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author meillo@marmaro.de
date Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:02:51 +0100
parents 0caa9760fca8
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meillo@0 19 ..
meillo@0 20 .ds [. \ [
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meillo@1 22 .\"----------------------------------------
meillo@0 23 .TL
meillo@6 24 Why the Unix Philosophy still matters
meillo@0 25 .AU
meillo@0 26 markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
meillo@0 27 .AB
meillo@1 28 .ti \n(.iu
meillo@2 29 This paper discusses the importance of the Unix Philosophy in software design.
meillo@0 30 Today, few software designers are aware of these concepts,
meillo@3 31 and thus most modern software is limited and does not make use of software leverage.
meillo@0 32 Knowing and following the tenets of the Unix Philosophy makes software more valuable.
meillo@0 33 .AE
meillo@0 34
meillo@10 35 .\".if t .2C
meillo@2 36
meillo@2 37 .FS
meillo@2 38 .ps -1
meillo@2 39 This paper was prepared for the seminar ``Software Analysis'' at University Ulm.
meillo@2 40 Mentor was professor Schweiggert. 2010-02-05
meillo@2 41 .br
meillo@2 42 You may get this document from my website
meillo@2 43 .CW \s-1http://marmaro.de/docs
meillo@2 44 .FE
meillo@2 45
meillo@0 46 .NH 1
meillo@0 47 Introduction
meillo@0 48 .LP
meillo@0 49 Building a software is a process from an idea of the purpose of the software
meillo@3 50 to its release.
meillo@0 51 No matter \fIhow\fP the process is run, two things are common:
meillo@0 52 the initial idea and the release.
meillo@9 53 The process in between can be of any shape.
meillo@9 54 The the maintenance work after the release is ignored for the moment.
meillo@1 55 .PP
meillo@0 56 The process of building splits mainly in two parts:
meillo@0 57 the planning of what and how to build, and implementing the plan by writing code.
meillo@3 58 This paper focuses on the planning part \(en the designing of the software.
meillo@3 59 .PP
meillo@3 60 Software design is the plan of how the internals and externals of the software should look like,
meillo@3 61 based on the requirements.
meillo@9 62 This paper discusses the recommendations of the Unix Philosophy about software design.
meillo@3 63 .PP
meillo@3 64 The here discussed ideas can get applied by any development process.
meillo@9 65 The Unix Philosophy does recommend how the software development process should look like,
meillo@3 66 but this shall not be of matter here.
meillo@0 67 Similar, the question of how to write the code is out of focus.
meillo@1 68 .PP
meillo@3 69 The name ``Unix Philosophy'' was already mentioned several times, but it was not explained yet.
meillo@1 70 The Unix Philosophy is the essence of how the Unix operating system and its toolchest was designed.
meillo@3 71 It is no limited set of rules, but what people see to be common to typical Unix software.
meillo@1 72 Several people stated their view on the Unix Philosophy.
meillo@1 73 Best known are:
meillo@1 74 .IP \(bu
meillo@1 75 Doug McIlroy's summary: ``Write programs that do one thing and do it well.''
meillo@1 76 .[
meillo@1 77 %A M. D. McIlroy
meillo@1 78 %A E. N. Pinson
meillo@1 79 %A B. A. Taque
meillo@1 80 %T UNIX Time-Sharing System Forward
meillo@1 81 %J The Bell System Technical Journal
meillo@1 82 %D 1978
meillo@1 83 %V 57
meillo@1 84 %N 6
meillo@1 85 %P 1902
meillo@1 86 .]
meillo@1 87 .IP \(bu
meillo@1 88 Mike Gancarz' book ``The UNIX Philosophy''.
meillo@1 89 .[
meillo@1 90 %A Mike Gancarz
meillo@1 91 %T The UNIX Philosophy
meillo@1 92 %D 1995
meillo@1 93 %I Digital Press
meillo@1 94 .]
meillo@1 95 .IP \(bu
meillo@1 96 Eric S. Raymond's book ``The Art of UNIX Programming''.
meillo@1 97 .[
meillo@1 98 %A Eric S. Raymond
meillo@1 99 %T The Art of UNIX Programming
meillo@1 100 %D 2003
meillo@1 101 %I Addison-Wesley
meillo@2 102 %O .CW \s-1http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/
meillo@1 103 .]
meillo@0 104 .LP
meillo@1 105 These different views on the Unix Philosophy have much in common.
meillo@3 106 Especially, the main concepts are similar for all of them.
meillo@1 107 But there are also points on which they differ.
meillo@1 108 This only underlines what the Unix Philosophy is:
meillo@1 109 A retrospective view on the main concepts of Unix software;
meillo@9 110 especially those that were successful and unique to Unix.
meillo@6 111 .\" really?
meillo@1 112 .PP
meillo@1 113 Before we will have a look at concrete concepts,
meillo@1 114 we discuss why software design is important
meillo@1 115 and what problems bad design introduces.
meillo@0 116
meillo@0 117
meillo@0 118 .NH 1
meillo@6 119 Importance of software design in general
meillo@0 120 .LP
meillo@2 121 Why should we design software at all?
meillo@6 122 It is general knowledge, that even a bad plan is better than no plan.
meillo@6 123 Ignoring software design is programming without a plan.
meillo@6 124 This will lead pretty sure to horrible results.
meillo@2 125 .PP
meillo@6 126 The design of a software is its internal and external shape.
meillo@6 127 The design talked about here has nothing to do with visual appearance.
meillo@6 128 If we see a program as a car, then its color is of no matter.
meillo@6 129 Its design would be the car's size, its shape, the number and position of doors,
meillo@6 130 the ratio of passenger and cargo transport, and so forth.
meillo@2 131 .PP
meillo@6 132 A software's design is about quality properties.
meillo@6 133 Each of the cars may be able to drive from A to B,
meillo@6 134 but it depends on its properties whether it is a good car for passenger transport or not.
meillo@6 135 It also depends on its properties if it is a good choice for a rough mountain area.
meillo@2 136 .PP
meillo@6 137 Requirements to a software are twofold: functional and non-functional.
meillo@6 138 Functional requirements are easier to define and to verify.
meillo@6 139 They are directly the software's functions.
meillo@6 140 Functional requirements are the reason why software gets written.
meillo@6 141 Someone has a problem and needs a tool to solve it.
meillo@6 142 Being able to solve the problem is the main functional requirement.
meillo@6 143 It is the driving force behind all programming effort.
meillo@2 144 .PP
meillo@6 145 On the other hand, there are also non-functional requirements.
meillo@6 146 They are called \fIquality\fP requirements, too.
meillo@6 147 The quality of a software is about properties that are not directly related to
meillo@6 148 the software's basic functions.
meillo@6 149 Quality aspects are about the properties that are overlooked at first sight.
meillo@2 150 .PP
meillo@6 151 Quality is of few matter when the software gets initially built,
meillo@9 152 but it will be of matter in usage and maintenance of the software.
meillo@6 153 A short-sighted might see in developing a software mainly building something up.
meillo@6 154 Reality shows, that building the software the first time is only a small amount
meillo@6 155 of the overall work.
meillo@9 156 Bug fixing, extending, rebuilding of parts \(en short: maintenance work \(en
meillo@6 157 does soon take over the major part of the time spent on a software.
meillo@6 158 Not to forget the usage of the software.
meillo@6 159 These processes are highly influenced by the software's quality.
meillo@6 160 Thus, quality should never be neglected.
meillo@6 161 The problem is that you hardly ``stumble over'' bad quality during the first build,
meillo@6 162 but this is the time when you should care about good quality most.
meillo@6 163 .PP
meillo@6 164 Software design is not about the basic function of a software;
meillo@6 165 this requirement will get satisfied anyway, as it is the main driving force behind the development.
meillo@6 166 Software design is about quality aspects of the software.
meillo@6 167 Good design will lead to good quality, bad design to bad quality.
meillo@6 168 The primary functions of the software will be affected modestly by bad quality,
meillo@6 169 but good quality can provide a lot of additional gain from the software,
meillo@6 170 even at places where one never expected it.
meillo@6 171 .PP
meillo@6 172 The ISO/IEC 9126-1 standard, part 1,
meillo@6 173 .[
meillo@9 174 %I International Organization for Standardization
meillo@6 175 %T ISO Standard 9126: Software Engineering \(en Product Quality, part 1
meillo@6 176 %C Geneve
meillo@6 177 %D 2001
meillo@6 178 .]
