Rating:

One of those books where you wish that it wouldn’t stop. Brian tells his side of the story of UNIX’s development.

• The book doesn’t get too technical, but technical enough for a developer to understand the ideas and history
• Obviously, the development of UNIX has been covered but has been in a way that only somebody as deeply involved as he was could
• It was very interesting to see the areas of focus back in the days, also some that actually lost simply relevance (e.g. typesetting)
• The Bell Labs are also covered, but only as far as they were relevant to understand the environment of the UNIX development
• It also tells a few little stories about other people involved, such as Ken Thompson or Dennis Ritchie
• Some characteristics of early computers were also covered, but more about their limitations as opposed to their exact technicalities (again, to put UNIX into context)