Lazycoder

Robert Scoble on adapting UNIX thinking.

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

Regarding podcasting, I still think Dave is missing a new trend in software: I’m hearing from users that they want things that do one thing and do it well. One app per activity, but connected by the Web.

Mini apps. Why have an aggregator that covers 15 scenarios? Why not have 15 separate aggregators that each do one thing well?

Damn, am I starting to talk like Don Norman? (At Pop!Tech three years ago he told people he thought the world would move toward single-purpose programs and services).

No, Robert. You’re starting to sound like an old UNIX programmer. You make small programs that can talk to each other but that only do one thing and do it well. That’s been going on LONG before Pop!Tech was conceived. Here’s what Doug McIlroy had to say back in 1978. Via “The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond”

Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new features

[McIlroy78] The Bell System Technical Journal. Bell Laboratories. M. D. McIlroy, E. N. Pinson, and B. A. Tague. ìUnix Time-Sharing System Forwardî. 1978. 57 (6, part 2). p. 1902.