meillo@6 179 defines the quality model as consisting out of:
meillo@6 180 .IP \(bu
meillo@6 181 .I Functionality
meillo@6 182 (suitability, accuracy, inter\%operability, security)
meillo@6 183 .IP \(bu
meillo@6 184 .I Reliability
meillo@6 185 (maturity, fault tolerance, recoverability)
meillo@6 186 .IP \(bu
meillo@6 187 .I Usability
meillo@6 188 (understandability, learnability, operability, attractiveness)
meillo@6 189 .IP \(bu
meillo@6 190 .I Efficiency
meillo@9 191 (time behavior, resource utilization)
meillo@6 192 .IP \(bu
meillo@6 193 .I Maintainability
meillo@23 194 (analyzability, changeability, stability, testability)
meillo@6 195 .IP \(bu
meillo@6 196 .I Portability
meillo@6 197 (adaptability, installability, co-existence, replaceability)
meillo@6 198 .LP
meillo@6 199 These goals are parts of a software's design.
meillo@6 200 Good design can give these properties to a software,
meillo@6 201 bad designed software will miss them.
meillo@7 202 .PP
meillo@7 203 One further goal of software design is consistency.
meillo@7 204 Consistency eases understanding, working on, and using things.
meillo@7 205 Consistent internals and consistent interfaces to the outside can be provided by good design.
meillo@7 206 .PP
meillo@7 207 We should design software because good design avoids many problems during a software's lifetime.
meillo@7 208 And we should design software because good design can offer much gain,
meillo@7 209 that can be unrelated to the software main intend.
meillo@7 210 Indeed, we should spend much effort into good design to make the software more valuable.
meillo@7 211 The Unix Philosophy shows how to design software well.
meillo@7 212 It offers guidelines to achieve good quality and high gain for the effort spent.
meillo@0 213
meillo@0 214
meillo@0 215 .NH 1
meillo@0 216 The Unix Philosophy
meillo@4 217 .LP
meillo@4 218 The origins of the Unix Philosophy were already introduced.
meillo@8 219 This chapter explains the philosophy, oriented on Gancarz,
meillo@8 220 and shows concrete examples of its application.
meillo@5 221
meillo@16 222 .NH 2
meillo@14 223 Pipes
meillo@4 224 .LP
meillo@4 225 Following are some examples to demonstrate how applied Unix Philosophy feels like.
meillo@4 226 Knowledge of using the Unix shell is assumed.
meillo@4 227 .PP
meillo@4 228 Counting the number of files in the current directory:
meillo@9 229 .DS I 2n
meillo@4 230 .CW
meillo@9 231 .ps -1
meillo@4 232 ls | wc -l
meillo@4 233 .DE
meillo@4 234 The
meillo@4 235 .CW ls
meillo@4 236 command lists all files in the current directory, one per line,
meillo@4 237 and
meillo@4 238 .CW "wc -l
meillo@8 239 counts the number of lines.
meillo@4 240 .PP
meillo@8 241 Counting the number of files that do not contain ``foo'' in their name:
meillo@9 242 .DS I 2n
meillo@4 243 .CW
meillo@9 244 .ps -1
meillo@4 245 ls | grep -v foo | wc -l
meillo@4 246 .DE
meillo@4 247 Here, the list of files is filtered by
meillo@4 248 .CW grep
meillo@4 249 to remove all that contain ``foo''.
meillo@4 250 The rest is the same as in the previous example.
meillo@4 251 .PP
meillo@4 252 Finding the five largest entries in the current directory.
meillo@9 253 .DS I 2n
meillo@4 254 .CW
meillo@9 255 .ps -1
meillo@4 256 du -s * | sort -nr | sed 5q
meillo@4 257 .DE
meillo@4 258 .CW "du -s *
meillo@4 259 returns the recursively summed sizes of all files
meillo@8 260 \(en no matter if they are regular files or directories.
meillo@4 261 .CW "sort -nr
meillo@4 262 sorts the list numerically in reverse order.
meillo@4 263 Finally,
meillo@4 264 .CW "sed 5q
meillo@4 265 quits after it has printed the fifth line.
meillo@4 266 .PP
meillo@4 267 The presented command lines are examples of what Unix people would use
meillo@4 268 to get the desired output.
meillo@4 269 There are also other ways to get the same output.
meillo@4 270 It's a user's decision which way to go.
meillo@14 271 .PP
meillo@8 272 The examples show that many tasks on a Unix system
meillo@4 273 are accomplished by combining several small programs.
meillo@4 274 The connection between the single programs is denoted by the pipe operator `|'.
meillo@4 275 .PP
meillo@4 276 Pipes, and their extensive and easy use, are one of the great
meillo@4 277 achievements of the Unix system.
meillo@4 278 Pipes between programs have been possible in earlier operating systems,
meillo@4 279 but it has never been a so central part of the concept.
meillo@4 280 When, in the early seventies, Doug McIlroy introduced pipes for the
meillo@4 281 Unix system,
meillo@4 282 ``it was this concept and notation for linking several programs together
meillo@4 283 that transformed Unix from a basic file-sharing system to an entirely new way of computing.''
meillo@4 284 .[
meillo@4 285 %T Unix: An Oral History
meillo@5 286 %O .CW \s-1http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/frs122/unixhist/finalhis.htm
meillo@4 287 .]
meillo@4 288 .PP
meillo@4 289 Being able to specify pipelines in an easy way is,
meillo@4 290 however, not enough by itself.
meillo@5 291 It is only one half.
meillo@4 292 The other is the design of the programs that are used in the pipeline.
meillo@8 293 They have to interfaces that allows them to be used in such a way.
meillo@5 294
meillo@16 295 .NH 2
meillo@14 296 Interface design
meillo@5 297 .LP
meillo@11 298 Unix is, first of all, simple \(en Everything is a file.
meillo@5 299 Files are sequences of bytes, without any special structure.
meillo@5 300 Programs should be filters, which read a stream of bytes from ``standard input'' (stdin)
meillo@5 301 and write a stream of bytes to ``standard output'' (stdout).
meillo@5 302 .PP
meillo@8 303 If the files \fIare\fP sequences of bytes,
meillo@8 304 and the programs \fIare\fP filters on byte streams,
meillo@11 305 then there is exactly one standardized data interface.
meillo@5 306 Thus it is possible to combine them in any desired way.
meillo@5 307 .PP
meillo@5 308 Even a handful of small programs will yield a large set of combinations,
meillo@5 309 and thus a large set of different functions.
meillo@5 310 This is leverage!
meillo@5 311 If the programs are orthogonal to each other \(en the best case \(en
meillo@5 312 then the set of different functions is greatest.
meillo@5 313 .PP
meillo@11 314 Programs might also have a separate control interface,
meillo@11 315 besides their data interface.
meillo@11 316 The control interface is often called ``user interface'',
meillo@11 317 because it is usually designed to be used by humans.
meillo@11 318 The Unix Philosophy discourages to assume the user to be human.
meillo@11 319 Interactive use of software is slow use of software,
meillo@11 320 because the program waits for user input most of the time.
meillo@11 321 Interactive software requires the user to be in front of the computer
meillo@11 322 all the time.
meillo@11 323 Interactive software occupy the user's attention while they are running.
meillo@11 324 .PP
meillo@11 325 Now we come back to the idea of using several small programs, combined,
meillo@11 326 to have a more specific function.
meillo@11 327 If these single tools would all be interactive,
meillo@11 328 how would the user control them?
meillo@11 329 It is not only a problem to control several programs at once if they run at the same time,
meillo@11 330 it also very inefficient to have to control each of the single programs
meillo@11 331 that are intended to work as one large program.
meillo@11 332 Hence, the Unix Philosophy discourages programs to demand interactive use.
meillo@11 333 The behavior of programs should be defined at invocation.
meillo@11 334 This is done by specifying arguments (``command line switches'') to the program call.
meillo@11 335 Gancarz discusses this topic as ``avoid captive user interfaces''.
meillo@11 336 .[
meillo@11 337 %A Mike Gancarz
meillo@11 338 %T The UNIX Philosophy
meillo@11 339 %I Digital Press
meillo@11 340 %D 1995
meillo@11 341 %P 88 ff.
