Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!diku!ambush!kimcm
From: kimcm@ambush.UUCP (Kim Chr. Madsen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Origin of 'awk'
Message-ID: <606@ambush.UUCP>
Date: 10 Mar 88 12:43:05 GMT
References: <2111@ukecc.engr.uky.edu>
Organization: AmbraSoft A/S (Denmark)
Lines: 32

In article <2111@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> wes@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes:
>I was watching an old episode of Batman, and was enjoying the 
>requisite fight scene.  The Boy Wonder delivered a hefty blow
>to a villain's henchman, and the necessary 'visual sound effect'
>came up on the screen.  But, lo!  This was no *ordinary* Batman
>sound effect, for filling my screen was the magic word

>@AWK!!!@

>Is *this* the true origin of one of my favorite UNIX commands?
>Could it have really come from a campy 60's action/adventure show?

Well not really, the name is derived from the surnames of it's three
fathers:

	Alfred V. Aho
	Peter J.  Weinberger
	Brian W.  Kernighan

And while on the topic they have just sent out the book:

	The AWK Programming Language

The book is organized in much the same manner as the "The C
Programming Language" book, and is filled with good examples of the
usage of AWK. I strongly recommend the book to everybody using AWK or
is getting into database work. (As AWK beat the h*** out of any other
report generator I've seen -- or as someone said the best 4GL he ever
has seen).

					An AWK Addict
					Kim Chr. Madsen.