

Ask HN: What would your reaction be? (final year undergrad. OS exam) - STajbakhsh

Explain in simple terms how operating systems turn the ugly into the beautiful? (2 marks)&#60;p&#62;I go to what the world thinks of as a "top university". This question was part of our terribly-designed final year undergraduate exam paper on Operating Systems.
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JustARandomGuy
One of the most important parts about an undergraduate degree is that it's a
foundation for knowledge, not narrowly focused on one particular topic. That's
why gen-eds exist.

Anyway, had I received this question on a test, I would have started with a
discussion of the command line and how powerful it is (i.e. the "ugly") and
compare/contrast it with UIs (i.e. the "beautiful"; start with Win 95 and
continue on to Win 7/8, Mac OSX, etc).

I'd throw in references to Spolsky's famous adage about "all abstractions are
leaky" - i.e. you could discuss how UIs are beautiful, yet the command line
(ugly) is where the power exists. There's at least 2-3 pages of content in
that alone.

I'd end with how UIs brought the power of computing to the common man -
learning to use the command line is difficult (esp for the elderly, the young,
the mentally-challenged), but pasting a UI on top allows even the most
computer-illiterate to work. Add in some discussion on the desktop metaphor
and you're done.

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STajbakhsh
That's definitely a thorough way of approaching this but from an examination
point of view, bear in mind that there are 98 other marks to be answered.

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mike_mikeson
I don't get what your objection is?

It's obviously a mini-essay question, a chance to show your opinions and
reason about ideas. Seems good to me.

Do you not like it because it's not a yes-no question? Welcome to reality,
where not all questions have simple answers, even in CS. That's probably why
it's a top-tier university!

Whatever you do don't look at this exam paper from Cambridge - it will blow
your mind
[http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/u_grads/Tripos/Ethics/Past_Exams/1...](http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/u_grads/Tripos/Ethics/Past_Exams/1b_Paper_03-2012.pdf).
Example question "What makes death bad?"

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STajbakhsh
I think my objection is mainly due to the unscientific nature of the question.
A question like this that is looking at the goals of the OS is very objective
and has a clear answer. I would expect a question to be worded like this in a
Philosophy, Law etc. exam (like the link posted by you). In my opinion, there
are some questions, even in CS, that can be open-ended and be very interesting
to attempt but this certainly isn't one.

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mike_mikeson
But people make technical design decisions in operating systems based on
trying to make the operating system as conceptually simple as possible, which
is what he means by beautiful, which I hope you would know from reading the
literature.

I would relish this essay question - I would have written about the history of
Unix, the evolution towards Plan 9 and why it failed. These are important
issues in CS, and if you are ignorant of them you are likely to repeat them.
Your professor is testing that you have understood these lessons from history.

I think you need to retract your implication that it's somehow an inherently
bad or embarrassing choice for a question.

All you have left is that you are fundamentally opposed to any philosophical,
historical or human factor thinking in CS, and I don't think that's a
supportable position.

~~~
STajbakhsh
Those are interesting points and luckily I am aware of them. I quite like the
angle at which you're looking at this; it made me think again.

~~~
mike_mikeson
We should be very very thankful for these questions. They differentiate the
people that have really read around and understand what it is that we're doing
in CS, and those that have just been to the lectures.

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stray
My reaction?

I suppose my reaction would be to answer the question.

