textfiles/internet/god

From giga-l@giga.or.at Wed Nov 13 14:23:55 1996
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Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 14:23:55 +0100
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From: e9125069@student.tuwien.ac.at (Robert Vargason)
To: tl
Subject: GOD
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From: ab756@torfree.net (Graham Bullers)
Subject: GOD
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 23:58:43 GMT





                       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