looking for good shell programming books?

Robert P. J. Day rpjday at mindspring.com
Thu Aug 12 20:20:13 UTC 2004


   sorry, i deleted a recent email where someone was looking for a good 
intro to shell programming (emphasis: programming, not usage).

   my thoughts:  first, one book that was mentioned was by ellie 
quigley.  i remember a book by her on perl.  awful, awful book. 
loaded with errors.  personally, i wouldn't go near anything by her 
unless she's improved dramatically over the years.

   second:  for maximum portability, consider sticking to strict POSIX 
constructs.  yes, bash has lots of cool features.  too many, in fact. 
if you're having to push the bounds of simple POSIX programming, you 
should probably be looking at another language.  again, that's a 
personal opinion, but it's just too much of a pain to try to remember 
whether a particular shell language construct was bourne, korn, bash 
or some intersection thereof.

   third:  good shell programming books?  frankly, i haven't found any. 
and i'm still looking for one to use as a student text in a shell 
programming class.  so far, i use my own manual and include the POSIX 
standards as a printed supplement.  but i'd still like to find a 
decent book, ideally POSIX-oriented.

rday





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