Linux Philosophy and principlesShamsa Al Mazrooei

10BG

Unix philosophy The Unix philosophy originated by Ken Thompson, is a set of

cultural norms and philosophical approaches to developing small software's.

Linux philosophy: 1) Everything is a

file. 2) Small, single-

purpose programs. 3) Ability to chain

programs together to perform complex tasks.

4) Avoid captive user interfaces.

5) Configuration data stored in text.

Everything is a file:

UNIX systems have many powerful utilities designed to create and manipulate

Small, single purpose programs UNIX provides many small utilities that perform one task very well.

Chaining programs together

A core design feature of UNIX is that the output of one program can be the input for another.

Avoid captive users interfaces: Interactive commands

are rare in UNIX. Most commands expect their options and arguments to be typed on the

Configuration data stored in text Text is a universal interface, and

many UNIX utilities exist to manipulate.

Origin Doug McIlroy

attributes the philosophy of combining "small, sharp tools "to accomplish larger tasks to Ken Thompson, one of the creators of Unix.

Unix programming environment

Even though the UNIX system introduces a number of innovative programs and techniques, no single program or idea makes it work well.

Program design

Much of the power of the UNIX operating system comes from a style of program design that makes programs easy to use and easy to combine with other programs.

Eric Raymond’s 17 Unix Rules Rule of Modularity Rule of Clarity Rule of Composition Rule of Separation Rule of Simplicity Rule of Parsimony Rule of Transparency And more….

Rule of Modularity

This rule aims to save time on debugging code that is complex, long, and unreadable.

 Rule of Clarity

This rule aims to make code readable and comprehensible for whoever works on the code in future.

Rule of Composition

 this rule aims to allow developers to break down projects into small, simple programs rather than overly complex monolithic programs.

Rule of Separation

This rule aims to let policies be changed without destabilizing mechanisms and consequently reducing the number of bugs.

The simplicity principle

This rule aims to discourage developers’ affection for writing “intricate and beautiful complexities” that are in reality bug prone programs.

Rule of Parsimony

This rule aims to prevent overinvestment of development time in failed or suboptimal approaches caused by the owners of the program’s reluctance to throw away visibly large pieces of work.

Rule of Transparency

 This rule aims to reduce debugging time and extend the lifespan of programs.