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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
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| See also | General programming issues | Classic Unix Utilities | Awk | Sed | Make | Lex and Jacc | |
| Emacs | Perl | Javascript | GCC/GDB | Expect and TCL | Shells | Etc |
Classic Unix Utilities are covered well in O'Reilly books. Unix CD Bookshelf is probably the best way to get them. Some system administration books include a decent coverage of tool as well. I can recommend Essential System Administration, 2nd Edition .
Vi also can be considered classic Unix tool but with the exception of Vi iMproved books on VI are outdated and far from being impressive. See also Softpanorama Western Orthodox Editors Page
There are two Unix tools that makes the difference between good programmer or sysadmin and average one (even if the latter has solid knowledge of shell and Perl):
OFM (Midnight Commander, Deco, XNC) See The Orthodox File Manager(OFM) Paradigm. Part 4 of 11.
Expect - a unique Unix tool (that is now avaible for Windows too). I strongly recommend to learn how to use it.
This two tools can also be used as a fine text in interviews on advanced Unix-related positions if you have several similar candidates. Other things equal, their knowledge definitely demonstrate the level of Unix culture superior to the average "command line junkies" level ;-)
Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov
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If you did not read the books listed in our Classic Books section it might be a time to do so. At least to try (not all of them are an easy reading).
You can use Honor System to make a contribution, supporting this site |
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Mixed Feelings, December 19, 1999
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A Good Big Book - but worth the hype?, September 26, 2000
The Unix Power Tools has already established a reputation of being a classic. The behemoth has no less that 1073 pages and goes accompanied by a CD with a lot of small shellscripts that are described in the book. The authors show a thorough understanding of the subject and are able to explain the ways of Unix in a casual talkative way. Much work is devoted to the layout and the text edition. For example, the crossreferences are well done, greyed out in readable italics. The publisher seems to understand the importance of easy readable text. Many of us know how a good book can be spoiled by hasty and bad editing, and it's a relief to see that O'Reilly takes this issue seriously. The text is divided into paragraphs of about 1/4 to 1 page in size. These paragraphs deal with the Unix commands, the shells, the history of unix or the included nifty shellscripts. One might think that the authors view Unix as a collection of structured trivia - a view I personally like. You won't read this book 'cover to cover' (to use that awful cliche), but you'll start joyreading for that bit of advice or for that handy tool they've written. (For example: the thing that got me up the wall was that filenames can have empty spaces at the end, so it seems you cannot delete them. I should have known that one way earlier :^( ) Sometimes the authors write down some very casual paragraphs: a flame from usenet (Why NOT to use the C-shell for programming), the history of a command ( grep is: g from global, RE is regular expression, and the P stands for print, hence g/RE/P) or other fun to read items. It will not be the book you'll grab for serious studying or when the system goes down unexpectedly. The problems with big books are usually twofold and this one suffers rather badly from it.
