Unix and user friendy systems

[munck at mitre-bedford.ARPA]

  Aha, at last a clear statement of what drives me crazy about C and
UNIX.

> The man pages are meant as short summaries for human beings ...
> The source code is written for dumb computers to interpret.

If you read that without a twinge, you're part of the problem.  Source
code SHOULD BE written for human beings, who are its most frequent and
expensive readers, and secondarily for a very specialized, very
infrequently-used (in comparison to the total amount of computing done)
program called a compiler.  Certainly in UNIX, where programs are meant
to be read, understood, and changed by many people, the former
consideration should weigh much more heavily than the latter.  Yet they
use C, which has to be mentally translated by the most guru-ie of wizards.  

   In my opinion, the language that best supports writing of superbly
human-readable programs at no significant expense in machine efficiency
is Ada.  I doubt that anyone will challenge that...
               -- Bob Munck, MITRE