Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)

On Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:56:00 -0000 (UTC)
kalevi@kolttonen.fi (Kalevi Kolttonen) boringly babbled:

In comp.unix.programmer David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

No, you do not need your particular favourite out of the thousand and
one Linux programming books in order to program for Linux.  You do not
need /any/ book in order to write useful and successful code for Linux.
Of course you need /some/ reference - and in the days before the
internet was so easily available and so full of information, I went
through a lot of programming books.  Some were good, some less so, and
some have become famous.  But none of them were /necessary/ in any way.

>
Well, I am a quite bad programmer but I am interested enough in the
Linux/UNIX workings so that reading the newest APUE and The Linux
Programming Interface did not feel painful or unnecessary at all. On
the contrary, it was a great pleasure to examine what kind of
programming facilities my favourite OS offers.
>
Having these two books, or just one of them, is a great way to educate
oneself about Linux/UNIX. I see that The Linux Programming Interface
is available online as a free PDF, but I am not sure whether it is
a pirated version.
>
There is no better way to learn Linux/UNIX workings than these two
books. Period.

The advantage of books written by professionals is that the code and
explanations are usually much clearer and of better equality than the quickly
knocked up might-work-might-not crap you often find on stack overflow and
similar sites. Thats not to say good example code isn't out there but wading
through the rubbish can be a tedious business and IME its often quicker just
to reach for APUE or similar.