Doug McIlroy

“This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.”

“The notion of "intricate and beautiful complexities" is almost an oxymoron. Unix programmers vie with each other for "simple and beautiful" honors — a point that's implicit in these rules, but is well worth making overt.”

“Word and Excel and PowerPoint and other Microsoft programs have intimate — one might say promiscuous — knowledge of each others' internals. In Unix, one tries to design programs to operate not specifically with each other, but with programs as yet unthought of.”

“I don't know the counts of Unix and Linux servers. I do know that my heart sinks whenever I look under the hood in Linux. It is has been so overfed by loving hands. Over 240 system calls! Gigabytes of source! A C compiler with a 250-page user manual (not counting the language definition)! A simple page turner, 'less,' has over 40 options and 60 commands! It's proof that open-source can breed monsters just like the commercial pros. Miraculously, though, this monster works.”