M. Douglas McIlroy, Elliot N. Pinson, & Berkley A. Tague (1978)
Bell System Technical Journal, 57(6), 1899-1904.
Abstract. Contains the famous statement of the Unix philosophy: 'Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new features. Expect the output of every program to become the input to another, as yet unknown, program.'
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Tags: unix philosophy pipes
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Reproduced in full under: Short-quote fair use; the parent article is © AT&T/Nokia.
A number of maxims have gained currency among the builders and users of the UNIX system to explain and promote its characteristic style:
(i) Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new "features".
(ii) Expect the output of every program to become the input to another, as yet unknown, program. Don't clutter output with extraneous information. Avoid stringently columnar or binary input formats. Don't insist on interactive input.
(iii) Design and build software, even operating systems, to be tried early, ideally within weeks. Don't hesitate to throw away the clumsy parts and rebuild them.
(iv) Use tools in preference to unskilled help to lighten a programming task, even if you have to detour to build the tools and expect to throw some of them out after you've finished using them.
— M. Douglas McIlroy, E. N. Pinson, and B. A. Tague, "UNIX Time-Sharing System: Forward" (the Bell System Technical Journal, July–August 1978). Short-quote fair use; the full article remains under AT&T/Nokia copyright.
