Resume of The Unix Philosophy | 1995 | Mike Gancarz

unix-philosphy.md

The Unix Philosophy | 1995 | Mike Gancarz

hard tenets

• small is beautiful
• make each program do one thing well
• build a prototype as soon as possible
• choose portability over efficiency
• store numerical data in ASCii files
• use software leverage to your advantage
• use shell scripts to increase leverage and portability
• avoid captive user interfaces
• make every program a filter

soft tenets

• allow the user to tailor the environment
• make operating system kernels small and lightweight
• use lower case and keep it short
• save trees (on paper data cannot be filtered by programs)
• silence is golden
• think parallel
• the sum of the parts is greater than the whole
• look for the 90 percent solution
• worse is better
• think hierarchically (file and folder organization)

The Systems of Man

1. Prototype Phase | small, efficient, not many features
2. Overdone | slow, many features
3. Balance between 1 and 2