Using csh & tcsh

Rating:
Summary: Excellent summary of csh / tcsh
Review: I've been a csh and tcsh user for many years now, using tcsh on a daily basis. This book taught me even more about my familiar shell. The author makes it clear that his intent is to make the reader more productive in the shell environment, and he provides all the information and examples necessary to do just that.

As noted, this book does not cover csh-style shell scripting at all. If you're looking for a scripting reference, look elsewhere.

If, however, you're looking to improve your overall knowledge of csh and tcsh as far as daily is concerned, look no further. When combined with the manpage, this book makes both an excellent tutorial and reference.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent summary of csh / tcsh
Review: I've been a csh and tcsh user for many years now, using tcsh on a daily basis. This book taught me even more about my familiar shell. The author makes it clear that his intent is to make the reader more productive in the shell environment, and he provides all the information and examples necessary to do just that.

As noted, this book does not cover csh-style shell scripting at all. If you're looking for a scripting reference, look elsewhere.

If, however, you're looking to improve your overall knowledge of csh and tcsh as far as daily is concerned, look no further. When combined with the manpage, this book makes both an excellent tutorial and reference.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best book on LEARNING to USE the shell
Review: I've seen many books on unix shells, however almost all the other books focus on shell programming instead of actually using shell to work more effectively and efficiently. This book fills the gap (hence the name "Using...". I personally recommend Zsh if you are looking for the most comprehensive shell. However zsh is too comprehensive and there is no book on it. Tcsh shell is an EXCELLENT shell to do your work (type in commands, listing files, and etc). It has all the essential goodies: command line completion, command-line editor, history, and etc. It found it more friendly than ksh and less complex than bash and/or zsh. This book teaches you step by step how to use the shell to do your every day work effectively. The author explains everything clearly which is more than what I can say about many books that just touches a little bit of using the shell as a command interpreter aspect of the shell as if everyone spend more time writing the shell scripts than using the command line. These aspect of the csh/tcsh are the basis for similar utilities in the other shells: ksh, bash, and zsh. I find that even if you use bash or zsh, you'll appreciate the information in the book. The other reason the author didn't write much on programming is because c-shell is less frequently used in shell programming because of the now famous posting of "C shell programming considered harmful", which is also on the book's homepage. If you have the patience to read through the book, you will find it an excellent investment of time. (The only other book I would say this for sure is the "Learning the vi Editor."

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Tutorial for csh and tcsh
Review: If you use Unix and have never tried the tcsh shell, I highly recommend that you check it out. This book is one of the few sources of information on this shell besides the man page. While the man page makes a great, if terse, reference, this book explains the most useful features in plain English. However, if you use just the csh shell, do not use Unix often, or are not willing to spend the time to customize your shell or memorize arcane command syntax, owning an entire book on the shell is probably overkill.

Rating:
Summary: "Where's the rest of me?" - Ronald Reagan in "King's Row"
Review: Is it just me, or shouldn't a work which purports to teach how to use a shell which includes such conditional statements as "if", "else" and "then" actually explain their syntax and usage... or even ACKNOWLEDGE their existence in more than passing?

This book contain NO instructions on how to use statements to control program flow. I can't even find the word "if" in the index. That is the equivalent of a driver's education video which never shows the steering wheel or how it's used, and only alludes without explanation to its existence.

Apparently other people writing about Csh/Tcsh seem to think so, since they at least bother to mention statements which control program flow. Of course those sources were available free from the Web. I guess that the more expensive the source, the more nebulous and incomplete the information provided....

Rating:
Summary: I can explain the wide disparity in reviews of this book!
Review: The five reviews of this book that have come in ahead of minerange from 1 star to 5! The reason is simple, but the people panningthe book didn't explain (or understand?) the problem verywell.

Here's the dope: a Unix shell is both an interactive commandinterpreter, and an environment for writing scripts, which arebasically programs using the interactive commands and some logicalcontrol structures to automate tasks that don't really need to be runinteractively.

The author of this book, Paul Dubois, is of theopinion that neither csh nor tcsh are appropriate environments forshell scripting. I happen to disagree with him, at least insofar as Iteach a little shell scripting in tcsh in my sophomore level softwarecourse. However, his opinion is worthy...making the argument that cshand tcsh shouldn't be used for shell scripting. Dubois recommends shand perl for scripting.

So it boils down to this: this is anexcellent book for learning how to make the most of the interactiveenvironment of csh and tcsh. It's loaded with neat tricks and goodinsights. And it's a particularly good reference for tcsh, whichusually gets little mention in other books.

If, on the other hand,you want a book about shell scripting, save your money: THIS IS NOTTHE BOOK FOR YOU. It has no material on shell scripting.

Rating:
Summary: I can explain the wide disparity in reviews of this book!
Review: The five reviews of this book that have come in ahead of minerange from 1 star to 5! The reason is simple, but the people panningthe book didn't explain (or understand?) the problem verywell.

Here's the dope: a Unix shell is both an interactive commandinterpreter, and an environment for writing scripts, which arebasically programs using the interactive commands and some logicalcontrol structures to automate tasks that don't really need to be runinteractively.

The author of this book, Paul Dubois, is of theopinion that neither csh nor tcsh are appropriate environments forshell scripting. I happen to disagree with him, at least insofar as Iteach a little shell scripting in tcsh in my sophomore level softwarecourse. However, his opinion is worthy...making the argument that cshand tcsh shouldn't be used for shell scripting. Dubois recommends shand perl for scripting.

