The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature Original article: http://www.wenet.net/~scoville/PCarticle.html If there's nothing different about UNIX people, how come so many were liberal-arts majors? It's the love of words that makes UNIX stand out. Thomas Scoville In the late 1980s, I worked in the advanced R&D arm of the Silicon Valley's regional telephone company. My lab was populated mostly by Ph.D.s and gifted hackers. It was, as you might expect, an all-UNIX shop. The manager of the g...

LQ) To get us started, can you give us a little background information about yourself? (LQ) volkerdi) Sure. I was born in Virginia while my dad was stationed out there as a Navy dentist. We moved to North Dakota when I was very young. As far back as I can remember I was interested in science, the space race, and other typical interests of a kid who wanted to be some kind of scientist someday. I had an erector set, lots of Lego blocks, and a pretty decent chemistry set full of poisons they'd nev...