LINUX Programming for Dummies (Paperback)

by Jim Keogh (Author) "Welcome to the world of Linux programming..." (more)
Key Phrases: gawk utility, problem with the following code, subprogram whenever, Good News, Bob Smith, Bob Mary Sue (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Linux® Programming For Dummies® is the fast and easy way to get up-to speed on designing, developing, and debugging programs on the Linux platform.

From the Back Cover
Download sample code at the companion Web site

Fun mini quizzes let you test your programming knowledge

The fun and easy way™ to start writing Linux® bash shell programs With Linux shell programming, it's easy to create sophisticated applications quickly — after you pick up a few basic programming skills. That's where this friendly guide comes in. Walking you through all the basics, from variables and subprograms to printouts and debugging, programming pro Jim Keogh will have you creating Linux apps in a snap.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (January 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764506919
• ISBN-13: 978-0764506918
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #641,350 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful but far too many typos and/or errors, November 25, 2001

By	Scott Robbins (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book was one of my first intros to Bash programming. It made it interesting, but far too many of the script samples didn't work, due to typographical errors. (Such as some of the while loops in chapter 10) It took a bit of researching to figure out why, however, researching the errors was also helpful. (As I am still a rank novice at bash scripting, there might have been other, easier ways to fix them, but for example, the timing loop didn't work until I changed $counter=$counter+1 to counter=$counter+1)
The book is quick reading and a reasonable introduction to bash programming, with the caveat that the reader will probably have to know how to research deja, linuxdoc.org or other places to figure out why some of the scripts don't work as printed.

I notice that some other reviewers pointed out errors to IDG. It would be nice if they had an easy to find page listing such errors, ala Sybex's site. There may be one, but when it's not easy to find, I just went to the various linuxdoc.org howtos and guides and found my answers there.

My only other complaint is a petty one, that sometimes the author could have pointed out alternate syntax that also works. However, as we all develop our own coding habits, that is a fairly meaningless complaint.

All in all, I would recommend the book to the novice bash scripter, as long as the novice is ready to, at times, search the web a bit to find out why some scripts don't work properly. The trouble is that since the book is aimed towards the novice, scripts that don't work properly due to minor typos might be frustrating at first. Still, this is good practice--for example, after awhile, I could look at one and say, aha, this won't work, he left out a "do". It's an excellent supplement to the online guides at linuxdoc.org and reasonably priced.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Why This Book is Disappointing, February 7, 2002

By	Sean E Parsons (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

Granted, most of this book is written on a low enough level that most people could understand it--it made inappropriate assertions and neglected essential information while providing its lessons. It spends much of the early chapters making Microsoft Windows sound like the ideal programming environment while neglecting to mention all the problems of trying to function with thier API's while working with the win32 drive. Excluding using their ".NET Framework" I would never suggest that anyone even try to program using Windows (unless your being paid to do so). Also, Mr. Keogh continuously mentions that Linux does not have all the bells & whistles available to Windows (although, on several occasions he mentions Motifs). I would hope that the average individual looking at this book would simply be loking at this book as a starting place. Hopefully the individual reading this book will move onto other languages (i.e., C, C++, etc.) which would provide the "bells & whistles".

Also, this book left out simple instructions. When working in "vi" --a simple text editor-- Mr. Keogh mentions various ways to exit "vi", but neglects to explain that you must first hit the escape key to get to the command line to exit "vi".

I would recommend that individuals looking to learn how to program using a Linux OS start with other books that start off very simply with Linux shell scripts.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Covers SHELL programming, February 1, 2001

By	Gregorio "gtada" (Pasadena, CA United States) - See all my reviews

A more appropriate title for this book would be "BASH Programming for Dummies". I was expecting a book that covers basic C or C++ programming on the Linux platform, but instead I got a book on writing shell scripts. Oh well, that's what I get for impulse buying.