1 HN user recommended this interview1 month2018–2020score 1.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN commenters point to it as a short, charming first-hand account of Unix history from someone who was there.
Brian Kernighan explains how grep came to be, written overnight by Ken Thompson, and how it got its name from the ed command g/re/p. He also covers the lineage from QED to ed that led to it.
“My favourite BWK video is about grep.” (HN, 2020)
Slightly off-topic, but Brian Kernighan has a great video about the origins of grep. If you know anything similar for awk, I'd enjoy watching it! [this video]
From the video [1]: "The UNIX text editor was called 'eee-dee' - it's not pronounced 'ed', at least by those in the know - it's pronounced 'eee-dee'. This was written by Ken Thompson, and I think it was basically a stripped down version of an editor called QED" [1] [this video]
"Where GREP Came From" by Brian Kernighan from Computerphile: * [this video] For those unfamiliar, Kernighan is the "K" in K&R C and the "K" in AWK: * [link]
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