| Title | : | UNIX: A History and a Memoir |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1695978552 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781695978553 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 183 |
| Publication | : | First published October 18, 2019 |
UNIX: A History and a Memoir Reviews
-
UNIX: A History and a Memoir (2019) by Brian Kernighan is a history of Unix and Kernighan's recollections about the creation of Unix and the people at Bell labs who created it. The book provides a concise overview of the early years of the operating system that 50 years on is on so many computers all over the world.
Kernighan describes how he came to work at Bell labs and how he met Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie there. After the failure of the Multics system Thompson and Ritchie were working on file systems and device drivers for discs and got to the point where with three more things, an editor, an assembler and a shell. Remarkably these were written in three weeks while Thompson's wife and child were away.
Once Unix was written the plethora of utilities that has grown up around it came into being, mostly written by the staff of Bell labs. Grep, awk, sed, lex, yacc were all written by the remarkably talented staff at Bell Labs. The names mentioned are a roll call of famous computer scientists. It's incredible to see how many people who contributed so much worked at one place. The book has lots of stories about the people who created them. It helps to build a picture of what it would have been like to work there.
The C language was also written by Dennis Ritchie and most of Unix was rewritten in C and this contributed to the portability of the system. Kernighan writes about how the language came about and what made it different. Bell Labs also sold Unix and the source code to various universities cheaply and this spread of Unix was very important in the growth of the language.
Kernighan also makes the point that Unix was set up to write the many manuals and books for Unix. The editors, source control systems and the layout programs for Unix enabled authors to edit and rewrite their manuals more easily than with previous systems. Kernighan think that this contributed to the quality of these manuals substantially. The longevity of books like Kernighan and Ritchie's classic 'The C Programming Language" suggests that there is something to the idea.
The book also goes on to mention the further growth of Unix with the creation of Linux.
UNIX: A History and a Memoir is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in the history of computing and the history of the amazing operating system that is Unix. It's a quick read and gives some insight into how a small group of people created such an important software system. -
Really nice, very personal account of the creation of UNIX. It will make you think about the 1970s again, in terms of computers. It might also make you open the terminal program on your computer to try some of the things out, and marvel that you actually can. Made me want to read more. First clear 5-star review in a while, for me.
-
Brian Kernighan is most known for writing the definitive work on the C computer language. He worked for most of his career at famous Bell Labs from AT&T and worked among those who developed the UNIX operating system. UNIX powers much of the Internet and served as the basis for computer operating systems like Linux and MacOS. These all have influenced technological history, and he enlightens us as to how.
He writes in a light, unpretentious manner and relates the history that he witnessed as excellent software poured out of Bell Labs. He writes this history from a personal perspective, which is why this book’s genre accurately fits as both a history and a memoir. This personal perspective enlightens readers about how highly productive innovation occurred in this sphere. He exposits with an obvious respect for his colleagues and for the impact that they had on the history of computing science. Though some fame is certainly deserved for his accomplishments, he approaches them with a degree of humility as befits one looking back on a satisfactory life.
This work certainly contains relevance to the programmer and also to those who study innovation in science and technology. Besides these niche audiences, interest should be extended to the general reader, for whom complex technical topics are explained in an elegant simplicity. (Let me be clear: This is written for a general audience, not a technical audience.) Any reader can learn how exactly the computer and its cousin, the Internet, came to the fore of human culture in a generation. In that sense, Kernighan tells a broad story of our civilization’s progress.
As a computer programmer and as one with interest in the history of science and technology, I found this history interesting and relevant. It’s nice to get a feeling for the personalities behind some of the software that I use each day. As befits computer programming, there is not a whole lot of drama or tension. Instead, one gets a close feel for the personal warmth and common ingenuity shared by Kernighan and his colleagues. That ostensible enjoyment, that evident respect, and that passionate love come out strongly in this memoir and are perhaps the greatest testimony that produced a work as transformative as UNIX. -
Bello! Estremamente accessibile anche a pubblico non specializzato, ma con molti particolari tecnici, oltre ad aneddoti e foto curiose. Per chi, come me, deve a UNIX molta della propria carriera professionale, direi che è una lettura immancabile.
