samlb@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Sam Bassett RCD) (12/19/89)
It has been a little over a month since I posted a copy of this list, and I see that there are questions about "what book..." again, so here it is -- with a disclaimer: {Note: This list is a collection of capsule book reviews taken from the comp.unix.questions newsgroup over the past couple of years -- the opinions expressed are those of the original reviewers, who posted them to c.u.q. -- I have NOT read all of these books, nor do I necessarily have an opinion on them. I trust that the posters are expert enough to know what they are/were talking about, however! S.B.Bassett, Collector} ================Intros & Overviews================= >The UNIX Programming Environment Author: Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1984, 357 pages, ISBN 0-13-937699-2, paperback: 0-13-937681-X - This book is what I call a classic. Just buy it. - a good programmer's introduction. >The Unix Environment Author: A.N.Walker. - An excellent user's introduction. I have a special affection for this book, as it introduced me to the plural forms VAXen and Unices. >Introducing The UNIX System Author: Henry McGilton and Rachel Morgan Publisher: McGraw-Hill Book Company 1983, 556 pages, ISBN 0-07-045001-3 - introductory for the most part, but far more extensive than Gauthier's book. There are two chapters on editors and two on text formatting that are the best I have seen in this type book. There is even a chapter on system management. I believe there may be a new edition of this book out that has been substantially rewritten. >The Design of the Unix Operating System Author: Maurice J. Bach Publisher: Prentice-Hall - is a good generic introduction to kernel operation. (System V) >UNIX Shell Programming Author: Stephen G. Kochan and Patrick H. Wood Publisher: Hayden Book Company 1985, 422 pages - I own this book, but I rarely crack it open. I guess the main reason is that I am still a Bourne-again shell user. For years I worked with a variety of systems where one might find csh and/or ksh. However, /bin/sh was the only common denominator. I find that most often I refer to Kenighan and Pike for shell programming questions. However, they don't address the C Shell (csh) or Korn Shell (ksh). This book does offer a chapter on each. In addition, this book may be more suited for a beginner than an experienced UNIX programmer. >O'Reilly and Associates series of Nutshell Books for UNIX. Available by mail order from O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 981 Chestnut Street Newton, MA 02164 or uunet!ora!nuts or 1-800-338-NUTS The "Learning the UNIX Operating System" is a local favourite. >Unix Shell Programming Lowell Jay Arthur Wiley Interscience 1986 ISBN 0-471-83900-0 LC 85-22623 261 pp >UNIX The Complete Reference, Osborne-McGraw Hill, 1988. An inexpensive reference and guide to System V in a style familiar to those from the micro world where OMH and QUE have many best selling guides to Lotus, DOS, Word, etc. >An Introduction to Berkeley UNIX by Paul Wang, 1988. A guide to the Berkeley world. I mention it as a counter to the previous book...there are very few BSD UNIX only texts. >Life With UNIX Author: Don Libes and Sandy Ressler Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1989, pp 350. ISBN 0-13-536657-7. - A comprehensive overview of UNIX. Major sections are: UNIX in Time - Usual trash plus history of user groups, universities, with a comprehensive "who's who" in UNIX history. Present & Future deals with where UNIX is now and where its going - companies, standards and dialects are treated at length. UNIX Information - How people really learn about UNIX. Discussion of books, magazines, conferences, and, of course, source code. Inside UNIX - In-depth descriptions of UNIX from three different perspectives - user, programmer and adminstrator. Outside UNIX - Third-party stuff. Discussions of how UNIX has prospered/withered in face of real-world problems. Underground - archives, USENET, public access UNIX, GNU, MINIX, public-domain and/or free software, etc. This book is quite unusual, not only because of its scope, but because it prints things that have never appeared in print (for one reason or another) - things that most people don't realize or find until years after they have used UNIX. It is essentially a "reading between the lines" of all the other UNIX manuals, books and magazines. Lastly, "Life With UNIX" is chock full of amusing UNIX stories and anecdotes, all designed to provide you with key insights into why UNIX is the way it is. "Life with UNIX" is a must book for UNIX beginners to UNIX gurus. >A Practical Guide to the Unix System Mark G. Sobell Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co. Menlo Park, CA 