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> [the name] Grep suggests to me that the author of this one had been reading too much Robert Heinlein (you grok?), or possibly --- and this is in fact quite likely --- was under the influence of psychotropic substances at the time.

As funny as this is, the actual origin for "grep" is even more interesting – and, at least to me, quite mnemonic. "grep" comes from ed, and stands for the command "g/re/p", that is

  global/regular expression/print
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grep



"Where GREP Came From" by Brian Kernighan from Computerphile:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTfOnGZUZDk

For those unfamiliar, Kernighan is the "K" in K&R C and the "K" in AWK:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan


Great interview with Brian on Lex Fridman's podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9upVbGSBFo


I listened to that one last night, and then a few more. He's been in rotation for a while now.

I don't know how I ended up subscribing to Lex Fridman's podcast, but it's both wonderful and somewhat bizarre to me.

On the one hand, he comes across as the kind of character you'd expect in a horror film. Meticulous, well-dressed, friendly, but affectless in his speech and oddly emotionless and formal.

But then the actual questions he asks, and the observations he makes, are IMO a step above most interviewers. I can think of a number of 'greater' interviewers, but he's definitely well in the 'very good' range.

My apologies if Fridman reads this comment. I definitely don't want you to stop doing things the way you do :). It's just somewhat different, in a strangely 'boring' way, that I'm not used to from most good podcast hosts that I'm familiar with. Most are, sometimes to the point of irritation, exceedingly affable and chatty.


> On the one hand, he comes across as the kind of character you'd expect in a horror film. Meticulous, well-dressed, friendly, but affectless in his speech and oddly emotionless and formal.

Are you aware of the The Report Of The Week channel run by 'Review Brah'?

* https://www.youtube.com/user/TheReportOfTheWeek


> was under the influence of psychotropic substances at the time

He's saying it as if it's a bad thing?...


Note that it's not "global" or "print" - the commands are the literal single letters "g" and "p".


A once asked my then-mentor if it was an abbreviation of "GNU rep". He was highly amused.




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