Software tools
by Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger · first published 1976
70% recommend30% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Clear, readable walk-through of the Unix philosophy of building powerful programs from small composable ones, with worked code (in Ratfor) for tools like regex. Shaped many programmers' style and approach.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…perpetual shelf ornament. Stepanov's papers, especially the one that launched the STL, Fundamentals of Generic Programming (with James Dehnert) is a masterpiece. I have some favorites that show my age: Software Tools by Kernighan and Plauger. Can be thought of as the poor-man's Dragon book. The Practice Of Programming by Kernighan and Pike. As if the UNIX way needed any defending after almost 40 years. Reliable…
on “Books Programmers Don't Really Read But Recommend” ↗One idiosyncratic list coming up. Kernighan and Plauger, Software Tools, had a very big influence on my coding style and appreciation for the Unix Way. If you want to learn more about Lisp macros, the exuberant book Let Over Lambda by Doug Hoyte is a fun read. The best…
on “My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part One” ↗…another working state with no worries. The individual refactorings are more-or-less interesting, but as others have said, they're somewhat commonplace now. Two books that every programmer should read: Software Tools[1] and The Elements of Programming Style[2] by Kernighan and Plauger. Bonus: The Unix Programming Environment[3] by Kernighan and Pike. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Software-Tools-Pascal-Brian-Kernighan...…
on “Announcing the Second Edition of “Refactoring”” ↗There's quite a series of books co-authored by Kernighan, all excellent. Three others are The UNIX Programming Environment, Software Tools (in Ratfor and Pascal), and The Elements of Programming Style. They are classics for many reasons, including how far you get in such short books.
on “Technical Writing: Learning from Kernighan” ↗…version of the The Standard C Library is nice because even if it might not be especially optimized(?), you can actually read the code and understand the concepts that the standard library is based on. Software Tools by Kernighan and Plauger would also be great except that you have to translate from the RatFor dialect of Fortran or Pascal to use the code examples. Even so, I used its implementation of Ed, to create…
on “Ask HN: What are the “best” codebases that you've encountered?” ↗One of the books that most influenced my coding was Software Tools by Brian W. Kernighan, P.J. Plauger [0]. Even though I never used Ratfor, the clear descriptions were immensely useful. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/515603.Software_Tools
on “The most surprising Unix programs” ↗The Elements of Programming Style by Kernighan and Plauger Software Tools by Kernighan and Plauger The Psychology of Computer Programming by Weinberg A cartoon-illustrated DIY Honda Civic repair book from the 80's I no longer remember the name of.
on “Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?” ↗Thanks. I've heard that's a good book, as is Software Tools by Kernighan and Plauger.
on “Programming Quotes” ↗That quote is from the book Software Tools, kind of hard to find these days but well worth it. Kernighan is most famous as the K of K&R, co-author of The C Programming Language, probably the best book ever written about a programming language.…
on “Show HN: A lightning fast personal website built with Next.js” ↗"Software Tools" by Kernighan & Plauger, perhaps. The original was in Ratfor, which is a Fortran dialect. That being similar syntax but more limited than C is not a bad intro language.
on “Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?” ↗You can read what Kernighan wrote here: http://books.cat-v.org/computer-science/elements-of-programm... Also see Software Tools and The Practice Of Programming.
on “Don't Comment Your Code - Write Better Code” ↗…books. I've since read the Turing Omnibus and The Little Schemer and I was glad to see them on the list. I wish I'd had them when I was much younger. In addition to Programming Pearls I would also add "Software Tools" by Kernighan and Plauger. I never read The Elements of Programming Style but very early in my career I chanced into the single-page excerpt "Brian Kernighan's Programming Style Tips"[2] which has probably…
on “My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part One” ↗K&R is the best known, but his other books are terrific. Software Tools showed how programs can simultaneously be powerful and simple, and decades later I still use things from Kernighan and Pike. Just today I wrote an AWK one-liner to process a log file.
on “The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan” ↗Don't forget "Software Tools" by Kernighan and Plaugher.
on “Technical Writing: Learning from Kernighan” ↗“Software Tools” by Kernighan & Plauger
on “Ask HN: Looking for a series on implementing classic Unix tools from scratch” ↗