Conclusion. Although lot's of information isn't relevant to your need, unix-implementation, shell or skill-level, this book is easy to read thanks to the good layout and small paragraphs. The authors truly have years of experience and have made many handy shellscripts. For those of you who want to like to master the commandline of Unix and like to skim for the golden hint, this book is a true find. But if you know what you want to learn then dedicated books present a better alternative to this somewhat unfocussed book. |
Lots of tips and tricks, April 4, 2001
The book is appropriate for someone who already knows UNIX and wants to learn some fancy ways to save keystrokes writing commands, make a fancy UNIX prompt, etc. In fact, Chapter 7 is devoted entirely to modifying your UNIX shell prompt. One example: have the prompt include the server name, and make the name flash on and off. There is no way in the world this should be the first UNIX book anyone buys. Beginners will be lost as the authors skip from one tip to the next, in a haphazard fashion. And it's not one of those books that provides overall coverage of a subject. A book of tricks is, without a doubt, not a book that could serve as your one and only UNIX book. There's simply too much left out. For example, check out the two chapters on shell scripting. They don't come close to providing coverage of most of the important things you need to know -- it's just a series of tips for people who already know shell scripting and want to learn some extras that are fancy or flashy or maybe save a few keystrokes. The chief flaw of this book is how immature it seems. It devotes a couple of pages to explaining how to code something, and I'm left wondering why anyone would waste their time. It has the feeling of several 14 year old boys coming up with tricks and showing them to each other. Cool! Yeah, cool! If you want to become one of those people who are very technical, but lack business sense, this is your book. Just be prepared when the senior VP says, "You wasted your time doing WHAT?!" To be fair, this book is probably a good one for the system administrator who uses UNIX all day long and already has a firm grasp of the job. At that point, why not add a few extras? Go ahead, make the prompt blink. |
These tips may save you a lot of time, April 24, 2002
So, why not five stars? This book is old. No word about GNU/Linux, the most proeminent *nix outcome. The tools included in the CD-Rom duplicate some GNU utilities, now included in every distro. Some tips on formatting text using ``troff'' are hardly useful today (with X Window all around). BTW, no word about X Window. Finally, if you're looking for Unix administration tips buy Nemeth (Unix administration). If you are looking for ``gotchas'' tips, that could save your time, this is THE book. Every now and then I come back to it. |
Build your own LINUX C Toolbox
by
Jack Dennon
Our Price: $16.95
Paperback - 178 pages (September
8, 2000)
Two Moon Press; ISBN: 0970275455
From the Author
While yet a child, the originator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, working at the VIC 20 command line, wrote BASIC programs in what is now considered to be an obsolete dialect. Soon he was writing hand-assembled machine code for the VIC 20. The straightforward architecture of Chuck Peddle's 6502 perhaps encouraged Linus to explore and such explorations evidently gave young Linus an excellent grounding in the fundamentals. Where would a young Linus of today find such an accessible rung?Short of digging a VIC 20 out of the attic, where can today's beginner find a starting place comparable to where Linus started? The thesis of this book is that a beginner is well served by starting at the command line; with programming tools designed primarily for simplicity, tools that assist by helping you explore the consequences of your own decisions rather than attempting to make those decisions for you. This book gives the reader experience at the keyboard, sans mouse, using text mode to communicate with the computer via the time-honored command line.
We cannot know for certain that command line experience contributed to the success of today's top programmers. What we do know for certain is that many of the really skillful programmers of today, such as Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, Theodore Ts'o, Eric S. Raymond, W. Richard Stevens, and so on, did as a matter of fact, begin programming when such experience was the norm. It's true, we don't know for sure, but the odds are, such experience is essential.
Readers who can put this book to advantage include those have been using DOS, and who have found the migration path to Linux seems to ford a rather deep channel. In this book they will find tools to build their own bridge to Linux.
It is a small book. My approach aligns with that of Kernighan & Ritchie who remarked in the preface to thier second edition, "C is not a big language, and is not well served by a big book."
Open Source Development With CVS : Learn How to Work With Open Source Software
by
Karl Franz Fogel
Our Price: $31.99
You Save: $8.00 (20%)
Paperback - 400 pages (November 1999)
The Coriolis Group; ISBN: 1576104907 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.96 x 9.24 x
7.42
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 4,776
Avg. Customer Review:
CVS, November 8, 1999
Some good info, but definitely lacking as well..., September 24, 2000
Reviewer: A reader from Palo Alto, CA USA
So, I bought a copy of this thinking, "Finally, a book on CVS!"... Well, it
is that, but it's also lacking. It does provide a very usable intro to CVS,
but it lacks a lot of the depth that I had hoped for -- for example, there's
not much talk about (or if there is and I missed it, then it's not well referenced
in the TOC or Index) doing administrative things with the files in the CVSROOT,
or those sorts of things. I haven't read the book cover to cover, and maybe
I ought to (at least try) before reviewing it, but it got so many 5's that I
wanted to make sure I got another opinion out. Another place where I found it
to be lacking was in description of style choices. E.g. why it matters whether
you use import versus add, or how to lay out directories, or those sorts of
things. Anyway, I'm sure I could be a fair bit more clear on my complaints if
I'd read more of the book, and more recently, but frankly, from what parts I
did read, it's now been sitting on my bookshelf mostly untouched for a while.
