That whole book (not just the linked chapter about command-line options) - i.e. TAOUP - The Art Of Unix Programming - by ESR (Eric Steven Raymond, of Cathedral

That whole book (not just the linked chapter about command-line options) - i.e. TAOUP - The Art Of Unix Programming - by ESR (Eric Steven Raymond, of Cathedral and Bazaar fame) - is good (although verbose and using many heavy words and verbal flourishes in his trademark style). I've read most of it. The Rules section stands out. Being a Unix user and dev (above, not at the kernel level) for a long time before reading it, it crystallized and verbalized for me many concepts and unspoken techniques that are sort of hazily known and used but taken for granted (although applied instinctively) - although I had also figured out and sort of verbalized some of those on my own before reading the book. Also, related, anyone interested in learning to write (not just use) their own command-line utilities in C on Linux, may like to check out this tutorial I wrote for IBM developerWorks: https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-ibm-developerworks-article.html https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-ibm-developerworks-ar... It was on the site for long, got 30-40K views, and good ratings (4/5). Clients and others I know have used the tutorial as a guide to creating production command-line utilities. Follow the selpg links recursively to get to the PDF of the article and the source code. I first wrote the utility that is used as a case study in the article, for production use at one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers in the world.