The Unix Philosophy is an attitude not a philosophy. Unix doesn’t have a philosophy: it has an attitude. An attitude that says a simple, half-done job is more v

The Unix Philosophy is an attitude not a philosophy. Unix doesn’t have a philosophy: it has an attitude. An attitude that says a simple, half-done job is more virtuous than a complex,well-executed one. An attitude that asserts the programmer’s time is more important than the user’s time, even if there are thousands of users for every programmer. It’s an attitude that praises the lowest common denominator • Small is beautiful. • 10 percent of the work solves 90 percent of the problems. • When faced with a choice, do whatever is simpler. Which sounds good until realize that these comments mean the exact same thing. • A small program is more desirable than a program that is functional or correct. • A shoddy job is perfectly acceptable. • When faced with a choice, cop out.