Reading this story reminded me of my first encounter with The Unix Programming Environment by Kernighan and Pike. I was working on aerospace control systems when I picked it up and it [and Unix] were pivotal in my transition to software. The 80’s were an exciting time for Unix. The Unix super mini computer was the hot thing and Unix was poised to take over computing. But the Unix community frittered the momentum away and the moment was lost. Now, with Linux and OS X, Unix is back.

Freelance journalist Bob McMillan talks to Eric about UNIX programming, the open source revolution, and why IDEs don’t make sense for UNIX development.