From: Koen Holtman (koen@hep.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 10 2001 - 13:39:09 PST
On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Robert S. Thau wrote:
> Aaron Swartz writes:
> > Tony Finch <dot@dotat.at> wrote:
> >
> > >> Does anyone know if it's on the Web?
> > > On Dennis Richie's excellent home page of course. Google is your friend.
> > >
> > > http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/cacm.html
> >
> > Yes, but what about the other excellent articles?
>
> It's not precisely what you're asking for, but volume 2 of the v7 Unix
> Programmer's Manual contains material which is at least similar to the
> some of the BSTJ articles, and of similar vintage. However, I don't
> know whether, say, the v2 UPM "Introduction to the Unix Shell" by
> Bourne is the same text as the BSTJ article, and some of the BSTJ
> articles clearly aren't there in any form.
>
> The v7 UPM is available (in [nt]roff source) from Ritchie's home page.
To get back somewhat to the original topic, volume 2 of the v7 Unix
Programmer's Manual was one of the books on programming that influenced me
most. It was the first competently written description of a large
software system that I ever read. The clarity of the writing impressed me
even more than the things written about. Ever since I have been convinced
that Real Programmers *DO* Write Documentation.
I got the manual from the university library as a 1st year CS student
because I wanted to know more about this cool UNIX thing you somethimes
heard about. This was before the time of linux boxes and before the time
when a 1st year student could hope to get a UNIX account, so reading that
manual was my first real exposure to UNIX.
> rst
Koen.
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