Advanced Linux Programming
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Spotlight Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 4.05Customer Rating: 4
Summary: Concise intro to Linux systems programming
Comment: This book offers a concise introduction to systems programming on Linux. While the title includes the word "Advanced", it is, as others have noted, an introductory book. It is only "Advanced" in the sense that it assumes that the reader is already a competent C programmer.
The main focus on the UNIX programming section is on threads, IPC and processes. It also includes a concise primer on using tools such as gdb, make, gcc, and emacs. The second part focuses on Linux specifics: Devices, the proc filesystem and Linux system calls. There's also a section on inline assembly, and security (not really Linux specific), and the book ends with a sample application.
The reason this book gets "only" 4 stars is that I find it too Linux-centric. For example, the authors recommend getopt_long, which is not portable, though it is convenient. autoconf and libtool, which are essential to obtain maintain portability across multiple gcc versions, are not even mentioned.
On the other hand, the in-depth coverage of Linux features is useful. But it would be nice if the authors were more clear about which functions were Linux specific, and which were general POSIX /XOpen calls.
The highlight of the book is the sample application. The application is a simple web-server that uses dynamically loaded modules. http://webserver/foobar runs the foobar module. I consider dynamic "modular programming" ("plugins") to be an important and neglected programming paradigm, concealed beneath hype about "Object Oriented" programming. Most large-scale architectures make heavy use of modules. For example, KDE, GNOME, Apache, Perl, the Linux kernel, and Mozilla all make heavy use of dynamically loaded modules. The sample application gives some insight into how large scale modular projects work.
My conclusion -- this book is certainly a worthwhile addition to a Linux programmers bookshelf, though I still consider "Beginning Linux Programming" (Stones/Matthew) to be the best introductory book for a complete introduction to programming on Linux, and more generally, UNIX.
Customer Rating: 3
Summary: Basic basic linux programming and not good
Comment: I bought the "beginning linux programming" by Richard Stone and Neil Matthew( i listed the authors because there is anohter book same title) and I bought this one because of the hi mark and hope it would help my linux programming skill but I was so disappointed. Nothing in this book is not covered by the BLP which even explaines better and more examples. I thought advanced programming book should give in depth coverage of topics or techniques or common mistakes from beginner but this book doesn't not. I usually buy book based on the rating if i can't check out at bookstore so I want people to know. The decision is yours but check the book first.
Customer Rating: 5
Summary: I recommend it to everyone !
Comment: This is very very usefull book for those, who have some knowledge in basic Linux or Win32 programming. It is very clear style of explanation, very usefull examples and detail review on key concepts. The authors try to learn us to write good, professional code and do not make some dummy faults.
If you want to be profi - this stuff is for you.
Vadim Kataev