fork is not my favorite syscall

1 · Drew DeVault · Jan. 2, 2018, midnight
This article has been on my to-write list for a while now. In my opinion, fork is one of the most questionable design choices of Unix. I don’t understand the circumstances that led to its creation, and I grieve over the legacy rationale that keeps it alive to this day. Let’s set the scene. It’s 1971 and you’re a fly on the wall in Bell Labs, watching the first edition of Unix being designed for the PDP-11/20....