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Where GREP Came From - Computerphile

Computerphile

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  • Recommended by 3 people: 1 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters and 1 in engineering communities.
  • Presented by Brian Kernighan, co-creator of AWK

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

1.3M views8 years ago3 recommendations

History and cultureSystems programmingOperating systemsHistory of computingThe shell and command line

Brian Kernighan explains how Ken Thompson wrote grep overnight and how its name derived from the ed editor command.

Commonly used grep was written overnight, but why and how did it get its name? Professor Brian Kernighan explains. EXTRA BITS: youtu.be/bSaBe6WiC2s Inside an ALT Coin Mining Operation: COMING SOON Unix Pipeline: youtu.be/bKzonnwoR2I facebook.com/computerphile twitter.com/computer_phile This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley. Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottscomputer Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran's Numberphile. More at bradyharan.com

Why it's here

3 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as a fascinating look into Unix history and how grep got its name from the ed command.

u/VanLaserggg?G...in r/vim • Recommends

Brian Kernighan about GREP (and ED)
137View on Reddit

riveron Lobsters • Recommends

Where GREP Came From
11View on Lobsters

peterburkimsheron Hacker News • Recommends

On “The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan”

My favourite BWK video is about grep. link to this video The last part is very quotable: "They had one grave disadvantage, none of them were Ken Thompson"
View on Hacker News

peterburkimsheron Hacker News • Recommends

On “The State of the Awk”

Slightly off-topic, but Brian Kernighan has a great video about the origins of grep. If you know anything similar for awk, I'd enjoy watching it! link to this video
View on Hacker News

u/aleksfadiniin r/vim • Mentions

…me from in Vim. This video explains where the name "grep" comes from, and explains the syntax of ED, one of the very first text editors in the history of computers. The syntax is very close to vim. You will find our beloved g,/, $, d, a Vim commands and so on. In truth, I should say that those Vim commands are ED commands that Vim continuated. link to this video Oddly enough, the whole grep thing was born to search 1876 US constitution papers and look for patterns there, to confirm the authenticity and paternity of the papers. Edit: typo. there one extra "is" in the title. :/is/s///…
280View on Reddit

jmtson Hacker News • Mentions

On “Where grep came from [video]”

From the video 1: "The UNIX text editor was called 'eee-dee' - it's not pronounced 'ed', at least by those in the know - it's pronounced 'eee-dee'. This was written by Ken Thompson, and I think it was basically a stripped down version of an editor called QED" 1 link to this video
View on Hacker News

throw0101aon Hacker News • Mentions

On “A Requiem for a Dying Operating System (1994)”

"Where GREP Came From" by Brian Kernighan from Computerphile: * link to this video For those unfamiliar, Kernighan is the "K" in K&R C and the "K" in AWK: * link
View on Hacker News

u/Andy101493in r/compsci • Mentions

On “Who are some of your favorite Computer Scientists?”

Thanks for that, I guess my teachers were correct when they said Wikipedia isnt always a reliable source! That makes sense though thank you for explaining. Linux was always such a mystery to me and the more I learn about it the more fascinating it / it's contributors / it's story is. I actually ran into this video about the creation of `grep` featuring anecdotes: [video
1View on Reddit