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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

#61

Post by enriquto »

QualityReboot wrote: post #47
segmondy wrote: post #11

I look forward to reading this I own and have read his following books and they were all superb! The Go Programming Language The Practice of Programming The C Programming Language The AWK Programming Language

Just out of curiosity, why awk? I've only ever used it for simple text splitting and didn't really know people did more with it. Is it a tool worth learning?

Besides its obvious utility and generality (many tasks in computer science can be effectively solved by "simple text splitting" when the data is a few GB, and your data is often a few GB), it is worth learning awk just because the awk book is a masterpiece.

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

#63

Post by acqq »

cestith wrote: post #45
acqq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unix (...) first source license was sold in 1975. > VMS was released in 1977 as VAX/VMS on the VAX series of computers. Before VMS the DEC hardware ran various other operating systems such as RTX-11, TOPS-10, and optionally AT&T Unix Before VMS there was RSX-11 (note RSX not RTX): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX-11 "From 1971[5] to 1976 the RSX-11M project was spearheaded by noted operating system designer Dave C…

Thanks for pointing out the typo. I'll fix that. Note "heavily influenced" doesn't make RSX-11 any more VMS than it makes Multics into Unix, or CP/M into MS-DOS, or the NeXT into a Mac, or an Alto into a Mac or Windows. Also note that 1973 doesn't significantly predate 1973. Don't confuse the first source license same with the announcement of availability, which I also noted. And Unix was in use internally at AT&T th…

Dave Cutler was the developer of of RSX-11, VMS and the NT.

I don't claim that his entire life work predates the work of somebody else, just that the products he delivered are definitely comparable in its commercial availability with Unix.

I would also be not surprised if his products had more users at these first years than Unix did. To do the history right one should not project the results visible today (or which happened much later) to the history.

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

#64

Post by microtherion »

QualityReboot wrote: post #47
segmondy wrote: post #11

I look forward to reading this I own and have read his following books and they were all superb! The Go Programming Language The Practice of Programming The C Programming Language The AWK Programming Language

Just out of curiosity, why awk? I've only ever used it for simple text splitting and didn't really know people did more with it. Is it a tool worth learning?

Personally, I don't think that it's worth learning if you don't already know it, but the awk book is really an enjoyable read, not particularly wrong, and will show what you can do with the language so you can make a more informed decision whether to learn it.

In a way, awk, like sed, cut(1), paste(1), comm(1) is closer to the original Unix design philosophy of pipeline composition of simple, single function tools. cut, paste, and comm are simple, single function. sed is programmable, and awk even more so, but they're still optimized for being used in pipelines. Perl still has lots of options designed for pipeline usage (-p, -n, -a, -0, -F), but was always capable of doing general purpose programming, and python is primarily general purpose programming.

Personally, I've never learned sed, cut, paste, or comm; the only traditional text processing tools I use are sort & uniq. I know awk, but the one time I wanted to use it in the last 5 years in an official script, I was shouted down by confused youngsters. I use perl for one liners, and python for any nontrivial scripting.

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

#66

Post by koffiezet »

I'm always amazed how well Brian Kernighan can explain things. I love the episodes on the Computerphile youtube channel with him.

Recently I discovered the AT&T history channel, with this gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc4ROCJYbm0

There is a massive difference in appearance and clarity between him and the other people appearing in that video, even the "presenter"...

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

#67

Post by sacrificedcapon »

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…

In our industry's defense, our industry is relatively young. In other words, the industry is too busy making history to appreciate it. I'm sure as time passes, we'll start to appreciate the history of the industry more and more.

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

#68

Post by lizknope »

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…

The Computer History Museum in San Jose is a great place. I spent an entire day there.

They have an excellent YouTube channel with thousands of hours of interviews with important people in the industry. They posted an interview with Brian Kernighan last week.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory/videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTWv-l0JhAc

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

#69

Post by andreb »

sacrificedcapon wrote: post #67
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…

In our industry's defense, our industry is relatively young. In other words, the industry is too busy making history to appreciate it. I'm sure as time passes, we'll start to appreciate the history of the industry more and more.

We like to think that, but we do a lot of rediscovery of techniques and approaches that were invented in the 60s/70s.

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

#70

Post by jasoneckert »

I read this one on Saturday (bought it from Amazon after I saw it posted here earlier in the week). It's very good at detailing how UNIX was developed in the early days and how it exploded after 1979 with V7 - and in a way that isn't difficult to read whatsoever. There are some sections about the inner workings of UNIX I already knew - but skimming through those allowed me to catch a few historical gems I didn't know.
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