Review:Linux Programmer's Reference

Andrew G. Feinberg sent in a review of Richard Petersen's endeavor Linux Programmer's Reference. The book itself is a guide to scripting and other mini-languages, so if brushing up on that looms in your future, click below to read more about it.

Linux Programmer's Reference
author	Richard Petersen
pages
publisher	Osborne/McGraw-Hill
rating	9
reviewer	Andrew G. Feinberg
ISBN
summary	A reasonable, small book to mini-languages.

The Scenario

I was looking for a good book to read that had nothing to do with computers, when this little (and it is little) book caught my eye. It looked like it was going to be a huge book, but all it is is a little guide to scripting and other mini-languages.

What's Bad?

The title is a bit misleading, but otherwise that is the only bad thing about the book.

What's Good?

Everything else! It's not a heavy read, but it's a quick tutorial and reference on shell scripting (bash, tcsh, and my favorite, zsh). It also touches on make, rcs, creating man pages, and tcl/tk. The book also sports a section on LaTeX (a quickie). It's no camel book, but it's cool. Oh, yeah. It also rounds out the mix with a section on gcc and g++. Fun for the whole family.

So What's In It For Me?

If you do alot of shell scripting for quick-and-dirty tasks, this book lets you look up more advanced stuff, as well as the cool trick you forgot. It also teaches you how to package a program, and write documentation. I keep it on my desk where I can see it, so if I need to look up a function, it's there.

Pick this book up over here.

Table of Contents

1. Chapter 1: BASH Shell Programming

1. Chapter 2: TCSH Shell Programming

1. Chapter 3: ZSH Shell Programming

1. Chapter 4: Compilers and Libraries

1. Chapter 5: Development Tools

1. Appendix A: PERL - Quick Reference

1. Appendix B: Tcl and Tk

1. Appendix C: TeX and LaTeX