Published at LXer:

In Eric Raymond's "The Art of Unix Programming", within the section called "The Basics of Unix Philosophy" there is a rule quoted by Rob Pike: "Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming" At face value Rob's rule number 5 makes sense. But what is Rob actually saying? In complex software systems it might be difficult to track down and identify how the rule of evolving functions to deal with data worked. So why not use a small microscopic example instead. Taking a small program, a passive network scanner, from data structures to operations on the data structures illustrates Rob's rule number 5 perfectly. This is an interesting experience from my perspective as most of the programs and scripts I have written deal with transitionary data. What I mean by transitionary is simply find it, operate on it and/or print it then move on. Not an unusual trait in system administration centric programs. While working on a passive scanner that could also verify a port I witnessed rule number 5 occur right before by fingertips.

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