So it boils down to this: this is anexcellent book for learning how to make the most of the interactiveenvironment of csh and tcsh. It's loaded with neat tricks and goodinsights. And it's a particularly good reference for tcsh, whichusually gets little mention in other books.

If, on the other hand,you want a book about shell scripting, save your money: THIS IS NOTTHE BOOK FOR YOU. It has no material on shell scripting.

Rating:
Summary: "Where's the rest of me?" - Ronald Reagan in "King's Row"
Review: This is an example of an author who didn't finish his work. This book's title verb "Using.." is misleading to say the least. There is not one iota of coverage in here about shell scripting constructs like control flow! This means you will not learn about: while, switch, if-then-else, break, continue, goto, and the like in here. If one uses a shell, s/he would most assuredly need to learn the control constructs so as to write loops, test variables,and the like. The author says [in private email] that in so many words, he is a fan of Tom Christianen who once wrote that c shell programming is considered harmful. How else would one pass some complex test across all files in a dir, for example? I need to do such things regularly. What does Mr Dubois recommend for these needs? Jump into sh/bash, do it the correct way, then exit back into csh/tcsh? I don't think so. Why didn't he include the whole picture, and let each choose what s/he found useful, instead of censoring out what he didn't like about the features of these shells?! If Mr Dubois couldn't, or wouldn't explain the full feature matrix of these shells, why even write a book about csh/tcsh?!? Maybe he doesn't really know the material fully, or else didn't have time to fully research and try out the full power that these shells give one. Why didn't he just write a book about ksh, bash, or something else that he really knows about or approves entirely about?! I purchased the book over the net, and was unaware that the author stated on the rear cover that no programming constructs were covered. I didn't have the luck to peruse the book at a local store first, lest I would have passed on it. caveat emptor

Rating:
Summary: worthless, utterly worthless
Review: This is an example of an author who didn't finish his work. This book's title verb "Using.." is misleading to say the least. There is not one iota of coverage in here about shell scripting constructs like control flow! This means you will not learn about: while, switch, if-then-else, break, continue, goto, and the like in here. If one uses a shell, s/he would most assuredly need to learn the control constructs so as to write loops, test variables,and the like. The author says [in private email] that in so many words, he is a fan of Tom Christianen who once wrote that c shell programming is considered harmful. How else would one pass some complex test across all files in a dir, for example? I need to do such things regularly. What does Mr Dubois recommend for these needs? Jump into sh/bash, do it the correct way, then exit back into csh/tcsh? I don't think so. Why didn't he include the whole picture, and let each choose what s/he found useful, instead of censoring out what he didn't like about the features of these shells?! If Mr Dubois couldn't, or wouldn't explain the full feature matrix of these shells, why even write a book about csh/tcsh?!? Maybe he doesn't really know the material fully, or else didn't have time to fully research and try out the full power that these shells give one. Why didn't he just write a book about ksh, bash, or something else that he really knows about or approves entirely about?! I purchased the book over the net, and was unaware that the author stated on the rear cover that no programming constructs were covered. I didn't have the luck to peruse the book at a local store first, lest I would have passed on it. caveat emptor

Rating:
Summary: "Type Less, Accomplish More" is right!
Review: This is the book I wish I had found years ago. It is a no-nonsense approach to using a Unix utility that few people exploit to its full potential. I've often thought in the past, while performing some tedious, repetitive task: "There's *got* to be a better way to do this!" Paul DuBois' book has shown me how.

One thing I particularly like about his approach is that he doesn't try to sell csh as some kind of "mega language" that can be adapted to all scripting tasks. Its states explicitly on the back cover: "This book does not cover programming or script writing in csh or tcsh because these tasks are better done with a different shell, such as sh (the Bourne shell) or a language like Perl." The emphasis is on interactive use, an area in which tcsh shines.

Speaking of tcsh, I appreciate that the author comes right out in Chapter 1, pg. 5 and says: "I recommend you make tcsh your login shell for daily work. tcsh is more powerful and convenient than csh, and can help you get your work done more effectively." The first book I bought on this subject ("Unix C Shell Field Guide") didn't even mention the extended features of tcsh, and it went into *way* more scripting examples than I cared to read (i.e., the Swiss Army knife approach to csh). I was just looking for a way to minimize my typing and maximize productivity, like the Unix wizards I used to see hanging around the computer labs in college.

I remember watching those guys and being amazed at the pages and pages of data that would scroll by as they calmly typed in keystrokes. I thought they must be typing a mile-a-minute to be getting all that output, but they never broke a sweat. It was almost like watching a jazz musician or something; they made it look so--effortless! Now I know why. They weren't typing nearly as much as I thought. They'd merely mastered the ins and outs of using their shell to streamline their work.

That's exactly the focus of "csh & tcsh": how to "Type Less, Accomplish More". If you use unix daily, and haven't already mastered a shell that works for you, this book is a great place to start. I finally "get it" now, finally understand why your shell is your best friend in unix, and becomes very much like a custom-tailored suit.

The only caveats I have in recommending the book are: 1) if you're already very adept at using ksh, bash or some other feature-rich shell, you probably need it less than I did, and 2) if you don't have the option of using tcsh on your system, it'll probably depress you to no end!