The Legacy of Unix - Unix: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan

In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter and Nathan discuss Unix: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan. Brian Kernighan, one of the inventors of Unix, discusses in detail how the idea came to be, who the key contributors were, and what about Unix made it so revolutionary.

-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --
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Unix: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan

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00:00 Intro
01:38 About the Book
04:19 Thoughts on the Book
12:08 Bell Labs, Multics, and Proto-Unix
31:54 Making Unix Useful to others
38:59 Unix Structure and Philosophy
53:18 7th Edition, Community, and Beyond Research
59:23 Unix, Universities, Growth, Plan 9, and Beyond
01:15:41 Final Thoughts

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Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!

[jeffreyszcinskiii]

Hey loved the episode. Huge shoutout to the positive personalities and deep dive into the content. Really enjoyed hearing about belle labs. Who would have thought?!

[GreeneThumbs]

Great conversation. I really enjoy Kernighan's writing, so I ordered this book. I've been learning about the history of UNIX recently, and this book sounds like an invaluable resource in that respect. It's hard to understate the effect that UNIX has had on modern computing.

[RyanGubler]

Great conversation! I loved getting to know about the creators of unix and also the pre history of unix. You're both well spoken and very interesting to listen to! I'll have to order this book and read it myself. Sounds like an incredible read!

[lagcisco]

Great content on computing history, subscribed.

[kiseitai]

19:39 Valve has/had a similar outlook on projects.

[jakobw]

Why did the developers of Unix decide to adopt the Mac OS, instead of Linux?

[conw_y]

Aswath Damodaran has done some interesting analysis, questioning the logic of breaking up monopolies/oligopolies. Not all industries benefit from fragmentation and competition. It depends on the specifics of the industry. Big tech does provide cheap services to the population and is something of a win-win. Possibly regulation is a better approach to dealing with any negative externalities.