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Summary: Unix Shells by Example
Review: This is a wonderful book. It's great to have examples of scripts in C-shell and K-shell.
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Summary: Layout seems improved but...
Review: This is one of the books that I wish I did not buy. I bought the first edition, and it was full of errors and omissions. The examples were hard to read, because they used some italic variable-width fonts. Obviously the editor was never a programmer. Some examples were done in C-shell when we are in the middle of the Korn shell chapter. It eventually let me get to know UNIX much better because I had no choice but to read the man page. The book was making it twice as hard to learn UNIX. I browsed the new edition and found the layout improved, examples are in sort of a screen-capture layout. But some mistakes are still there, which make me wonder how she was able to get the screen capture if it was the case.It really made me mad that a publisher like Prentice Hall could put out a book like this, even if it was the first edition. There is just no excuse for it. I personally much prefer Addison Wesley, especially the books in their Professional Computing Series. You really only need to read one good book on UNIX and it is Richard Stevens' Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment. Someone said this book can save you time by allowing you to bypass reading the man pages, I think he works for ... There are many short cuts in UNIX, but none while you are learning it.
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Summary: Good reference book, but...
Review: This is really a good text book for beginners and reference book for regular users. You can learn 3 major shells in one book by lots of examples and lab exercirses. And find useful utilities quickly from the back of the book. But something are not so good about this book : 1. too many typos, wrong scripts, and results 2. some contexts should not appear over and over again (e.g., the "vendor") 3. some examples and lab exercises are used in all 3 shells, which are good for the beginners to learn the usages between difference shells. but they are not really very big differences between them.
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Summary: Very nicely done!
Review: This is the best Unix book I have ever read so far. Its chapters on grep/egrep, awk, and sed are very pratical. It's a must-have reference book for people who do their daily job in a Unix environment. Awesome!
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Summary: Look beyond the typos
Review: This review is an addendum to my previous (uncomplimentary) review. I bought the book look ing for a quick solution to some data processing requirements to prepare input files for finite ele ment programs. While I was initially frustrated with the many typographical errors and nonfunctional scripts included on the CD I now keep the book nearby to supplement other shell programming books. The book deserves a good commendation as long as the reader does not take the examples entirely literal.
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Summary: Easy to understand
Review: This shell script book has a lot of examples to introduce the new commands. Therefore, you can master the commands promptly. It is very easy to understand even for newbie to Unix like me. Besides, it is a very good reference book for script syntex. I use it quite often to refrash my memory when I start writing my own script.
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Summary: Best Unix Shell for everyone - Beginners and Advanced users
Review: Unix Shells by Example is my sixth UNIX-based programming book. And certainly the BEST of all. DOS-like Command-line oriented interface has been my favorite over windows for obvious reasons... I have been working with them since the days of Wordperfect5 (wp5) for DOS; ... way before the introduction of Windows 3.1. Since then, I have gone through several batch scripting/programming books. Now transitioning to the world of Linux/Unix, I was disappointed by all the shell programming books that I have used so far before coming across Ellie Quigley?s book. It was so good that 3 of my colleagues ordered a copy each (a new 3rd edition). Pros: Provides a step-by-step on how-to accomplish a real-world task with a sample code. Plus a concise & straight forward narrative/explanation of every line or special character used in the examples. Before reading this book, I have used many Unix symbols without knowing the reasons behind their use or alternate options. Other books have always provided a generalized answer of "it is the standard procedure". Such as "#!/bin/ksh"
Also, it provides comparison between various flavors/versions of unix shells. So whether you are cranking out a new shell script or you inherited a some with your legacy system, be it in Csh, Sh, bash, or my favorite 'ksh'; be rest assured that help can be found within the pages of the book. Cons: the author could have provide more than one scenario for each of the examples.
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Summary: Best practical shell programming book on the market.
Review: UNIX Shells is a great book for both novice and experienced programmer. For once, somebody has written a computer book that is down to earth, clear, and replete with examples. You don't have to wade through pages of punishing prose or be a guru to understand this book. Each line of code in the examples is concisely yet fully explained. There's no guessing as to why any of the hundreds of sample scripts work the way they do. If your goal is to learn shell programming quickly so you can put it to use at work, this is the book to get.
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Summary: Too many errors. A nice effort but not proofed well enough.
Review: While this book is unique in its attempt to comprehensively cover all three shells, Awk, Sed, and Grep, the many errors don't leave one with confidence in what one reads. If one can get past the syntax errors, the book may be worthwhile. e.g. !#/bin/csh -f should read #!/bin/csh -f . Back quotes and single quotes should match in C programing but do not in the examples shown in this text.
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