From: Scottauge@aol.com
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 18:06:32 -0800 (PST)
To: roger.grewe@ncr.daytonoh.com
Subject: Fwd: God and None (fwd)
Message-ID: <961107210454_1148658863@emout09.mail.aol.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



---------------------
Forwarded message:
From:	scotta@astea.com (Scott Auge)
To:	scottauge@aol.com
Date: 96-11-07 10:18:29 EST



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 21:26:43 GMT
From: Donald Sellari <dsellari@btg.com>
To: scotta@hpg60.astea.com
Subject: None

                       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)
>
>
>