Nutshell handbooks

[Tim O'Reilly]

I thought I'd take the opportunity to answer a couple of
articles that have recently appeared on the net.

In article <511 at mccc.UUCP>, pjh at mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg) writes:
> Last night, at our local Unix users group meeting, a fellow showed me a
> four page printout of errors and omissions from this nutshell book, that
> were to be sent to ORA fro use in the 2nd addition of this book.  
> 
We haven't received this "four page printout"...but I do
wonder what edition of the book they were based on.  There
have been several...we're up to the fourth edition, with a
fifth about to come out.  This latest edition has been
reviewed in detail by the developers of UUCP for 4.3BSD, and
while they did find some errors, most of them were related to machine
dependencies in the version of UUCP we used as our primary
test bed.  

There is an awful lot of variation between different
versions of uucp, and it is easy to call things
"errors" that are really just differences from version to
version.  The latest edition (available in a couple of
weeks) expands the treatment of different versions of UUCP,
and points out more of the version-dependent areas.

Nonetheless, we will look forward to receiving any and all
error reports, since we update our books
frequently--whenever we receive any new information that we
think would be helpful to our readers.

In article <110 at atpal.UUCP>, levine at atpal.UUCP (Sysop account) writes:
> Recommended (by me) even more than the Nutshell handbook on UUCP is
> >Unix Communications< by the Waite Group (major book stores).  Excellent,
> and covers NetNews and other aspects of communications, including
> serial interface.
>
Ah, but UNIX Communications says absolutely nothing about
setting up UUCP links or netnews.  It is strictly a user
book, analogous to our *Using UUCP and Usenet*.  Where I
would agree that it is stronger is that it covers things
like mail, kermit and xmodem as well as uucp.  There is
little or no overlap with *Managing UUCP and Usenet*.  There
is nothing on the market that comes even remotely close to
*Managing UUCP and Usenet*--much of what it covers isn't
written down anywhere else.

-- 
Tim O'Reilly (617) 527-4210
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Publishers of Nutshell Handbooks
981 Chestnut Street, Newton, MA 02164
UUCP:	uunet!ora!tim      ARPA:   tim at ora.uu.net