Reviews for Unix for the Impatient

1. Disappointed

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, August 12th, 1999

   The title sounds perfect for me, but I found this book very frustrating. Much of it is paraphrased man pages, and there are very few actual examples. This is frustrating when you have to really study, say, the regular expression syntax, when a simple example would do wonders instead. I do use this book occassionally for quick reference, but otherwise look elsewhere.

2. Great introductory and reference book on UNIX

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 1999

   This is a very good introductory book on UNIX -- it is definitely targeted towards computer literate readers that are new to UNIX (i.e. it goes into detail fast and does not waste space to explain trivial details). I was fortunate to use the first edition when I was a UNIX novice and I use the second edition now for reference.

3. The one I didn't sell back!

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, December 12st, 1998

   Of all the UNIX books I've purchased (and there have been many), this is the only one I have used as a novice, and can continue to use to this day.

   One way to rate a book is to ask yourself how much it helped you as a novice, and whether you can still use it once you've become a more advanced user. While my other UNIX books are being sold to co-workers and used book stores, this is the one book I can consistently use as a reference. This is the one I will never outgrow.

4. Great Book on Unix

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 1998

   I'm impatient, and this book is what I needed to learn about Unix in a hurry. I still use it as a reference. And the bunny on the cover is cute.

5. Perfect for programmers new to Unix

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 1998

   Face it, if you're a programmer, you don't need a book to be telling you the basics of computers all over again. You want to figure out how to use the shell, the text editors, the many programming tools available, and a load of other things that you figure Unix will let you do, but don't quite know what those tools are yet.

   This book showed me a lot of stuff I didn't suspect existed in Unix, is broad yet appropriately detailed, and doesn't bore you with computer newbie stuff you already knew from other OS's. Get it.