Rating:  - Very well done introduction to shell programming
This book doesn't theoretically require one to know anything about programming. Still, it is quite helpful to have experience with some programming language, since comparisons with other languages (particularly C) are pretty frequent and often used to explain certain concepts.
More than that, experience with the UNIX/Linux environment definitely helps.
The book starts off with a basic review of some useful shell commands (from ls to grep passing thru regular expressions). It then goes on to explain how to link these commands together (pipes, variables, loops etc.) to make useful scripts to handle common and not too complicated system administration tasks.
At the end of the book there also is a quite useful summary of shell commands which works as some sort of reference.
The writing style is clear, and attention is paid to warn the user from falling in common syntax errors such as misuse of quotes, and how and why they can lead to results quite different to those one would expect.
The main drawback i found, is that the examples presented are most of the times way too simple. That can surely help people with little confidence in programming, but may bore people that do already have programming knowledge and wish to be introduced to more complex tasks more rapidly.
All in all, i surely like this book, both for how things are explained and for how they are organized. And it surely is high quality for the price. I wouldn't recommend it to an experienced programmer, which might be better of with a more technical approach, but if you fall anywhere between 'noob' and 'competent programmer' you will probably enjoy reading this book before you move on to something more advanced.
Rating:  - A solid reference book on shell programming
This third edition is still based on the classic UNIX shell programming book Kochan put out in the late eighties. The benefit of this edition is that it includes POSIX standard support for constructs supported by the Bash and Korn shells. It is no longer restricted to the Bourne shell.
There are many thoughtful insights appearing throughout the book, which makes it an excellent reference book. If using it as a text book, it is a little slow getting into the actual programming; you may find yourself bogged down in regular expressions that are covered in chapter 4.
Overall, this is one of the better books I have seen on Shell Programming.
Rating: - A must have!
I was recently thrown into the world of Unix at work. Like most people I was a windows programmer/user and didn't even know what Unix was. After reading the reviews, I picked this up and must say its the very best book on programing I've ever read. I have books on XML, XSLT, SQL SERVER, VB, C# and more, but none of this books taught be faster than Unix Shell Programming, Third Edition. This is a must have for the beginner!
Highly recommended.
Rating: - Get "Classic Shell Scripting" by Arnold Robbins instead..
This book is good, actually quite good, but for a beginner. The reason of the title and four stars is, for a beginner, I would still recomend the gold standard, age old "The UNIX Programming Environment" by Kernighan and Pike, the first five chapters (unless you know decent amount of C). If it comes to writing portable shell and also getting an introduction to Awk, the other two books are far better. No offenses to Stephen Kochan, I am a fan of his C book.. !
Rating: - Nice Beginner or Reference Unix / Linux Book
I wish this was the book we used last quarter since it is MUCH better. It is this quarter's UNIX / Linux textbook (Shell Scripting although it also covers the basic commands) This book is highly reccomended for the Linux beginner or for someone who wants a very good reference book.
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