If you want to start learning to write Shell scripts, don't start here

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Book:		Classic Shell Scripting
Subject:		If you want to start learning to write Shell scripts, don't start here
Date:		2007-03-22 12:15:06
From:		freejak

Rating: Yesterday I officially gave up on the "Classic Shell Scripting" book. I don't like to give up on stuff, but this was a frustrating waste of time for me. After 120 pages I had had enough of SED/Awk examples, massive regular expressions, snippets that didn't work and not a single actual example of a shell script. This is not a book from which to start to learn how to write shell scripts. I see that the other reviewers here give O'Reilly a pass by making more or less the same observation (albeit in kinder/gentler terms). I will not. The authors state in the Preface that this is a book for beginners to use to learn how to write Shell scripts. This is not helping the reader. This book either needs a very substantial re-write or a new, more accurate title and presentation. After some analysis based on reader reviews I am going to take this from the top using the ""KornShell Programming Tutorial" from HP Press, authored by Barry Rosenberg. This book has garnered a average 5 star rating in reader reviews at amazon.com. Looks like a better starting point to me.