meillo@11 342 .]
meillo@11 343 .PP
meillo@11 344 Non-interactive use is, during development, also an advantage for testing.
meillo@11 345 Testing of interactive programs is much more complicated,
meillo@11 346 than testing of non-interactive programs.
meillo@5 347
meillo@16 348 .NH 2
meillo@8 349 The toolchest approach
meillo@5 350 .LP
meillo@5 351 A toolchest is a set of tools.
meillo@5 352 Instead of having one big tool for all tasks, one has many small tools,
meillo@5 353 each for one task.
meillo@5 354 Difficult tasks are solved by combining several of the small, simple tools.
meillo@5 355 .PP
meillo@11 356 The Unix toolchest \fIis\fP a set of small, (mostly) non-interactive programs
meillo@11 357 that are filters on byte streams.
meillo@11 358 They are, to a large extend, unrelated in their function.
meillo@11 359 Hence, the Unix toolchest provides a large set of functions
meillo@11 360 that can be accessed by combining the programs in the desired way.
meillo@11 361 .PP
meillo@11 362 There are also advantages for developing small toolchest programs.
meillo@5 363 It is easier and less error-prone to write small programs.
meillo@5 364 It is also easier and less error-prone to write a large set of small programs,
meillo@5 365 than to write one large program with all the functionality included.
meillo@5 366 If the small programs are combinable, then they offer even a larger set
meillo@5 367 of functions than the single large program.
meillo@5 368 Hence, one gets two advantages out of writing small, combinable programs.
meillo@5 369 .PP
meillo@5 370 There are two drawbacks of the toolchest approach.
meillo@8 371 First, one simple, standardized, unidirectional interface has to be sufficient.
meillo@5 372 If one feels the need for more ``logic'' than a stream of bytes,
meillo@8 373 then a different approach might be of need.
meillo@13 374 But it is also possible, that he just can not imagine a design where
meillo@8 375 a stream of bytes is sufficient.
meillo@8 376 By becoming more familiar with the ``Unix style of thinking'',
meillo@8 377 developers will more often and easier find simple designs where
meillo@8 378 a stream of bytes is a sufficient interface.
meillo@8 379 .PP
meillo@8 380 The second drawback of a toolchest affects the users.
meillo@5 381 A toolchest is often more difficult to use for novices.
meillo@9 382 It is necessary to become familiar with each of the tools,
meillo@5 383 to be able to use the right one in a given situation.
meillo@9 384 Additionally, one needs to combine the tools in a senseful way on its own.
meillo@9 385 This is like a sharp knife \(en it is a powerful tool in the hand of a master,
meillo@5 386 but of no good value in the hand of an unskilled.
meillo@5 387 .PP
meillo@8 388 However, learning single, small tool of the toolchest is easier than
meillo@8 389 learning a complex tool.
meillo@8 390 The user will have a basic understanding of a yet unknown tool,
meillo@8 391 if the several tools of the toolchest have a common style.
meillo@8 392 He will be able to transfer knowledge over one tool to another.
meillo@8 393 .PP
meillo@8 394 Moreover, the second drawback can be removed easily by adding wrappers
meillo@8 395 around the single tools.
meillo@5 396 Novice users do not need to learn several tools if a professional wraps
meillo@8 397 the single commands into a more high-level script.
meillo@5 398 Note that the wrapper script still calls the small tools;
meillo@5 399 the wrapper script is just like a skin around.
meillo@8 400 No complexity is added this way,
meillo@8 401 but new programs can get created out of existing one with very low effort.
meillo@5 402 .PP
meillo@5 403 A wrapper script for finding the five largest entries in the current directory
meillo@5 404 could look like this:
meillo@9 405 .DS I 2n
meillo@5 406 .CW
meillo@9 407 .ps -1
meillo@5 408 #!/bin/sh
meillo@5 409 du -s * | sort -nr | sed 5q
meillo@5 410 .DE
meillo@5 411 The script itself is just a text file that calls the command line
meillo@5 412 a professional user would type in directly.
meillo@8 413 Making the program flexible on the number of entries it prints,
meillo@8 414 is easily possible:
meillo@9 415 .DS I 2n
meillo@8 416 .CW
meillo@9 417 .ps -1
meillo@8 418 #!/bin/sh
meillo@8 419 num=5
meillo@8 420 [ $# -eq 1 ] && num="$1"
meillo@8 421 du -sh * | sort -nr | sed "${num}q"
meillo@8 422 .DE
meillo@8 423 This script acts like the one before, when called without an argument.
meillo@8 424 But one can also specify a numerical argument to define the number of lines to print.
meillo@5 425
meillo@16 426 .NH 2
meillo@8 427 A powerful shell
meillo@8 428 .LP
meillo@10 429 It was already said, that the Unix shell provides the possibility to
meillo@10 430 combine small programs into large ones easily.
meillo@10 431 A powerful shell is a great feature in other ways, too.
meillo@8 432 .PP
meillo@10 433 For instance by including a scripting language.
meillo@10 434 The control statements are build into the shell.
meillo@8 435 The functions, however, are the normal programs, everyone can use on the system.
meillo@10 436 Thus, the programs are known, so learning to program in the shell is easy.
meillo@8 437 Using normal programs as functions in the shell programming language
meillo@10 438 is only possible because they are small and combinable tools in a toolchest style.
meillo@8 439 .PP
meillo@8 440 The Unix shell encourages to write small scripts out of other programs,
meillo@8 441 because it is so easy to do.
meillo@8 442 This is a great step towards automation.
meillo@8 443 It is wonderful if the effort to automate a task equals the effort
meillo@8 444 it takes to do it the second time by hand.
meillo@8 445 If it is so, then the user will be happy to automate everything he does more than once.
meillo@8 446 .PP
meillo@8 447 Small programs that do one job well, standardized interfaces between them,
meillo@8 448 a mechanism to combine parts to larger parts, and an easy way to automate tasks,
meillo@8 449 this will inevitably produce software leverage.
meillo@8 450 Getting multiple times the benefit of an investment is a great offer.
meillo@10 451 .PP
meillo@10 452 The shell also encourages rapid prototyping.
meillo@10 453 Many well known programs started as quickly hacked shell scripts,
meillo@10 454 and turned into ``real'' programs, written in C, later.
meillo@10 455 Building a prototype first is a way to avoid the biggest problems
meillo@10 456 in application development.
meillo@10 457 Fred Brooks writes in ``No Silver Bullet'':
meillo@10 458 .[
meillo@10 459 %A Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
meillo@10 460 %T No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering
meillo@10 461 %B Information Processing 1986, the Proceedings of the IFIP Tenth World Computing Conference
meillo@10 462 %E H.-J. Kugler
meillo@10 463 %D 1986
meillo@10 464 %P 1069\(en1076
meillo@10 465 %I Elsevier Science B.V.
meillo@10 466 %C Amsterdam, The Netherlands
meillo@10 467 .]
meillo@10 468 .QP
meillo@10 469 The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.
meillo@10 470 No other part of the conceptual work is so difficult as establishing the detailed
meillo@10 471 technical requirements, [...].
meillo@10 472 No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if done wrong.
meillo@10 473 No other part is more difficult to rectify later.
meillo@10 474 .PP
meillo@10 475 Writing a prototype is a great method to become familiar with the requirements
meillo@10 476 and to actually run into real problems.
meillo@10 477 Today, prototyping is often seen as a first step in building a software.
meillo@10 478 This is, of course, good.
meillo@10 479 However, the Unix Philosophy has an \fIadditional\fP perspective on prototyping:
meillo@10 480 After having built the prototype, one might notice, that the prototype is already
meillo@10 481 \fIgood enough\fP.
meillo@10 482 Hence, no reimplementation, in a more sophisticated programming language, might be of need,
meillo@10 483 for the moment.
meillo@23 484 Maybe later, it might be necessary to rewrite the software, but not now.
meillo@10 485 .PP
meillo@10 486 By delaying further work, one keeps the flexibility to react easily on
meillo@10 487 changing requirements.
meillo@10 488 Software parts that are not written will not miss the requirements.
