Tag Archives: Unix

Two Videos on Early Unix

Posted on 2018-06-30 by jcs

I just came across some old videos from AT&T about Unix that are worth taking some time to watch. I thought I had written about them before but I couldn’t find any mention of them either locally or on Irreal … Continue reading →

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Text Manipulation with Command Line Utilities

Posted on 2018-05-09 by jcs

If your computing experience has always involved GUI tools, you may be unfamiliar or rusty with the command line tools that Unix provides. Similarly, if, like me, you do almost all your text manipulation from within Emacs, you might also … Continue reading →

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Sed

Posted on 2018-04-20 by jcs

In the days before GUIs, Unix users depended on a suite of command line tools to do their text manipulation. One of those tools, sed, is still used and useful today but many younger engineers are unfamiliar with it. The … Continue reading →

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Experiencing the Old Days

Posted on 2018-01-11 by jcs

Many of you know I like reading about early Unix history and how the original developers worked to implement the utilities that we take for granted today. A nice resource for this is The Unix Heritage Society and their mailing … Continue reading →

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The Lions Book

Posted on 2017-12-14 by jcs

There was a time when you couldn’t be a Unix hacker unless you had a copy of John Lions’ A Commentary On The Sixth Edition Unix Operating System. It was supposed to be restricted to holders of a Unix license … Continue reading →

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The Unix Philosophy

Posted on 2017-10-23 by jcs

For many people, the Unix Philosophy is captured by the aphorism, “Programs should do one thing well.” That’s an important part of the Unix philosophy but the actual philosophy is much richer and more subtle. Actually, there’s no formal philosophy … Continue reading →

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Unix History

Posted on 2017-10-09 by jcs

The other day I saw a reference to this great history of Unix. It’s Chapter 2 from Eric Raymond’s The Art of Unix Programming. I hadn’t read it for some time and enjoyed it all over again. Many—or maybe even … Continue reading →

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Happy Birthday Dennis Ritchie

Posted on 2017-09-09 by jcs

Six years ago, one of my heroes, Dennis Ritchie, died. No one here needs to be told who dmr was or what he did. He’s no longer with us but it’s worth remembering his birthday and sparing a few minutes … Continue reading →

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Semantic Locality

Posted on 2017-06-05 by jcs

I’m an old time Unix guy who’s still more comfortable on the command line than a big GUI. That’s probably why I enjoy living in Emacs to the extent possible. One of the most powerful concepts from Unix is the … Continue reading →

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Henry Spencer and getopt

Posted on 2017-05-27 by jcs

Kids today! They have it so easy. (Waves cane.) Eric Raymond (esr) has posted a charming vignette that, among other things, illustrates how easy we have it today. The story is set in 1984 when AT&T had just announced that … Continue reading →

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