The art of Unix programming / Eric Steven Raymond.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Raymond, Eric S.

Contributor:

Benjamin Franklin Library Fund.

Phi Beta Kappa Library Trust Fund.

Series:

Addison-Wesley professional computing series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

UNIX (Computer file).

Operating systems (Computers).

Physical Description:

xxxii, 525 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Boston : Addison-Wesley, [2004]

Summary:

In this book, five years in the making, the author encapsulates three decades of unwritten, hard-won software engineering wisdom. Raymond brings together for the first time the philosophy, design patterns, tools, culture, and traditions that make UNIX home to the world's best and most innovative software, and shows how these are carried forward in Linux and today's open-source movement. Using examples from leading open-source projects, he shows UNIX and Linux programmers how to apply this wisdom in building software that's more elegant, more portable, more reusable, and longer-lived.

Contents:

I Context 1

1 Philosophy: Philosophy Matters 3

1.1 Culture? What Culture? 3

1.2 The Durability of Unix 4

1.3 The Case against Learning Unix Culture 5

1.4 What Unix Gets Wrong 6

1.5 What Unix Gets Right 7

1.8 Applying the Unix Philosophy 26

1.9 Attitude Matters Too 26

2 History: A Tale of Two Cultures 29

2.1 Origins and History of Unix, 1969-1995 29

2.2 Origins and History of the Hackers, 1961-1995 43

2.3 The Open-Source Movement: 1998 and Onward 49

2.4 The Lessons of Unix History 51

3 Contrasts: Comparing the Unix Philosophy with Others 53

3.1 The Elements of Operating-System Style 53

3.2 Operating-System Comparisons 61

3.3 What Goes Around, Comes Around 78

II Design 81

4 Modularity: Keeping It Clean, Keeping It Simple 83

4.1 Encapsulation and Optimal Module Size 85

4.2 Compactness and Orthogonality 87

4.3 Software Is a Many-Layered Thing 95

4.4 Libraries 99

4.5 Unix and Object-Oriented Languages 101

4.6 Coding for Modularity 103

5 Textuality: Good Protocols Make Good Practice 105

5.1 The Importance of Being Textual 107

5.2 Data File Metaformats 112

5.3 Application Protocol Design 123

5.4 Application Protocol Metaformats 127

6 Transparency: Let There Be Light 133

6.1 Studying Cases 135

6.2 Designing for Transparency and Discoverability 148

6.3 Designing for Maintainability 154

7 Multiprogramming: Separating Processes to Separate Function 157

7.1 Separating Complexity Control from Performance Tuning 159

7.2 Taxonomy of Unix IPC Methods 160

7.3 Problems and Methods to Avoid 176

7.4 Process Partitioning at the Design Level 181

8 Minilanguages: Finding a Notation That Sings 183

8.1 Understanding the Taxonomy of Languages 185

8.2 Applying Minilanguages 187

8.3 Designing Minilanguages 206

9 Generation: Pushing the Specification Level Upwards 215

9.1 Data-Driven Programming 216

9.2 Ad-hoc Code Generation 225

10 Configuration: Starting on the Right Foot 231

10.1 What Should Be Configurable? 231

10.2 Where Configurations Live 233

10.3 Run-Control Files 234

10.4 Environment Variables 238

10.5 Command-Line Options 242

10.6 How to Choose among the Methods 248

10.7 On Breaking These Rules 252

11 Interfaces: User-Interface Design Patterns in the Unix Environment 253

11.1 Applying the Rule of Least Surprise 254

11.2 History of Interface Design on Unix 256

11.3 Evaluating Interface Designs 257

11.4 Tradeoffs between CLI and Visual Interfaces 259

11.5 Transparency, Expressiveness, and Configurability 264

11.6 Unix Interface Design Patterns 266

11.7 Applying Unix Interface-Design Patterns 280

11.8 The Web Browser as a Universal Front End 281

11.9 Silence Is Golden 284

12 Optimization 287

12.1 Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! 287

12.2 Measure before Optimizing 288

12.3 Nonlocality Considered Harmful 290

12.4 Throughput vs. Latency 291

13 Complexity: As Simple As Possible, but No Simpler 295

13.1 Speaking of Complexity 296

13.2 A Tale of Five Editors 302

13.3 The Right Size for an Editor 309

13.4 The Right Size of Software 316

III Implementation 319

14 Languages: To C or Not To C? 321

14.1 Unix's Cornucopia of Languages 321

14.2 Why Not C? 323

14.3 Interpreted Languages and Mixed Strategies 325

14.4 Language Evaluations 325

14.5 Trends for the Future 344

14.6 Choosing an X Toolkit 346

15 Tools: The Tactics of Development 349

15.1 A Developer-Friendly Operating System 349

15.2 Choosing an Editor 350

15.3 Special-Purpose Code Generators 352

15.4 make: Automating Your Recipes 357

15.5 Version-Control Systems 364

15.6 Runtime Debugging 369

15.7 Profiling 370

15.8 Combining Tools with Emacs 370

16 Reuse: On Not Reinventing the Wheel 375

16.1 The Tale of J. Random Newbie 376

16.2 Transparency as the Key to Reuse 379

16.3 From Reuse to Open Source 380

16.4 The Best Things in Life Are Open 381

16.5 Where to Look? 384

16.6 Issues in Using Open-Source Software 385

16.7 Licensing Issues 386

IV Community 391

17 Portability: Software Portability and Keeping Up Standards 393

17.1 Evolution of C 394

17.2 Unix Standards 398

17.3 IETF and the RFC Standards Process 403

17.4 Specifications as DNA, Code as RNA 405

17.5 Programming for Portability 408

17.6 Internationalization 413

17.7 Portability, Open Standards, and Open Source 414

18 Documentation: Explaining Your Code to a Web-Centric World 417

18.1 Documentation Concepts 418

18.2 The Unix Style 420

18.3 The Zoo of Unix Documentation Formats 422

18.4 The Present Chaos and a Possible Way Out 426

18.5 DocBook 427

18.6 Best Practices for Writing Unix Documentation 434

19 Open Source: Programming in the New Unix Community 437

19.1 Unix and Open Source 438

19.2 Best Practices for Working with Open-Source Developers 440

19.3 The Logic of Licenses: How to Pick One 456

19.4 Why You Should Use a Standard License 457

19.5 Varieties of Open-Source Licensing 457

20 Futures: Dangers and Opportunities 461

20.1 Essence and Accident in Unix Tradition 461

20.2 Plan 9: The Way the Future Was 464

20.3 Problems in the Design of Unix 466

20.4 Problems in the Environment of Unix 473

20.5 Problems in the Culture of Unix 475

20.6 Reasons to Believe 478

D Rootless Root: The Unix Koans of Master Foo 499.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 483-493 and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Phi Beta Kappa Library Trust Fund.

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Benjamin Franklin Library Fund.

ISBN:

0131429019

OCLC:

52638755