The UNIX Hater's Handbook

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 329 pages
• Published by: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Computers June 1994
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1568842031
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1568842035
• Book Dimensions: 9.5 x 8 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.5 pounds

Book Description
In the tradition of 12-step programs that help people overcome their addictions by sharing stories, The UNIX-Haters Handbook is the self-help guide for people affected by the world's most esoteric and most widely used operating system.

Turn here for answers to all-important questions, such as

Why does the online documentation lie to us? Why does the operating system overwrite valuable files with garbage? Why does the user's guide bear no relationship to reality? Why do the commands have cryptic names that have no bearing on their function? What is a grep? What is vi? Do troffs live under bridges, or are they inverted trons? WHERE ARE THEY SENDING ALL THE UPPERCASE LETTERS?

Reader Reviews
This is a breezy book poking fun at the foibles of Unix. As a sarcastic screed, it is not at all balanced or fair or reasonable, or even necessarily historically accurate. But it is valuable. (...)It is valuable because in many ways it is a catalog of design errors that you can make when putting together a system -- any system. Designers of new systems should be able to learn from it. It is valuable because it shows you how over time design decisions and compromises that seemed reasonable can come to seem ridiculous. It is valuable because it really does show you that "Worse is Better". That is, Unix really did survive, and all the 'better' systems like Multics and Tenex failed (and of course they weren't necessarily better across the board). There is a lesson here for engineers who don't understand that making the 'best' product by some narrow technical definition does NOT guarantee market success. It is valuable because it documents some of the *alternatives* to doing things the Unix way. Not enough to substitute for studying Multics and whatever, but valuable nonetheless. It is valuable because many of the analyses of Unix apply to other systems, certainly including MS-DOS and Windows. Yes, Windows does some things better, and some things worse. But you're smart; you can figure out how to transpose the analysis. Finally, it is valuable because it punctures the pretensions of those who hold up Unix (and Linux) as images of perfection. Worth reading. Comment | | (Report this)