[READ ME FIRST] Welcome to comp.unix.programmer (v1.18)
Andrew Gierth
Welcome to comp.unix.programmer, the definitive newsgroup for discussing
anything related to programming in the Unix environment.
This article is posted regularly to the group to provide information to
new readers, and act as a collection of pointers to further information.
*PLEASE* read the whole of this article before posting to the group for
the first time.
Please feel free to suggest additions or changes, particularly books and
other information sources.
Contents:
1. What *not* to talk about on comp.unix.programmer
2. Where to find more information, and answers to questions
3. What does "Unix" mean in the context of this newsgroup?
4. Other Unix-related newsgroups
1. What *not* to talk about on comp.unix.programmer
===================================================
Questions about using, administering, buying or selling, setting up,
installing, configuring Unix etc. etc. Here, we talk only about
*programming* Unix. (See list of other Unix-related newsgroups.)
Shell programming certainly qualifies as programming, but it has its
own newsgroup: comp.unix.shell.
Issues that are very specific to a particular flavour of Unix are best
discussed in the relevant newsgroup (see list). If in doubt, however,
crosspost between .programmer and the specific newsgroup.
Issues about programming in general, where there is no Unix-specific
issue involved, also don't belong here. Try comp.programming or the
various comp.software.* and comp.lang.* groups.
Posting your homework/course assignment questions to the newsgroup is
not a good idea. It's obvious what you're doing, and nobody will give
you the answers.
*NO ADVOCACY*. (Use comp.unix.advocacy instead.)
*NO BINARY POSTS*.
*NO ADVERTISING*. Announcement of new commercial products should be
done in comp.newprod. Announcements of free software are permitted.
*NO JOB ADVERTISEMENTS*. Use the regional *.jobs newsgroups instead.
2. Where to find more information
=================================
2.1 Frequently Asked Questions
------------------------------
There is an FAQ specifically for comp.unix.programmer; it's posted
to the group every two weeks, and archived in the FAQ archives.
The master copy (always the most recent, in both plain text and HTML)
may be found at:
<URL: http://www.erlenstar.demon.co.uk/unix/>
and a mirror copy is available at:
<URL: http://www.whitefang.com/unix/>
The plain text version is automatically archived at rtfm.mit.edu and
numerous mirror sites:
<URL: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/unix-faq/programmer/faq>
<URL: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.unix.programmer/faq>
<URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/programmer/faq/>
A Japanese translation can be found at
<URL: http://www.race.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~moro/unix-programmer/>
There is a more general Unix FAQ which can be found in the newsgroup
comp.unix.questions, or in the usual FAQ archives at rtfm.mit.edu.
<URL: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/unix-faq/faq/>
For network programming on Unix, try the unix-socket-faq, which is
available at:
<URL: http://www.lcg.org/sock-faq/>
Questions about the C language generally may be answered in the C
FAQ: <URL: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
(Note: questions about C in general are not appropriate for this
newsgroup)
Other Usenet FAQs are available in the archives at RTFM, and also
on the WWW at:
<URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs>
2.2 Books on Unix programming
-----------------------------
The most frequently recommended book by far is:
W. Richard Stevens,
"Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment"
pub. Addison Wesley 1992, ISBN 0-201-56317-7
Other recommended books:
W. Richard Stevens,
"Unix Network Programming" (second edition)
Volume 1: Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI,
pub. Prentice Hall 1998, ISBN 0-13-490012-X.
Volume 2: Interprocess Communications,
pub. Prentice Hall 1998, ISBN 0-13-081081-9.
(The planned third volume, "Applications", was never completed.)
The older one-volume edition of Stevens' book may still
be available:
W. Richard Stevens, "Unix Network Programming",
pub Prentice Hall 1990, ISBN 0-13-949876-1.
Rich Stevens died at the beginning of September 1999.
He will be greatly missed.
Donald Lewine,
"POSIX Programmer's Guide"
pub. O'Reilly and Assoc 1991, ISBN 0-937175-73-0
David A. Curry,
"UNIX Systems Programming for SVR4"
pub. O'Reilly and Assoc 1996, ISBN 0-56592-163-1
or indeed just about anything else published by O'Reilly.
Older, but perhaps still useful (especially for the basics):
Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike,
"The Unix Programming Environment"
pub. Prentice-Hall 1984, ISBN 0-13-937681-X
Marc Rochkind,
"Advanced Unix Programming"
pub. Prentice Hall 1985, ISBN 0-13-011818-4
(NOTE: the omission of any book from the above list is not a
criticism; please feel free to contribute additions, but I want to
keep this list fairly short. These recommendations are not mine,
but based on the number of people who have suggested each title.
Also, if you've suggested a book that I haven't added, it may simply
be because no-one else has mentioned it.)
