no habla bash muy bien...

[Chris Devers]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, D.E. Chadbourne wrote:

> hi.  wow, i've been trying to follow the thread about shell scripts, but
> damn you folks are getting over my head.  i know some basics from just
> reading a man and screwing around.  does anybody know of a good read
> (preferably free online) that can help me learn more?  thanks.  eric.

My favorite book for this is O'Reilly's _Unix Power Tools_. It hits a
weird balance between being superficial (it gives a chapter to each of
dozens of different topics, each of which could be & often has been given
a full book length discussion elsewhere), arcane (it gives lots of
non-obvious hints), and ultimately practical (best practices, clever
shortcuts, etc). 

Other books might be better for details of particular areas, while still
other books might do a better job of giving a broad overview & theory[1],
but _UPT_ strikes a good balance. It's an expensive book -- I think the
current edition might be $60 or $70, which is why I'm still using the
previous edition for now, even though the new one has good material that
my version doesn't -- but if all you want to do is get proficient with a
broad range of Unix tools (as opposed to drowning in minutae, like a lot
of other O'Reilly books will encourage :), then _UPT_ can replace much of
the typical Unix bookshelf. 

I am, to over-emphasize the point, a fan of the book.




-- 
Chris Devers


[1] _Unix Administration Handbook_ and _Linux Administration Handbook_,
    both by Nemeth, Snyder, & Hein, both do an excellent job with the
    "broad overview & theory" angle on Unix/Linux. But for pragmatic,
    day-to-day stuff, I think _UPT_ is more fun & useful to read :)