A Quarter Century of UNIX
by Peter H. Salus · first published 1980
39% recommend61% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Readable history of Unix and its developers, with coverage of the philosophy behind tools like small programs doing one job well; recommended to anyone curious about where Unix came from.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
UNIX is a software system that is simple, elegant, portable, and powerful. It grew in popularity without the benefit of a large marketing organization. Programmers kept using it; big companies kept fighting it. After a decade, it was clear that the users had won. A Quarter Century of UNIX is the first book to explain this incredible success, using the words of its creators, developers and users to illustrate how the sociology of a technical group can overwhelm the intent of multi-billion-dollar corporations. In preparing to write this book, Peter Salus interviewed over 100 of these key figure
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…exception of that handful, on their own terms. Berkeley quickly replaced/removed any infringing content, and that became the basis for the *BSDs. For the glorious history of Unix, read Peter Salus's "A Quarter Century of Unix".
on “Is Linux For Losers?” ↗Also A Quarter Century of Unix by Peter Salus, https://wiki.tuhs.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications:q...
on “A Mystery of Unix History” ↗I think a lot of these were also cleaned up for use in Peter Salus's A Quarter Century of Unix, so you might find that more readable.
on “An Oral History of Unix” ↗I think this credo is derived from the UNIX toolbox philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do that well. Peter Salus' classic book "A quarter century of UNIX" contains ample information on that philosopy and the people who developed it.
on “Can someone point to an article/essay on "do one thing"?” ↗For those interested in the subject I can recommend the very readable "A Quarter Century of Unix" by Peter Salus.
on “Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan” ↗Peter Salus's "A quarter century of Unix" and "The Daemon, the Gnu and the Penguin" Katie Hafner "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of The Internet"
on “The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan” ↗From the excellent "A Quarter Century of UNIX" (by the late Peter H. Salus): Heidi would bring her dog with her to class and to her office. He was a very friendly dog, and a lot of the students enjoyed throwing a ball for him down the corridor to…
on “Biff is a command line datetime Swiss army knife” ↗A Quarter Century of UNIX, (Peter Salus, 1994)
on “Ask HN: What fiction/non-fiction book should everyone read on the topic of CS?” ↗You might want to read A Quarter Century of Unix, http://wiki.tuhs.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications:qc...
on “Ask HN: Is there a podcast on the history of Unix?” ↗A Quarter Century of UNIX Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier
on “Ask HN: Greatest books about the history of computing” ↗Still the best option is the unix philosophy: "Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface." - Peter H. Salus in A Quarter-Century of Unix (1994)
on “Swagger is now the OpenAPI Specification” ↗…I don't feel a need for them. I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing." -Thompson on the superiority of ed to editors such as today's vi or emacs, as summarized by Peter Salus in A Quarter Century of UNIX (Addison-Wesley, 1994). > The X server has to be the biggest program I've ever seen that doesn't do anything for you. and I'm glad linux has come to meet his expectations over the years... > Microsoft…
on “Ken Thompson quotes” ↗The much more comprehensive history is Peter Salus's A Quarter Century of Unix, now online as page scans at http://wiki.tuhs.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications:qc...
on “Origins and History of Unix, 1969-1995 (2003)” ↗…don't feel a need for them. I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing." - Ken Thompson on the superiority of ed to editors such as today's vi or emacs, as summarized by Peter Salus in A Quarter Century of UNIX (Addison-Wesley, 1994) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson
on “CodeEdit: Building a free, open-source code editor for macOS” ↗…editors like that, but I don't feel a need for them. I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing." -- Ken Thompson, on the superiority of ed to visual editors. Summarized by Peter Salus in A Quarter Century of UNIX (Addison-Wesley, 1994). Definitely a blast from the past, but I do think line editors may force one to write simpler programs -- or to think in smaller chunks, as opposed to (doom)scrolling or moving…
on “Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?” ↗