-
Comme l’indique le sous-titre A History and a Memoir il s’agit pour
Brian Kernighan – le K du célèbre K&R – de rédiger un livre de souvenirs qui tient lieu à la fois d’histoire d’Unix – ou UNIX. C’est aussi à l’inverse un livre sur l’histoire d’Unix qui contient des anecdotes sur cette aventure et sur sa matrice, le Bell Labs et son fameux département 1127. Kernighan insiste d’ailleurs beaucoup tout au long du livre sur l’importance de cette structure et des personnes qui y ont été rassemblées. C’est-à-dire sur l’aspect organisationnel et collaboratif. Les membres de ce département formaient ce qui est appelé une jelled team dans le livre
Peopleware et Brian Kernighan semble être du même avis que les auteurs de ce livre pour dire que ces liens ne se nouent pas de façon artificielle.
> Fun. It’s important to enjoy your work and the colleagues that you work with. [Department] 1127 was almost always a fun place to be, not just for the work, but the esprit of being part of a remarkable group. […] At the same time, there was zero, or even negative, enthusiasm for the kinds of team-building exercices that one often sees today. Most of us saw them as artificial, pointless, and a waste of time.
Il met aussi en avant d’autres facteurs qui ont permis au Bell Labs de devenir la formidable machine à innover qu’il fut. Le livre
The Idea Factory en donne une vision plus exhaustive. Ces facteurs incluent un management doté d’une excellente connaissance technique laissant libre cours à l’innovation et à la créativité, mais il souligne également l’importance de la stabilité et du temps long qui nécessite une continuité dans le financement.
> Stable funding was a crucial factor for research. It meant that AT&T could take a long-term view and Bell Labs researchers had the freedom to explore areas that might not hava a near-term payoff and perhaps never would. That’s contrast with today’s world, in which planning often seems to look ahead only a few months, and much effort is spent on speculating about financial results for the next quarter.
Ce livre est aussi l’occasion de faire mieux connaissance avec les principaux créateurs du système d’exploitation dont les successeurs, Linux et Android, équipent l’écrasante majorité des périphériques que nous utilisons tous les jours, les lauréats du Turing Award de 1983: Ken Thompson et Dennis Ritchie. Voici par exemple une anecdote révélatrice de l’état d’esprit d’un personnage comme Ken Thompson.
> In 2006, he [Ken Thompson] moved to Google, where with Rob Pike and Robert Griesemer, he created the Go programming language. I heard about his move from Entrisphere to Google from someone else, so I asked for confirmation. His reply its true. i didnt change the median age of google much, but i think i really shot the average [all lower case in the original message]. ken
Tous les sujets sont abordés: Unix, sa philosophie (dont le fameux “do one thing and do it well”), les outils (grep, diff, etc.) et la puissance induite par la capacité à les combiner, le langage C, l’importance de la documentation et c’est dans ce domaine que l’auteur s’est beaucoup illustré puisqu’il a travaillé sur des outils permettant d’écrire de la documentation professionnelle et a lui-même publié de nombreux ouvrages de références dont les deux plus connus sont certainement
-
The Elements of Programming Style,
-
The C Programming Language,
-
The Unix Programming Environment.
Le livre est à la fois simple et complet. Il présente les évènements dans un ordre chronologique en mêlant de l’histoire, de la technique, des anecdotes et des réflexions sur les raisons des succès ou des échecs. C’est agréable à lire, relativement court et définitivement un très bon livre sur ce sujet. Pour les amateurs, je conseille, en plus de
The Idea Factory, et dans cet ordre
-
Rebel Code si vous cherchez un livre sur l’histoire de Linux et plus généralement sur celle du mouvement open source, vous l’avez trouvé.
-
The Art of UNIX Programming bien plus technique à réserver à des lecteurs professionnels du domaine.
-
Hackers un peu trop complexe à mon goût – ou au moins pour mon niveau d’anglais.
Également publié sur mon
blog. -
I've read a number of books on the history of UNIX over the years and this one has added more of a personal touch than the others. It was a welcome change as Brian Kernighan was actively involved in the history of UNIX as it was developing at Bell Labs. It was great to hear his perspective on how things unfolded, but I enjoyed more hearing about the 1127 culture and they worked with each other.
