The UNIX Way

This blog post contains mostly a small list of design principles. But those ideas are from ESR's book "The Art of UNIX Programming", where they are expanded upon in great detail, with excellent examples.<p>I am someone who practices the Unix philosophy on a regular basis, and cringes when I see how twisted and inelegant Windows has become (even on the programming side). I consider this book a must-read for people who know only Windows. It is also an interesting book for those who know Unix already.

These rules don't seem to apply to the modern age very well. The rules "Avoid captive user interfaces" and "Make every program a filter" mean that you can't write a text editor. The rule "Store data in flat text files" means you can't write a (reasonable) MP3 player or video editing program.<p>"Build a prototype as soon as possible" is pretty general, but most of these rules are just good guidelines for writing command shells and compilers -- not coincidentally, two of the main concerns of early Unix developers.

Too much of desktop linux has strayed from his #5, and it bothers me to no end (yes this means you, hal and dbus and gconf).

It amazes me that The Way of Unix is not known and understood, and most certainly applied, by everyone everywhere.