I do think the book has some merit, and I believe the potential
is there for a great second or third edition, but definitely read it with some
amount of caution for now, and try to find other references (such as the postscript
document that comes with CVS) as well.
Enlightening Introduction plus Excellent Reference Book, July 3,
1999
Reviewer: A reader from
This book was written with an easy to read style, and the content is excellent.
I'll forgive them for not including anything related to X11 programming,
but they mention that their reason was that X Windows programming is not
specific to Linux, and this is a *LINUX* programming book. Well fine, but
I still have to find a book on X Programming. Imagine a book on Windows
NT Programming that skipped all the GUI parts. I guess the Unix crowd is
10 years behind the NT crowd in acceptance of GUIs.
Reading this book made many of the arcane details of Unix architecture make sense, finally. I have read many Linux books, and most are long on technical drivel and short on enlightenment. If you are enlightened, you don't need the drivel, because the technical details are easy to absorbe and remember once they make sense.
This book excels at making sense of Linux. It should have been called "Making Sense of Linux Application Development", because that's what it is. You could probably get a lot out of it, even if you don't know C very well or you aren't all that interested in C programming in Linux. The explanations are clearly presented, and the chapters stand alone, and are a great reference material, as well as interesting general reading for those interested in the internals of Linux.
This book explains a lot of services that the kernel provides, especially in regards to the Linux process model and unix filesystems, as well as interprocess communications (Unix domain sockets) and network programming (TCP/IP sockets).
CAVEAT: This shouldn't be your *first* Linux book. There's a lot of material besides the writing of the code that you need to cover first. To get you comfy in the classic Unix shell environment read Hands On Unix, by Mark Sobell.
good book - could be great, July 13, 2000
Reviewer:
jk_ny (see more about me) from
This book will bring you up to speed on the Linux API. My only complaint
is that it skims the surfaces. Take out the sections on Tcl, HTML, Perl,
and CGI; they are so basic that they are useless anyway, and they don't
fit in here. "Beginning Linux Programming" has the potential be the master
of all of the Linux books if they would cut out these non-Linux topics and
replace them with more Linux information.
For example, I loved the compiler section but it stopped short on shared libraries to save room for Perl and CGI later in the book. If the authors are listening: the cover of the book says Linux programming, not web programming.
As for the presentation of the book: Great examples, great explanations, and very clear.
**** Vi iMproved (VIM)
by Steve Oualline (Author)
Based on 17 reviews. Actually not a bad book. Covers a lot of ground. Nice examples.
I decided to learn Vim because I work on WinNT/2K, Linux, and Macintosh boxes. Using a single editor makes it easier to work on mulitple platforms.
Reviewer: David F DelGreco (see more about me) from Bay Area, CA My review of this book is mixed. First, it's the only book on Vim and it contains a lot of information, so that's a plus. Also, it shed a lot of light on using the editor that, frankly, the help files did not (you can look up *ANYTHING* via ":help <topic>", but the documentation is not very accessible to the new user). However, the typos, errors, bad grammar, and personal idiosyncracies of Mr. Oualline just have to be seen to be believed.
You can figure out most of the errors easily enough. For example, there's a reference to the non-BUI version of Vim (I think he meant GUI)and for some reason, in the word "filename", when used as an example (e.g., "type 'vim filename'"), the "fi" is sans-serif while the rest of the example text is in bold Courier. There are, however, numerous places where the diagrams don't match the example being discussed in the text or are just plain wrong. Some of these left me wondering if I had missed something, but trying out a command in Vim quickly showed the diagram was wrong. My favorite goof is where '#' (the command to search backwards for the word under the cursor) is shown in numerous places in Appendix C (pp. 445, 449, and elsewhere) as a British money sign (e.g., "/count/ L"), where L is the pound sign. Get it? Pound sign? Obviously the person who did the Appendices and Index (and copy-editing???) was not Mr. Oualline.
