root@radar.UUCP (root) (03/30/89)
Book Review: Life With UNIX: A Guide for Everyone
Don Libes and Sandy Ressler
Prentice Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632
ISBN 0-13-536657-7
The preface to "Living With UNIX" describes it as a study in
reading between the lines, the "other" book about UNIX, the book
that will tell you what the manuals and textbooks don't. Without
a doubt this book accomplishes its stated task.
Libes and Ressler first review UNIX past, present and future.
There is a generous dose of UNIX history and apocryphal stories,
many of which I haven't seen before even after many years of
reading Usenet. The authors next discuss sources of information
about UNIX, including manuals, texts, workshops, conferences and
user groups. They then present UNIX from the viewpoint of the
user, programmer and administrator, highlighting the unique
design advantages of UNIX and what it means to each of these
groups. Finally, they discuss UNIX and the real world, including
jobs in the UNIX world, applications, and the UNIX underground
(including Usenet).
The strength of this book is in the unique insight of the
authors. They are either incredibly wise or have done extensive
research for this book. Although I consider myself an
experienced UNIX person, and have served in the roles of user,
programmer, and administrator, I learned something new on almost
every page. I wish I had this book when I was first learning
UNIX, to accompany the terse formal documentation, and explain to
me "now why would they have included that feature, or what can I
use that for?" I think this work would complement perfectly any
of the more formal manuals or texts about C or UNIX.
I can not recommend this book too highly.
Donn S. Fishbein, MD, PhD
Vanderbilt University Hospital
Nashville, TN
Table of Contents:
I. Past, Present, Future
UNIX History
UNIX Present
UNIX Future
II. UNIX Information
Printed Information
Nonprinted Information
III. Inside UNIX
The User's Environment
The Programmer's Environment
The Administrator's Environment
IV. Outside UNIX
UNIX Underground
UNIX Services
UNIX Applications
UNIX Meets The Real World