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erikars's review
Good book. There were a lot of things in here that I've felt for a long time but was not sure how to explain. For example, the discussion of why config files should be human readable made me realize why I was so opposed to an advisor's suggestion that our config file be a giant ugly s-expression on a project I did last year; it also made me realize why I felt that the backend for that project should use sockets to communicate with the GUI (because it encourages modularity, keeps GUI code out of real program logic, allows new interfaces to be easily added, allows GUI to run on a separate machine than the back end; we'd only though of the last). Not all was justification though; I also learned lessons about good ways to format and output errors and how much our testing process sucked.
provaprova's review
4.0
(Read online version.)
Not bad, but more than enough dated at this point (finished in 2004 and most of it is more relevant to before then) that I'm not sure how much is worth reading. The CLI material is as worthwhile as ever, but the GUI parts are totally obsolete. The case studies are also rather too brief.
Not bad, but more than enough dated at this point (finished in 2004 and most of it is more relevant to before then) that I'm not sure how much is worth reading. The CLI material is as worthwhile as ever, but the GUI parts are totally obsolete. The case studies are also rather too brief.
brandur's review
3.0
Great insights into some of the historical roots of Unix and its successors, as well as some deep dives into the design of many classic Unix programs. My only complaints were that there was a lot of attribution of elegance to interfaces which, in my opinion, are not very elegant (take the make system or fetchmail configuration for example), and that large sections of the book are dedicated to technologies which are a bit outdated these days. Otherwise, this is a very interesting read.
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