The Art of UNIX Programming [Paperback]

ERIC S. RAYMOND has been a Unix developer since 1982. Known as the resident anthropologist and roving ambassador of the open-source community, he wrote the movement's manifesto inThe Cathedral and the Bazaarand is the editor ofThe New Hacker's Dictionary.

Reading this book has filled a gap in my education. I feel a sense of completion, understand that UNIX is really a style of community. Now I get it, at least I get it one level deeper than I ever did before. This book came at a perfect moment for me, a moment when I shifted from visualizing programs as things to programs as the shadows cast by communities. From this perspective, Eric makes UNIX make perfect sense.
--Kent Beck, author ofExtreme Programming Explained, Test Driven Development, andContributing to Eclipse

A delightful, fascinating read, and the lessons in problem-solvng are essential to every programmer, on any OS.
--Bruce Eckel, author ofThinking in JavaandThinking in C++

Writing better software: 30 years of UNIX development wisdom

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.

Raymond incorporates commentary from thirteen UNIX pioneers:

• Ken Thompson, the inventor of UNIX.
• Ken Arnold, part of the group that created the 4BSD UNIX releases and co-author ofThe Java Programming Language.
• Steven M. Bellovin