1984 ISBN 0-8053-8910-5 LC 83-21069 428pp Frank W. Peters <peters@apple!CC.MsState.Edu> adds: "I have two books that I'd recommend adding to your list: System Administration: Title: UNIX System Administration Handbook Author: Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder and Scott Seabass Pub: Prentice-Hall ISBN: (unknown) This is a pretty good book and worth noting because it leans toward BSD. Networking: Title: UNIX Networking Author: Stephen Kochan and Patric Wood Pub: Hayden Books ISBN: 0-672-48440-4 An excellent book covering UUCP, TCP/IP, NFS, RPC, Streams, OSI, RFS, X11 and NeWS (Sun's postscript based graphical protocol). Each chapter serves as an excellent programmers introduction to the topic discussed." ================Berkeley================= >An Introduction to Berkeley Unix Author: P. Wang Publisher: Wadsworth. - If you need a BSD oriented book, then I don't think you would find a more thorough introductory book. >The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System Author : Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J. Karels, John S. Quarterman. Publisher :Addison-Wesley (Berkley and SunOS) 1988 - seems to be a good book on kernel design for Berkeley Unix; I just started it myself. - We should be hearing about this one any day now!!! John Quarterman had informed me quite some time ago to expect this one in September. These are the primary people who are responsible for 4.3 BSD. ================System V================= >A Practical Guide to Sys V Unix Author: Mark Sobell. Publisher: Benjamin Cummings - ( I am not sure if this is the exact title) >UNIX System V Bible Author: Stephen Prata and Donald Martin Publisher: Howard Sams & Company >Introducing UNIX System V Rachel Morgan & Henry McGilton 1987 McGraw-Hill It gives the user a good working knowledge of a number of commands and packages. I emphasize that it is a user book, by no means a technical manual. I assume by the difficulty in getting it in these parts that it is pretty popular. >Unix Communications. Andersson, Costales and Hendersson. The Waite Group 1987. Covers everything the enduser needs to know about email, USENET and UUCP. >Unix Administrations Guide for System V. Thomas / Farrow Prentice-Hall 1989. Bought this book last week, seems to me to be the most comprehensive and fact-packed book on the subject I've ever seen. Lars Tunkrans >UNIX for Super-Users Eric Foxley International Computer Science Series, Addison-Wesley,1985 ================A System for the NeXT of us================= >Threads of a New System Author: Prof Richard Rashid in the August 1986 _Unix Review_ - an excellent introduction to the design of Mach, the sort-of object-oriented Unix which runs on the NeXT machine. ================Geeks, Gurus & Wizards================= >Advanced UNIX: A Programmer's Guide Author: Stephen Prata Publisher: Howard W. Sams & Co., Indianapolis 1985, 484 pages, ISBN: 067-22403-8. - Prata assumes you know how to login and use and editor. It's very good for shell programing. >Advanced UNIX Programming Author: Marc J. Rochkind Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1985, 265 pages, ISBN 0-13-011818-4, paperback: 0-13-011800-1 - Rochkind is a former Bell Labs UNIX guru who wrote SCCS back in the mid 70's. This book is exactly what the title states, basically an extremely thorough treatment of programming using the UNIX System Call Interface. System V, System III, V7, 4.2 BSD, and Xenix are all discussed. The system calls are organized functionally into chapters that cover file i/o, terminal i/o, process control, interprocess communication, and miscellaneous calls. The opening chapter is an overvview of fundamental concepts of UNIX. Anytime I have a question on the usage of system calls I consult this book. The only problem with it is that it needs to be updated per System V Rel 3, 4.3 BSD and the efforts of Sun and AT&T to bring SunOS and System V together as well as the efforts in the UNIX 386 world. >Tricks of the UNIX Masters Author: Russel G Sage Publisher: Howard Sams & Co ISBN 0-672-22449-6. - a "must add" to your list of UNIX books. For about $20, you'll get a lot of nifty little tricks & tips you won't pick up unless you've got a good UNIX guru to coach you. The style is relaxed & aimed at a bit above the novice UNIX user (experienced programmer with sparse UNIX exposure). >Unix System Administration David Fiedler and Bruce H Hunter Hayden Books (Howard Sams & Co) 1986 ISBN 0-8104-6289-3 320 pp >UNIX System: Readings and Applications Vol 1: UNIX Time-Sharing System Vol.2: The UNIX System Author: AT&T Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1987 - These two volumes are reprints of the two volumes of the Bell Labs Technical Journal (now AT&T Tech J.) that were devoted to UNIX: Vol. 57, No. 6, Part 2, July-August, 1987, and Vol. 63, No. 8, October, 1984. ================C stuff================= >The C Reference Manual, 2nd Ed. Kernighan & Plaugher The _new_ one . . . >C: A Reference Manual, 2nd Edition Author: Samuel P. Harbison and Guy L. Steele Jr. Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1987, 404 pages, ISBN 0-13-109810-1, paperback: 0-13-109802-0 - An excellent book on C. It is not really an introductory level book, and is a great companion to K&R (2nd Ed.). Both this book and K&R (2nd Ed.) cover the draft-proposed ANSI standards. Where H&S really stands out is in the sections that cover the UNIX library calls. If you have ever struggled with any of printf or scanf family of library calls in trying to figure out the conversion rules in the format string, this book is the answer. >Efficient C Author: Thomas Plum and Jim Brodie Publisher: Plum Hall 1985, 150 pages, ISBN 0-911537-05-8 - This is a useful book. Portability is one aspect of programming in C. Efficiency is the other. Many use C because it allows them the freedom to tie the programs down to the hardware in order to run efficiently. This book is an excellent guide and when combined with Jon Bentley's book on writting efficient programs gives one an excellent background in measuring programs and fine tuning them. >Notes on the Draft C Standard Author: Thomas Plum Publisher: Plum Hall 1987, 92 pages, ISBN 0-911537-06-6 - Tom Plum is the Vice Chair of the ANSI X3J11 committee, so who better to write this book than he? However, as with any of the other C books that treat the ANSI C Standard, it does not cover the Standard in it's final form due to the fact that it has yet to be adopted. However, the price is about $10, so it makes a good pickup to keep informed about the standard and how it differs from K&R C. >The C Programmer's Handbook Author: M.I. Bolsky Publisher: AT&T Bell Labs and Prentice-Hall 1985, 84 pages, ISBN 0-13-110073-4 - This is a handbook for experience programmers, not a book for reading. Information is intended as a quickie reference and is not that detailed. >The C Puzzle Book: Puzzles for the C Programming Language Author: Alan R. Feuer Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1982, 173, ISBN 0-13-109934-5 paperback: 0-13-109926-4 - Exactly what the title indicates. The puzzles are organized by chapter: basic arithmetic operators, assignment operators, logic and increment operators, bitwise operators, relational and conditional operators, operator precedence and evaluation. The answers for all of the puzzles are also provided. This is an excellent way to learn some of the more advanced expressions that can be concocted with C. >The C Answer Book Author: Clovis L. Tondo and Scott E. Gimpel Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1985, 209 pages, ISBN 0-13-109877-2 - This book provides the answers to the exercises found in K&R. I believe that a second edition of this book has also been recently published corresponding with the 2nd edition of K&R. >C Traps and Pitfalls Author: Andrew Koenig Publisher: Addison-Wesley 1988, 147 pages, ISBN:201-17928-8 - Andrew published a BTL Technical Memorandum by this title several years back. Later it was published as a Technical Report. It has now been expanded into a book. I read the TR and it was excellent. I just recently finished the book and would recommend it to anyone who uses C. >Portable C and UNIX System Programming Author: J.E. Lapin Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1987, 249 pages, ISBN 0-13-686494-5 - A useful book, mostly because there are no others written on this topic, yet...... >How to Write Portable Software in C Author: Mark Horton Publisher: Prentice Hall to be released. - I'm waiting! srvarma@rodan.acs.syr.edu ( ** The War Child **) says: "This is an excellent piece of information, Sam. I, however, have two additions to make to your list. They belong to the list of C books. >Software Engineering in C. Author: Peter Darnell, et al. Year : 1988. Publ. : Springer-Verlag. One of the finest books I have seen for beginners. Highly recommended even for intermediate-level C programmers. >Data Structures and C Programs. Author: Christopher Van Wyk. Year : 1988. Publ. : Don't know. The author is from Bell Labs and this is also one of my favorite books for learing C programming with different kinds of data structures." ================Misc/Unknown================= >UNIX Papers for UNIX Developers & Power Users Author: The Waite Group Editors Publisher: Howard W. Sams & Co, Indianapolis 1987, 518 pages, ISBN: 0-672-22578-6. - This is a collection of papers. Some of the them are introductions and others cover more arcane bits of knowledge. >Writing a Unix Device Driver Author: Janet I. Egan and Thomas