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Rating: 
Summary: this book has many examples other don't have!
Review: 1. This book contains many errors like other readers have pointed out, but its shell programming examples really help me. Those examples I can't find from other books. 2. This book will not help you too much in unix concepts, and thus you may have to buy another good unix concepts book to solve those problems. 3. overall, as long as you have enough time to play those examples in your unix machine and want to write a 30 pages of codes like those in chapter 21 and 22, this is definitely the one you want and bring you to another level! 4. personally, I buy two different books to study a computer skill. One is the text book by college professor who may insure the concepts are correct, the other is the book having enterprise examples. But it is so hard for one to find the one having both. This book partially fit my second need!
Rating: 
Summary: Is it a joke? Unix humor?
Review: Addison-Wesley, a company known principally for its lavish gifts to university faculty members, and long ridiculed by the IT community, has produced a stunning achievement with this book. The company has managed to produce a technical book so full of so many kinds of errors - typos, grammatical, technical - that one wonders for a moment if it wasn't intended as "humor". Simultaneously, the company has also made its views on the importance of the quality of its products very clear: it isn't a concern.In his acknowledgements, Mr. Tansley thanks his "editor", Steve Temblett along with Steve's assistant, Alison Birtwell. He should have had them arrested. If Addison-Wesley is paying Tansely, Temblett, and Birtwell, it should save its money. There is almost certainly an equal amount of accurate information on unix shell scripting in the same number of pages torn at random from London tabloids. Probably more. (And the company needs every dime; department chairs don't come cheap!) As for Mr. Tansley (Can it possibly be his real name? Could one really attach one's name to a product this shoddy?): one hopes he is excersing slightly more care at the insurance company for which he works, Ace Global Markets, than he did during the production of this work. Still AGM would be well advised to order an audit. This reviewer believes that accuracy IS important in technical publications. And he believes that it is unspeakably arrogant and insulting to issue and sell a book this badly prepared. The author should have read his own work. Instead, he tells us in the chatty preface how charming his children were about his gramatical mistakes and typos. But then, his children could afford to charming about the books errors and omissions; they weren't being asked to pony up $...for it. Addison-Wesley, too, should have read and edited this book before sending it to market. Failing that, the company should have recalled the book when the number and magnitude of the errors were discovered. They ignored the errors. Not a word on their web site. No errata. Nothing. The reader is urged to follow the company's example. Ignore Addison-Wesley's books.
Rating:
Summary: Marvellous book on Unix/Linux Shell Programming
Review: At first sight, this book would seem to provide a nice review of shell programming. However, once I started to read the book I was amazed at the number of typos. Some were just silly and indicated absolutely no editing; others were more serious and compromised the learning process. Mr Tansley must be embarrased to see his name on such an amateur effort.
Rating:
Summary: definitely NOT a good book!
Review: I don't think this is a good book. I have compared this book with other shell programming books and and found this book is not good at all. So when I need to refer a shell script book I would not use this one. Besieds, the author is really careless, this book contains a lot of errors.
when I wrote this review, I found there are altogether 14 reviews already. Seems some of the reviewers had the same feeling toward this book as me.
Rating:
Summary: Best Shell Programming Book I've Found Yet!
Review: I own no less than ten books on shell programming and this one has helped me more than the rest combined. The author has the talent for condescending to my level to explain concepts that I have had a great deal of trouble understanding. I was able to write a menu driven script to simplify the loading and unloading of a tape library after reading just two chapters from the middle of the book. I even created my first shell function in the process. Yes there are a few typos. I'm not sure why some of the more sophisticated reviewers had a problem with this. I still found the book very useful and was able to catch the intended meaning in spite of the typos. If you are a genius this book may not be for you. If you are trying to learn how to write scripts quickly I highly recommend it. I would have traded all my other scripting books for this one had I known how useful it is.
Rating: 
Summary: It's hard not to write a good shell book
Review: It was a good book, i use it only for reference material and my girl is now helping herself thru a class with it (as of feb 21, 03). Overall, we both find it useful/helpful in many levels of our lifestyle with linux. (Sorry this review wasn't more informative, but it's not possible to be without diving headlong into a book you only use for reference We can both say it's an excellent for this purpose.)
Rating:
Summary: Simply a great book on Unix Shell Programming
Review: Reviewer: A reader from Modesto, CA United States
This is a marvellous book on Unix/Linux shell programming. D. Tansley knows unix/linux very well, and is a very good teacher too. (In my opinion if you study this book and "The Korn Shell" by Olczak you'll become very good at Unix and Shell scripting.) He has obviously thought a great deal about the organization of the book; in my opinion he has done it very well. About 1/2 the book is devoted to grep, find. awk, cron, file permissions, quoting, the login environment, etc. His explanations are the best I have read, and all this is enhanced by his organization of the material and his examples. He then gets into shell scripts, things like conditional testing, control flow structures, functions, and then more advanced material. And once again he does a very nice job. The more I read this book and use it in my daily work, the more impressed I am with it. If you are a unix/linux user do yourself a favor and get this book. One reviewer has given this book a scathing review; in my opinion this reviewer is totally off-the-wall. It may be that he has a problem with the english language (he's from Swizterland). Set aside his remarks.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: Well. I normally don't review books. But this one is a constant on my bookshelf when I do any shell programming and I find it very useful. It has lots of examples, is well organised and Mr. Tansley's way of putting things make it a pleasant read. I highly recommend this book.
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