Special Mention:
Eric S Raymond,
"The New Hackers Dictionary (3rd ed.)"
pub. MIT Press 1996, ISBN 0-262-68092-0 (p/b) 0-262-18178-9 (h/b)
This is the latest published edition of the Jargon File, the
text of which can also be found at:
<URL: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/>
<URL: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/jarg400.txt.gz>
2.3 Where can I get source for <some unix command> ?
----------------------------------------------------
Since commercial Unix vendors usually don't give out the source code
for their systems, here are some other places to look:
FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
The continuation of the 4.xBSD line, with all the AT&T-copyright
code expunged. Distributed under the BSD license, which has very
few restrictions on usage.
See ftp.freebsd.org, ftp.netbsd.org and ftp.openbsd.org and the
various mirrors of these sites.
The Free Software Foundation
As part of the GNU project, the FSF has implmenented versions of
most of the usual Unix commands, plus lots of great utilities.
Available from <URL: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/> and numerous
mirror sites around the world.
Linux
A Unix-like system distributed under the FSF's General Public
License, which guarantees availability of source code. Many
different distributions exist.
2.4 Where can I get source for <book title> ?
---------------------------------------------
Stevens' Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment:
<URL: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/books/stevens.advprog.tar.Z>
Stevens' Unix Network Programming (1990 edition)
<URL: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/books/stevens.netprog.tar.Z>
(There are also errata for the above books in the same directory)
Stevens' Unix Network Programming (second edition)
<URL: http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/>
For the O'Reilly books, look under:
<URL: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/oreilly/nutshell/>
Rochkind's Advanced UNIX Programming:
<URL: http://www.basepath.com/BookSoftware/>
3. What does "Unix" mean in the context of this newsgroup?
==========================================================
"UNIX" is a trademark currently controlled by The Open Group (which
resulted from a merger between the OSF and X/Open). They operate a
branding system based on a specification and a set of conformance
tests. The second version of their spec (known as "UNIX 98"; the
previous version was "UNIX 95") has recently appeared; there is also
a book, "Go Solo 2" (ed. A Josey, pub Prentice-Hall), which includes
a CD-ROM containing the specification.
For the purposes of this newsgroup, however, that definition is far too
narrow; we regard "Unix" as referring to the entire family of UNIX-like
operating systems, including *BSD, Linux, AIX, Solaris, UnixWare, IRIX,
HP-UX, etc. etc., not all of which are, strictly speaking, "UNIX"[tm].
A note on Posix: while the Posix (Portable Operating System Interface)
standards are usually regarded as the baseline of compatibility amongst
Unixes, many people don't regard the mere presense of a Posix.1
interface as qualifying an O/S as "Unix-like".
4. Other Unix-related newsgroups
================================
Newsgroups for other Unix-related topics
----------------------------------------
alt.unix.wizards Like comp.unix.wizards, only unmoderated
comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix Web servers for UNIX platforms
comp.security.unix Security in the Unix environment
comp.sources.unix Postings of complete, UNIX-oriented sources (Moderated)
comp.std.unix Discussion for the P1003 committee on UNIX (Moderated)
comp.unix.admin Administering a Unix-based system
comp.unix.advocacy Arguments for and against Unix and Unix versions
comp.unix.cde The Common Desktop Environment.
comp.unix.internals Discussions on hacking UNIX internals
comp.unix.large UNIX on mainframes and in large networks
comp.unix.misc Various topics that don't fit other groups
comp.unix.questions UNIX neophytes group
comp.unix.shell Using and programming the Unix shell
comp.unix.user-friendly Discussion of UNIX user-friendliness
comp.windows.x* Discussion about the X Window System
Newsgroups for specific flavours of Unix
----------------------------------------
comp.os.linux.* Various Linux-related newsgroups.
comp.sys.hp.hpux Issues pertaining to HP-UX & 9000 series computers
comp.sys.sgi.* SGI systems
comp.sys.sun.* SUN systems
comp.unix.aix IBM's version of UNIX
comp.unix.amiga Minix, SYSV4 and other *nix on an Amiga
comp.unix.aux The version of UNIX for Apple Macintosh II computers
comp.unix.bsd.* Various BSD-related newsgroups
comp.unix.cray Cray computers and their operating systems
comp.unix.machten The MachTen operating system and related issues.
comp.unix.sco.* Newsgroups relating to SCO Unix.
comp.unix.solaris Discussions about the Solaris operating system
comp.unix.sys3 System III UNIX discussions
comp.unix.sys5.misc Versions of System V which predate Release 3
comp.unix.sys5.r3 Discussing System V Release 3
comp.unix.sys5.r4 Discussing System V Release 4
comp.unix.tru64 Running, owning and administering Tru64 UNIX.
comp.unix.ultrix Discussions about DEC's Ultrix
comp.unix.unixware.* SCO Unixware (formerly Novell UnixWare)
comp.unix.xenix.misc General discussions regarding XENIX (except SCO)
comp.unix.xenix.sco XENIX versions from the Santa Cruz Operation
==========================================================================
--
Andrew Gierth (and...@erlenstar.demon.co.uk)