The UNIX-HATERS Handbook

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UNIX-HATERS Handbook cover resembling the Scream.

The UNIX-HATERS Handbook is a semi-humorous edited compilation of messages to the UNIX-HATERS mailing list. The book was edited by Simson Garfinkel, Daniel Weise and Steven Strassmann and published in 1994 (IDG, ISBN 1-56884-203-1). A chapter on the X Window System is written by Don Hopkins, and an appendix of Richard Gabriel's worse is better essay. It includes an "Anti-Foreword" by Dennis Ritchie, which denigrates the book's concept. The book is currently available for free in electronic format.

The book concerns the frustrations of users to the Unix operating system. Many users had come from systems that they felt were far more sophisticated in computer science terms, and were tremendously frustrated by the worse is better design philosophy that they felt Unix and much of its software encapsulated.

This book was printed as a trade paperback. An air sickness bag, printed with the phrase "UNIX barf bag", was inserted into the inside back cover of every copy, by the publisher.