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A Unix Primer
Text formattingin Unix A Unix Primer by Ann Nicols and Nice Lomuto. Published by PrenticetHai ternational. X15.95.
In-
239 pp.
Although the title, A Unix Primer, would lead you to suppose that this book is an easy introduction to the Unix operating system, it would perhaps be better described as a guide to text formatting on a Unix computer. Of its 230 odd pages, well over half of the book is concerned with editing and formatting text files by means of the Unix ‘ed’ editor and ‘nroff text formatter. Th.at said, those chapters constitute a first-class introduction to an extremely powerful text formatter. Approximately 20% of the book would be really useful to the serious
Unix novice; the chapter entitled ‘You Are Not Alone’, provides a useful summary of some of the most common Unix commands including a guide to communicating with other users with the ‘mail’ utility, and the chapter ‘Uniquely Unix’ presents an introduction to Shell programming, one of the most powerful and sophisticated features of Unix. Of the rest, however, much is devoted to the various types of terminal the user may encounter, and how their characteristics (baud rate, echo, etc.) may be changed by means of the ‘stty’ (set tty) command. Despite its failings, it is clear that the authors have taken a great deal of
trouble over this work; the text is very readable throughout, often illustrated with amusing drawings, and the examples are clear and easily understood. Also. most chapters contain several exercises, each of which is provided with a well explained solution; this is all too rare nowadays in books of this type. In conclusion: this book is probably most useful to a student or academic who wants to produce a thesis or publication without recourse to professional typists. It constitutes quite a useful introduction to text formatting under Unix, but at g15.95, I doubt that it will reach a wide audience. BRIAN WILLIAMS University of Sussex
Christine Mullins Butterworth Scientific PO Box 63 Westbury Telephone:
0483
Limited - Journals House Bury Street
31261
I would like a sample copy
Telex:
859556
Division Guildford SCITEC
G
I I m
q
Name Organisation
~0125 no 9
november 1983
and address
43
In-
239 pp.
Although the title, A Unix Primer, would lead you to suppose that this book is an easy introduction to the Unix operating system, it would perhaps be better described as a guide to text formatting on a Unix computer. Of its 230 odd pages, well over half of the book is concerned with editing and formatting text files by means of the Unix ‘ed’ editor and ‘nroff text formatter. Th.at said, those chapters constitute a first-class introduction to an extremely powerful text formatter. Approximately 20% of the book would be really useful to the serious
Unix novice; the chapter entitled ‘You Are Not Alone’, provides a useful summary of some of the most common Unix commands including a guide to communicating with other users with the ‘mail’ utility, and the chapter ‘Uniquely Unix’ presents an introduction to Shell programming, one of the most powerful and sophisticated features of Unix. Of the rest, however, much is devoted to the various types of terminal the user may encounter, and how their characteristics (baud rate, echo, etc.) may be changed by means of the ‘stty’ (set tty) command. Despite its failings, it is clear that the authors have taken a great deal of
trouble over this work; the text is very readable throughout, often illustrated with amusing drawings, and the examples are clear and easily understood. Also. most chapters contain several exercises, each of which is provided with a well explained solution; this is all too rare nowadays in books of this type. In conclusion: this book is probably most useful to a student or academic who wants to produce a thesis or publication without recourse to professional typists. It constitutes quite a useful introduction to text formatting under Unix, but at g15.95, I doubt that it will reach a wide audience. BRIAN WILLIAMS University of Sussex
Christine Mullins Butterworth Scientific PO Box 63 Westbury Telephone:
0483
Limited - Journals House Bury Street
31261
I would like a sample copy
Telex:
859556
Division Guildford SCITEC
G
I I m
q
Name Organisation
~0125 no 9
november 1983
and address
43