Rating: 
Summary: Good as course textbook
Review: I just finished a semester course in Unix shell programming using this book (2nd ed.) as the text. It worked well. While grep, sed, and awk get plenty of attention, the real strength of the book is the lengthy and repetitive coverage given the Bourne, C and Korn shells. The same topics are covered in detail under all three shells. By the second and third reading, the basic concepts become very clear and the differences between the shells stand out. During the course I wished for coverage of the Bash shell (Linux) but just learned that "Linux Shells by Example" is coming from the same author 3/15/00. Look forward to it!
Rating: 
Summary: Very Helpful
Review: I just got the third exition this book, it is extremely helpful. There aren't many examples of shell scripts on the web and none on the system man pages so it's a wonderfull reference. The sed, awk, grep section is also very helpful. All this stuff in one place makes it a great reference.
I would recommend this book to any intermediate level computer science student who is begining to learn the unix system.
Rating: 
Summary: Good author, bad publisher.
Review: I was able to write a Bourne shell script to trim logs armed with only this book and a computer. The examples were helpful. The index was not. The typography is especially bad. It seems that the Bourne shell is very picky about spaces. The book is set with fonts which make spaces hard to spot.
Rating:
Summary: Must be on your bookshelf and a MUST read.
Review: I was actually looking for a postgresql book, when I spotted this one. I have only recently had the need to get heavily into Unix and Linux scripting, and have had my eye out looking for something good. WOW, what a book! I thought that I would have to buy at least six books to get what is in this ONE book. The author has made the book very readable. The content delivers what it promises. Even early in the book I was learning not only new stuff; but reasons why some stuff I already knew worked the way it did. I know there is a shell web site called shelldorado; but this book is 24 carat gold. One of those books you carry under your arm as you move between workstations.I would buy any books by this author. I would attend any courses as well, if they were in my area. Well done Ellie!
Rating:
Summary: Excellente!!! Great book!!!
Review: I would recommend this book to each and every individual who is planning to learn Shell Scripting, AWK, GREP and SED. This is the book for learning these tools. I tried 3 different books but this book has helped me the most in not only clearing my concepts but making me almost an expert in these tools.... HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOK!!!
Rating:
Summary: Best syntax reference for shells
Review: I'm a unix system admin, and I use this book on a regular basis. It solves the problem of remembering the syntax from one shell to another. The text uses examples to teach you how to do command line and scripting in bourne, korn and c shells. I found it to be very straight forward, and I can flip to the section I need and have the example right there to put into my script. I have little yellow sticky notes all through this book on the references I use the most. I recommend it to all my system administrator colleagues, and it's a must for newbies to understand what's going on with their shells. She also has a Perl by Example book that works the same way.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent examples demonstrate important concepts.
Review: I've been a unix sysadmin for over 5 years and am learning lots from this book. The author has a knack of teaching by providing examples that show exactly how a command / process works without jargon or oversimplification. I'm clearly understanding things (like regular expressions) that I frequently used casually, but didn't know exactly how they worked and why they sometimes didn't.
Highly recommended for a range of experience levels!
Rating:
Summary: thorough treatment from the beginning
Review: I've looked at a lot of books about UNIX as a beginner in shell programming, and have found none so helpful as this one. Clear, thorough, well written; useful appendices.
Rating:
Summary: The best Unix Shell book I've ever read!
Review: If want to learn about shells and you learn by example, like I do, this book is essential.
The first 6 chapters (nearly 200 pages) goes over the basics of all shells; what they are, what they do, what programs are most used to manipulate data in them. There are whole chapters devoted to grep, sed and awk, and the author doesn't skimp on details. You will be a virtual grep/sed/awk guru by the time you learn everything in these chapters.
Chapters 7-15 introduce and get you into scripting of each major shell: Bourne shell, C and TC Shells, Korn shell, and Bash (bash is the standard shell in most linux distributions). It then spends a chapter on general debugging shell scripting problems.
The last chapters touch upon system administrating via the shell (rather than using gui tools). Again taught by example so it's very clear to the reader.
I learned more about bash (my shell of choice) from this guide than any other that I've read, and not for lack of trying, I've read several bash guides. I was happy to see that examples given were explained line-by-line so you don't lose track of what is happening in each example. I was delighted by the useful appendices covering useful commands and giving side by side shell comparisons.
This is my favorite shell book to date.
Rating:
Summary: One of those "must have" books
Review: It is unfortunate that the many typos made it into the final product. That aside, I recommend this book to anybody who wants to know more about shell programming in general. Although I still have many separate books on awk, sed, sh, csh, etc. this is the book I started learning Unix on, and this is the book I still keep on the shelf, or use when I am preparing my own classes on shells. The layout and content of this book has made me search for and buy other Quigley titles simply on the strengh of the author's name.
| 