J. Teixeira - Masscomp with appendixes on BSD and Xenix >(no title given) 297 pages, ISBN 0-8359-8164-9, paperback: 0-8359-8162-2 - introductory level book, extremely basic and easy reading. I read this on a plane trip between Newark, NJ and Columbus, OH before I ever worked seriously with UNIX. Unlike, Rebecca Thomas and Jean Yates Tutorial style book this one does not require you to be sitting down in front of a crt in order to derive benefit from it. >Unix for People AUTHOR: Birns, Brown and Muster PUBLISHER: Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. >Unix Power Utilities for Power Users AUTHOR: Muster, Birns and Lurnix PUBLISHER: MIS Press, P.O. Box 5277, Portland, OR 97208, phone 1-800-MANUALS >The AWK Programming Language Aho, Kernighan, Weinberger Addison Wesley 1988 ISBN 0-201-07981-X LC 87-17566 210 pp >Unix Primer Plus Waite,Martin and Prata >Advanced Unix -- A Programmer's Guide S.Prata Published by Howard W Sams and Co. Available in local bookstores or by contacting publisher at 1-800-428-SAMS. ==================Periodicals==================== Unix Review Magazine Unix World magazine Unix Today free newspaper ============================================================================== Additions, subtractions, reviews and comments gratefully accepted! Sam'l Bassett, Sterling Software @ NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA 94035 Work: (415) 694-4792; Home: (415) 969-2644 samlb@well.sf.ca.us samlb@ames.arc.nasa.gov <Disclaimer> := 'Sterling doesn't _have_ opinions -- much less NASA!'
samlb@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Sam Bassett RCD) (02/13/90)
There have been some more book requests, so: { Note: This list is a collection of capsule book reviews taken from the comp.unix.questions newsgroup over the past couple of years -- the opinions expressed are those of the original reviewers, who posted them to c.u.q. -- I have NOT read all of these books, nor do I necessarily have an opinion on them. I trust that the posters are expert enough to know what they are/were talking about, however! S.B.Bassett, Collector} ================Intros & Overviews================= >Life With UNIX Author: Don Libes and Sandy Ressler Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1989, pp 350. ISBN 0-13-536657-7. - A comprehensive overview of UNIX. Major sections are: UNIX in Time - Usual trash plus history of user groups, universities, with a comprehensive "who's who" in UNIX history. Present & Future deals with where UNIX is now and where its going - companies, standards and dialects are treated at length. UNIX Information - How people really learn about UNIX. Discussion of books, magazines, conferences, and, of course, source code. Inside UNIX - In-depth descriptions of UNIX from three different perspectives - user, programmer and adminstrator. Outside UNIX - Third-party stuff. Discussions of how UNIX has prospered/withered in face of real-world problems. Underground - archives, USENET, public access UNIX, GNU, MINIX, public-domain and/or free software, etc. This book is quite unusual, not only because of its scope, but because it prints things that have never appeared in print (for one reason or another) - things that most people don't realize or find until years after they have used UNIX. It is essentially a "reading between the lines" of all the other UNIX manuals, books and magazines. Lastly, "Life With UNIX" is chock full of amusing UNIX stories and anecdotes, all designed to provide you with key insights into why UNIX is the way it is. "Life with UNIX" is a must book for UNIX beginners to UNIX gurus. { Best! Best! Best! Hooray -- loved it!!! S.B.Bassett } >The UNIX Programming Environment Author: Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1984, 357 pages, ISBN 0-13-937699-2, paperback: 0-13-937681-X - This book is what I call a classic. Just buy it. - a good programmer's introduction. >The Unix Environment Author: A.N.Walker. - An excellent user's introduction. I have a special affection for this book, as it introduced me to the plural forms VAXen and Unices. >Introducing The UNIX System Author: Henry McGilton and Rachel Morgan Publisher: McGraw-Hill Book Company 1983, 556 pages, ISBN 0-07-045001-3 - introductory for the most part, but far more extensive than Gauthier's book. There are two chapters on editors and two on text formatting that are the best I have seen in this type book. There is even a chapter on system management. I believe there may be a new edition of this book out that has been substantially rewritten. >UNIX Shell Programming Author: Stephen G. Kochan and Patrick H. Wood Publisher: Hayden Book Company 1985, 422 pages - I own this book, but I rarely crack it open. I guess the main reason is that I am still a Bourne-again shell user. For