naim@nucsrl.UUCP (Naim Abdullah) (05/16/87)
A while ago, I posted a request for reviews about new Unix books. The only genuine review that I received was the following (apart from a couple of requests to post the results): From: dave sprankle <sprankle@kodak.uucp> Organization: Eastman Kodak Co, Rochester, NY I found "Tricks of the UNIX Masters" to be, well, just that--a collection of neat tricks, mainly XENIX/Sys V oriented, with relatively little explanation. It is very good if you like to learn by example, but is somewhat spotty in what it covers. It mainly covers Bourne shell environments, but Berkeleyisms are sometimes pointed out and the Korn shell is mentioned. It does have a very good section on system security and good information on communications and file systems, targeted mainly to the small XENIX-type systems. (I found it handy in helping me to deal with our lab vision system, a small box running REGULUS, a Sys III look-alike real-time system). It also tries to tell the reader how to write a termcap entry; I'm not sure how good this section is--I haven't tried to write one--but it's certainly better than the manual pages in the 4.3 BSD documentation. It contains material not readily found in more mainstream books, and is not a replacement for them. Rather, it is a supplement to other, more traditional books. If this is what you want, or you need some guidance on some of the topics it covers, it is a useful book. I don't regret the $26 I paid for it. It is being distributed by B. Dalton booksellers and so should be commonly available. Hope this helps --drl Illegitimati non carborundum. Eastman Kodak Co. ...!rochester!kodak!sprankle Purdue Univ. EE ...!pur-ee!lanced lanced@ei.ecn.purdue.edu sprankle@kodak.UUCP