Software tools

What Hacker News says

1. fbombAug 2024
   I learned regex incidentally from reading the classic book "Software Tools" (Kernighan & Plauger). It has a chapter which briefly describes the syntax but focuses on an analysis of the code used to parse & process them (in RATFOR).
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2. geekraverJun 2024
   Along with K&R (and K and Plauger’s “Software Tools”), the Dragon book, Bentley’s Programming Pearls, and Holzmann’s Beyond Photography, AST’s books were the most formative in my life (I started coding in 1976 but was self-taught until early 80s when I got to college and read all these brilliant works). Long overdue recognition; so many people benefited from the lucidity of these minds.
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3. sema4hackerMay 2023
   The Elements of Programming Style by Kernighan and Plauger

   Software Tools by Kernighan and Plauger

   The Psychology of Computer Programming by Weinberg

   A cartoon-illustrated DIY Honda Civic repair book from the 80's I no longer remember the name of.

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4. chillpenguinMay 2023
   +1 for Software Tools by Kernighan and Plauger. It was eye-opening for me because it really made me understand the unix philosophy of composing programs out of smaller programs.
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5. MarkusWandelJan 2023
   "Software Tools" by Kernighan & Plauger, perhaps.

   The original was in Ratfor, which is a Fortran dialect. That being similar syntax but more limited than C is not a bad intro language.

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6. wrpAug 2022
   Writing Interactive Compilers and Interpreters by Peter John Brown (1979) is quirky in the sense that he paid unusual attention to the literary quality of his prose.

   Among his admonitions for writing user manuals is this:

   Read. Books on overall style are a matter of personal taste. Our own favourite is Strunk (1959). As examples of good writing on technical matters, we especially like the works of D. E. Knuth and of M. V. Wilkes, and also the book "Software Tools" (Kernighan and Plauger, 1976). Perhaps the most pleasant of all writing on technical matters is in the field of gardening, not computing; read "The Small Garden" by Lucas Phillips (1952) and not only your turnips but also you writing will improve.

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