The UNIX Programming Environment by Brian W. Kernighan
My rating: 0 of 5 stars
This book, copyright 1984, is not one’s typical software read. Typical books on software deal with the latest and greatest that’s coming down the pike. Instead, this book is a reminder of what is great in the UNIX operating system. It harkens back to the days when assembly coding was common and programming in C was considered more cutting edge.
So why is this worth a programmer’s time to read over thirty years later in an era of object-orientation and machine-learning? The answer to this question is not vexing; indeed, it is simple. Great ideas transformed into great inventions deserve great study.
This book’s epilog sums up this advice in describing four elements of UNIX’s style:
1. “Let the machine do the work.”
2. “Let other people do the work. Use programs that already exist as building blocks in your programs…”
3. “Do the job in stages. Build the simplest thing that will be useful, and let your experience with that determine what (if anything) is worth doing next.”
4. “Build tools. Write programs that mesh with the existing environment, enhancing it rather than merely adding to it.”