[olug] Reccomended Reads

[Christopher Cashell]

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 10:52 PM, Sam Flint <harmonicnm7h at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone have any favorited in relation to linux/software
> development? Adam's book doesn't count, sorry.

*Note: Sorry for the delay in sending this.  It grew a little beyond my
initial intention, and took a while before I could get around to finishing
it.*

I read, well, a **lot**.  Reviewing my technical library, here's the ones
that I think are the cream of the crop.  This might be a bit of a firehose
suggestion list, but I like to be thorough.

I'm going to break them into handful of different categories: Linux/Unix,
Networking, DevOps, Programming/Development, etc.  I'm also listing them in
roughly the order I would recommend reading them for each group, assuming
you were going to read them all through (in order).  Obviously, you can
pick and choose which ones appeal to you.  Those that really should be read
in a certain sequence, I'll try to note.  I'll include a short summary or
explanation of why each book is worth reading, too.

If there's any questions on any of the books here, let me know.  I'd be
happy to go into greater depth or discuss further details on them.

System Administration (focus on Linux/Unix):

*Linux in a Nutshell; by Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, Robert Love and
Arnold Robbins*

This book will be a bit of a chore to get through, as the majority of the
book is a list of commands, common usage, and a little information about
their most common options.  However, it's worth reading.  Working through
the whole thing will inform you about the hundreds of Unix commands that
have been around for decades.  That knowledge is gold.  When you're at a
command line, trying to get something done, half the battle is knowing that
a command exists that will do what you need, and the other half is
remembering what it's called.  The man pages will take care of the rest.
 Note: older editions of this book will give you 90% of the use at cheaper
price, and "Unix in a Nutshell" will get you about 75% of the value, too.

*Essential System Administration; by Aeleen Frisch*

This book has been a classic for years.  Well written, great cross-platform
coverage, and a ton of great information.  The one downside is that the
latest edition is now a decade old, so some of the information is a little
dated.  Luckily, the "unix design" has proved itself remarkably stable, so
this is still a great book.
*
*
*UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook; by Evi Nemeth, Garth
Snyder, Trent R. Hein, Ben Whaley*

This is one of the "must have" books on Unix/Linux System Administration.
 It is encyclopedic in its coverage, and very well written.  It is clear
enough to read through and learn from, while also being thorough enough to
make a great reference.  It does a great job with cross-platform (Unix)
coverage, too.

*Unix System Management Primer Plus; by Jeffrey S. Horwitz*

This book is a criminally unknown gem.  First thing to note, about 75% of
the book is not Unix (or Linux) specific, it's about general system
administration.  Secondly, this book is a little higher level than most in
this section.  It spends a little bit of time on command line and low level
details, but the majority of the book is bigger picture stuff.  This
shouldn't be your first System Admin/management book, but anyone who's
responsible for more than a few dozen machines, or for anyone who wants to
work up from Junior Engineer to Senior Engineer, this book should be a Must
Read.

*The Practice of System and Network Administration; by Tomas A. Lioncelli, *
*Christina J. Hogan, and Strata R. Chalup*

This book follows in the same style as Horowitz's *Unix System Management
Primer Plus*.  It covers system administration at a level above the command
line.  Things like planning, policies and procedures, upgrades, change
management, etc.  If your goal is to be a Senior System
Administrator/Engineer, or a manager in a Systems department, this is a
book you need to read.

*Windows Server 2008 Administrators Pocket Consultant; by William R. Staneck
*
*
*
Like it or not, we frequently have to deal with Windows.  Stanek's *Pocket
Consultant* books are incredibly handy for those times.  They take most of
the common admin tasks you might need to deal with and condense them down
to nice practical chunks. Excellent for a practical reference.

DevOps (SysAdmin/Programming crossover):

*Minimal Perl for Unix/Linux People; by Tim Maher*

This book is an interesting one.  First of all, it's written in a friendly,
"fun", easy to read style.  It approaches Perl from the perspective of a
system administrator, and introduces Perl by showing how it can replace
other command line tools and simpler scripting systems (awk, sed, etc).
 It's a different way of presenting a programming language, but for someone
with a decent Unix/Linux background, it'll ease you into Perl in a very
comfortable way.

*Automating System Administration with Perl: Tools to Make You More
Efficient; by David N. Blank-Edelman*

This book assumes a basic familiarity with Perl.  It then takes you on a
tour of possibilities in automation.  This is an area that a lot of people
overlook, but is a hallmark of great system administrators.  Every time you
repeat a task, you should ask yourself a few questions: *Am I going to have
to do this again? How frequently? How long does it take each time? How long
would it take to automate it?* The answer to these will help you decide
whether it's worth automating the task.  As you get into larger
environments, your ability to automate will be a huge factor in your
ability to scale.  This book will show you examples in numerous areas of
system administration and how to automate them.

