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Books : reviews

Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger.
Software Tools.
Addison Wesley. 1976

(read but not reviewed)

With the same style and clarity that characterized their highly acclaimed book, The Elements of Programming Style, the authors have written Software Tools to teach how to write good programs that make good tools. The programs contained in the book are not artificial, but are actual programs — tools which have proved valuable in the production of other programs.

Modern programming techniques such as structured programming and top-down design are emphasized and applied to every program. The programs are presented in a structured language called Ratfor (“Rational Fortran”) which can be easily understood by anyone familiar with Fortran, PL/l, Algol, PASCAL, or similar languages. (Ratfor translates readily into Fortran or PL/1. One of the tools presented is a preprocessor to translate Ratfor into Fortran). All of the programs are complete and have been tested directly from the text. The programs are available in machine-readable form from Addison-Wesley.

Software Tools is ideal for use in a “software engineering” course, for a second course in programming, or as a supplement in any programming course. All programmers, professional and student, will find the book invaluable as a source of proven, useful programs for reading and study. Numerous exercises are provided to test comprehension and to extend the concepts presented in the text.

Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger.
The Elements of Programming Style: 2nd edn.
McGraw Hill. 1978

(read but not reviewed)

Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie.
The C Programming Language.
Prentice Hall. 1978

(read but not reviewed)

Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger.
Software Tools in Pascal.
Addison Wesley. 1981

(read but not reviewed)

With the same style and clarity that characterized their highly acclaimed book, The Elements of Programming Style and Software Tools, the authors have written Software Tools in Pascal to teach how to write good Pascal programs that make good tools. The programs contained in the book are not artificial, but are actual tools which have proved valuable in the production of other programs.

Structured programming and top-down design are emphasized and applied to every program, as are principles of sound design, testing, efficiency and portability. All of the programs are complete and have been tested directly from the text. The programs are available in machine-readable form from Addison-Wesley.

Software Tools in Pascal is ideal for use in a software engineering course, for a second course in programming, or as a supplement in any programming course. All programmers, professional and student, will find the book invaluable as a source of proven, useful programs for reading and study. Numerous exercises are provided to test comprehension and to extend the concepts presented in the book.

Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike.
The UNIX Programming Environment.
Prentice Hall. 1984

(read but not reviewed)

Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, Peter J. Weinberger.
The AWK Programming Language.
Addison Wesley. 1988

(read but not reviewed)

Originally developed by Alfred Aho, Brian Kernighan, and Peter Weinberger in 1977, AWK is a pattern-matching language for writing short programs to perform common data-manipulation tasks. In 1985, a new version of the language was developed, incorporating additional features such as multiple input files, dynamic regular expressions, and user-defined functions. This new version is available for both UNIX and MS-DOS.

This is the first book on AWK. It begins with a tutorial that shows how easy AWK is to use. The tutorial is followed by a comprehensive manual for the new version of AWK.

Subsequent chapters illustrate the language by a range of useful applications, such as:

• Retrieving, transforming, reducing, and validating data
• Managing small, personal databases
• Text processing
• Little languages
• Experimenting with algorithms

The examples illustrate the book’s three themes: showing how to use AWK well, demonstrating AWK’s versatility, and explaining how common computing operations are done. In addition, the book contains two appendixes: a summary of the language, and answers to selected exercises.

Brian W. Kernighan.
UNIX: a History and a Memoir.
Kindle Direct Publishing. 2020

Since its creation in a Bell Labs attic in 1969, the Unix operating system has spread far beyond anything its creators could have imagined. It has led to the development of a great deal of innovative software, influenced myriad programmers, and changed the path of computer technology.

This book is part history and part memoir. It tells the story of the origin of Unix, explaining what Unix is, how it came about, and why it matters.

Accessible to non-specialists, the book is written for anyone with an interest in computing or the history of inventions.