Review:Beginning Linux Programming

Mike Hostetler has graciously taken the time and energy to send a review of Neil Matthew and Richard Stones' Beginning Linux Programming. The title isn't quite what it would seem, so if you want more info, click below.

Beginning Linux Programming
author	Neil Matthew and Richard Stones
pages
publisher	Wrox Press
rating	6.5/10
reviewer	Mike Hostetler
ISBN	1-874416-68-0
summary	A good sharpen-your-skills-book

REVIEW: Beginning Linux Programming Neil Matthew and Richard Stones (Wrox Press, ISBN 1-874416-68-0) Nutshell Review: A good sharpen-your-skills-book Rating: 6.5/10 reviewed by Mike Hostetler (home)

The Scenario

I bought Beginning Linux Programming in an effort to sharpen my pathetic C skills. The book touchs all sorts of subjects like TCL, CGI, and HTML, but mainly is introducing C programming in the UNIX environment - exec, pipes, redirects, threads, sockets, and, yes, even semaphores.

What's Bad?

Beginning Linux Programming was an ambitous effort from the beginning - the point was to touch on each subject but not get too bogged down on details. That, I think, is it's biggest downfall. The book gives a simple example of each idea and then goes on to the next concept. Naturally, the focus of the book is not to give you a deep understanding of each and every concept, but it definitely made me hungry for more.

Also, the word "beginning" in the title is misleading. In most people's thinking, "beginning" would mean "just learning how to program." However, this books already assumes you have some (but not great) knowledge of C. You will not learn how to program in C from this book. However, you will learn how to program different UNIX concepts in C.

What's Good?

This is one of the most readable Linux/UNIX books I have ever read. Matthew and Stone are good writers and good explainers. And they know their subject matter - no doubt about that. Also, there is a plethora of code in this book - lots of examples to go by. And, for the lazy ones, all the code is downloadable from the Wrox web site.

So What's In It For Me?

If you are like me and have pathetic C programming skills and want to improve them, then this is a must. If you know C well but just want to learn how to program in the UNIX environment, then this book probably isn't for you. If you already know C and UNIX programming, then don't bother - you won't get anything out of it.

If you are interested in purchasing this book, and supporting Slashdot, head over to this Amazon page and pick it up.

Summary of Contents

• Development Tools
• Shell
• Files
• Terminals
• Curses
• Unix Environment
• Databases
• Processes and Signals
• Pipes
• IPC Shared Memory/Semaphors/Messages
• Sockets
• UNIX Development Tools
• Debugging and Optimizing
• X Windows Programming
• Tcl/Tk Programming
• Programming the Internet - HTML
• Programming the Internet - CGI
• The FSF and GNU Project
• Getting Started with Linux
• Internet Resources