Software Engineering discussion

I knew almost nothing about Ken Thompson, the co-creator of Unix, so I really enjoyed this chapter. I once knew an operating systems professor who said that all of computer science was invented during the MULTICS operating system project. Although hyperbole, there is some truth to this observation. Ken had experience with this project at Bell Labs.

Although I disagree with his defense of the security issues that arise in C and C++, he tried his best to argue that these issues are programmer problems, independent of languages.

Ken is yet another programmer (like me), in the long line in this book, who primarily uses print statements for debugging. This is one of the major surprise themes in this book. And, he joins the majority (like me) with his "concerns" about C++.

Ken Thompson is the second person after Joe Armstrong whose name I recognized in this book so far. I didn’t know that he works at Google, but I wish he talked a little more about his work there. I thought it was a little ironic that he is not certified in C language at Google, so I was wondering what he does there that doesn't need to be checked in. It was one of the interviews in this book that I read from start to finish without taking a break – there were many interesting little parts that would just catch my attention like pieces of Unix history, C language, operating systems in general, so I wouldn’t want to put the book down.

I liked the part about Bjarne Stroustrup - I’ve never thought that he could scream, I’ve seen a few videos with him, and he seemed like a very calm person. Unfortunately, not anymore. :) I also liked Ken speaking about C++ as this information can only get out during such interviews.