50 years ago, Unix came from the future and showed us that less is more, and a good collection of composable tools can take you an awful long way. Along the way it’s evolved, demonstrating its flexibility and also suffered campaigns[0][1] by juggernauts like Microsoft demonstrating its durability. It (Linux - Potayto potahto.) runs every single super computer in the TOPS[2] ranking (500 entries) and has for the last 4 years.
I don’t actually know what iOS is, architecturally, but we know Android is also Unix (Linux), so it’s everywhere, serving us pretty well.
What’s not to like? What would you suggest instead?
iOS is a different OS but using the same Darwin core operating system, including XNU, the C library (+ a bunch of other ones) and launchd.
Unix command-line tools aren't present except the bare minimum for crash dump purposes on release iOS. The full set of BSD tools is present on internal builds and they're installed while jailbreaking.
I've learnt to become proficient on the Unix command line and vi over 30 years ago (on the company's own System V port, no less!). Best investment ever! Not only is it the environment most suited for development tasks, it also is consistently present on all systems I've worked on since. Navigating around Unix has long become part of my spinal chord/muscle memory. I can't count how many times I've heard the "man, we don't do the command line thing these days" meme. Like in late 90s from Windows fanboys. Or in 2000s from Java geeks who only knew their Java IDE and nothing else. Yet here we are working with clouds, containers, and FaaS based on POSIX principles.
It's not an Apollo era OS though, any more than a new car is a 50 year old car.
They're both recognisably the same thing, but worlds apart - and have grown hugely in weight, power and included extras. I'm quite happy to find I don't have to keep relearning the basics of either. Whether car pedals in same place each time, or ps switches.
People are not using 50 year old operating systems. It's not as if Linux or macOS today are the same as Unix even in the 90's! People are proud that certain ideas have persisted 50 years. People are proud because many things beyond Linux and macOS can be traced to Unix and the philosophy it holds, but also Unix's place in the broader story of computing history. Bell Labs, Thompson, Ritchie and many more played foundational roles. Like any other anniversary, it's nice to look back and reflect and celebrate.
That's like asking "Why are people proud to be using an Apollo-era pathfinding algorithm?". If it works, it works. The only reason that fashion is so fast in the tech world is that we have not really built many things that stand the test of time. Unix, for all its flaws, is one of these things.
Also, the Apollo era has some of the most amazing engineering achievements ever. Don't know why you would need to look down on that.
I don’t actually know what iOS is, architecturally, but we know Android is also Unix (Linux), so it’s everywhere, serving us pretty well.
What’s not to like? What would you suggest instead?
[0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_...
[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/scalability-day-falls-short/
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500