*sed & awk; by Dale Dougherty and Arnold Robbins*

For many system administrators, sed is that tool you use to do simple text
substitutions (does it do anything else?) in a series of piped commands,
and awk is that weird old scripting tool that grumpy old beared unix guys
talk about.  In actuality, these are two of the most powerful tools in your
Unix/Linux toolbox.  They have an incredible amount of flexibility, and
you'll use them in one-liners and in shell scripts.  For simple text
processing (ad hoc log reports, etc), there is no tool better than awk.  If
I'm writing a script that I know will be more than 100 lines, I'll usually
grab Perl.  But for a first pass, awk is hard to beat.  I would bet that
3/4 of the Perl programs I've written that process logs are rewrites of
earlier awk scripts.

*Mastering Regular Expressions; by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl*

If you're working at a command line or working with any text processing
(including log processing), Regular Expressions will be very important for
you.  This book is the bible for Regular Expressions.  Now, most people
won't read this book in it's entirety, and that's ok.  Half of this book is
on generally using regular expressions, and half of it goes into the guts
of regular expressions, how they work, how they're implemented, and how to
do things with regular expressions that can only be described as insane.
 Great reference, though.

Programming/Development:

*How to Design Programs, 2nd Ed.; by Mathhias Felleisen, Robert Bruce
Findler, Matthew Flatt, and Shirriam Krishnamurthi*

This is a great book, although not quite what a lot of people expect.  This
book is an introduction to computer science.  It really is about designing
programs, and this is not a *How to Program in Language Foo* type of book.
 Note, the style of writing is a little different for this one (the authors
are MIT professors). Available online, free:
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/

*The C Programming Langauge, 2nd Ed.; by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M.
Ritchie *

This book is *the* book you need if you're going to learn or use C.  The
first time I saw it, I almost laughed at it.  It's a slim volume, roughly
200 pages, and I couldn't believe they wanted $40 for such a meager volume.
 Luckily, I got past my initial reaction and bought the book.  I soon
realized its value far outreaches the price.  This is not only the best
book on C programming, it's one of the better books written on programming.
It is a model of clear and concise writing.

*The Practice of Programming; by Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike*

This book is kind of like taking years of experience and condensing it into
a slim, easy to read book.  This language agnostic book (examples cross
nearly half a dozen languages) isn't about algorithms, or language
features.  It's like having an experienced software engineering mentor
standing over your shoulder telling you some of the best lessons he's
learned in his years on the job.

*Unix Programming Environment; Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike*

This book was written in 1984.  As it nears its 30th birthday, it's
obviously an outdated relic that serves no purpose outside of a quaint
picture of ancient history.  Except, it's still relevant.  Yes, there are
some details and specifics that are a little dated, but the book is still
very useful, and most of the information it is still fully applies today.
 This book is about programming with C in the Unix world, and it
illustrates the design philosophy and idea behind both Unix and C.

*The Art of Unix Programming; by Eric S. Raymond*

In many ways, this book is an expanded and updated take on *The Unix
Programming Environment*.  It covers more ground, and it isn't as focused,
but ESR does a great job of distilling the "unix philosophy", expounding
the benefits behind the philosophy, and explains how to develop software in
the unix style.  ESR's style does come off as a touch biased towards
Unix/Linux being the greatest thing in the history of computing, but it's
hard to fault the information.  The writing style is fun, and he includes
plenty of anecdotes/case studies and observations on "unix culture".
 Available online, free: http://catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/

*Modern Perl; by chromatic*

This book provides a nice introduction to "modern" Perl programming.  The
Perl language has evolved significantly over the years, and in the last 3-4
years, there's been a renewed interest in Perl.  Part of that interest
comes from updating the best practice and recommendations for Perl to take
advantage of modern OO techniques, improving code readability and project
scalability.  Today's Perl is not the Perl of 20 years ago, and this book
shows you how you *should* be writing Perl.  Available online, free:
http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl/chapter_00.html

*Effective Perl Programming, Second Edition: How to write Better, more
Idiomatic Perl; by Joseph N. Hall, Joshua A. McAdams, brian d foy*

This book won't teach you Perl.  But, it will make you a better Perl
Programmer.  This book is like a compendium of Perl experience, idioms,
best practices, and information.  It shouldn't be the first book you read
on Perl, and possibly not the second, but if you are writing Perl programs
that are larger than 100 lines of code, you should absolutely read this
book.

*Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment; W. Richard Stevens, Stephen
A. Rago*

This is a classic programming reference book.  If you're writing serious C
and you're doing it in Unix/Linux, this book is for you.  It has extensive
and in-depth coverage of the Unix API's covering IO (file, network,
terminal, etc), process handling, threads and threading, IPC, etc.  If you
need to talk directly to the OS, you need this book.

*Advanced Unix Programming; Marc J. Rochkind*

This book is similar in style and coverage to *Advanced Programming in the
Unix Environment*.  Depending on personal preference, this book could be a
reasonable alternative.  This one is a little bit easier read, while
Stevens goes a little more in-depth in certain areas.

*The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and Unix System Programming
Handbook; by Michael Kerrisk*

Another in the same vein of Stevens and Rochnkind, but with a stronger
Linux focus.  Kerrisk is best known for maintaining the Linux Kernel and
glibc man pages for nearly 10 years.  If you need a more thorough
reference, specifically for Linux APIs, this is your book.

*Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs; by Harold Abelson and
Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman*

This is kind of the spiritual successor to *How to Design Programs**.*  It
was used as an introductory Computer Science textbook at MIT for years, and
was written by MIT professors.  This is not a book you skim through in a
few evenings and then put to practical use.  This book is about thinking,
logic, and computer science, not just programming.  Available online,
free:  http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

Networking:

*Internet Core Protocols: The Definitive Guide; by Eric Hall*
*
*
This book covers TCP/IP at the protocol level (IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc),
along with a some coverage of common application protocols (HTTP, FTP, DNS,
etc).  In the modern world of computing, networks are a way of life.  Every
machine we touch is going to be on a network, so system administrators and
programmers need to have a solid grounding in network basics. Note: This
book does assume a basic knowledge of TCP/IP.  If you don't know what
TCP/IP stands for, or you've never heard of the OSI model, you shouldn't
make this your first networking book.

*TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols; by Kevin R. Fall, W. Richard
Stevens*

This is the TCP/IP bible.  If you want a truly excellent understanding of
TCP/IP at the packet level, this is the book to read.

*Network Warrior; by Gary A. Donahue*
*
*
If you find yourself responsible for managing network devices (switches,
routers, etc), this will be a great resource to have.  It doesn't go deep
on theory, but it is high on practical advice and examples.

Databases:

This section is missing some entries because I have yet to find books that
I thought were good enough that I could wholeheartedly recommend them.  If
anyone has recommendations, I'd love to hear them.

Databases are a bit of a tricky topic.  There are at least 4 distinct
subtopics that have to be considered, and most books tend to cover only
one, or maybe two, of them.  Additionally, depending on your role, you may
not need to have in-depth knowledge of all of them.

*[Book on SQL Queries]*

I think the best book on writing SQL queries that I've personally read so
far is *SQL Queries for Mere Mortals*, by John L. Viescas and Michael J.
Hernandez.  It was a solid book, but I didn't think it was great.

I've heard that *The Langauge of SQL: How to Access Data in Relational
Databases*, by Larry Rockoff is a good *introductory* book on writing SQL,
but I haven't read it yet.  I expect that you'd need a more advanced book
on SQL to complement it, from what I know of it.  Something like *Joe
Celko's SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming* by Joe Celko might make
a good companion.

*Head First SQL*, by Lynn Beighley is another one that's on my list to
check out, and might be a good book for introducing SQL.

*[Book on Database Design]*

There are tons of books on writing SQL queries, but not nearly as many on
good database design.  Database design is a topic that frequently gets
neglected.  Developers think that if they can write SQL queries, they can
design a DB schema.  Some SQL query books will even touch on DB design, and
may have a chapter on DB normalization.  DBAs are often stuck spending most
of their time managing the RDBMS software and may be lacking the domain
knowledge of the application, and not be in a good position to aid in
schema design.  Unfortunately, poor DB design will bite you in the ass
later.  If you don't understand database normalization, you shouldn't be
designing databases.

*[Book on Data Modeling]*

Data Modeling is a topic that gets ignored even more frequently than
Database Design.  Data Modeling is how you go from your data sources to
your database schema.  For example, figuring out how to properly transform
your product ordering process into a database falls under data modeling.

*SQL Cookbook, by Anthony Molinaro*
*
*
Like other books in O'Reilly's excellent "Cookbook" series, this book is a
specialized reference.  It won't explain SQL, but it might save your butt.
 The quantity and quality of SQL examples here is great.  If you are
working with SQL databases and you know what kind of query you need, but
don't know how to write it, there's an excellent chance this book will have
a "recipe" that can get you started.

*The Art of SQL; by Stephane Faroult, Peter Robson*

Like a few others on this list, this book is a bit of an oddball.  It won't
teach you SQL.  It won't teach you DB design.  It definitely shouldn't be
your first or second book on databases.  It will take you through advanced
database concepts and techniques and make you a better DBA.  It will show
you new ways of thinking about databases and why it's important to do so.
 This is one of the absolute best advanced database books I've read.

Other:

*Time Management for System Administrators; by Tom Limmoncelli*

I've got friends that work in other industries who will occasionally
comment on how they were bored at work, and had nothing to do that day or
even that week.  It's a bit of a foreign concept for me, because I usually
have a "to do" list that will keep me busy for the next 7 years.  In the
field of System Administration, there are always systems that could use
cleanup, updating, reworking, etc.  There's always processes that need to
be documented and after being documented, are candidates for being
automated.  This book can help us take advantage of the time we have and
maximize our efficiency.

*The Mythical Man-Month; by Frederick Brooks, Jr.*

An IT classic.  This is less a technical book, but should be a must read
for anyone who works in the IT industry.


Hopefully some of the suggestions will be useful.  I know I'm forgetting a
few, but I've got half of my IT books at work, and half of them at home
(spread across a couple of bookshelves).  If I think of any more, I'll send
an update.  Or maybe I'll post the whole list online somewhere, in case
anyone else wants suggestions on IT books.

> Sam

-- 
Christopher