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Title: UNIX Programming Environment, The by Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike, Robert Pike ISBN: 0-13-937681-X Publisher: Prentice Hall Computer Books Pub. Date: March, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $45.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.52 (27 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Classic and still the best introduction Unix
Comment: I can't believe the reviewer who gave two stars to this book saying it's "outdated". Yes, it's dated. Yes, it doesn't tell you about Linux and FreeBSD and GNOME and KDE. But it's still absolutely the best introduction to the Unix *Programming* environment. Whatever else it is, Unix is a programmer's delight. And this book is the best companion you can have to explore Unix.
The book covers a lot of territory. Starting with a good introduction to the Unix command line, it covers Unix tools like sed and awk, shell scripting, system programming with C. It even covers lex and yacc. Never mind, the books age - it's still the best computing book I've ever read and I will gladly recommend it for any one new to Unix.
The authors' writing style is excellent. There is a certain amount of dry humor that I grew to appreciate in subsequent readings. For example, about AWK's name, the commentary dryly says "naming the program after the authors' names shows a certain poverty of imagination"! Remember that Brian Kernighan (one of the book authors) is one of the creator's of AWK. Go and buy this book. NOW.
Rating: 5
Summary: If you use Unix, you want this book. End of subject.
Comment: Dated, yes. But that's the only weakness of this excellent book, which covers the philosophy and structure of userland in Unix, and it's not an important one -- nroff is still necessary for man pages, and life on the command line is something anyone dealing with a Unix box should get used to, whether the user is using a shell account on their local freenet or a cutting edge Athlon64 Linux PC or PowerMac G5. (Or even SCO, if you must.)
The tools covered are timeless ones -- make, lex, yacc, and others that are still important for software development some twenty-five to thirty years after they were first written. There's no networking, no Perl, and the shell language is ancient, but what's in there still works, with only minor changes to accomodate ANSI C (if you're using GCC, even that can be dispensed with using a compiler flag). The book also serves as an education in programming language design, working out a full programmable calculator system called hoc, and an introduction to the concept of toolsmithing.
This book and Kernighan's book Software Tools (coauthored with P.J. Plauger) provide a great education in how to build a computer system; there's a very good reason both books are still in print after many, many years when most computer books turn over editions every year or two. Whatever your Unix is -- Mac, Linux, Solaris, BSD, whatever -- take this book with you when you start hacking around on the command line. It's not everything you'll ever need to know, but it's one of the best to get you started.
Rating: 4
Summary: The much-vaunted Unix "philosophy" in practice
Comment: This book is one of the cornerstones of the Unix philosophy. "There's a philosophy?" I hear you ask. Ohhh yessss. Unix gives you the tools to build whatever you want and asks only that you behave nicely, reading standard input and writing to stdout. Problem is, the tools sometimes seem too small to get anything useful done. What can you do with tiddlers like ls, cp and diff after all?
This book answers those concerns by a series of examples. My favorite is the version control system implemented in diff. Yes, it's dated, but the quality still shows. I prefer to think of it as "old-school"; it shows just how much can be accomplished with talent and an understanding of the Unix Way.
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Title: C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie, Dennis M. Ritchie ISBN: 0131103628 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 22 March, 1988 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: The Practice of Programming by Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike ISBN: 020161586X Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 04 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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Title: Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) Environment by W. Richard Stevens ISBN: 0201563177 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 30 June, 1992 List Price(USD): $69.99 |
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Title: Software Tools by Brian W. Kernighan, P.J. Plauger ISBN: 020103669X Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 01 January, 1976 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Design of the UNIX Operating System by Maurice J. Bach ISBN: 0132017997 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 27 May, 1986 List Price(USD): $69.67 |
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