With regard to the content, I found that Mr. Oualline is very idiosyncratic. Vim is VERY flexible, using ancient Vi ways of doing things, as well as more modern ways that are easier to use. Take yanking (copying) a block of text to a register (like the clipboard). *Mouse way*: select lines, press y. *Visual way*: move cursor to top of lines to be selected, press V, select lines, press y. *Vi-ish way*: go to top of lines to be selected, press "ma" to drop a mark labeled "a", go to bottom of lines, type y'a (yank from current position to mark "a").
If you consider these different styles (mouse, visual, or Vi-ish) to approaching the same general problem, Mr. Oualline always goes with the Vi-ish style, to the point of also showing you in many cases how to precede the command with a line range instead of using marks. Where Ctrl-Wn (open a new window) will do, we get Ctrl-W Ctrl-N (equivalent). Where Ctrl-W<down> moves down one window, we get Ctrl-W Ctrl-J (the arrows aren't mentioned). My guess is that this is not how the majority of new users will use Vim (though it might be handy if you find yourself using Vi or Vim via telnet).
A real barrier to learning the editor is the immense number of variations for accomplishing a given task. Multiple keystrokes to accomplish the same thing, as well as different approaches. What would be great for Vim is an attempt to break down tasks into functional groupings (movement, formatting, programmer stuff, managing buffers/windows) and choose a style (probably visual mode, which is almost interchangeable with mouseing) so you can say "here's a good way to get started." The many variations can be left as an excercise for power users. They are available in the online help, anyway.
All in all, I learned a lot about Vim from this book. But if I hadn't been determined to do so, I would have given up. If you want to learn Vim and the online docs aren't doing it for you, buy this book. You've been warned, so just chuckle when you come across errors and general weirdness. Kudos to Mr. Oualline for writing a book, but don't give up your day job. :-) BIG raspberries to New Riders for letting this slip through without proper editing. And thanks to Bram, who put up an unofficial list of errata at www.vim.org.
*** Learning the vi Editor (6th Edition)
Based on 36 reviews.
Write a review. The book is actually pretty average...
Quite good -- if only there were more examples..., September 6, 2003
There are, however, two things I think would make this good book even better: (1) step-by-step examples of some of the more complex vi techniques and (2) some on-line example files available from the O'Reilly Web site. On-line example files are employed to advantage by other O'Reilly books (O'Reilly's "sed & awk" comes immediately to mind). Providing some hands-on example files to work with would definitely help anyone using this book to learn the vi editor. Having said that, this book in its current form will teach you more than
enough to use vi effectively. For those who are just starting to use vi
to do real work, I'd also recommend acquiring the companion "vi Editor Pocket
Reference." |
This book covers vi, nvi,
elvis, vim, and vile, August 1, 2000
- Basic editing - Moving around in a hurry - Beyond the basics - Greater power with ex - Global search and replacement - Customizing vi and ex - Command shortcuts - Introduction to vi clones' extensions - The nvi, elvis, vim, and vile editors - Summary of vi and ex commands - Vi and the internet The examples are quite clear and plentiful. |
Etc:
Here is web page for the book The AWK Programming Language. Some useful info:
The UNIX CD Bookshelf contains six books from O'Reilly plus the software from UNIX Power Tools -- all on a convenient CD-ROM. A bonus hardcopy book of UNIX in a Nutshell: System V Edition, is also included. The CD-ROM contains three good and tree average books:
UNIX in a Nutshell: System V Edition; -- average
UNIX Power Tools, 2nd Edition (with software); -- very good
Learning the UNIX Operating System, 4th Edition; -- average
Learning the vi Editor, 5th Edition; -- average
sed & awk, 2nd Edition; -- good
Learning the Korn Shell. -- excellent
Maximum Rpm ~
Managing Projects With Make (A Nutshell Handbook)
by
Andrew Oram,
Steve Talbott,
Steve Talbot
Price: $15.96
Avg. Customer Rating:
Number of Reviews: 7
***** Exploring Expect A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs (Nutshell Handbook)
by Don Libes
Price: $26.36
Paperback - 602 pages (December
1994)
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