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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals,comp.unix.sys5.r4,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.osf.osf1,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.programmer,misc.books.technical,alt.books.technical
Subject: Re: New Book on Unix Internals
Date: 17 Nov 1995 21:54:12 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Lines: 66
Distribution: inet
Message-ID: <48j0a4$4ss@park.uvsc.edu>
References: <bapat.816081191@gate.net> <1995Nov1205.16.49.23480@silverton.berkeley.edu>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.internals:9316 comp.unix.sys5.r4:10469 comp.unix.solaris:51819 comp.unix.osf.osf1:10810 comp.unix.bsd.misc:329 comp.unix.programmer:30808 misc.books.technical:6832 alt.books.technical:4201
djb@silverton.berkeley.edu (D. J. Bernstein) wrote:
]
] In article <bapat.816081191@gate.net>, S. Bapat <bapat@news.gate.net> wrote:
] > I just saw a great new book on UNIX Internals.
] [ ... ]
] > For each kernel component,
] > it analyzes the major design issues, describes the alternatives adopted by
] > the major UNIX variants, and provides a comparative discussion.
] [ ... ]
] > stays away from lengthy pseudo-code and algorithmic details,
] > and instead provides a high-level understanding of the issues.
]
] That's a rather overwhelming endorsement for a book you ``just saw.''
]
] Are you sure you didn't just copy the blurb off the back?
]
] In fact, are you sure you didn't _write_ the blurb?
]
] Just curious. (Well, curious and a bit cynical.)
He's right. The book is good. It's the only one I know of that
does a compartive anatomy of UNIX variants, and probably more
important, it is up to date.
And yes, I'm biased, before you ask; I was one of the reviewers
for the publisher. The *only* complaint I have is the chapter
names and minor section numbers are close to the binding to
put the page numbers on top of the page. I would have preferred
that the page numbers be on bottom so I could flip through the
topics quicker -- but the extreme bold face on the section titles
and the exhaustive index make it very easy to find things, probably
easier than "The Magic Garden Explained". It's *certainly* more
logically laid out than TMGE -- try flipping through both looking
for the DNLC (or some other operation on a file) and you'll see
what I mean.
The exercises are quite complete; it would be easy to use this
to teach a class on OS architecture with an emphasis on UNIX
and its internals (the *only* way to teach an OS class, IMO).
I hope he follows on with a soloutions book, even though much
of the exercises are essay questions: you could test from the
book alone. Anyone who went into a class with "the test will
be 14 questions from the lectures and 7 of the exercises from
the end of the chapter" as the ground rules would learn a hell
of a lot. 8-).
The references are the most complete of any OS book I've ever seen;
the book sites *everything*, including Usenix papers. If I were
to buy a book based on my ability to use its bibliography to
build a library, this would be the book. And the Bibliography
is at the end of each chapter; if you want to amass a lot of
information, for instance on Distributed File Systems, you look
at the chapter Bibliography. For DFS alone, there are 40
references. For Advanced File Systems, 26 (many from 1995). Etc.
I can't go on enough about the book. A UNIX library is not
complete without it.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.