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Re: Simplifying IKE
On Sat, 11 Aug 2001, Michael Thomas wrote:
> > No, actually, the Unix/TCP-IP/C stance. Build a decent general-purpose
> > solution, and most of the people who were complaining about needing custom
> > solutions will discover that general-purpose solutions really are good
> > enough...
>
> The general unix philosophy is to build small building
> blocks which can be bolted together too instead of
> overarching "solutions" (what was the problem again?).
That's *part* of the general Unix philosophy, but not all of it.
Where problems looked diverse and flexibility seemed needed, then yes,
building blocks and tools for combining them were provided.
But when a single good compromise solution seemed possible, that solution
was implemented and no alternatives, variations, or options were provided.
For example, Unix offered exactly one filesystem user interface, and a
very simple one it was too. This radical simplification (by the standards
of the time) did wonders for the building-block philosophy at higher
levels, because there was little room for incompatible views about what a
file looked like.
Henry Spencer
henry@spsystems.net
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