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Amazon.com buying info Linux Programming by Example (By Example)
by Kurt Wall
Pretty good book, June 27, 2000
Reviewer: Christopher Brown from USA
The general idea of this book is: "Here's a few examples, now go read the man pages". Which I don't have a problem with.However, this is NOT a book for beginning C programmers. It mainly focuses on system calls, signals, processes, and the like. I think it should be used as a POSIX geared supplement to "Advanced Programming In the UNIX Environment".
By the way, pages 134-135 contains a typo. In the paragraph "The Access Bits", 1 is execute, 2 is write, and 4 is read. The author corrects this in a later paragraph.
All in all, I'd say it's a good book for users looking for more insight into UNIX and Linux development.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Reviewer: a_k (see more about me) from Moscow, Russia
The book consists of 5 parts, appendices (the 6th part) and covers the following topics:1. Introduction to Linux environment and basic development tools (gcc and make).
2. System programming (processes, signals, system calls, file handling and daemons).
3. Some Linux APIs (Berkeley database, ncurses, sound API) and creating your own libraries.
4. Interprocess communication (pipes, shared memory, semaphores and sockets).
5. Programming utilities (RCS, gdb, RPM and other packaging).
Everything is done using C. All explanations are clear and concise, and are illustrated by the sample project. Appendices contain lots of useful Internet links by categories.
The book looks very good but in my opinion it could be even better if the author used C++ instead of C. Writing UI with ncurses is a bit obsolete, but the author has promised to write about Xwindow and OpenGL in his next book. We'll see.
SUMMARY: in my opinion if you have at least a moderate Unix/Linux experience you won't learn too much from this book. But if you know a little about Unix/Linux programming (and have a working knowledge of C) you will probably love it.
Linux Programming Unleashed (Unleashed)
Acceptable, but not excellent, October 14, 1999
Reviewer: a_k (see more about me) from Moscow, Russia
Probably I would give it 3 stars and a quarter, or even one third, but obviously less than 4 stars.The authors tried to cover nearly all the topics in linux programming (excluding databases). The results are quite mixed. The most of explanation is done using C, though C++ is also touched a couple of times.
The book consists of 6 parts.
Part 1 is the linux programming toolkit. Not bad at all. Suprising things are that gdb is described in part 5, and electric fence in part 2, not here.
Part 2 - System programming, Part 3 - Interprocess communication and networking. These parts are central and most valuable in the book. Good. Though I like Linux Application Development by M.K.Johnson and E.W.Troan better.
Part 4 - Programming the user interface. Very shallow. You can learn that such and such techniques exist but may hardly understand how to use them.
Part 5 - Special programming techniques. A strange feeling. As if the authors decided to collect here the material which they did'nt know where else to place.
Part 6 - Finishing touches (about creating the software packages and documentation). Not bad at all, though a little shallow again.
As it was already said in the previous reviews there are regular references to the non-existing CD.
RESUME: it is an acceptable book, espesially if you just start programming linux, or migrate from another platform. You will get acquainted quickly with the most necessary things. So if you have bought it, try to enjoy it:).
If you don't have it yet I recommend better to buy already mentioned Linux Application Development for both application and system programmers, plus Programming with Qt by M.Dalheimer or Developing Linux Application by E.Harlow if you are interested in GUI development for KDE or GNOME respectively.
Seems good so far., February 3, 2000
Reviewer: Anonymous linuxer. from Melbourne, Australia
The book is very much in the style of Stephen Williams' Advanced Programming in the UNIX environment. Similar concepts and explanations, but held tightly in the Linux realm and style. Deviations and additions of LINUX to the POSIX standards are shown, and the book is full of examples that more often than not illustrate the point at hand with out other excess baggage.Although not finished yet, it has been very good so far.
Understanding Internet Protocols Through Hands-On Programming
by J. Mark Pullen
Paperback - 304 pages 1st edition (January 26, 2000)
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471356263 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.78 x 9.21 x 7.51
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 173,048
Avg. Customer Rating:
Number of Reviews: 1
Reviewer: A reader from Ames, USA
This book is just what I am looking for. It combines the theories and the practical applications well.
See also Perl books
Enlightening Introduction plus Excellent Reference Book, July 3, 1999Reading this book made many of the arcane details of Unix architecture make sense, finally. I have read many Linux books, and most are long on technical drivel and short on enlightenment. If you are enlightened, you don't need the drivel, because the technical details are easy to absorbe and remember once they make sense.
This book excels at making sense of Linux. It should have been called "Making Sense of Linux Application Development", because that's what it is. You could probably get a lot out of it, even if you don't know C very well or you aren't all that interested in C programming in Linux. The explanations are clearly presented, and the chapters stand alone, and are a great reference material, as well as interesting general reading for those interested in the internals of Linux.
This book explains a lot of services that the kernel provides, especially in regards to the Linux process model and unix filesystems, as well as interprocess communications (Unix domain sockets) and network programming (TCP/IP sockets).
CAVEAT: This shouldn't be your *first* Linux book. There's a lot of material besides the writing of the code that you need to cover first. To get you comfy in the classic Unix shell environment read Hands On Unix, by Mark Sobell.
I do not recommend this book to be used in the introductory course and I would agree with one of Slashdot readers -- "Beginning Linux Programming" tries to cover way too much in too small of a space. It is actually an intermediate book that tries to cover everything from shell scripting to X11 programming (but tells you it's a waste of time and you should use a toolkit) to Tcl/Tk. It covers just about everything, but covers nothing well. See SlashdotReviewBeginning Linux Programming.
The main problem for authors of "Beginning" books is to decide on a minimal subset of topics they should cover. The authors seems decided to avoid this hard decision by including as much as possible. But it can be considered as a decent "Tools" book. Here is another comment from Amazon reader that address the same problem:
good book - could be great, July 13, 2000
Reviewer:
jk_ny (see more about me) from
This book will bring you up to speed on the Linux API. My only complaint is
that it skims the surfaces. Take out the sections on Tcl, HTML, Perl, and CGI;
they are so basic that they are useless anyway, and they don't fit in here.
"Beginning Linux Programming" has the potential be the master of all of the
Linux books if they would cut out these non-Linux topics and replace them with
more Linux information.
For example, I loved the compiler section but it stopped short on shared libraries to save room for Perl and CGI later in the book. If the authors are listening: the cover of the book says Linux programming, not web programming.
As for the presentation of the book: Great examples, great explanations, and very clear.
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Last modified: August 14, 2009