Story: The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan

CoRecursive: Coding Stories

As Brian Kernighan said “UNIX since the start has become a vehicle for creating and using programming languages.” Brian initiated work on what would become the UNIX system. He helped develop it to run on a minicomputer and would eventually be ported to other computers.

In this episode, Brain will go in-depth on how the UNIX was built.

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

“If you wanted, you could go sit in your office and think deep thoughts or program, or write on your own blackboard or whatever, but then come back to the common space when you wanted to.“ - Brian Kernighan

“I found it easier to program when I was trying to figure out the logic for myself rather than trying to figure out where in the infinite stack of documentation was the function I needed. So for me, programming is more like creating something rather than looking it up, and too much of today's programming is more like looking it up.” - Brian Kernighan

“If what I find challenging or hard or whatever is also something that other people find hard or challenging or whatever, then if I do something that will improve my lot, I'm perhaps improving their lot at the same time.” - Brian Kernighan

Links:

Brian's Homepage

Book: Unix: A History and a Memoir

Book: Millions, Billions, Zillions: Defending Yourself in a World of Too Many Numbers

Book: Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security