Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 16:28:40 -0800 (PST) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: UNIX book recommendations Message-ID: <199803240028.QAA12892@pau-amma.whistle.com>
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I didn't get around to replying earlier -- I plead the press of work. :-} Anyway, I didn't see it mentioned in other responses (though I might have overlooked something).... One of the books I strongly recommend for anyone to get a "feel" for how things are done in UNIX environments is by Brian Kernighan [the guy credited/blamed for the named "UNIX", and the "Kernighan" of "Kernighan and Ritchie"] and Rob Pike [whose contributions to UNIX are perhaps less well known...], was published by Prentice-Hall, and is called _The UNIX Programming Environment_. It, like most of the UNIX-oriented books from the Bell Labs folks is rather concise. However, it starts fairly straightforwardly -- leading the reader in an exercise of sending email to herself -- and going on from there. As may be inferred from the title, the perspective is that of someone who wants to accomplish some sort of programming with a UNIX system... though the term "programming" may be rather loosely defined (as the authors show). I've purchased at least 3 copies so far -- I keep loaning them to folks, and the books don't come back. :-( However, it's definitely a classic, and I heartily recommend it (in spite of an AT&T bias and, by current perspectives, a bit of age: I first read it back in 1985 -- and it's pretty weak in terms of modern networking, which isn't at all a surprise, given when it was written). Another print resource is reprints of some of the Bell System Technical Journals. Not sure where you get those nowadays.... :-( Lastly: Do not be afraid of books geared toward system administrators. If you're running FreeBSD, I strongly suspect that a bit of inclination in that direction will do you good. And on that note, I'll plug USENIX (http://www.usenix.org/), and the System Administrator's Guild (SAGE -- part of USENIX). Cheers, david -- David Wolfskill dhw@whistle.com (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 401-0168 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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