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Title: Unix Systems Programming: Communication, Concurrency and Threads, Second Edition by Kay Robbins, Steve Robbins ISBN: 0-13-042411-0 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 17 June, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $69.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.54 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent starting ground to do Unix Programming
Comment: I used this book to start to learn from scratch how to programming Unix. This book is self-contained,concise and easy to read. FYI, it is very readable and not dry. There's a number of good diagrams, for example,illustrating file descriptors allocations and the effects of system calls like dup2, etc. The authors uses short code snipplet to illustrate how to use a particular system calls, which I think is rather neat. A number of "projects" very quickly help reader to expand their skill level. Of interest is also a project on distributed "Richard" and "Linda" , the forerunner of Sun's JINI. The authors could have expanded this book another 100 pages and make it a companion to Steven's "Advanced Unix System Programming". I strongly recommend this book to beginners, intermediate Unix Programmers.
Rating: 2
Summary: Book Overrated
Comment: This book does not offer anything more that what the Richard Stevens classics Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment or UNIX Network Programming Volume Two offer. The titles by Stevens fundamentally break down the concepts of multiprocess, multithreaded, and concurrent scheduling and sychronizational mechanisms much more clearly and throroughly than Practical UNIX Programming. I was ultimately let down from the lack of CD or URL to point to the full sample implementations on all REAL WORK in the book. This book could be ignored when purchasing a UNIX Sytems programming book and one would NOT MISS out on the spectacular. If you MUST HAVE a truly practical UNIX Systems Programming book, then albeit a little older, from 1994 last printing, buy Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environmentt from the late Richard Stevens for the fundamental UNIX APIs on IPC, File I/O, Process Management, Signals and Events and the secondary book, which is best on IPC both covering System V and the standard POSIX, is Stevens' UNIX Network Programming Volume Two.
Practical UNIX Programming poorly covers the underpinnings of POSIX Multithreading, it does not intricately cover the important subtleties in thread termination such as how pthread_exit() really functions and its different functionality against the main threads's exit(). There is NO explanation on one time thread initialization with PTHREAD_ONCE_INITIALIZED macro and pthread_once() function for multithread resource avoidance of resource intitialization duplication. There is NO explanation on the use of the three main multithreaded working models such as Assembly Line or the Pipeline Model, the Worker Crew Model and the Client/Server Model sufficiently for the cost of [$$].
This book is simply another UNIX Programming book, nothing super or spectacular. UNIX IMHO is the ONLY operating system and this read is dry and too short in length to really hold water as time moves on. Truly IF you buy Stevens APUE, UNPVolume_One, UNPVolume_Two and Butenhof's Programming with POSIX Threads there are no other books on UNIX Sytems Programming to consider.
Rating: 5
Summary: A very good book on UNIX System Programing -
Comment: This is the updated second edition that includes all-new chapters on the Web and multicast and a completely revised and updated RPC chapter. Other book chapters on files, signals, semaphores, POSIX threads, and client-server communication were updated and enhanced.
The book is organized twenty-two chapters grouped into four parts. Each part contains topic chapters and project chapters. A topic chapter covers the specified material in a work-along fashion. The topic chapters have many examples and short exercises of the form "try this" or "what happens if". The topic chapters close with one or more exercise sections.
What I liked about the book is that it provides programming exercises for many fundamental concepts in process management, concurrency and communication. These programming exercises are very similar to the exercises you would be doing in a traditional computer science laboratory as part of an operating system course, for instance. Exercises are specified for systematic development, and many can be implemented in under 100 lines of code, which is nice if you want to play with it and experiment different ways of implementing a functionality.
Another important feature of the book is the compliance with the POSIX standards. Since the last edition of the book, a single UNIX specification has been adopted and it is referred to in the book to as POSIX. The authors' examples comply with the POSIX standard.
Something else I really liked is the kind-of support available. The book has its own we site where you can download all the code in the book and email the authors and so on. Check it out at: http://vip.cs.utsa.edu/usp/.
The book basically covers whatever we need know to be able program with threads, TCP/IP, and RPC. The authors explain the essentials of UNIX programming, concentrating on communication, concurrency, and multithreading techniques and why, when, and how to use them in a very tutorial-way using a lot of reusable source code examples that explain syntax along the way.
A nice feature of the book is that it shows how to design complex software to get the best from the UNIX operating system. There are many short examples featured throughout the book and a number of hands-on projects that help readers expand their skill levels. The approach is very practical and uses short code snippets to illustrate how to use system calls.
The book is easy to read and the code examples are complete so that you can compile and run them. This is a nice feature since these exercises and code examples help readers understand and learn the material explained throughout the chapters.
If you want to:
a) Learn UNIX system programming essentials with a concentration on communication, concurrency, and multithreading techniques, with extensive hands-on examples that respect the single UNIX specifications ...
b) Write "correct" code and get the best from your UNIX operating system ...
c) Expand your ideas on how to design and implement robust UNIX software ...
then, check out this book...
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Title: Unix Network Programming, Vol. 1: The Sockets Networking API, Third Edition by W. Richard Stevens, Bill Fenner, Andrew M. Rudoff, Richard W. Stevens ISBN: 0131411551 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 22 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $69.99 |
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Title: Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) Environment by W. Richard Stevens ISBN: 0201563177 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 30 June, 1992 List Price(USD): $69.99 |
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Title: The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. Raymond ISBN: 0131429019 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 17 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Understanding UNIX/LINUX Programming: A Guide to Theory and Practice by Bruce Molay ISBN: 0130083968 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 25 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $63.00 |
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Title: Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++ by John Viega, Matt Messier ISBN: 0596003943 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 14 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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