explains how computer hardware, software, networks, and systems work.
It includes enough detail that you can understand how these systems
work, no matter what your technical background. The social,
political and legal issues that new technology creates are discussed as
well, so you can understand the difficult issues we face and appreciate
the tradeoffs that have to be made to resolve them.
Unix: A History and a Memoir.
Since its creation in a Bell Labs attic in 1969, the Unix operating
system has spread far beyond anything its creators could have imagined.
It has led to the development of a great deal of innovative software,
influenced myriad programmers, and changed the path of computer
technology.
This book is part history and part memoir. It tells the story of
the origin of Unix, explaining what Unix is, how it came about, and why
it matters. Accessible to non-speciaists, the book is written for
anyone with an interest in computing or the history of inventions.
Published by Kindle Direct Publishing, October 2019. Available
at Amazon in
paperback and e-book formats.
Korean translation by 하성창 Sungchang Ha, August 2020.
German translation, October 2020.
Chinese translation by 韩磊 Han Lei, March 2021.
Russian translation by Рузмайкина И, 2021.
Polish transation by Piotr Cieślak, 2021.
Translations into Japanese and other languages are underway.
More information, errata, etc.
Millions, Billions, Zillions: Defending Yourself
in a World of Too Many Numbers.
With examples drawn from a rich variety of sources, including
journalism, advertising, and politics, the book demonstrates how numbers
can mislead and misrepresent. In chapters covering big numbers, units,
dimensions, and more, it lays bare everything from deceptive graphs to
speciously precise numbers, and shows how anyone -- using a few basic
ideas and lots of shortcuts -- can easily learn to recognize common
mistakes, determine whether numbers are credible, and make their own
sensible estimates when needed. An essential survival guide for a world
drowning in big -- and often bad -- data.
Published by
Princeton University Press
in November, 2018. Available at
Amazon.
Italian translation by Giuseppe Maugeri.
Korean translation
by Yang Byeongchan; ISBN 979-11-90030-42-7.
Japanese translation by Mioko Nishida (西田美緒子).
Translations into
Traditional Chinese (ISBN 978957-14-7635-3, translation by 劉懷仁)
and Simplified Chinese (ISBN 978-7-5402-6235-8, translation by 洪佳旭)
Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know
about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security
explains how computer hardware, software, networks, and systems work.
It includes enough detail that you can understand how these systems
work, no matter what your technical background. The social,
political and legal issues that new technology creates are discussed as
well, so you can understand the difficult issues we face and appreciate
the tradeoffs that have to be made to resolve them.
Published by Princeton University Press.
Now available at
Amazon and other
booksellers in both hardback and e-book form.
Korean translation (August 2017, translated by 하성창 Sungchang Ha);
Chinese translation (March 2018, translated by 刘艺 刘哲雨 吴英 译);
Italian translation Fabrizio d'Amore and Monica Manzoni;
Japanese translation by Hiroshi Sake 酒匂寛 (2020).
Czech translation by Petr Holčák (2019)
The Go Programming Language,
by Alan Donovan and Brian Kernighan.
Book web site
www.gopl.io.
Available in paperback and e-book formats.
Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Russian, Korean, Portuguese and Polish translations are now available.
Hello, World! Opinion columns from The Daily Princetonian is available as a
Kindle book from Amazon.
Research
-
Post-OCR Correction with OpenAI's GPT Models on Challenging English Prosody Texts,
James Zhang,
Wouter Haverals,
Mary Naydan,
Brian Kernighan
(DocEng '24, August 2024)
- How did Dennis Ritchie Produce his PhD Thesis?
A Typographical Mystery (September, 2022)
Explanation and additional material, including video
- Optical character recognition (August, 2020)
- Document preparation archaeology (updated Dec 13, 2013)
- AMPL
modeling language for mathematical optimization
- Creating AT&T's first Internet service in 1994. (Hardly research, but it was new at the time)
Teaching
Publications
Parallel Universe
