
Unix koans - bratfarrar
http://www.catb.org/~esr//writings/unix-koans/
======
aaronem
ESR koans, more like. Has the man ever written _anything_ which lacked barely
veiled subtext of "Look how smart I am!" IMHO _The Art of Unix Programming_
has as little of that as anything of his that I've read, but only when he's
relating facts; in any place where there's scope for opinion, his high opinion
of himself shines forth.

~~~
fromdoon
I had read all these, before I got to know about ESR.

I was like, Wow!!, and it never ever came to my mind who wrote this or why. It
was just some cool stuff and as a linux newbie I really liked these micro-
stories or unix zen fables.

It happens with me as well that when I read something by an author for whom I
hold some kind of prejudice, my reading is maligned a bit and I wish I could
see what the author had to share from a completely neutral point of view,
because then in that case, what I take away from my reading would be closer to
what it had meant to be for me.

~~~
anaphor
You might find Alan Perlis' epigrams interesting
[http://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html](http://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html)

------
austinl
I think it's kind of strange that we've appropriated eastern philosophy to
teach programming. Having read the Tao Te Ching and The Analects (two very
conflicting works, philosophically), books like the Tao of Programming and The
Codeless Code just seem to mask random programming knowledge in a foreign
writing style to make it more entertaining.

Not saying that what's taught in those books is incorrect or not valuable, but
it can sometimes be uncomfortable for people that respect the philosophy.

~~~
nabla9
"Misuse" of koans has long history.

After Zen master Yuanwu's Blue Cliff Records - collection of 100 classical
koans with his commentary verses - started to spread around, his successor
Dahui noticed how monks and laypeople treated the collection as intellectual
and artistic work (Yuanwu Keqin wrote and spoke very beautifully, so they _do_
have artistic value) and burned all copies he could find.

The original use of koan is to be meditation aid (huatou-method, koan
practice) not subject of philosophical inquiry.

ps. The original MIT AI lab koans are more clever than these ESR ones.
[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/dae/notes/ai-
koans](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/dae/notes/ai-koans)

~~~
mturmon
I still think of this one whenever some lab apparatus starts working after an
expert walks in and fiddles with some wires or power-cycles it --

    
    
      A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on.  
      Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly - 
      "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding 
      of what is going wrong."
      Knight turned the machine off and on.
      The machine worked.

------
WizzleKake
If you like this, you might like the Tao of Programming:
[http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-
programming.html](http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html)

------
jdkaplan
Reminds me of The Codeless Code

[http://thecodelesscode.com/contents](http://thecodelesscode.com/contents)

------
jrockway
The images-of-text make the website partially unreadable when using a non-
graphical browser. I suppose I should take that to mean something deep.

~~~
thyrsus
With a graphical browser, the images-of-text are ideograms I (ignorant
westerner) do not understand, so the experience is the same. That's probably
intended as humor.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
These are really clunky and artless, it's like one of those webcomics that's
really just poser models.

------
canadev
This is one of those things where I read it and was just like, "What the hell
does that mean?"

~~~
jaiball
Good! just like a koan should

------
jumpwah
Some people seem to forget why we still use cli, from discourses on the
graphical user interface, they think that it's not 'modern'...

~~~
patrickmay
In the beginning was the command line:
[http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html](http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html)

~~~
pmr_
I'm curious why people still throw around this essay even though Stephenson
said he changed his view on the topic.

Of course the points made are still valid but they are by no means absolute
truth and never were.

~~~
sophacles
A question and a comment.

Q: Do you have a source for the change in viewpoint?

Comment: Just because an author changes his views, doesn't mean that other
people don't still agree with what was written. Authors don't get to tell
people how to interpret and understand their writings.

Actually, scratch that last bit - As the author of this comment, what it
really means is that you love it and should send me lots of dollars in
gratitude.

~~~
pmr_
Source: see question 8 here: [http://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-
stephenson-r...](http://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-
responds-with-wit-and-humor)

Comment: I fully agree that a change of opinion does not invalidate the old
argument. I thought I made that clear, but apparently I was wrong.

