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Title: The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. Raymond ISBN: 0-13-142901-9 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 17 September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.47 (15 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The philosophy behind the code
Comment: The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. Raymond, contains over 30 years software engineering wisdom. In addition to Raymond?s own experience, the book also incorporates knowledge from thirteen UNIX pioneers including Ken Thompson (the creator of UNIX) and David Korn (creator of the korn shell). Raymond?s book tells about the philosophy, design, tools, culture, and traditions that make up UNIX. Raymond shows how these are being carried forward today in both the open-source movement and Linux.
Personally, I rather enjoyed reading this book because it's not just another book that teaches you how to use a particular programming language. This book teaches you how to design software, teaching you the philosophy behind UNIX and contains some of the history hacker lore that made UNIX what it is today.
Unlike most programming books I have read this book uses case studies to prove a point rather then tailored examples. The case studies use real, pre-existing pieces of open-source software that are in use every day (including Kmail, The Gimp, Audacity and many others). Through these case studies Eric demonstrates how to apply the book's wisdom in building software that not only adheres to the UNIX philosophy but software that is more portable, more reusable, and longer lived.
Rating: 4
Summary: Highly informative and readable, though very biased
Comment: Raymond does a good job of explaining the philosophy driving the Unix-style of programming. Coming from a background programming Windows, I always thought of the Unix approach (lots of abbreviated command-line utilities, mini-languages, pipes, semi-unstructured text-based process integration) as down-right primitive. However, after reading this book, I've started to understand the philosophy (and the practical reasons) for adopting this approach. I'd definitely recommend this book especially to newbie programmers from the Windows or Mac (pre-OS X) worlds. That said, I do have some criticisms:
One of the problems with this book is the overly partisan tone it takes - one gets the impression that absolutely nothing Microsoft has ever done is of value, but the other major desktop PC OSes (Apple, Linux) represent different forms of perfection. (At home, I run Mac OSX, RedHat Linux and Windows, and have a reasonable sense of their relative strengths and weaknesses.)
So, be warned: Art of Unix Programming paints a one sided picture. The author is a well-known figure in the open source community, one of its fiercest advocates, and one of Microsoft's most vocal critics, so it might seem to strange to wish for less anti-Microsoft spin from this source. After all, the Raymond brand certainly carries with it an obligatory expectation of Windows-bashing, doesn't it?
One of the only Windows design decision which Raymond doesn't condemn is the (now discontinued) .ini file format. Even the thorough-going support for object-orientation in Windows is given short-shrift: after explaining the many horrors of object-oriented programming (according to Raymond), Unix-programmers are praised as "tend[ing] to share an instinctive sense of these problems." This section (http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/unix_and_oo.html) is particularly illustrative of the one-sided approach that Raymond takes.
Art of Unix Programming is really an excellent and informative book which could have been substantially better with a little balanced discussion. I found myself constantly second-guessing the author: Is he arguing such-and-such a point on the merits or because he simply loves UNIX & hates Microsoft so much? While the book does a great job of articulating and illustrating the UNIX idiom, it's a shame that the reading experience is marred by mistrust. If he hadn't been so blindly anti-Microsoft, we'd be able to more confidently rely on his conclusions, and the text would be not merely highly informative (as it is), but definitive (as it is not). Four stars, therefore, instead of five.
PS: You can find this book on-line with Google - no charge.
Rating: 4
Summary: More books like this need to be written
Comment: "The Art of UNIX Programming" (TAOUP) is a unique book, since it deals with "UNIX" engineering principles. ("UNIX" means the original OS as well as derivatives and relatives.) Rather than discuss the filesystem, commands, or services, TAOUP explains history, culture, and rationale. I found the book enlightening and easy to read and recommend it to all UNIX users.
Several reviewers critique author Eric Raymond's assessments of programming languages and the Windows OS family. As a security engineer I see Windows continue to fail miserably, so much so that I'm beginning to agree that Windows cannot be secured. (Almost one year ago I criticized Bellovin et al for the same judgment, but now I tend to agree.) I would be surprised if a real Windows advocate reviewed and contributed to drafts of TAOUP, as a few strategic pro-Windows points might have made ESR's other arguments stronger. A second way to strengthen the anti-Windows stance would be more technical discussion of Windows flaws. The devastating "shatter" flaws of 2002 merit no more than a footnote on page 69, but could have a been a whole section unto themselves.
Regarding languages and OS comparisons, at this early point in my career I fit the "fool" category of p. 507. I leave it to more experienced developers to debate programming language virtues. It seems the author is not as current on language developments as his critics, which is regrettable but understandable given TAOUP's scope. I personally questioned the repeated invocation of Emacs Lisp. I found ESR's recommendation to employ interpreted languages useful and plan to take a closer look at Python. I question ESR's claim on p. 382 that GCC is so powerful that "there is effectively no proprietary UNIX compiler market left," when Sun's compiler for Solaris seems to outperform GCC.
I found histories of "UNIX vs. UNIX" and "UNIX vs the world" very informative. TAOUP presents concise explanations of licensing, RFC creation, and UNIX philosophy. I was happy to see that an open source project to which I contribute (Sguil) met many UNIX design criteria, like text-based communication between small collaborating daemons. I plan to follow TAOUP's recommendations for documentation so helpfully discussed in chapter 18 when I release the next set of Sguil guides.
TAOUP offers numerous priceless quotes from UNIX pioneers, but ESR himself offers my favorite: "Open source is what happens when code reuse gets a flag and an army." I hope UNIX advocates everywhere carry TAOUP into battle against their proprietary, monopolistic OS foes. With a few more nods to the enemy and a more balanced comparison of languages, TAOUP will be unbeatable.
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Title: Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World by Bruce Schneier ISBN: 0387026207 Publisher: Copernicus Books Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love ISBN: 0672325128 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 08 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
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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: Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective by Diomidis Spinellis ISBN: 0201799405 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 27 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
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Title: Practical Cryptography by Niels Ferguson, Bruce Schneier ISBN: 0471223573 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 28 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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