meillo@10 489
meillo@16 490 .NH 2
meillo@10 491 Worse is better
meillo@10 492 .LP
meillo@10 493 The Unix Philosophy aims for the 80% solution;
meillo@10 494 others call it the ``Worse is better'' approach.
meillo@10 495 .PP
meillo@10 496 First, practical experience shows, that it is almost never possible to define the
meillo@10 497 requirements completely and correctly the first time.
meillo@10 498 Hence one should not try to; it will fail anyway.
meillo@10 499 Second, practical experience shows, that requirements change during time.
meillo@10 500 Hence it is best to delay requirement-based design decisions as long as possible.
meillo@10 501 Also, the software should be small and flexible as long as possible
meillo@10 502 to react on changing requirements.
meillo@10 503 Shell scripts, for example, are more easily adjusted as C programs.
meillo@10 504 Third, practical experience shows, that maintenance is hard work.
meillo@10 505 Hence, one should keep the amount of software as small as possible;
meillo@10 506 it should just fulfill the \fIcurrent\fP requirements.
meillo@10 507 Software parts that will be written later, do not need maintenance now.
meillo@10 508 .PP
meillo@10 509 Starting with a prototype in a scripting language has several advantages:
meillo@10 510 .IP \(bu
meillo@10 511 As the initial effort is low, one will likely start right away.
meillo@10 512 .IP \(bu
meillo@10 513 As working parts are available soon, the real requirements can get identified soon.
meillo@10 514 .IP \(bu
meillo@10 515 When a software is usable, it gets used, and thus tested.
meillo@10 516 Hence problems will be found at early stages of the development.
meillo@10 517 .IP \(bu
meillo@10 518 The prototype might be enough for the moment,
meillo@10 519 thus further work on the software can be delayed to a time
meillo@10 520 when one knows better about the requirements and problems,
meillo@10 521 than now.
meillo@10 522 .IP \(bu
meillo@10 523 Implementing now only the parts that are actually needed now,
meillo@10 524 requires fewer maintenance work.
meillo@10 525 .IP \(bu
meillo@10 526 If the global situation changes so that the software is not needed anymore,
meillo@10 527 then less effort was spent into the project, than it would have be
meillo@10 528 when a different approach had been used.
meillo@10 529
meillo@16 530 .NH 2
meillo@11 531 Upgrowth and survival of software
meillo@11 532 .LP
meillo@12 533 So far it was talked about \fIwriting\fP or \fIbuilding\fP software.
meillo@13 534 Although these are just verbs, they do imply a specific view on the work process
meillo@13 535 they describe.
meillo@12 536 The better verb, however, is to \fIgrow\fP.
meillo@12 537 .PP
meillo@12 538 Creating software in the sense of the Unix Philosophy is an incremental process.
meillo@12 539 It starts with a first prototype, which evolves as requirements change.
meillo@12 540 A quickly hacked shell script might become a large, sophisticated,
meillo@13 541 compiled program this way.
meillo@13 542 Its lifetime begins with the initial prototype and ends when the software is not used anymore.
meillo@13 543 While being alive it will get extended, rearranged, rebuilt (from scratch).
meillo@12 544 Growing software matches the view that ``software is never finished. It is only released.''
meillo@12 545 .[
meillo@13 546 %O FIXME
meillo@13 547 %A Mike Gancarz
meillo@13 548 %T The UNIX Philosophy
meillo@13 549 %P 26
meillo@12 550 .]
meillo@12 551 .PP
meillo@13 552 Software can be seen as being controlled by evolutionary processes.
meillo@13 553 Successful software is software that is used by many for a long time.
meillo@12 554 This implies that the software is needed, useful, and better than alternatives.
meillo@12 555 Darwin talks about: ``The survival of the fittest.''
meillo@12 556 .[
meillo@13 557 %O FIXME
meillo@13 558 %A Charles Darwin
meillo@12 559 .]
meillo@12 560 Transferred to software: The most successful software, is the fittest,
meillo@12 561 is the one that survives.
meillo@13 562 (This may be at the level of one creature, or at the level of one species.)
meillo@13 563 The fitness of software is affected mainly by four properties:
meillo@15 564 portability of code, portability of data, range of usability, and reusability of parts.
meillo@15 565 .\" .IP \(bu
meillo@15 566 .\" portability of code
meillo@15 567 .\" .IP \(bu
meillo@15 568 .\" portability of data
meillo@15 569 .\" .IP \(bu
meillo@15 570 .\" range of usability
meillo@15 571 .\" .IP \(bu
meillo@15 572 .\" reuseability of parts
meillo@13 573 .PP
meillo@15 574 (1)
meillo@15 575 .I "Portability of code
meillo@15 576 means, using high-level programming languages,
meillo@13 577 sticking to the standard,
meillo@13 578 and avoiding optimizations that introduce dependencies on specific hardware.
meillo@13 579 Hardware has a much lower lifetime than software.
meillo@13 580 By chaining software to a specific hardware,
meillo@13 581 the software's lifetime gets shortened to that of this hardware.
meillo@13 582 In contrast, software should be easy to port \(en
meillo@23 583 adaptation is the key to success.
meillo@13 584 .\" cf. practice of prog: ch08
meillo@13 585 .PP
meillo@15 586 (2)
meillo@15 587 .I "Portability of data
meillo@15 588 is best achieved by avoiding binary representations
meillo@13 589 to store data, because binary representations differ from machine to machine.
meillo@23 590 Textual representation is favored.
meillo@13 591 Historically, ASCII was the charset of choice.
meillo@13 592 In the future, UTF-8 might be the better choice, however.
meillo@13 593 Important is that it is a plain text representation in a
meillo@13 594 very common charset encoding.
meillo@13 595 Apart from being able to transfer data between machines,
meillo@13 596 readable data has the great advantage, that humans are able
meillo@13 597 to directly edit it with text editors and other tools from the Unix toolchest.
meillo@13 598 .\" gancarz tenet 5
meillo@13 599 .PP
meillo@15 600 (3)
meillo@15 601 A large
meillo@15 602 .I "range of usability
meillo@23 603 ensures good adaptation, and thus good survival.
meillo@13 604 It is a special distinction if a software becomes used in fields of action,
meillo@13 605 the original authors did never imagine.
meillo@13 606 Software that solves problems in a general way will likely be used
meillo@13 607 for all kinds of similar problems.
meillo@13 608 Being too specific limits the range of uses.
meillo@13 609 Requirements change through time, thus use cases change or even vanish.
meillo@13 610 A good example in this point is Allman's sendmail.
meillo@13 611 Allman identifies flexibility to be one major reason for sendmail's success:
meillo@13 612 .[
meillo@13 613 %O FIXME
meillo@13 614 %A Allman
meillo@13 615 %T sendmail
meillo@13 616 .]
meillo@13 617 .QP
meillo@13 618 Second, I limited myself to the routing function [...].
meillo@13 619 This was a departure from the dominant thought of the time, [...].
meillo@13 620 .QP
meillo@13 621 Third, the sendmail configuration file was flexible enough to adopt
meillo@13 622 to a rapidly changing world [...].
meillo@12 623 .LP
meillo@13 624 Successful software adopts itself to the changing world.
meillo@13 625 .PP
meillo@15 626 (4)
meillo@15 627 .I "Reuse of parts
meillo@15 628 is even one step further.
meillo@13 629 A software may completely lose its field of action,
meillo@13 630 but parts of which the software is build may be general and independent enough
meillo@13 631 to survive this death.
meillo@13 632 If software is build by combining small independent programs,
meillo@13 633 then there are parts readily available for reuse.
meillo@13 634 Who cares if the large program is a failure,
meillo@13 635 but parts of it become successful instead?
meillo@10 636
meillo@16 637 .NH 2
meillo@14 638 Summary
meillo@0 639 .LP
meillo@14 640 This chapter explained the central ideas of the Unix Philosophy.
meillo@14 641 For each of the ideas, it was exposed what advantages they introduce.
meillo@14 642 The Unix Philosophy are guidelines that help to write valuable software.
meillo@14 643 From the view point of a software developer or software designer,
meillo@14 644 the Unix Philosophy provides answers to many software design problem.
meillo@14 645 .PP
meillo@14 646 The various ideas of the Unix Philosophy are very interweaved
meillo@14 647 and can hardly be applied independently.
