what do I need to read?

Alan Post alanpost at sunflowerriver.org
Wed Apr 20 16:30:07 EDT 2011


On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 08:19:16PM +0000, Jane Andreas wrote:
>    As a person with a Nanonote, I am obviously more than a computer "user",
>    but I do not consider myself a "developer" either. Aside from getting a
>    degree, what do you think I should read to progress along the way of *NIX
>    programming and porting, compiling, etc.?
> 
>    My current project is reading through the Red Hat 5.2 Install guide and
>    putting it on my 1996 Laptop. After that what do you suggest I read?
> 
>    Thanks.

I think you'll probably get a lot of conflicting advice, I hope my
contributing to that problem won't make you feel like there is too
much to learn and do; this is a topic that is too easy to experience
information overload on.

I expect some people will disagree with this suggestion, but the
book "The Art of UNIX Programming" by Eric Raymond is a good
exploration of the accreted culture of Unix.  It's the best "Joining
Script" I know about: A book that walks you through the process of
what is available and what people do.

My experience is that there are a lot of skillsets involved in
participating in Unix.  While there is a lot of overlap, that's
not always so.  Compiling and Porting a program to a new
distribution is a different activity than writing that program in
the first place.

If something is not interesting, I wouldn't worry about skipping it
to focus on something that *is* interesting.  I think there is a
careful balance between finding something that is interesting,
(*almost*) achievable with your current skillset, and useful.  If
you can think up some project that meets all three of those
requirements; you'll be amazing!

-Alan
-- 
.i ma'a lo bradi ku penmi gi'e du




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