years I worked with a variety of systems where one might find csh and/or ksh. However, /bin/sh was the only common denominator. I find that most often I refer to Kenighan and Pike for shell programming questions. However, they don't address the C Shell (csh) or Korn Shell (ksh). This book does offer a chapter on each. In addition, this book may be more suited for a beginner than an experienced UNIX programmer. >O'Reilly and Associates series of Nutshell Books for UNIX. Available by mail order from O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 981 Chestnut Street Newton, MA 02164 or uunet!ora!nuts or 1-800-338-NUTS The "Learning the UNIX Operating System" is a local favourite. >Unix Shell Programming Lowell Jay Arthur Wiley Interscience 1986 ISBN 0-471-83900-0 LC 85-22623 261 pp >UNIX The Complete Reference, Osborne-McGraw Hill, 1988. An inexpensive reference and guide to System V in a style familiar to those from the micro world where OMH and QUE have many best selling guides to Lotus, DOS, Word, etc. >An Introduction to Berkeley UNIX by Paul Wang, 1988. A guide to the Berkeley world. I mention it as a counter to the previous book...there are very few BSD UNIX only texts. >A Practical Guide to the Unix System Mark G. Sobell Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co. Menlo Park, CA 1984 ISBN 0-8053-8910-5 LC 83-21069 428pp >Exploring the UNIX system by Stephen G. Kochan and Patrick H. Wood Published in 1984 by Hayden Book Company A very good intro. book to UNIX. Has chapters on UNIX file system, Bourne shell, vi, Program development, security, communications, and administration. From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> >Introducing the UNIX system by Henry McGilton and Rachel Morgan Published in 1983 by McGraw-Hill (shown as a BYTE BOOK and as part of the "McGRAW-HILL SOFTWARE SERIES FOR COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS" A good book on text processing in UNIX. Covers nroff in detail, and covers tbl. From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> >The UNIX C Shell Field Guide by Gail Anderson and Paul Anderson Publlished in 1986 by Prentice-Hall I have heard this called the C-Shell Bible. From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> >UNIX Programmers manual volumes 1&2 Bell Laboratories Holt, Rinehart and Winston 0-03-061742-1 (v1) 0-03-061742-X (v2) { Mitch Wright P.O. Box 46135 Washington DC 20050 } ==================== Networking ====================================== >UNIX Networking Stephen Kochan and Patrick Wood Hayden Books ISBN 0-672-48440-4 An excellent book covering UUCP, TCP/IP, NFS, RPC, Streams, OSI, RFS, X11 and NeWS (Sun's postscript based graphical protocol). Each chapter serves as an excellent programmers introduction to the topic discussed." { Frank W. Peters <peters@apple!CC.MsState.Edu> } >UNIX Network Programming W. Richard Stevens Prentice Hall 1990 Available late January (starting at Usenix/Uniforum) ISBN# 0-13-949876-1 (201) 767-5937 for fewer than 20 copies (201) 592-2498 for corporate customers ordering 20 or more (201) 767-5994 for Government orders { Note from the author Richard Stevens Health Systems International, New Haven, CT stevens@hsi.com ... { uunet | yale } ! hsi ! stevens } ================ System Administration =============================== Michael S. Cross (msc@ihc.att.com) (312)-982-2018 AT&T Bell Laboratories, 5555 Touhy Ave., Skokie, IL 60077, says: The book listed below does a pretty good job of explaining the differences between the types of UNIX(R) systems and administering them. It's also on the light or humorous side which is a definite plus. >UNIX System Administration Handbook Nemeth, Evi, Snyder, Garth and Seebass Prentice Hall ISBN: 0-13-933441-6 Price in Palo Alto: US$32 { I'm recommending it for all of the people who get workstations from us, and for all of the User Services people here -- an added plus is that the programs listed are available by anonymous ftp from the authors' home system. S.B.Bassett } ================Berkeley================= >An Introduction to Berkeley Unix Author: P. Wang Publisher: Wadsworth. - If you need a BSD oriented book, then I don't think you would find a more thorough introductory book. ================System V================= >A Practical Guide to Sys V Unix Author: Mark Sobell. Publisher: Benjamin Cummings - ( I am not sure if this is the exact title) >UNIX System V Bible Author: Stephen Prata and Donald Martin Publisher: Howard Sams & Company >Introducing UNIX System V Rachel Morgan & Henry McGilton 1987 McGraw-Hill It gives the user a good working knowledge of a number of commands and packages. I emphasize that it is a user book, by no means a technical manual. I assume by the difficulty in getting it in these parts that it is