Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.Hawaii.Edu!news.caldera.com!enews.sgi.com!news.mathworks.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!pad-thai.cam.ov.com!usenet From: pete.barber@openv.co.uk (Pete Barber) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things Date: Fri, 08 Nov 1996 19:18:23 GMT Organization: OpenVision Technologies, Inc. Lines: 32 Message-ID: <328386bc.112278367@news.ov.com> References: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 166.98.110.52 X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26196 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1441 alt.folklore.computers:124235 On 8 Nov 1996 14:57:51 GMT, Mark Whetzel <markw@zeus.wg.waii.com> wrote: >I was having a discussion with some of my co-workers on WHY things >are named as they are in UNIX. Anybody have some of the >tales behind the odd things that bound in unix history? > >One question we had of some students we are training: > > Why are system processes called 'daemons'? > Daemons are from Greek Mythology and our 'little helpers' that transport between 'Man' and 'The Gods'. I guess these chaps wern't powerful enough be gods (i.e. kernel) and slightly more powerful than 'Man' (user process) >Some of the others I have heard about: the naming of 'biff', grep, yacc. biff - dunno grep GetREgularePression yacc - yet another compiler compiler (during the time of it's creation lots of ppl were writing compiler (well parser) generators > >E-mail preferred, as I can then post a summary of the BEST of this quest. > >References to printed material and other net resources appreciated. > >-- >Mark Whetzel My comments are my own, not my company's. >Western Geophysical - A division of Western Atlas International Inc., >A Subsidiary of Western Atlas Inc. DOMAIN addr: mark.whetzel@waii.com >VOICE: (713) 963-2544 FAX: (713) 963-2758