibility with shell scripts.

[ape4]

Yes, the UsrMove project. It is great leadership to go to the trouble to fix things like this. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UsrMove

[flukus]

Why are they going from /bin to /usr/bin instead of /usr/bin to /bin ? I would have thought they could flatten things out.

[__s]

Arch too, https://www.archlinux.org/news/binaries-move-to-usrbin-requi...

[al_form2000]

Character encodings using shift/unshift bytes were born out of serial transmission.

... Also check out those ^Zs at EOF, will ya.

[IloveHN84]

Because there's this "never touch a running system" fear, deeply rooted in our industry.

The whole "move fast and break things" is a big lie, because you know that in that way, the system works, newer changes will break countless systems/scripts/etc

[al_form2000]

Also because doing the same thing over and over again "[because X for X in (consistency, security, esthetics, whatchamacallit)]" grows old fast - and by the time it's been fixed and running again, X is no longer there, or it's been totallty twisted out of the intended shape.