Book Review: Linux Programming By Example

TBR writes “This is a book that is surely set to become a programmer’s classic. It has all the elements of a classic title: excellent technical content, clear exposition and an authorial voice that inspires confidence in the reader. If you’re just looking for the headline then you can skip the rest of the review right now – this is one book that we can recommend wholeheartedly.

The book starts from the premise that one of the best way of learning to program is to look at good programs. To this end Robbins uses solid GNU/Linux code, from a wide range of utilities and system tools, to introduce the reader to the core aspects of Linux programming. The code is there to illustrate good (and bad) practice, to show how things have evolved across the Unix world and also to point out common idioms and good coding ideas.

The range of topics is suitably diverse for a book that is looking at the ‘fundamentals’: files and users, processes and interprocess communication and a final section on debugging code. The stated aim is to look at the fundamentals, future volumes will look at things like GUI development separately. It’s not just the range of material that is impressive, it’s also the depth. Topics are handled well and there is never a feeling that difficult issues are being glossed over.

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