Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 09:29:06 -0600 (CST)
From: Sheilagh Marie Blaise O'Hare
To: felon@eden.com
Subject: History of The Net
>> History Of The Net
>> ==================
>>
>> First there was God. He was quite lonely so he created Dennis.
>>
>> Dennis was unimpressed with God.
>>
>> So,... God created Brian.
>>
>> But, Brian got bored with God.
>>
>> So Brian and Dennis started playing, and they created C. God saw C,
>> and saw that it was good. So he decided to let Brian and Dennis play
>> some more.
>>
>> Then Brian and Dennis created Unix. God saw Unix, and he was jealous.
>> So he created Bill to torment Brian and Dennis and obscure their
>> creation (for God could not destroy Unix, for he secretly admired
>> its perfection).
>>
>> So Bill created Microsoft. And Microsoft created Windows. And God saw
>> that it was bad, but it had market share, so he was happy. Then Bill
>> got cocky, and his ego got bigger than God's. So to knock Bill down a
>> couple of pegs, God put into effect, a wondrous plan.
>>
>> First God created Tim. And Tim created the World Wide Web (using
>> Unix, of course). This was good, but not THAT good. So God created
>> Marc. Marc created Mosaic (using Unix, of course). Mosaic created a
>> huge feeding frenzy that has got a lot of people who are reading this
>> their jobs.
>>
>> But that's a different story. Mosaic was good, and God saw it was
>> good, so he allowed Marc to start Netscape. Back to this later.
>>
>> But all this time Brian and Dennis started to make something better
>> than Unix called Plan 9 (because God was successful in foiling Brian
>> and Dennis' previous seven plans [there was no Plan 8 because Brian
>> and Dennis pulled the wool over God's eyes and just jumped to Plan 9,
>> which was too bright a move for even God to figure out.] )
>>
>> Eventually, God figured out how to create Larry.
>>
>> No one knows how or why he created Larry, except perhaps to reduce
>> productivity at the Jet Propulsion Labs at NASA. [Rumors are that God
>> created Larry because he secretly liked what Dennis and Brian had done
>> with C, but didn't think C and Unix was enough -- this probably isn't
>> true because God believed he had destroyed Brian and Dennis' plans by
>> destroying Plans 1-7, and by creating Microsoft to slay their beloved
>> Unix.
>>
>> Anyhow, Larry created Perl (using Unix and C, of course), and God saw
>> it was good, so he made Randal. Larry and Randal wrote books about
>> Perl. And everyone saw that this was good, except snobs who were too
>> much into C, Windows, and Intel. (It so happens that Randal was so
>> cool he figured out a way to break into Unix at Intel, and Intel sued
>> him for it but that's another story also -- chances are Randal would
>> not have been able to break into *Plan 9* at Intel, but Intel isn't
>> cool enough to be running Plan 9)
>>
>> Anyhow, back to Randal. So Randal and Larry wrote books, but they had
>> to be nice because of the people they worked for. So then came Tom.
>> But back to Tom later.
>>
>> Anyhow, God saw Netscape (made using Unix and C, of course), and he
>> saw it was good, and that annoyed Bill quite a bit. And that made Him
>> very happy, and made Marc very rich. But Bill was very very rich. But
>> that's a *completely* different story.
>>
>> But as good as Larry's creation, Perl, was, it couldn't do everything,
>> so God created Scott. Scott announced Java, and this was big news. Now
>> Java really pissed Bill off, because Bill also created Blackbird, and
>> Java killed Blackbird. This was bad because killing Blackbird also
>> meant killing the Microsoft Network. And many rejoiced over that, but
>> that, too is another story.
>>
>> Now Java, obviously had done much to annoy Bill. For Java was so good
>> that Bill had to license Java. All this time, Scott poked lots of fun
>> at Bill because Sun, which was where Scott worked, made a better OS,
>> derived -- of course -- from Unix, which was better than Bill's and
>> Microsoft's Windows.
>>
>> Anyhow, even God's creations Steve and Steve who created Apple
>> couldn't make Bill license the much superior MacOS. But finally, Bill
>> had to license Java. So justice was served, and Bill's ego was served
>> him on a platter for him to eat his words. Or something. That part is
>> unclear.
>>
>> So by this time Windows and Microsoft and Bill in general really
>> sucked. Especially considering the advantages that Brian and Dennis'
>> C and Unix, running Marc's Netscape and Mosaic over Tim's World Wide
>> Web, doing cool CGI stuff with Larry's Perl, which you learned from
>> Randal and Tom, and got to program with Scott's Java.
>>
>> And God realized he had put Bill down too far. So then God made it so
>> that Marc's Netscape and Mosaic could run on Windows. We already know
>> that Bill had to license Java from Scott. We know that Bill missed
>> the boat for not beating Tim to the punch on the World Wide Web. The
>> last straw was for God to make it possible for Larry's Perl to run on
>> Bill's Windows.
>>
>> So back to Tom. Tom was a Perl God. And God didn't like this, but
>> Tom's a God so there isn't much God could do, so He couldn't stop Tom
>> from saying things like "install an operating system on your poor
>> lonely computer the way God and Dennis intended", and "Espousing the
>> eponymous /cgi-bin/perl.exe?FMH.pl execution model is like reading a
>> suicide note -- three days too late."
>>
>> The moral to the story? God is fickle. That's why Microsoft and Bill
>> and Windows exists. Do what God intended, install C, Unix,
>> Mosaic/Netscape, Java, and Perl on your system, and make Brian,
>> Dennis, Larry, Tim, Tom, Randal, Scott, and even Steve and Steve,
>> I'm sure, happy by doing so.
>>
>> Oh yeah, Linus was cool too. He's the guy you thank for being able to
>> run all the cool stuff on your crappy little Pee Cee. (anything with
>> x86 on it, by default, is crappy, no PERSONAL flames intended)
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