Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 21:14:48 -0500
From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com>
To: Linux Weekly News <lwn@lwn.net>, editors@linuxtoday.com,
Subject: The Art of Unix Programming

For some time now I have been working on a new book -- no, not a
successor to "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", but a completely
independent work that will attempt to explain the Zenlike "special
transmission, outside the scriptures" that distinguishes Unix gurus
from ordinary mortals.  This book is "The Art of Unix Programming".

It would be hubristic and doomed for me to try and write a book like
this entirely on my own.  Instead, my goal is to capture and distil
the essence of Unix-community wisdom in the same way that CatB and its
successors captured the preexisting, implicit craft knowledge of the
open-source community.

See <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/taoup/>; to browse the contents
page, Preface, and Chapter 1: Philosophy Matters.  This is not all I
have written (I have drafts up to Chapter 7) but having considered carefully
I think a gradual timed release of the material over several months seems
likely to produce a better quality of discussion.

Enjoy!  And please email me your suggestions for improvement.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric S. Raymond</a>

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and
hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series
of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
	-- H.L. Mencken