pretty popular. >Unix Communications. Andersson, Costales and Hendersson. The Waite Group 1987. Covers everything the enduser needs to know about email, USENET and UUCP. >Unix Administrations Guide for System V. Thomas / Farrow Prentice-Hall 1989. Bought this book last week, seems to me to be the most comprehensive and fact-packed book on the subject I've ever seen. Lars Tunkrans >UNIX for Super-Users Eric Foxley International Computer Science Series, Addison-Wesley,1985 >The UNIX System V Environment, S.R. Bourne (himself), Addison-Wesley, 1987; ISBN 0-201-18484-2 (378 pages). { Steen Hammerum Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen says: "has been _very_ useful to me (proof: I'm on my second copy)"} ================A System for the NeXT of us================= >Threads of a New System Author: Prof Richard Rashid in the August 1986 _Unix Review_ - an excellent introduction to the design of Mach, the sort-of object-oriented Unix which runs on the NeXT machine. ================Geeks, Gurus & Wizards================= >The Design of the Unix Operating System Author: Maurice J. Bach Publisher: Prentice-Hall - is a good generic introduction to kernel operation. (System V) >The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System Author : Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J. Karels, John S. Quarterman. Publisher :Addison-Wesley (Berkley and SunOS) 1988 - seems to be a good book on kernel design for Berkeley Unix; I just started it myself. - We should be hearing about this one any day now!!! John Quarterman had informed me quite some time ago to expect this one in September. These are the primary people who are responsible for 4.3 BSD. >Advanced UNIX: A Programmer's Guide Author: Stephen Prata Publisher: Howard W. Sams & Co., Indianapolis 1985, 484 pages, ISBN: 067-22403-8. - Prata assumes you know how to login and use and editor. It's very good for shell programing. >Advanced UNIX Programming Author: Marc J. Rochkind Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1985, 265 pages, ISBN 0-13-011818-4, paperback: 0-13-011800-1 - Rochkind is a former Bell Labs UNIX guru who wrote SCCS back in the mid 70's. This book is exactly what the title states, basically an extremely thorough treatment of programming using the UNIX System Call Interface. System V, System III, V7, 4.2 BSD, and Xenix are all discussed. The system calls are organized functionally into chapters that cover file i/o, terminal i/o, process control, interprocess communication, and miscellaneous calls. The opening chapter is an overvview of fundamental concepts of UNIX. Anytime I have a question on the usage of system calls I consult this book. The only problem with it is that it needs to be updated per System V Rel 3, 4.3 BSD and the efforts of Sun and AT&T to bring SunOS and System V together as well as the efforts in the UNIX 386 world. >Tricks of the UNIX Masters Author: Russel G Sage Publisher: Howard Sams & Co ISBN 0-672-22449-6. - a "must add" to your list of UNIX books. For about $20, you'll get a lot of nifty little tricks & tips you won't pick up unless you've got a good UNIX guru to coach you. The style is relaxed & aimed at a bit above the novice UNIX user (experienced programmer with sparse UNIX exposure). >Unix System Administration David Fiedler and Bruce H Hunter Hayden Books (Howard Sams & Co) 1986 ISBN 0-8104-6289-3 320 pp >UNIX System: Readings and Applications Vol 1: UNIX Time-Sharing System Vol.2: The UNIX System Author: AT&T Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1987 - These two volumes are reprints of the two volumes of the Bell Labs Technical Journal (now AT&T Tech J.) that were devoted to UNIX: Vol. 57, No. 6, Part 2, July-August, 1987, and Vol. 63, No. 8, October, 1984. ================C stuff================= >Using C on the UNIX system O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. ISBN: 0-937175-23-4 { Mitch Wright P.O. Box 46135 Washington DC 20050 } >The C Programming Language Second Edition by Brian W. Kernigan and Dennis M. Ritchie Published in 1988 by Prentice-Hall The Bible of C programming From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> >C Primer Plus Revised Edition by Mtchell Waite, Stephen Prata, and Donald MArtin Published in 1987 by Howard W. Samms & Company An excellent beginners guide to C programming. I found out about this book through a vendor's training class on C, where they used it as the textbook. From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> >Advanced C Programming for Displays by Marc J. Rochkind Published in 1988 by Prentice-Hall Covers Character Displays, Windows, and Keyboards for UNIX and MS-DOS. From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> >C: A Reference Manual, 2nd Edition Author: Samuel P. Harbison and Guy L. Steele Jr. Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1987, 404 pages, ISBN 0-13-109810-1, paperback: 0-13-109802-0 - An excellent book on C. It is not really an introductory level book, and is a great companion to K&R (2nd Ed.). Both this book and K&R (2nd Ed.) cover the draft-proposed ANSI standards. Where H&S really stands out is in the sections that cover the UNIX library calls. If you have ever struggled with any of printf or scanf family of library calls in trying to figure out the conversion rules in the format string, this book is the answer. >Efficient C Author: Thomas Plum and Jim Brodie Publisher: Plum Hall 1985, 150 pages, ISBN 0-911537-05-8 - This is a useful book. Portability is one aspect of programming in C. Efficiency is the other. Many use C because it allows them the freedom to tie the programs down to the hardware in order to run efficiently. This book is an excellent guide and when combined with Jon Bentley's book on writting efficient programs gives one an excellent background in measuring programs and fine tuning them. >Notes on the Draft C Standard Author: Thomas Plum Publisher: Plum Hall 1987, 92 pages, ISBN 0-911537-06-6 - Tom Plum is the Vice Chair of the ANSI X3J11 committee, so who better to write this book than he? However, as with any of the other C books that treat the ANSI C Standard, it does not cover the Standard in it's final form due to the fact that it has yet to be adopted. However, the price is about $10, so it makes a good pickup to keep informed about the standard and how it differs from K&R C. >The C Programmer's Handbook Author: M.I. Bolsky Publisher: AT&T Bell Labs and Prentice-Hall 1985, 84 pages, ISBN 0-13-110073-4 - This is a handbook for experience programmers, not a book for reading. Information is intended as a quickie reference and is not that detailed. >The C Puzzle Book: Puzzles for the C Programming Language Author: Alan R. Feuer Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1982, 173, ISBN 0-13-109934-5 paperback: 0-13-109926-4 - Exactly what the title indicates. The puzzles are organized by chapter: basic arithmetic operators, assignment operators, logic and increment operators, bitwise operators, relational and conditional operators, operator precedence and evaluation. The answers for all of the puzzles are also provided. This is an excellent way to learn some of the more advanced expressions that can be concocted with C. >The C Answer Book Author: Clovis L. Tondo and Scott E. Gimpel Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1985, 209 pages, ISBN 0-13-109877-2 - This book provides the answers to the exercises found in K&R. I believe that a second edition of this book has also been recently published corresponding with the 2nd edition of K&R. >C Traps and Pitfalls Author: Andrew Koenig Publisher: Addison-Wesley 1988, 147 pages, ISBN:201-17928-8 - Andrew published a BTL Technical Memorandum by this title several years back. Later it was published as a Technical Report. It has now been expanded into a book. I read the TR and it was excellent. I just recently finished the book and would recommend it to anyone who uses C. >Portable C and UNIX System Programming Author: J.E. Lapin Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1987, 249 pages, ISBN 0-13-686494-5 - A useful book, mostly because there are no others written on this topic, yet...... >How to Write Portable Software in C Author: Mark Horton Publisher: Prentice Hall to be released. - I'm waiting! srvarma@rodan.acs.syr.edu ( ** The War Child **) says: "This is an excellent piece of information, Sam. I, however, have two additions to make to your list. They belong to the list of C books. >Software Engineering in C. Author: Peter Darnell, et al. Year : 1988. Publ. : Springer-Verlag. One of the finest books I have seen for beginners. Highly recommended even for intermediate-level C programmers. >Data Structures and C Programs. Author: Christopher Van Wyk. Year : 1988. Publ. : Don't know. The author is from Bell Labs and this is also one of my favorite books for learing C programming with different kinds of data structures." ================Misc/Unknown================= >UNIX Papers for UNIX Developers & Power Users Author: The Waite Group Editors Publisher: Howard W. Sams & Co, Indianapolis 1987, 518 pages, ISBN: 0-672-22578-6. - This is a collection of papers. Some of the them are introductions and others cover more arcane bits of knowledge. >Writing a Unix Device Driver Author: Janet I. Egan and Thomas J. Teixeira - Masscomp with appendixes on BSD and Xenix >(no title given) 297 pages, ISBN 0-8359-8164-9, paperback: 0-8359-8162-2 - introductory level book, extremely basic and easy reading. I read this on a plane trip between Newark, NJ and Columbus, OH before