Linux, Unix, /etc

Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!

Review of The Unix Philosophy

There is perhaps no better nor more succinct way of summing up the Unix Philosophy than two lists from this book. First, here are the nine main tenets of the Unix philosophy:

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 flat 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

And here are ten "lesser tenets":

Allow the User to tailor the environment.
Make operating system kernels small and lightweight.
Use lower case and keep it short.
Save Trees.
Silence is golden.
Think parallel.
The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
Look for the 90 percent solution.
Worse is better. (I won't try to explain this one...)
Think hierarchically.

One last quote from Garantz before we go:

"Unix owes much of its success to the fact that its developers saw no particular need to retain strong control of its source code."

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