The Unix Programming Environment

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Unix Programming Environment
ISBN
0-13-937681-X

The Unix Programming Environment, first published in 1984 by

Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike, both of Bell Labs and considered an important and early document of the Unix operating system
.

Unix philosophy

The book addresses the Unix philosophy of small cooperating tools with standardized inputs and outputs. Kernighan and Pike gives a brief description of the Unix design and the Unix philosophy:[1]

Even though the UNIX system introduces a number of innovative programs and techniques, no single program or idea makes it work well. Instead, what makes it effective is the approach to programming, a philosophy of using the computer. Although that philosophy can't be written down in a single sentence, at its heart is the idea that the power of a system comes more from the relationships among programs than from the programs themselves. Many UNIX programs do quite trivial things in isolation, but, combined with other programs, become general and useful tools.

The authors further write that their goal for this book is "to communicate the UNIX programming philosophy."[1]

Content and topics

The book starts off with an introduction to Unix for beginners. Next, it goes into the basics of the

man pages with the man macro set. The appendices cover the ed editor and the abovementioned programming language, named hoc
, which stands for "high-order calculator".

Historical context

Although Unix still exists decades after the publication of this book, the book describes an already mature Unix: In 1984, Unix had already been in development for 15 years (since 1969), it had been published in a peer-reviewed journal 10 years earlier (

BSD, UNIX System V, HP-UX), and a year earlier Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson won the prestigious Turing Award
for their work on UNIX. The book was written not when UNIX was just starting out, but when it was already popular enough to be worthy of a book published for the masses of new users that were coming in.

In retrospect, not only was 1984 not an early stage of Unix's evolution, in some respects it was the end of Unix evolution, at least in

Eighth Edition Unix came out right after this book, and further development of UNIX in Bell Labs (the Ninth and Tenth Edition) never made it outside Bell Labs – until their effort evolved into Plan 9 from Bell Labs
.

C programming style

The book was written before ANSI C was first drafted; the programs in it follow the older K&R style. However, the source code available on the book's website has been updated for ANSI C conformance.

Critical reception

Technical editor Ben Everard for Linux Voice praised the book for providing relevant documentation despite being 30 years old and for being a good book for an aspiring programmer who does not know much about Linux.[2]

Editions

Notes

  1. ^ a b Kernighan, Brian W.; Pike, Rob (1984). The UNIX Programming Environment. p. viii.
  2. ISSN 2054-3778
    .