<p>The UNIX philosophy is a set of norms and methods for minimalist and modular software development. It was created by the lead developers of the UNIX operating system. To summarize it, it basically says that a program should not be ridden with features. A program should have one feature and do it well. It is much better to have multiple programs that do one thing well each instead of a single program that tries to do many things. This leads to a smaller codebase which is easier to maintain and develop.</p>
<p>The UNIX philosophy is followed by many people to this day. There are many programs which follow it. For example, <ahref="https://pwmt.org/projects/zathura/">Zathura</a>, a simple PDF viewer for Linux views PDFs and a few other file formats similar to it extremely well. It is extremely rapid and has a small memory footprint. It also has features that are extremely useful instead of gimmicks that no one would use. It is also easier to maintain as a result of the simple usecase.</p>
<p>The UNIX philosophy is vast. To read more about it, check out <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy">this Wikipedia page</a> for more information. It is worth a read. If you would like a shorter read, check out <ahref="https://hackaday.com/2018/09/10/doing-one-thing-well-the-unix-philosophy/">this post on Hackaday.</a></p>