meillo@14 648 However, the probably most important messages are:
meillo@14 649 .I "``Do one thing well!''" ,
meillo@14 650 .I "``Keep it simple!''" ,
meillo@14 651 and
meillo@14 652 .I "``Use software leverage!''
meillo@0 653
meillo@8 654
meillo@8 655
meillo@0 656 .NH 1
meillo@19 657 Case study: \s-1MH\s0
meillo@18 658 .LP
meillo@30 659 The previous chapter introduced and explained the Unix Philosophy
meillo@18 660 from a general point of view.
meillo@30 661 The driving force were the guidelines; references to
meillo@18 662 existing software were given only sparsely.
meillo@18 663 In this and the next chapter, concrete software will be
meillo@18 664 the driving force in the discussion.
meillo@18 665 .PP
meillo@23 666 This first case study is about the mail user agents (\s-1MUA\s0)
meillo@23 667 \s-1MH\s0 (``mail handler'') and its descendent \fInmh\fP
meillo@23 668 (``new mail handler'').
meillo@23 669 \s-1MUA\s0s provide functions to read, compose, and organize mail,
meillo@23 670 but (ideally) not to transfer.
meillo@19 671 In this document, the name \s-1MH\s0 will be used for both of them.
meillo@19 672 A distinction will only be made if differences between
meillo@19 673 them are described.
meillo@18 674
meillo@0 675
meillo@0 676 .NH 2
meillo@19 677 Historical background
meillo@0 678 .LP
meillo@19 679 Electronic mail was available in Unix very early.
meillo@30 680 The first \s-1MUA\s0 on Unix was \f(CWmail\fP,
meillo@30 681 which was already present in the First Edition.
meillo@30 682 .[
meillo@30 683 %A Peter H. Salus
meillo@30 684 %T A Quarter Century of UNIX
meillo@30 685 %D 1994
meillo@30 686 %I Addison-Wesley
meillo@30 687 %P 41 f.
meillo@30 688 .]
meillo@30 689 It was a small program that either prints the user's mailbox file
meillo@19 690 or appends text to someone elses mailbox file,
meillo@19 691 depending on the command line arguments.
meillo@19 692 .[
meillo@19 693 %O http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/pdfs/man12.pdf
meillo@19 694 .]
meillo@19 695 It was a program that did one job well.
meillo@23 696 This job was emailing, which was very simple then.
meillo@19 697 .PP
meillo@23 698 Later, emailing became more powerful, and thus more complex.
meillo@19 699 The simple \f(CWmail\fP, which knew nothing of subjects,
meillo@19 700 independent handling of single messages,
meillo@19 701 and long-time storage of them, was not powerful enough anymore.
meillo@19 702 At Berkeley, Kurt Shoens wrote \fIMail\fP (with capital `M')
meillo@19 703 in 1978 to provide additional functions for emailing.
meillo@19 704 Mail was still one program, but now it was large and did
meillo@19 705 several jobs.
meillo@23 706 Its user interface is modeled after the one of \fIed\fP.
meillo@19 707 It is designed for humans, but is still scriptable.
meillo@23 708 \fImailx\fP is the adaptation of Berkeley Mail into System V.
meillo@19 709 .[
meillo@19 710 %A Gunnar Ritter
meillo@19 711 %O http://heirloom.sourceforge.net/mailx_history.html
meillo@19 712 .]
meillo@30 713 Elm, pine, mutt, and a whole bunch of graphical \s-1MUA\s0s
meillo@19 714 followed Mail's direction.
meillo@19 715 They are large, monolithic programs which include all emailing functions.
meillo@19 716 .PP
meillo@23 717 A different way was taken by the people of \s-1RAND\s0 Corporation.
meillo@19 718 In the beginning, they also had used a monolitic mail system,
meillo@30 719 called \s-1MS\s0 (for ``mail system'').
meillo@19 720 But in 1977, Stockton Gaines and Norman Shapiro
meillo@19 721 came up with a proposal of a new email system concept \(en
meillo@19 722 one that honors the Unix Philosophy.
meillo@19 723 The concept was implemented by Bruce Borden in 1978 and 1979.
meillo@19 724 This was the birth of \s-1MH\s0 \(en the ``mail handler''.
meillo@18 725 .PP
meillo@18 726 Since then, \s-1RAND\s0, the University of California at Irvine and
meillo@19 727 at Berkeley, and several others have contributed to the software.
meillo@18 728 However, it's core concepts remained the same.
meillo@23 729 In the late 90s, when development of \s-1MH\s0 slowed down,
meillo@19 730 Richard Coleman started with \fInmh\fP, the new mail handler.
meillo@19 731 His goal was to improve \s-1MH\s0, especially in regard of
meillo@23 732 the requirements of modern emailing.
meillo@19 733 Today, nmh is developed by various people on the Internet.
meillo@18 734 .[
meillo@18 735 %T RAND and the Information Evolution: A History in Essays and Vignettes
meillo@18 736 %A Willis H. Ware
meillo@18 737 %D 2008
meillo@18 738 %I The RAND Corporation
meillo@18 739 %P 128\(en137
meillo@18 740 %O .CW \s-1http://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CP537/
meillo@18 741 .]
meillo@18 742 .[
meillo@18 743 %T MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers
meillo@18 744 %A Jerry Peek
meillo@18 745 %D 1991, 1992, 1995
meillo@18 746 %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
meillo@18 747 %P Appendix B
meillo@18 748 %O Also available online: \f(CW\s-2http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/\fP
meillo@18 749 .]
meillo@0 750
meillo@0 751 .NH 2
meillo@20 752 Contrasts to monolithic mail systems
meillo@0 753 .LP
meillo@19 754 All \s-1MUA\s0s are monolithic, except \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@30 755 Although there might acutally exist further, very little known,
meillo@30 756 toolchest \s-1MUA\s0s, this statement reflects the situation pretty well.
meillo@19 757 .PP
meillo@30 758 Monolithic \s-1MUA\s0s gather all their functions in one program.
meillo@30 759 In contrast, \s-1MH\s0 is a toolchest of many small tools \(en one for each job.
meillo@23 760 Following is a list of important programs of \s-1MH\s0's toolchest
meillo@30 761 and their function.
meillo@30 762 It gives a feeling of how the toolchest looks like.
meillo@19 763 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 764 .CW inc :
meillo@30 765 incorporate new mail (this is how mail enters the system)
meillo@19 766 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 767 .CW scan :
meillo@19 768 list messages in folder
meillo@19 769 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 770 .CW show :
meillo@19 771 show message
meillo@19 772 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 773 .CW next\fR/\fPprev :
meillo@19 774 show next/previous message
meillo@19 775 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 776 .CW folder :
meillo@19 777 change current folder
meillo@19 778 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 779 .CW refile :
meillo@19 780 refile message into folder
meillo@19 781 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 782 .CW rmm :
meillo@19 783 remove message
meillo@19 784 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 785 .CW comp :
meillo@19 786 compose a new message
meillo@19 787 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 788 .CW repl :
meillo@19 789 reply to a message
meillo@19 790 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 791 .CW forw :
meillo@19 792 forward a message
meillo@19 793 .IP \(bu
meillo@19 794 .CW send :
meillo@30 795 send a prepared message (this is how mail leaves the system)
meillo@0 796 .LP
meillo@19 797 \s-1MH\s0 has no special user interface like monolithic \s-1MUA\s0s have.
meillo@19 798 The user does not leave the shell to run \s-1MH\s0,
meillo@30 799 but he uses the various \s-1MH\s0 programs within the shell.
meillo@23 800 Using a monolithic program with a captive user interface
meillo@23 801 means ``entering'' the program, using it, and ``exiting'' the program.
meillo@23 802 Using toolchests like \s-1MH\s0 means running programs,
meillo@23 803 alone or in combinition with others, even from other toolchests,
meillo@23 804 without leaving the shell.
meillo@30 805
meillo@30 806 .NH 2
meillo@30 807 Data storage
meillo@30 808 .LP
meillo@19 809 \s-1MH\s0's mail storage is (only little more than) a directory tree
meillo@23 810 where mail folders are directories and mail messages are text files.
