---
title: "When Unix Ports Attack"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/3/5/when-unix-ports-attack.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/3/5/when-unix-ports-attack.html"
published: "2003-03-05T05:30:00"
updated: "2003-03-05T05:30:00"
tags: []
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "I've been pretty busy the last few days. My job has just let me in on a speech project that uses \"periphonics\" - a a tool that has been around for a while (can you say \"COBOL is my friend\"?) and ive been immersed in…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# When Unix Ports Attack

By Roy Osherove March 5, 2003

**Historical article** · Originally published March 5, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

I've been pretty busy the last few days. My job has just let me in on a speech project that uses "periphonics" - a a tool that has been around for a while (can you say "COBOL is my friend"?) and ive been immersed in studying it's quirks. I must say that Tools ported from Unix to Windows have a , how should i say it nicely, "distinct" look and feel. The interface is horrible and working with it is a nightmare (no matter how strong it's features are). Imagine not being able to type in a single word, and always using your mouse's right button to open menus and select things. Dialog windows open seperatly (a-la ALT-F4 to close them...) and some checkboxes seem to be there just for dress-up. No scroll bars, no paste or copy...

anyway ,it is a new technology, and learning how to integrate this with our current tools is not as boring as i thought.

So hopefully i will have more time the next few days to post more interesting stuff...


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/