[ Linux Today reader Eric
S. Raymond writes: ]
For some time now I have been working on a new book —
no, not a successor to “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”, but a
completely independent work that will attempt to explain the
Zenlike “special transmission, outside the scriptures” that
distinguishes Unix gurus from ordinary mortals. This book is “The
Art of Unix Programming”.It would be hubristic and doomed for me to try and write a book
like this entirely on my own. Instead, my goal is to capture and
distil the essence of Unix-community wisdom in the same way that
CatB and its successors captured the preexisting, implicit craft
knowledge of the open-source community.See http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/taoup/
to browse the contents page, Preface, and Chapter 1: Philosophy
Matters. This is not all I have written (I have drafts up to
Chapter 7) but having considered carefully I think a gradual timed
release of the material over several months seems likely to produce
a better quality of discussion.Enjoy! And please email me your suggestions for improvement.
—
Eric S. Raymond