meillo@19 811 Working with \s-1MH\s0's toolchest is much like working
meillo@19 812 with Unix' toolchest:
meillo@19 813 \f(CWscan\fP is like \f(CWls\fP,
meillo@19 814 \f(CWshow\fP is like \f(CWcat\fP,
meillo@30 815 \f(CWfolder\fP is like \f(CWcd\fP/\f(CWpwd\fP,
meillo@19 816 \f(CWrefile\fP is like \f(CWmv\fP,
meillo@19 817 and \f(CWrmm\fP is like \f(CWrm\fP.
meillo@19 818 .PP
meillo@23 819 The context of tools in Unix is mainly the current working directory,
meillo@19 820 the user identification, and the environment variables.
meillo@19 821 \s-1MH\s0 extends this context by two more items:
meillo@23 822 .IP \(bu
meillo@23 823 The current mail folder, which is similar to the current working directory.
meillo@23 824 For mail folders, \f(CWfolder\fP provides the corresponding functionality
meillo@23 825 of \f(CWpwd\fP and \f(CWcd\fP for directories.
meillo@23 826 .IP \(bu
meillo@23 827 The current message, relative to the current mail folder,
meillo@20 828 which enables commands like \f(CWnext\fP and \f(CWprev\fP.
meillo@23 829 .LP
meillo@19 830 In contrast to Unix' context, which is chained to the shell session,
meillo@19 831 \s-1MH\s0's context is meant to be chained to a mail account.
meillo@20 832 But actually, the current message is a property of the mail folder,
meillo@23 833 which appears to be a legacy.
meillo@20 834 This will cause problems when multiple users work
meillo@20 835 in one mail folder simultaneously.
meillo@30 836 .PP
meillo@30 837 .I "Data storage.
meillo@30 838 How \s-1MH\s0 stores data was already mentioned.
meillo@30 839 Mail folders are directories (which contain a file
meillo@30 840 \&\f(CW.mh_sequences\fP) under the user's \s-1MH\s0 directory
meillo@30 841 (usually \f(CW$HOME/Mail\fP).
meillo@30 842 Mail messages are text files located in mail folders.
meillo@30 843 The files contain the messages as they were received.
meillo@30 844 The messages are numbered in ascending order in each folder.
meillo@30 845 This mailbox format is called ``\s-1MH\s0'' after the \s-1MUA\s0.
meillo@30 846 Alternatives are \fImbox\fP and \fImaildir\fP.
meillo@30 847 In the mbox format all messages are stored within one file.
meillo@30 848 This was a good solution in the early days, when messages
meillo@30 849 were only a few lines of text and were deleted soon.
meillo@30 850 Today, when single messages often include several megabytes
meillo@30 851 of attachments, it is a bad solution.
meillo@30 852 Another disadvantage of the mbox format is that it is
meillo@30 853 more difficult to write tools that work on mail messages,
meillo@30 854 because it is always necessary to first find and extract
meillo@30 855 the relevant message in the mbox file.
meillo@30 856 With the \s-1MH\s0 mailbox format,
meillo@30 857 each message is a self-standing item, by definition.
meillo@30 858 Also, the problem of concurrent access to one mailbox is
meillo@30 859 reduced to the problem of concurrent access to one message.
meillo@30 860 However, the issue of the shared parts of the context,
meillo@30 861 as mentioned above, remains.
meillo@30 862 Maildir is generally similar to \s-1MH\s0's format,
meillo@30 863 but modified towards guaranteed reliability.
meillo@30 864 This involves some complexity, unfortunately.
meillo@0 865
meillo@20 866
meillo@0 867 .NH 2
meillo@20 868 Discussion of the design
meillo@0 869 .LP
meillo@20 870 The following paragraphs discuss \s-1MH\s0 in regard to the tenets
meillo@23 871 of the Unix Philosophy which Gancarz identified.
meillo@20 872
meillo@20 873 .PP
meillo@20 874 .I "``Small is beautiful''
meillo@20 875 and
meillo@20 876 .I "``do one thing well''
meillo@20 877 are two design goals that are directly visible in \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@20 878 Gancarz actually presents \s-1MH\s0 as example under the headline
meillo@20 879 ``Making UNIX Do One Thing Well'':
meillo@20 880 .QP
meillo@20 881 [\s-1MH\s0] consists of a series of programs which
meillo@20 882 when combined give the user an enormous ability
meillo@20 883 to manipulate electronic mail messages.
meillo@20 884 A complex application, it shows that not only is it
meillo@20 885 possible to build large applications from smaller
meillo@20 886 components, but also that such designs are actually preferable.
meillo@20 887 .[
meillo@20 888 %A Mike Gancarz
meillo@20 889 %T unix-phil
meillo@20 890 %P 125
meillo@20 891 .]
meillo@20 892 .LP
meillo@20 893 The various small programs of \s-1MH\s0 were relatively easy
meillo@23 894 to write, because each of them is small, limited to one function,
meillo@23 895 and has clear boundaries.
meillo@20 896 For the same reasons, they are also good to maintain.
meillo@20 897 Further more, the system can easily get extended.
meillo@20 898 One only needs to put a new program into the toolchest.
meillo@23 899 This was done, for instance, when \s-1MIME\s0 support was added
meillo@20 900 (e.g. \f(CWmhbuild\fP).
meillo@20 901 Also, different programs can exist to do the basically same job
meillo@20 902 in different ways (e.g. in nmh: \f(CWshow\fP and \f(CWmhshow\fP).
meillo@20 903 If someone needs a mail system with some additionally
meillo@23 904 functions that are available nowhere yet, he best takes a
meillo@20 905 toolchest system like \s-1MH\s0 where he can add the
meillo@20 906 functionality with little work.
meillo@20 907
meillo@20 908 .PP
meillo@30 909 .I "Store data in flat text files.
meillo@30 910 FIXME
meillo@20 911
meillo@20 912 .PP
meillo@20 913 .I "``Avoid captive user interfaces.''
meillo@19 914 \s-1MH\s0 is perfectly suited for non-interactive use.
meillo@19 915 It offers all functions directly and without captive user interfaces.
meillo@30 916 If, nonetheless, users want a graphical user interface,
meillo@20 917 they can have it with \fIxmh\fP or \fIexmh\fP, too.
meillo@19 918 These are graphical frontends for the \s-1MH\s0 toolchest.
meillo@19 919 This means, all email-related work is still done by \s-1MH\s0 tools,
meillo@20 920 but the frontend issues the appropriate calls when the user
meillo@30 921 clicks on buttons.
meillo@20 922 Providing easy-to-use user interfaces in form of frontends is a good
meillo@19 923 approach, because it does not limit the power of the backend itself.
meillo@20 924 The frontend will anyway only be able to make a subset of the
meillo@23 925 backend's power and flexibility available to the user.
meillo@20 926 But if it is a separate program,
meillo@20 927 then the missing parts can still be accessed at the backend directly.
meillo@19 928 If it is integrated, then this will hardly be possible.
meillo@30 929 Further more, it is possible to have different frontends to the same
meillo@30 930 backend.
meillo@19 931
meillo@19 932 .PP
meillo@20 933 .I "``Choose portability over efficiency''
meillo@20 934 and
meillo@20 935 .I "``use shell scripts to increase leverage and portability'' .
meillo@20 936 These two tenets are indirectly, but nicely, demonstrated by
meillo@30 937 Bolsky and Korn in their book about the Korn Shell.
meillo@20 938 .[
meillo@20 939 %T The KornShell: command and programming language
meillo@20 940 %A Morris I. Bolsky
meillo@20 941 %A David G. Korn
meillo@20 942 %I Prentice Hall
meillo@20 943 %D 1989
meillo@30 944 %P 254\(en290
meillo@20 945 %O \s-1ISBN\s0: 0-13-516972-0
meillo@20 946 .]
meillo@30 947 They demonstrated, in chapter 18 of the book, a basic implementation
meillo@20 948 of a subset of \s-1MH\s0 in ksh scripts.
meillo@20 949 Of course, this was just a demonstration, but a brilliant one.
meillo@20 950 It shows how quickly one can implement such a prototype with shell scripts,
meillo@20 951 and how readable they are.
meillo@20 952 The implementation in the scripting language may not be very fast,
meillo@20 953 but it can be fast enough though, and this is all that matters.
meillo@20 954 By having the code in an interpreted language, like the shell,
meillo@20 955 portability becomes a minor issue, if we assume the interpreter
meillo@20 956 to be widespread.