There is a fair amount of technical material, though not at length and that should be no surprise as it's a memoir and not a technical deep dive. If you understand that the focus is around the culture at Bell Labs and not all of the esoteric knowledge that other works have already done, you'll enjoy the book. -
A very enjoyable read about UNIX’s history. Bell labs in the 70s and 80s sound like a paradise for computer scientist to work in. It’s a pity that Bell labs and other corporate labs do not allow such freedom of exploration any more.
Brian Kernighan is a brilliant writer, at least among technical experts. I like his geeky humors between the lines and the examples he use to illustrate concepts.
This book make me want to read more about hackers and early computer history. I am now reading Hackers by Steven Levy. -
Great read! I really enjoyed Brian Kernighan's writing style. It feels like he's just casually telling us stories from back in the Unix days.
There's a lot of interesting stuff here. Of course a lot of historical details, but to me the best parts are all the anecdotes about how different aspects of Unix came to be, and about all the people that worked on them.
I think anyone with an interest in computer programming would enjoy this book. -
"If resources are tight, that’s more likely to lead to good, well-thought-out work than if there are no constraints."
"At the same time, there was zero, or even negative, enthusiasm for the kinds of team-building exercises that one often sees today. Most of us saw them as artificial, pointless, and a waste of time.
"It takes effort to build and maintain an organization whose members like and respect each other, and who enjoy each other’s company. This can’t be created by management fiat, nor by external consultants; it grows organically from the enjoyment of working together, sometimes playing together, and appreciating what others do well." -
My favorite operating system 's history
A magical journey through the history of the most beloved and used operating system of all times from one of the pioneers who witnessed it first hand. A must read for every programmer -
echo superb,perfect,certain,written,detailed,authoratative | awk '{split($0,w,","); for (i=1; i<4; i++) print w[i] "ly " w[i+3];}'
-
History of Unix as told by one of its contributors. If you're interested in Unix history, and wants to read about it from a personal point of view, this is for you.
Includes biographies of people involved (Thompson and Ritchie were the core but there were many contributions from others), how various Unix tools came to be, culture and life at Bell Labs, and development of Unix over the years.
The book also goes over what makes an OS (filesystem, system calls, etc.), C programming language, and author's work at Bell Labs. -
A nice little memoir about the development of Unix from a first-hand observer, but it doesn't have as much on that subject as I thought it might; rather it's really a remembrance of what it was like to work at Bell Labs and an analysis of what made it such a great research environment. Giving researchers time to investigate what they're good at and and what interests them without the restrictions of needing to tie it to business needs or have a definitely end-goal really is a great way to come up with innovating, world-changing inventions (that also have the capability to be monetized if management is capable, which is not always the case). And new research into AI algorithms has proved this[0]: the best algorithms don't focus on the end-goal, but on a diversity of solutions, exploration of what is "interesting". That's how you get great stuff like Unix, and we can only hope a research institution like Bell Labs will make another appearance someday.
[0]
https://www.quantamagazine.org/comput... -
I actually finished this last night, but a great summary of Unix history from one of the people closest to its inception. Highly recommended if you’re interested in the history of computing or just Unix in general
-
This book was a fascinating and inspiring tale that I enjoyed immensely. Many of the men and women described in the book were the legends and giants of computer science when I was an undergrad, and I found I had a hard time putting this book down.
The only criticism I have of the book is that it glosses over the the UNIX wars and resulting law suites that are still going on today, which I think is also part of the legacy of AT&T Bell Labs and USL. Mr. Kernighan alludes to poor management and business decisions which played a hand, and while I'm sure he didn't want to delve into perhaps the something so negative and sinister, I think he missed a good opportunity to present his opinions on intellectual property rights in computing. The SCO controversies of the 2000s was a huge influential factor in my own career. I had been a large advocate of adopting UNIX and Linux with my own employer. The law suites filed by SCO had a direct impact on technology choices by my employer and I've been working exclusively on Microsoft Windows systems since 2006, and as old UNIX systems age out they are replaced with more Windows servers. I think it is unlikely that unless I change employers that I will ever get to work with Unix in a professional capacity ever again and this makes me kind of sad. As it is the only mention of SCO in the book is in a diagram of the evolution of UNIX and related operating systems. He skipped all that and went straight to Oracle v Google.
