The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”

["Nils O. Selåsdal"]

Xah Lee wrote:
> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
> 
> Xah Lee, 2006-05
> 
> In the computing industry, especially among unix community, we often
> hear that there's a “Unix Philosophy”. In this essay, i dissect the
> nature and characterization of such “unix philosophy”, as have been
> described by Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson,
> and Richard P Gabriel et al, and in recent years by Eric Raymond.
> 
> There is no one definite set of priciples that is the so-called “unix
> philosophy”, but rather, it consistest of various slogans developed
> over the decades by unix programers that purport to describe the way
> unix is supposed to have been designed. The characteristics include:
> “keep it simple”, “make it fast”, “keep it small”, “make
> it work on 99% of cases, but generality and correctness are less
> important”, “diversity rules”, “User interface is not
> important, raw power is good”, “everything should be a file”,
> “architecture is less important than immediate workability”. Often,
> these are expressed by chantible slogans that exhibits juvenile humor,
> such as “small is beautiful”, “KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)”.

Perhaps you should take a peek at the ideas in Plan 9 from Bell Labs,
which is  a continuation of this philosophy, unlike the "modern" unix
clones.