meillo@20 957 This demonstration also shows how easy it is to create single programs
meillo@20 958 of a toolchest software.
meillo@30 959 There are eight tools (two of them have multiple names) and 16 functions
meillo@30 960 with supporting code.
meillo@30 961 Each tool comprises between 12 and 38 lines of ksh,
meillo@30 962 in total about 200 lines.
meillo@30 963 The functions comprise between 3 and 78 lines of ksh,
meillo@30 964 in total about 450 lines.
meillo@20 965 Such small software is easy to write, easy to understand,
meillo@20 966 and thus easy to maintain.
meillo@23 967 A toolchest improves the possibility to only write some parts
meillo@20 968 and though create a working result.
meillo@20 969 Expanding the toolchest without global changes will likely be
meillo@20 970 possible, too.
meillo@20 971
meillo@20 972 .PP
meillo@20 973 .I "``Use software leverage to your advantage''
meillo@20 974 and the lesser tenet
meillo@20 975 .I "``allow the user to tailor the environment''
meillo@20 976 are ideally followed in the design of \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@21 977 Tailoring the environment is heavily encouraged by the ability to
meillo@30 978 directly define default options to programs.
meillo@30 979 It is even possible to define different default options
meillo@21 980 depending on the name under which the program was called.
meillo@21 981 Software leverage is heavily encouraged by the ease it is to
meillo@21 982 create shell scripts that run a specific command line,
meillo@30 983 built of several \s-1MH\s0 programs.
meillo@21 984 There is few software that so much wants users to tailor their
meillo@21 985 environment and to leverage the use of the software, like \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@21 986 Just to make one example:
meillo@23 987 One might prefer a different listing format for the \f(CWscan\fP
meillo@21 988 program.
meillo@30 989 It is possible to take one of the distributed format files
meillo@21 990 or to write one yourself.
meillo@21 991 To use the format as default for \f(CWscan\fP, a single line,
meillo@21 992 reading
meillo@21 993 .DS
meillo@21 994 .CW
meillo@21 995 scan: -form FORMATFILE
meillo@21 996 .DE
meillo@21 997 must be added to \f(CW.mh_profile\fP.
meillo@21 998 If one wants this different format as an additional command,
meillo@23 999 instead of changing the default, he needs to create a link to
meillo@23 1000 \f(CWscan\fP, for instance titled \f(CWscan2\fP.
meillo@21 1001 The line in \f(CW.mh_profile\fP would then start with \f(CWscan2\fP,
meillo@30 1002 as the option should only be in effect when scan is called as
meillo@21 1003 \f(CWscan2\fP.
meillo@20 1004
meillo@20 1005 .PP
meillo@21 1006 .I "``Make every program a filter''
meillo@21 1007 is hard to find in \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@21 1008 The reason therefore is that most of \s-1MH\s0's tools provide
meillo@21 1009 basic file system operations for the mailboxes.
meillo@30 1010 The reason is the same because of which
meillo@21 1011 \f(CWls\fP, \f(CWcp\fP, \f(CWmv\fP, and \f(CWrm\fP
meillo@21 1012 aren't filters neither.
meillo@23 1013 However, they build a basis on which filters can operate.
meillo@23 1014 \s-1MH\s0 does not provide many filters itself, but it is a basis
meillo@23 1015 to write filters for.
meillo@30 1016 An example would be a mail message text highlighter,
meillo@30 1017 that means a program that makes use of a color terminal to display
meillo@30 1018 header lines, quotations, and signatures in distinct colors.
meillo@30 1019 The author's version of this program, for instance,
meillo@30 1020 is a 25 line awk script.
meillo@21 1021
meillo@21 1022 .PP
meillo@21 1023 .I "``Build a prototype as soon as possible''
meillo@21 1024 was again well followed by \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@21 1025 This tenet, of course, focuses on early development, which is
meillo@21 1026 long time ago for \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@21 1027 But without following this guideline at the very beginning,
meillo@23 1028 Bruce Borden may have not convinced the management of \s-1RAND\s0
meillo@23 1029 to ever create \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@23 1030 In Bruce' own words:
meillo@21 1031 .QP
meillo@30 1032 [...] but they [Stockton Gaines and Norm Shapiro] were not able
meillo@23 1033 to convince anyone that such a system would be fast enough to be usable.
meillo@21 1034 I proposed a very short project to prove the basic concepts,
meillo@21 1035 and my management agreed.
meillo@21 1036 Looking back, I realize that I had been very lucky with my first design.
meillo@21 1037 Without nearly enough design work,
meillo@21 1038 I built a working environment and some header files
meillo@21 1039 with key structures and wrote the first few \s-1MH\s0 commands:
meillo@21 1040 inc, show/next/prev, and comp.
meillo@21 1041 [...]
meillo@21 1042 With these three, I was able to convince people that the structure was viable.
meillo@21 1043 This took about three weeks.
meillo@21 1044 .[
meillo@21 1045 %O FIXME
meillo@21 1046 .]
meillo@0 1047
meillo@0 1048 .NH 2
meillo@0 1049 Problems
meillo@0 1050 .LP
meillo@22 1051 \s-1MH\s0, for sure is not without problems.
meillo@30 1052 There are two main problems: one is technical, the other is about human behavior.
meillo@22 1053 .PP
meillo@22 1054 \s-1MH\s0 is old and email today is very different to email in the time
meillo@22 1055 when \s-1MH\s0 was designed.
meillo@22 1056 \s-1MH\s0 adopted to the changes pretty well, but it is limited.
meillo@22 1057 For example in development resources.
meillo@22 1058 \s-1MIME\s0 support and support for different character encodings
meillo@22 1059 is available, but only on a moderate level.
meillo@22 1060 More active developers could quickly improve there.
meillo@22 1061 It is also limited by design, which is the larger problem.
meillo@22 1062 \s-1IMAP\s0, for example, conflicts with \s-1MH\s0's design to a large extend.
meillo@22 1063 These design conflicts are not easily solvable.
meillo@22 1064 Possibly, they require a redesign.
meillo@30 1065 Maybe \s-1IMAP\s0 is too different to the classic mail model which \s-1MH\s0 covers,
meillo@30 1066 hence \s-1MH\s0 may never work well with \s-1IMAP\s0.
meillo@22 1067 .PP
meillo@22 1068 The other kind of problem is human habits.
meillo@22 1069 When in this world almost all \s-1MUA\s0s are monolithic,
meillo@22 1070 it is very difficult to convince people to use a toolbox style \s-1MUA\s0
meillo@22 1071 like \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@22 1072 The habits are so strong, that even people who understood the concept
meillo@30 1073 and advantages of \s-1MH\s0 do not like to switch,
meillo@30 1074 simply because \s-1MH\s0 is different.
meillo@30 1075 Unfortunately, the frontends to \s-1MH\s0, which could provide familiar look'n'feel,
meillo@30 1076 are quite outdated and thus not very appealing compared to the modern interfaces
meillo@30 1077 which monolithic \s-1MUA\s0s offer.
meillo@20 1078
meillo@20 1079 .NH 2
meillo@20 1080 Summary \s-1MH\s0
meillo@20 1081 .LP
meillo@31 1082 \s-1MH\s0 is an \s-1MUA\s0 that follows the Unix Philosophy in its design
meillo@31 1083 and implementation.
meillo@31 1084 It consists of a toolchest of small tools, each of them does one job well.
meillo@31 1085 The tools are orthogonal to each other, to a large extend.
meillo@31 1086 However, for historical reasons, there also exist distinct tools
meillo@31 1087 that cover the same task.
meillo@31 1088 .PP
meillo@31 1089 The toolchest approach offers great flexibility to the user.
meillo@31 1090 He can use the complete power of the Unix shell with \s-1MH\s0.
meillo@31 1091 This makes \s-1MH\s0 a very powerful mail system.
meillo@31 1092 Extending and customizing \s-1MH\s0 is easy and encouraged, too.
meillo@31 1093 .PP
meillo@31 1094 Apart from the user's perspective, \s-1MH\s0 is development-friendly.
meillo@31 1095 Its overall design follows clear rules.
meillo@31 1096 The single tools do only one job, thus they are easy to understand,
meillo@31 1097 easy to write, and good to maintain.