Still, I loved the book, and I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in UNIX and computing research. I noticed that there is an assumption of basic computer literacy so I can't recommend this to everyone. -
An engaging story about context, ideas, problems and people around UNIX, Linux and numerous other related technologies.
Some amusing peaces:
"I was happy. No ambition. I was a workaholic, but for no goal." -- reminded me of Torvald's "Just for fun"
---
On constraints:
"If resources are tight, that’s more likely to lead to good, well-thought-out work than if there are no constraints.
..
The management principles here are that you hire bright people and you introduce them to the environment, and you give them general directions as to what sort of thing is wanted, and you give them lots of freedom. Doesn’t mean that you always necessarily give them all the money that they want. And then you exercise selective enthusiasm over what they do. And if you mistakenly discourage or fail to respond to something that later on turns out to be good, if it is really a strong idea, it will come back."
---
On vi:
"I don’t recall what I said at the time about the editor itself (though today vi is one of the two editors that I use most often), but I do remember telling Bill that he should stop fooling around with editors and finish his PhD. Fortunately for him and for many others, he ignored my advice. " -
It’s the motherlode. A history of Unix written by someone who was in the room at the time. The way Kernighan tells it, he literally was just in the room at the time getting a cup of coffee or something. Sometimes he has to mention his own achievements when he’s co-authored something so as to avoid not giving his co-author all the credit. Cool guy. If I hadn’t seen a couple of documentaries on Unix I probably wouldn’t have the realised the scale of his modesty. I’ve just read this book on a device running on the Linux kernel. I’m sure that without his contribution I would be using quite a different device. In a nice touch he’s written the book on Unix which probably explains why the cover is like that. It’s very well written. He has a very clear style. It’s laid out like a technical manual, which I think might be his idea of a joke. There are some funny moments, like the guy who asked if Unix could tell him which words he could spell upside down on his calculator. Well worth a read if the history of computing interests you.
-
It is fascinating how a system, designed 50 years ago, is still successful without any major architectural change. The Unix principles, that stand in the roots of the design decisions of this OS, are a good explanation for that phenomenon. However, this book confirms one's suspicion of how great the people, who worked then at Bell Labs, were, as in order to design a truly flexible system - one needs to be empathetic, to always keep in mind that they will not be the only ones using it. It is exciting and somewhat nostalgic to read stories about true collaboration, creative brainstorming, and friendly pranks. All of that topped up with a history of how and why certain Unix tools (many of which are still in use today) were developed. Must read for everyone who's into Unix-like systems or even simply open source.
-
My Amazon review details my irritation at the failure of the latest Kindle Gen.11 to load this book, but I have been able to read it on my Kindle for PC App, having eventually got to grips with the its klunkiness.
The book itself was a trip down memory lane. Having been involved in the UNIX world for all my professional life I think I was hoping to get a deeper insight into the Bell Labs development environment and the intense excitement that must have pervaded there in their heyday. As it happens, in this relatively brief and pleasantly informal book I did not really come across any names or even historical background that I didn't already have some familiarity with, so not quite as insightful as perhaps I had hoped, but a pleasant read nonetheless. -
This is a great read for those wanting some "I was there" reporting. Kernighan (if his memory can be trusted) does some excellent reporting and reminiscing.
As the title says, this is very much a history and memoir. I found Kernighan's style easy to work with and it helped clarify for me some of the events that lead to the world we exist in today with Linux as the dominate server platform. Interesting tidbits and facts are sprinkled throughout.
There are definitely details that I found my eyes glazing over for, so one's mileage may vary. This is definitely a must read for anyone interested in the history of this important system, but don't expect it to be an exciting one. -
Fascinating tale of the birth and evolution of Unix, which starts from just before my birth and continues to this day. I'm astonished at how many decisions made back then have stood through the present day. I work on Unix-based operating systems (Linux and macOS) nearly daily. The tools Kernighan discusses, I use all the time. I'm glad that the 1127 folks made the decisions they did! I was amused, though, to read about the "make" decision to use significant whitespace, and how early they wanted to change that, but couldn't because by then a dozen people were already using "make." The curse of backwards compatibility!
