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Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

cs.princeton.edu

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Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#21

Post by pvg »

Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry.

Why do you feel this way? ACM has had a History of Programming Languages conference since the late 70s where the well known History of Lisp paper was presented. All sorts of popular accounts are, well, popular. Soul of A New Machine was published in '81, Hackers in '84, Accidental Empires in '92, just as a few examples off the top of my head.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#22

Post by ethbro »

pvg wrote: post #21
Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. Why do you feel this way? ACM has had a History of Programming Languages conference since the late 70s where the well known History of Lisp paper was presented. All sorts of popular accounts are, well, popular. Soul of A New Machine was published in '81, Hackers in '84, Accidental Empires in '92, just as a few examples off the top of my head.

Believe Natales is speaking more to average everydev's state, than the existence of documented history.

If history exists, but nobody reads it, then are we not still lost?

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#23

Post by madhadron »

Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

> I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry.

I agree. At the same time, unless you immerse yourself in oral tradition and try to assemble a picture of the diversity of what was going on from it, it's hard to get a sense of what has happened on a scale larger than a particular community, and sometimes not even then.

I occasionally think about trying to write a one volume history of computing.

> UNIX is foundational to essentially all software-driven technology today, in one way or another.

Except Windows, which comes from VMS, which predates Unix. And SQL, which comes from IBM mainframe land. I could probably come up with a few more, but it's late and I'm tired.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#24

Post by pvg »

ethbro wrote: post #22
pvg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. Why do you feel this way? ACM has had a History of Programming Languages conference since the late 70s where the well known History of Lisp paper was presented. All sorts of popular accounts are, well, popular. Soul of A New Machine was published in '81, Hackers in '84, Accidental Empires in '92, just as a few examples off the top of my head.

Believe Natales is speaking more to average everydev's state, than the existence of documented history. If history exists, but nobody reads it, then are we not still lost?

I mentioned a bunch of popular books, not academic works. One of them had a multi-episode PBS TV show over 20 years ago! Since then, popular accounts of various famous and obscure aspects of industry history, biographies key people, etc have become even more common - I just picked some somewhat older ones.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#25

Post by shrimp_emoji »

ethbro wrote: post #20
Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

Absolutely agreed. It's a shame we talk past each other, when so many answers were already discovered and documented in the past. I try and keep the following in mind (even when my ego fights it). (A) I am very unlikely to be the smartest person who's ever thought about a problem. (B) Even if their technology differed, some parts of their approach are useful. (C) Clues and references pop up in the oddest places, so e…

>I try and keep the following in mind (even when my ego fights it).

>(A) I am very unlikely to be the smartest person who's ever thought about a problem.

My god.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#26

Post by ghostly_s »

sfifs wrote: post #19
Stratoscope wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see one either, which puzzles me. I only read on paper if there is no other alternative. This seems like exactly the kind of book I would hope to read in digital form, but I'm not finding it.

The irony of using Kindle Direct publishing but not putting out a Kindle version is palpable :-) I have stopped buying paper books over past several years as they simply accumulate moisture and mould in the climate I live in and make rooms smell musty. It is incomprehensible to me why primarily textual books would be published without and ebook version these days.

Oh it's vanity press? That explains the...cover. You'd think Kernighan would have no shortage of technical presses willing to put something out on whatever terms he dictated.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#27

Post by verisimilitudes »

Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

That's interesting, because I also feel people don't appreciate computing history appropriately.

If you'd care to learn some real history, I suggest you read The UNIX-HATERS Handbook: http://web.mit.edu/%7Esimsong/www/ugh.pdf

With this book, you'll learn that UNIX and C are nothing admirable and have actually been responsible for successfully destroying much better systems and languages in the popular eye; languages including Lisp, APL, Simula, ALGOL, Smalltalk, and Forth all existed before C; systems such as ITS and Multics addressed concerns UNIX users still suffer under today.

Make no mistake, for all of RMS' admirable qualities, he's basically responsible for UNIX proliferating by copying it for GNU. You also shouldn't look at your modern BSD or GNU system and think this is what UNIX users used decades ago, because for all of their faults, GNU and BSD actually try to produce programs which work correctly and GNU goes much farther than several of the BSDs in this respect. The UNIX attitude is one of getting half the job done and leaving it at that.

In closing, UNIX has no philosophy. The UNIX philosophy is simply brand-named simplicity. The ideas of modularity and simplicity predate automatic computing and recorded history, and yet people will claim you're following UNIX if you write a program which adheres to these basic ideals. Further, those other qualities of this philosophy result in programs that aren't modular, simple, nor beautiful.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#28

Post by sprachspiel »

Everyone interested in the history of computing should read The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop. The book pretends to be the biography by a little-known, but highly-influential guy named Licklider, but is in fact maybe the best general history of computing. It covers Turing, von Neumann, ARPA, Multics, DARPA (the internet), and Xerox PARC. Alan Key recommends it as the best history of PARC.

Re: Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan

#30

Post by WalterGR »

madhadron wrote: post #23
Natales wrote: post #15

I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I've been lucky enough to work and hang out with some of the co-founders of very impactful projects, such as OpenStack and Cloud Foundry, and there are so many stories I've heard that I'm sure would be insightful and valuable lessons for whomever is embarking on new ideas. And yet, we all move so fast, that there is no time to stop and write them…

> I've always felt we don't appreciate history very much in our industry. I agree. At the same time, unless you immerse yourself in oral tradition and try to assemble a picture of the diversity of what was going on from it, it's hard to get a sense of what has happened on a scale larger than a particular community, and sometimes not even then. I occasionally think about trying to write a one volume history of computi…

Lisp comes to mind.
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