I ever worked seriously with UNIX. Unlike, Rebecca Thomas and Jean Yates Tutorial style book this one does not require you to be sitting down in front of a crt in order to derive benefit from it. >Unix for People AUTHOR: Birns, Brown and Muster PUBLISHER: Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. >Unix Power Utilities for Power Users AUTHOR: Muster, Birns and Lurnix PUBLISHER: MIS Press, P.O. Box 5277, Portland, OR 97208, phone 1-800-MANUALS >The AWK Programming Language Aho, Kernighan, Weinberger Addison Wesley 1988 ISBN 0-201-07981-X LC 87-17566 210 pp >Unix Primer Plus Waite,Martin and Prata >Advanced Unix -- A Programmer's Guide S.Prata Published by Howard W Sams and Co. Available in local bookstores or by contacting publisher at 1-800-428-SAMS. ====================== Security ================================== >UNIX System Security by Stephen G. Kochan and Patrick H. Wood Published in 1985 by Hayden Book Company From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> ======================== Text Processing ========================= >The UNIX Text Processing System by Kaare Christian Published in 1987 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (a Wiley-Interscience book) I have found this to be a very good guide to nroff, and the -mm macros. It also covers the -ms macros, vi, eqn, tbl, refer, and pic From: "Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E" <mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL> >UNIX Text Processing Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly Hayden Books ISBN: 0-672-46291-5 { Mitch Wright P.O. Box 46135 Washington DC 20050 } ==================Periodicals==================== >Unix Review Magazine >Unix World magazine >Unix Today free newspaper >root The Journal of UNIX System Administration Published bi-monthly by Info-Pro Systems Editor - Bruce Hunter Publisher - David Fiedler Subscriptions via: Phone: 1-916-677-5870 Email: {ames,attmail,pyramid}!infopro!root Telex: 151296379INFOPRO FAX: 1-916-622-9642 I have been subscribing to this journal since its inception back in December 1988. The journal covers System Programming, System Management, and System Administration in a friendly, straight-forward, very helpful approach. I would heartily recommend this subscribing to the journal for any system administrator regardless of experience. { Michael J. Chinni, Chief Scientist, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey } ============================================================================== Additions, subtractions, reviews and comments gratefully accepted! Sam'l Bassett, Sterling Software @ NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA 94035 Work: (415) 694-4792; Home: (415) 969-2644 samlb@well.sf.ca.us samlb@ames.arc.nasa.gov <Disclaimer> := 'Sterling doesn't _have_ opinions -- much less NASA!'
fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) (02/14/90)
In article <4881@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>, samlb@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Sam Bassett RCD) writes: > > There have been some more book requests, so: [ many books listed ] I can't disagree with the list but I feel you are missing one important source -- namely the company I work for. We have been publishing a series of pocket-sized UNIX and C books and cards since 1983. Although less visible in the market than things with Prentice-Hall on the cover, our stuff is widely used. For example, Unisys, SCO, Cray and others use them in their training classes. We have Command Summaries for various versions of UNIX, cards and references on C, references and tutorials on VI, a shell tutorial and more. Take a look in computer bookstores like Computer Literacy in Silicon Valley or many college bookstores. If all else fails, we can send you information. -- Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl (206)527-3385
samlb@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Sam Bassett RCD) (02/17/90)
You betchum! I even have a couple of your cards running around here somewhere . . . The thing is, however, that my list is composed of stuff posted to this newsgroup or mailed directly to me. I have not written ANY of the reviews or many of the recommendations. How 'bout posting a list of the reference cards/pamphlets that your company produces here on the net, and I'll grab it and add a category to the next list -- which will probably go out in a couple of months? Of course, if you have competitors, and they post a list, too, I'll also include that . . . Sam'l Bassett, Sterling Software @ NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA 94035 Work: (415) 694-4792; Home: (415) 969-2644 samlb@well.sf.ca.us samlb@ames.arc.nasa.gov <Disclaimer> := 'Sterling doesn't _have_ opinions -- much less NASA!'