Arghhh! Details, details!
<rant>
I am drowning in a shell programming book right now. "UNIX Shell 
Programming" (Kochan & Wood, Hayden Books UNIX System Library, 1990 / 
SAMS). I can't recommend the book to anyone except a couple of guys I 
wouldn't miss. You know who you are. :-)
The book is so poorly (IMHO) written that I am on my second set of 
man files, having worn the first set out correcting stuff from the 
4th chapter. Only 16 chapters to go.<sigh> By closely following the 
examples in the book, it only took me 14 hours to program the answers 
to 4 questions so they actually worked as advertised.
Hint to wannabee textbook / how-to authors: all the terms in a 
regular expression must be _explicitly_ defined _somewhere_ in the 
book, preferably shortly prior to their first appearance in an actual 
expression. They should NOT make their first appearance buried in an 
external document for which you have not even provided so much as a 
frimpin' reference! 
I lost _hours_ tracking down the meaning and use of the letter 'g' in 
ed. Unlike most of the rest of the letters in the alphabet, the man 
page comments for 'g' do NOT begin with the letter 'g' in the margin 
... nope, the first mention of the letter 'g' having global 
implications is buried in a paragraph. I caught it on my third 
read-through.
Grrrr!
</rant>
I am stuck with using this book for the duration of the class; but 
can anyone recommend a GOOD shell programming book to learn from? I 
am pulling straight A's in the class; but I think I am going to need 
some sort of remedial coursework when I am done.
I am cross-posting because I _need_ to learn Shell Programming and 
I've _gotta_ have better information than this book provides. We're 
talking a biological imperative, here. Real, dire, need.
Bill
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