The Art of UNIX Programming poses the belief that understanding the unwritten UNIX engineering tradition and mastering its design patterns will help programmers of all stripes to become better programmers. This book attempts to capture the engineering wisdom and design philosophy of the UNIX, Linux, and Open Source software development community as it has evolved over the past three decades, and as it is applied today by the most experienced programmers.

Eric Raymond offers the next generation of "hackers" the unique opportunity to learn the connection between UNIX philosophy and practice through careful case studies of the very best UNIX/Linux programs. In addition, commentary is provided by Brian Kernighan, UNIX pioneer and best-selling author; Doug McIlroy, the inventor of the UNIX pipg; David Korn, the inventor of the korn shell; Jim Gettys and Keith Packard, inventors of X windows; Henry Spencer, an original UNIX hacker; and Ken Arnold, an original BSD developer and JINI creator; Mike Lesk, author of the legendary uucp, lex, and tbl programs; and Sturat Feldman, author of UNIX's famous make utility.

The book is divided into 4 parts. Part I explores the philosophy behind the development of UNIX. Part II explores design principles and patterns that are at the core of the UNIX tradition. Part III covers the rich UNIX tradition of reuse and the amazing variety of programming tools available to the UNIX developer. Part IV explores the UNIX open standards process, and the advantage in portability that UNIX enjoys.