7 ms·
Unix Koans
- Affric 3y agoThat was a great read. Very fun. And wise.
- IshKebab 3y agoSounds very wise.
- isoprophlex 3y agoI love these. Maybe someone can help me locate a hacker koan I once read, but can't seem to find anywhere... it was a particularly humorous dig at java-style object oriented programming in a corporate environment; the novice spends their day lugging an object all through the corporation, peeling off layer after layer, only to find an empty method returning nothing. Somehow I can't find it, or the collection it was in, anywhere... maybe this rings a bell with anyone.
- mjw1007 3y agoThis one? http://www.thecodelesscode.com/case/110 http://www.thecodelesscode.com/case/110
- isoprophlex 3y agoOh yes, that's the one! Thank you so much!
- hiyer 3y agoLoved it. Thanks for finding this and to OP for sending you on its trail :-)
- traverseda 3y agoSomewhere in here I think http://thecodelesscode.com/contents http://thecodelesscode.com/contents
- isoprophlex 3y agoThanks! Many more forgotten gems in there, too..!
- l0b0 3y agoI don't get Master Foo Discourses on the Two Paths. "Three pounds of VAX!" Anyone?
- kqr 3y agoI know the traditional Unix worse-is-better philosophy holds simplicity of implementation as a higher goal than consistency of interface. I don't know how that ties into tigers and VAXen, though.
- alexjurkiewicz 3y agoRestating the koan: The UNIX way values both simplicity of implementation and correct behaviour in all circumstances. These values are often in tension. You must not follow these values blindly. They apply only at the right time.
- jimhefferon 3y agoIt comes from a famous koan. Google "three pounds of flax".
- djha-skin 3y agoThe original koan has a monk asking "What is Buddha?" With the Master's response being "This flax weighs 3 pounds", referring to the flax in his garment. The koan is intended to point out the practical nature of the Buddhist religion. Buddha to the master is all the things he does as part of his worship, and there are practical aspects to that worship such as buying 3 lb of flax. "Buddha is as Buddha does". Unix nature being "3 lb of VAX", the most popular hardware running Unix at the time, suggests that practicality is more important than idealistic purism. Tigers like to stay on the ground but sometimes they jump in the air so saying "tigers are creatures of the ground" have exceptions that make sense. A similar idea applies to eagles. These exceptions are part of nature. Exceptions to the rule in favor of practicality are okay and still make sense. These exceptions are still part of Unix nature.
- quantum_state 3y agoNice!
- b1c837696ba28b 3y agois < this | the > way
- roblh 3y agoIf you go to that website and then back to hn, the hn background looks blue.
- inportb 3y agoSo it does! Neat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterimage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterimage
- makeitrain 3y agohttps://youtu.be/lE4UXdJSJM4 https://youtu.be/lE4UXdJSJM4
- vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago[dead]
- arendtio 3y ago> “And how many hours would you require to implement and debug that C program?” asked Nubi. How about "How many hours would you require to write the shell script so that it handles all allowed file names appropriately?". As far as I am concerned the classes of errors are certainly different, but shell scripts have their own pitfalls. Just yesterday I came across a one-liner that didn't work as soon as the filename had a space in the filename.
- shhsshs 3y agoThen you are not using enough quotes in your shell scripts.
- teddyh 3y agoMost people know about quotes to handle spaces. The real trick is to handle file names which start with a hyphen. (And if you really want to level up, write your scripts to handle file names with embedded newlines.)
- dfinninger 3y agoYeah… I just pull up Finder and delete it there.
- sceadu 3y agothe script or the input file? :)
- version_five 3y agoI read a similarly themed koan recently where the novice wants to do various things with the shell, and the master tells him that's not what shell is for, and at the end the novice proposes something in exasperation which is essentially to use pipes to combine a bunch of commands, and the master say yes, use shell for that. I may be getting parts of it wrong. Csn anyone point me to this one? I can't find it.
- gravypod 3y agoSeems similar to this: http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html Wish there was a hard copy. Would make a great goofy gift for coworkers.
- thesuperbigfrog 3y ago>> Wish there was a hard copy. Hard copy: https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Programming-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Computng/dp/0131429019 https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Programming-Addison-Wesley-Profe... Soft copy: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/ http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/ http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ The original Unix koans are found in Appendix D: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/unix_koans.html http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/unix_koans.html Additional Unix koans were added (and removed) over time: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/ http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/
- teddyh 3y agoHard copy of that page has ISBN 0-931137-07-1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Programming
- teddyh 3y agoReal URL: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/ http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/
- DonHopkins 3y ago[flagged]
- tasuki 3y agoWhy? The author might be a vile racist, but his site is the source for this collection. The link posted here just strips the editor's introduction[0] which I personally found valuable. [0]: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/introduction.html http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/introduction.html
- microtherion 3y agoRegardless of the merits of the material and its author, I think the primary site, if anything, should be used. If you find this valuable/entertaining enough to read then read it at the original URL. If you find the author vile and/or the material not worth the time, linking to a ripped off copy of it doesn't make things better.
- Fnoord 3y agoBecause of the paradox of tolerance, and because you might not wanna connect to an extremist's website. You could argue you don't wanna read their writings either but AFAICT the writing is solid.
- worthless-trash 3y agoWhy ? Are we living in a world now where if one part of someone sucks we assume that everything from that person is evil ? Is that how tribal we're going ?
- baremetal 3y agoIt seems only people who are loaded up on current buzzwords to be upset about are like that. On both sides. Well adjusted people are able to overlook an offense. "A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense." - Proverbs 19:11