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There is a common thread running through all of Kernighan's books: imparting deep insights in a down to earth, pragmatic and modest way.

Let's unpack that. This book is (unsurprisingly) one of the best sources on the "Unix philosophy". Brian Kernighan was there when Unix and its philosophy were taking shape. Despite being the author of a good number of the tools covered in the book, this is only mentioned in passing, in a characteristically self-effacing way (Canadians, eh?)

The aggressive simplicity, thriftiness, and pragmatism of the approch to software development applies today as much as it did the 40 odd years ago when the book was written. Yes, those were simpler times, and as we've learned more about computing in general, and Unix in particular, some problems have emerged. Like how using files as the lowest common denominator doesn't always work, or the problems with the signal model. But the authors acknowledged that Unix is not the last word in operating systems, and that it already had warts back then. But the general approach to problem solving and developing software is something we can still learn from.