I really wonder if Unix is best we can do. Or is it also worst? So in the end two of the worst options won. It did make sense back in time. But could it have been replaced with something better later?
Don't open this can of worms. (-: There were endless discussions of this in the 1990s. Years's worth.
Scroll down to the 'What Is the Hurd?' section of this announcement post from 1996 and pay particular attention to its first and last sentences. That's the allusion here.
* https://groups.google.com/g/gnu.announce/c/d0N2mLo5dxk/m/bDq...
Adding more features to OS is for some use cases a benefit, for other it's a barrier. For one it might be less work to get what you want ,for other it might be more code between you and hardware that just slows it down
Unix-like simplicity is exactly that, for some use cases directness is a benefit, for others it means extra work to do on top to get what you want.
If you just want a house, getting a raw foundation to work with is a lot to build on top, you have to bring the rest of the walls up yourself.
But if you want exactly the house you want, getting entirely different house to start with and changing it is far more work than starting from simple foundation and building up.
Overall unix "here is relatively simple operating system that doesn't force you but needs some things to be built on top to hit your use case" probably IS the best abstraction, despise not being "best" at really anything. There is reason we build houses from concrete and wood, and not carbon fiber and titanium alloys
I wouldn't say Unix itself is the best. It suffered a war between competing implementations pushing their own proprietary components. POSIX is the compromise.
But, ultimately, what is good about it today is not so much "Unix" (the proprietary OS from Bell Labs and its heritage), but specifically Linux and the BSDs. Why? Because they are actually open. They are freedom incarnate. You can add anything you like to them, today, without asking any permission. Not just their kernels, but their userlands too (Linux obviously varies by distro here). There's even a chance you can get your changes adopted upstream (unless it's GNOME), much more than you'd ever get from a proprietary company's OS.
So, while there's always room for improvement on the technical aspects of the OS, the social and political aspects of Linux and the BSDs make them the best we can achieve as a society.
What do you mean, which are the two? Sure, Windows is crappy by Linus and MacOS? They are both awesome.
I agree that Windows is crappy, but that doesn't mean that Linux and MacOS aren't also crappy in their own ways (not to mention iOS, Android).
I do not understand how can one crash their own product/baby that way - and no, this must be Hanlors Razors: They are doing it with (sophisticated) intend, not by accident (or coincidence)