meillo@31 1098 They are all independent and do not interfere with the others.
meillo@31 1099 Automated testing of their function is a straight forward task.
meillo@31 1100 .PP
meillo@31 1101 It is sad, that \s-1MH\s0's differentness is its largest problem,
meillo@31 1102 as its differentness is also its largest advantage.
meillo@31 1103 Unfortunately, for most people their habits are stronger
meillo@31 1104 than the attraction of the clear design and the power, \s-1MH\s0 offers.
meillo@0 1105
meillo@8 1106
meillo@8 1107
meillo@0 1108 .NH 1
meillo@0 1109 Case study: uzbl
meillo@32 1110 .LP
meillo@32 1111 The last chapter took a look on the \s-1MUA\s0 \s-1MH\s0,
meillo@32 1112 this chapter is about uzbl, a web browser that adheres to the Unix Philosophy.
meillo@32 1113 ``uzbl'' is the \fIlolcat\fP's word for the English adjective ``usable''.
meillo@32 1114 It is pronounced the identical.
meillo@0 1115
meillo@0 1116 .NH 2
meillo@32 1117 Historical background
meillo@0 1118 .LP
meillo@32 1119 Uzbl was started by Dieter Plaetinck in April 2009.
meillo@32 1120 The idea was born in a thread in the Arch Linux forum.
meillo@32 1121 .[
meillo@32 1122 %O http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=67463
meillo@32 1123 .]
meillo@32 1124 After some discussion about failures of well known web browsers,
meillo@32 1125 Plaetinck (alias Dieter@be) came up with a very sketchy proposal
meillo@32 1126 of how a better web browser could look like.
meillo@32 1127 To the question of another member, if Plaetinck would write that program,
meillo@32 1128 because it would sound fantastic, Plaetinck replied:
meillo@32 1129 ``Maybe, if I find the time ;-)''.
meillo@32 1130 .PP
meillo@32 1131 Fortunately, he found the time.
meillo@32 1132 One day later, the first prototype was out.
meillo@32 1133 One week later, uzbl had an own website.
meillo@32 1134 One month after the first code showed up,
meillo@32 1135 a mailing list was installed to coordinate and discuss further development.
meillo@32 1136 A wiki was set up to store documentation and scripts that showed up on the
meillo@32 1137 mailing list and elsewhere.
meillo@32 1138 .PP
meillo@32 1139 In the, now, one year of uzbl's existance, it was heavily developed in various branches.
meillo@32 1140 Plaetinck's task became more and more to only merge the best code from the
meillo@32 1141 different branches into his main branch, and to apply patches.
meillo@32 1142 About once a month, Plaetinck released a new version.
meillo@32 1143 In September 2009, he presented several forks of uzbl.
meillo@32 1144 Uzbl, acutally, opened the field for a whole family of web browsers with similar shape.
meillo@32 1145 .PP
meillo@32 1146 In July 2009, \fILinux Weekly News\fP published an interview with Plaetinck about uzbl.
meillo@32 1147 In September 2009, the uzbl web browser was on \fISlashdot\fP.
meillo@0 1148
meillo@0 1149 .NH 2
meillo@32 1150 Contrasts to other web browsers
meillo@0 1151 .LP
meillo@32 1152 Like most \s-1MUA\s0s are monolithic, but \s-1MH\s0 is a toolchest,
meillo@32 1153 most web browsers are monolithic, but uzbl is a frontend to a toolchest.
meillo@32 1154 .PP
meillo@32 1155 Today, uzbl is divided into uzbl-core and uzbl-browser.
meillo@32 1156 Uzbl-core is, how its name already indicates, the core of uzbl.
meillo@32 1157 It handles commands and events to interface other programs,
meillo@32 1158 and also displays webpages by using webkit as render engine.
meillo@32 1159 Uzbl-browser combines uzbl-core with a bunch of handler scripts, a status bar,
meillo@32 1160 an event manager, yanking, pasting, page searching, zooming, and more stuff,
meillo@32 1161 to form a ``complete'' web browser.
meillo@32 1162 In the following text, the term ``uzbl'' usually stands for uzbl-browser,
meillo@32 1163 so uzbl-core is included.
meillo@32 1164 .PP
meillo@32 1165 Unlike most other web browsers, uzbl is mainly the mediator between the
meillo@32 1166 various tools that cover single jobs of web browsing.
meillo@32 1167 Uzbl listens for commands on a named pipe (fifo), a Unix socket, and on stdin.
meillo@32 1168 It writes events to a Unix socket and to stdout.
meillo@32 1169 Loading a webpage in a running uzbl instance requires not more than:
meillo@32 1170 .DS
meillo@32 1171 .CW
meillo@32 1172 echo 'uri http://example.org' >/path/to/uzbl-fifo
meillo@32 1173 .DE
meillo@32 1174 The graphical rendering of the webpage is done by webkit,
meillo@32 1175 which is a library that cares about the whole rendering task.
meillo@32 1176 .PP
meillo@32 1177 Downloads, browsing history, bookmarks, and thelike are not provided
meillo@32 1178 by uzbl-core itself, as they are in other web browsers.
meillo@32 1179 Uzbl-browser only provides, so called, handler scripts that wrap
meillo@32 1180 external applications which provide such function.
meillo@32 1181 For instance, \fIwget\fP is used to download files and uzbl-browser
meillo@32 1182 includes a script that calls wget with appropriate options in
meillo@32 1183 a prepared environment.
meillo@32 1184 .PP
meillo@32 1185 Modern web browsers are proud to have addons, plugins, and modules, instead.
meillo@32 1186 This is their effort to achieve similar goals.
meillo@32 1187 But instead of using existing, external programs, the functions are
meillo@32 1188 integrated into the web browser, just not compiled into it.
meillo@0 1189
meillo@0 1190 .NH 2
meillo@32 1191 Discussion of the design
meillo@0 1192 .LP
meillo@32 1193 This section discusses uzbl in regard of the Unix Philosophy,
meillo@32 1194 as identified by Gancarz.
meillo@32 1195
meillo@32 1196 .PP
meillo@32 1197 .I "Small is beautiful
meillo@32 1198 and
meillo@32 1199 .I "make each program do one thing well" .
meillo@32 1200
meillo@32 1201 .PP
meillo@32 1202 .I "Build a prototype as soon as possible" .
meillo@32 1203
meillo@32 1204 .PP
meillo@32 1205 .I "Use software leverage to your advantage
meillo@32 1206 and
meillo@32 1207 .I "Use shell scripts to increase leverage and portability" .
meillo@32 1208
meillo@32 1209 .PP
meillo@32 1210 .I "Avoid captive user interfaces" .
meillo@32 1211
meillo@32 1212 .PP
meillo@32 1213 .I "Make every program a filter" .
meillo@32 1214
meillo@0 1215
meillo@0 1216 .NH 2
meillo@0 1217 Problems
meillo@0 1218 .LP
meillo@0 1219 broken web
meillo@0 1220
meillo@8 1221
meillo@32 1222 .NH 2
meillo@32 1223 Summary uzbl
meillo@32 1224 .LP
meillo@32 1225
meillo@32 1226
meillo@8 1227
meillo@0 1228 .NH 1
meillo@0 1229 Final thoughts
meillo@0 1230
meillo@0 1231 .NH 2
meillo@0 1232 Quick summary
meillo@0 1233 .LP
meillo@0 1234 good design
meillo@0 1235 .LP
meillo@0 1236 unix phil
meillo@0 1237 .LP
meillo@0 1238 case studies
meillo@0 1239
meillo@0 1240 .NH 2
meillo@0 1241 Why people should choose
meillo@0 1242 .LP
meillo@0 1243 Make the right choice!
meillo@0 1244
meillo@0 1245 .nr PI .5i
meillo@0 1246 .rm ]<
meillo@0 1247 .de ]<
meillo@0 1248 .LP
meillo@0 1249 .de FP
meillo@0 1250 .IP \\\\$1.
meillo@0 1251 \\..
meillo@0 1252 .rm FS FE
meillo@0 1253 ..
meillo@0 1254 .SH
meillo@0 1255 References
meillo@0 1256 .[
meillo@0 1257 $LIST$
meillo@0 1258 .]
meillo@0 1259 .wh -1p