Book Review: Life With UNIX (Libes and Ressler)

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Book Review: Life With UNIX: A Guide for Everyone
	     Don Libes and Sandy Ressler
	     Prentice Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632
	     ISBN 0-13-536657-7

     The preface  to "Life With UNIX" describes it  as a study in
reading  between the lines, the "other" book about UNIX, the book
that will tell you what the manuals and textbooks don't.  Without
a doubt this book accomplishes its stated task.
    Libes and Ressler first review UNIX past, present and future.
There  is a generous dose of UNIX history and apocryphal stories,
many of which I haven't seen before  even  after  many  years  of
reading  Usenet.  The authors next discuss sources of information
about UNIX, including manuals, texts, workshops, conferences  and
user  groups.   They  then present UNIX from the viewpoint of the
user,  programmer  and  administrator,  highlighting  the  unique
design  advantages  of  UNIX  and  what it means to each of these
groups.  Finally, they discuss UNIX and the real world, including
jobs  in  the  UNIX world, applications, and the UNIX underground
(including Usenet).
     The strength of this book is in the unique  insight  of  the
authors.  They are either incredibly wise  or have done extensive
research  for  this  book,  or  both.    Although   I    consider
myself    an  experienced   UNIX  person,  and have served in the
roles of user, programmer, and administrator, I learned something
new on  almost every  page.  I  wish  I  had this book when I was
first learning UNIX, to accompany the terse formal documentation,
and  explain  to  me   "now  why  would  they  have included that
feature, or what can I use that for?"  I think  this  work  would
complement  perfectly   any  of  the more formal manuals or texts
about C or UNIX.
     I give this book my highest recommendation.

Donn S. Fishbein, MD, PhD
Vanderbilt University Hospital
Nashville, TN


Table of Contents:
I. Past, Present, Future
   UNIX History
   UNIX Present
   UNIX Future
II. UNIX Information
    Printed Information
    Nonprinted Information
III. Inside UNIX
     The User's Environment
     The Programmer's Environment
     The Administrator's Environment
IV. Outside UNIX
    UNIX Underground
    UNIX Services
    UNIX Applications
    UNIX Meets The Real World