The Art of UNIX Programming (The Addison-Wesley Professional Computng Series)

Unix ranks among the great engineering accomplishments of the last half of the twentieth century, and its heir--Linux--seems already imposing and still on its way to achieving its full potential. Eric S. Raymond argues in The Art of UNIX Programming that the excellence of Unix derives as much from the fact that it was (and continues to be) a community effort as from the fact that a lot of smart people have worked to design and build it. Raymond, best known as the author of the open-source manifesto The Cathedral and the Bazaar, says in his preface that this is a "why-to" book, rather than a "how-to" book. It aims to show new Unix programmers why they should work under the old "hacker ethic"--embracing the principles of good software design for its own sake and of code-sharing.

That said, a great deal of valuable practical information appears in this book. Very little of it is in the form of code; most of the practical material takes the form of case studies and discussions of aspects of Unix, all aimed at determining why particular design characteristics are good. In many cases, the people who did the work in the first place make guest appearances and explain their thinking--an invaluable resource. This book is for the deep-thinking software developer in Unix (and perhaps Linux in particular). It shows how to fit into the long and noble tradition, and how to make the software work right. --David Wall

Topics covered: Why Unix (the term being defined to include Linux) is the way it is, and the people who made it that way. Commentary from Ken Thompson, Steve Johnson, Brian Kernighan, and David Korn enables readers to understand the thought processes of the creators of Unix.

• Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, 3rd Edition
• The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook
• UNIX: A History and a Memoir
• The Practice of Programming (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)
• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
• C Programming Language, 2nd Edition
• The Unix Programming Environment (Prentice-Hall Software Series)
• The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
• UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (5th Edition)
• The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)