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To me this book seemed more than just a history of operating systems. It seemed like a book on epistemology, with operating systems used as metaphors for how humans interface with underlying reality. Did anyone else get that impression? Tim Shell 21:42, 7 Aug 2004
Is there another copy of the annotated and updated version of this book out there? all the links I find point to an old copy which is no longer online-- Gsham 03:09, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
In the factual errors section, this looks rather like original research, or a book review. Does the c/cpp mistake really make a difference to the historical significance of this essay? Ojw 21:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
The remaining Factual Errors entry (Apple development environment) is pretty pointless, too ... it's not as if it invalidates any major part of the essay, is it? Compare with the information that the author now prefers OS/X - that is relevant. Jgrahn 22:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
The Factual Errors is incorrect. The MPW didn't create a CLI for the OS, it simply made it available. This entry should be removed. -- Archetypical 07:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be a space after the ellipsis? Cf. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Ellipsis. -- Malyctenar 10:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
That's the problem: what is his usage? The book cover (it seems to be the only edition in existence, right?) has a linebreak after the ellipsis. http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html , which is probably the most official you can get, has no ellipsis in the title (but in the navigation the title is shortened to "In the Beginning..."). The zipped TXT file you can download there has the title without ellipsis as well. So until we find a clear evidence that the ellipsis is more correct than a mere space, I'm all in favour of at least punctuating it properly. -- Malyctenar 15:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Image:Neal-Stephenson-in-the-beginning.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot 23:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Does this really need to be linked in the article? It reads much more like an op-ed piece than any sort of actual criticism or even discussion of Stephenson's essay. 144.135.138.40 ( talk) 07:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Seconded. Including Birkel's "rebuttal" link effectively turns this otherwise useful wikipedia entry into something resembling the early stages of a Slashdot flamewar. It serves no other purpose, and should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.55.200.20 ( talk) 23:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Disagree. I googled to investigate the cultural impact of this essay. Birkel's rebuttal appears to be the most notable and as such is a significant artifact. WP enabled me to find it. I believe it's important because it helps to put the essay into historical context. Note that it's been seven years. There's room for more rebuttal. – tbc ( talk) 16:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Neither agree nor disagree, but if we do have Birkel's rebuttal mentioned, there ought to be a citation of an online or offline resource. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Preserved killick ( talk • contribs) 23:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
The opening line to this section reads:
"The book is commonly quoted as:"
This would imply that the mis-quoted text that follows has appeared in numerous places; however, the section only references one instance of the mis-quote as it appears on the Instapundit blog. I'm not one to question the notability of the Instapundit blog (I've never heard of it before, but I'm happy to accept that I may be in a minority), but this singular occurrence of a quotation error doesn't feel like an "issue", and the blog itself contains an acknowledgement and correction further down.
Unless there is evidence that the book is routinely mis-quoted elsewhere, I'm not sure that the inclusion of this section is helpful to people wanting to know more about Neal Stephenson's essay.
I (will) have added some tags to this effect, but if no additional information can be provided I propose removing the section. -- G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.35.226.67 ( talk) 11:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
It seems that the first sentence in the quotation is, in fact, in the book -- at least the version which is linked to at the end of the article. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
128.151.150.9 (
talk)
18:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
...except it isn't. I just did a text-search on the linked version of the book, and it does not contain the referenced mis-quoted sentence. Try it yourself. I therefore propose removal of the section. -- G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.57.71 ( talk) 13:33, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
There is much I dislike about this entire article, but I'm going to eat the elephant one bite at a time. I replaced the paragraph about bug tracking. I used google.com/search?q=neal+stephenson+debian+bug+6518 – tbc ( talk) 16:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
A phrase like “similar to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” is marked “[Citation needed]”. The title is a link to the WP article about that work. How can there be any more citation needed than that? -- CRConrad ( talk) 11:46, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
In the Beginning... Was the Command Line article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
To me this book seemed more than just a history of operating systems. It seemed like a book on epistemology, with operating systems used as metaphors for how humans interface with underlying reality. Did anyone else get that impression? Tim Shell 21:42, 7 Aug 2004
Is there another copy of the annotated and updated version of this book out there? all the links I find point to an old copy which is no longer online-- Gsham 03:09, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
In the factual errors section, this looks rather like original research, or a book review. Does the c/cpp mistake really make a difference to the historical significance of this essay? Ojw 21:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
The remaining Factual Errors entry (Apple development environment) is pretty pointless, too ... it's not as if it invalidates any major part of the essay, is it? Compare with the information that the author now prefers OS/X - that is relevant. Jgrahn 22:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
The Factual Errors is incorrect. The MPW didn't create a CLI for the OS, it simply made it available. This entry should be removed. -- Archetypical 07:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be a space after the ellipsis? Cf. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Ellipsis. -- Malyctenar 10:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
That's the problem: what is his usage? The book cover (it seems to be the only edition in existence, right?) has a linebreak after the ellipsis. http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html , which is probably the most official you can get, has no ellipsis in the title (but in the navigation the title is shortened to "In the Beginning..."). The zipped TXT file you can download there has the title without ellipsis as well. So until we find a clear evidence that the ellipsis is more correct than a mere space, I'm all in favour of at least punctuating it properly. -- Malyctenar 15:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Image:Neal-Stephenson-in-the-beginning.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot 23:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Does this really need to be linked in the article? It reads much more like an op-ed piece than any sort of actual criticism or even discussion of Stephenson's essay. 144.135.138.40 ( talk) 07:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Seconded. Including Birkel's "rebuttal" link effectively turns this otherwise useful wikipedia entry into something resembling the early stages of a Slashdot flamewar. It serves no other purpose, and should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.55.200.20 ( talk) 23:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Disagree. I googled to investigate the cultural impact of this essay. Birkel's rebuttal appears to be the most notable and as such is a significant artifact. WP enabled me to find it. I believe it's important because it helps to put the essay into historical context. Note that it's been seven years. There's room for more rebuttal. – tbc ( talk) 16:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Neither agree nor disagree, but if we do have Birkel's rebuttal mentioned, there ought to be a citation of an online or offline resource. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Preserved killick ( talk • contribs) 23:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
The opening line to this section reads:
"The book is commonly quoted as:"
This would imply that the mis-quoted text that follows has appeared in numerous places; however, the section only references one instance of the mis-quote as it appears on the Instapundit blog. I'm not one to question the notability of the Instapundit blog (I've never heard of it before, but I'm happy to accept that I may be in a minority), but this singular occurrence of a quotation error doesn't feel like an "issue", and the blog itself contains an acknowledgement and correction further down.
Unless there is evidence that the book is routinely mis-quoted elsewhere, I'm not sure that the inclusion of this section is helpful to people wanting to know more about Neal Stephenson's essay.
I (will) have added some tags to this effect, but if no additional information can be provided I propose removing the section. -- G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.35.226.67 ( talk) 11:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
It seems that the first sentence in the quotation is, in fact, in the book -- at least the version which is linked to at the end of the article. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
128.151.150.9 (
talk)
18:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
...except it isn't. I just did a text-search on the linked version of the book, and it does not contain the referenced mis-quoted sentence. Try it yourself. I therefore propose removal of the section. -- G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.57.71 ( talk) 13:33, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
There is much I dislike about this entire article, but I'm going to eat the elephant one bite at a time. I replaced the paragraph about bug tracking. I used google.com/search?q=neal+stephenson+debian+bug+6518 – tbc ( talk) 16:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
A phrase like “similar to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” is marked “[Citation needed]”. The title is a link to the WP article about that work. How can there be any more citation needed than that? -- CRConrad ( talk) 11:46, 12 May 2019 (UTC)