Rating: 
Summary: Best book for ksh88 or ksh93
Review: I have been using this book in my shell scripting classes for
about seven years now. I still find it to be the best
reference. One of the many things I like about it is that it
clearly identifies ksh88 and newer (e.g., ksh93) features. It
does not address pdksh, found on many Linux systems as /bin/ksh,
but you can get real AT&T ksh93 for free so why use pdksh? My
only complaint is that the book is rather long in the tooth
(1995) and there are a lot of new features in ksh93-k+ let alone
ksh93-o (the current release). A new edition is overdue.In the same shell scripting class, I teach ksh93, nawk, sed, and
expect. I find, with this book, the students can do everything
they might have done in nawk or sed in straight ksh93. Other
ksh books do not, in my experience, give the students the
information necessary that they can do that.
Rating:
Summary: Best book for ksh88 or ksh93
Review: I have been using this book in my shell scripting classes for
about seven years now. I still find it to be the best
reference. One of the many things I like about it is that it
clearly identifies ksh88 and newer (e.g., ksh93) features. It
does not address pdksh, found on many Linux systems as /bin/ksh,
but you can get real AT&T ksh93 for free so why use pdksh? My
only complaint is that the book is rather long in the tooth
(1995) and there are a lot of new features in ksh93-k+ let alone
ksh93-o (the current release). A new edition is overdue. In the same shell scripting class, I teach ksh93, nawk, sed, and
expect. I find, with this book, the students can do everything
they might have done in nawk or sed in straight ksh93. Other
ksh books do not, in my experience, give the students the
information necessary that they can do that.
Rating: 
Summary: Pithy and informative
Review: I make my living writing Korn shell, and of all the books on Korn, this is the one I could least do without. Pros: I've known people to buy this book simply for its back cover, as the index of topics on the back is enough to dig up information on the topics covered. The book is dense, not a tutorial really, more a reference text for ksh related topics. This is a book to be read on an as-needed basis, a cookbook for the "how do I get -this- to work!?" crowd. Cons: I don't recommend it as anyone's first programming book. Even for the systems administrator, I'd recommend Nemeth et al. and Aeleen Frisch's books on administration as supplements for Unix related topics. There are essential things about shells and shell scripting (statically linked versus dynamically linked shells) that will never be learned in a shell programming book, that are critical to knowing when and where a shell language can be used.
Rating:
Summary: Pithy and informative
Review: I make my living writing Korn shell, and of all the books on Korn, this is the one I could least do without. Pros: I've known people to buy this book simply for its back cover, as the index of topics on the back is enough to dig up information on the topics covered. The book is dense, not a tutorial really, more a reference text for ksh related topics. This is a book to be read on an as-needed basis, a cookbook for the "how do I get -this- to work!?" crowd. Cons: I don't recommend it as anyone's first programming book. Even for the systems administrator, I'd recommend Nemeth et al. and Aeleen Frisch's books on administration as supplements for Unix related topics. There are essential things about shells and shell scripting (statically linked versus dynamically linked shells) that will never be learned in a shell programming book, that are critical to knowing when and where a shell language can be used.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Is David Korn the author of the Korn shell? I usually don't quite care about the author. But this book is excellent. It makes me believe Perl cannot completely replace unix shell programming.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for language implementors, bad for others
Review: ksh is the shell of my choice, thus I was anxious to read "the" book co-authored by David Korn himself. Clearly, it is the canonical reference for the Korn Shell Language. Every single feature and obscurity of ksh is described here. However, the book is not in the least an enjoyable read, nor is it of use for people who, like me, prefer a book with lots of practical code examples, rather than dry text only. The typesetting quality is very poor. The text looks like a 300k ASCII file printed out. For example, I believe this is the only technical book I know of that doesn't use any tables (!). These things (among others) make it very hard to come back to certain information while writing your scripts. All in all, a much clearer visual structuring would be desirable. There are way too few programming examples (many of which are quite obscure). If you are looking for those small and practical code snipplets for "everyday use", pick up the ksh93 book by Barry Rosenberg instead of this one!
Rating:
Summary: Good for language implementors, bad for others
Review: ksh is the shell of my choice, thus I was anxious to read "the" book co-authored by David Korn himself. Clearly, it is the canonical reference for the Korn Shell Language. Every single feature and obscurity of ksh is described here. However, the book is not in the least an enjoyable read, nor is it of use for people who, like me, prefer a book with lots of practical code examples, rather than dry text only. The typesetting quality is very poor. The text looks like a 300k ASCII file printed out. For example, I believe this is the only technical book I know of that doesn't use any tables (!). These things (among others) make it very hard to come back to certain information while writing your scripts. All in all, a much clearer visual structuring would be desirable. There are way too few programming examples (many of which are quite obscure). If you are looking for those small and practical code snipplets for "everyday use", pick up the ksh93 book by Barry Rosenberg instead of this one!
Rating: 
Summary: Not much practical use...
Review: Most experienced Sysadmins recommand the use of the TC shell for interactive use and the Korn shell for writing scripts. Fine. Except that this book does not provide a good introduction to writing scripts. Even the experienced script writer will be at a loss in the details the authors go. The examples are useless: they never say what they are supposed to do and they never tell you the results. And main criticism: I have yet to find a system where the _new_ kornshell (which came out in 93) is installed...
Rating:
Summary: You will instantly be able to use this information.
Review: The contents of this book will help you in any environment were yo pogram in Korn Shell.
Rating:
Summary: Good info for more experienced ksh programmers.
Review: While it may be a bit heavy for beginners, this book is full of good info for more experienced ksh users and programmers, especially if you want to use more of the built in features included with the 1993 release.
Beginners might want to try out O'Reilly's Learning the Korn Shell, even though it only covers the 1988 version of ksh. This book is geared for folks who already have a bit of time working with ksh. Keeping that in mind, I think it's the best resource available for the shell available, especially considering Dr. Korn wrote the book.
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