I've been, in piecemeal fashion, giving a review of Eric Raymond's book "The Art Of Unix Programming" and I must confess that it's tough going for someone who codes as little as I do. I at this point only know some basic shell and basic HTML, and to get the most out of Raymond's work, one must code in something more heavyweight such as one of the C's or Perl or even OO things. Raymond, now, will be critical of object-orientation in places but even that would help since most points the book makes are universal (among programmers).
Here's the two places I've been using to read the book online:
faqs.org
catb.org
See? See? I can at least code that.
As Raymond says in one of the intro sections, the book can benefit people that can at least understand that the Unix tradition might have something to teach them. It's not much help if you want to know about kernel application programming interfaces or C programming specifics. Even if you skim the hard parts and only absorb the culture, it can help one understand the Unix/open source ethos, and would be particularly helpful if you're coming from the object-oriented world to a Unix-based project.
I'll keep reading it but for purposes of this blog will move on to other topics - no doubt returning to this one from time to time, if only to rip off another Ken Thompson quote from Raymond.
