Not what I expected | The AWK Programming Language | Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, ...

If you could have only one programming book... | The AWK Programming Language | Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, ...

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	• The AWK Programming Language Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, ... Addison Wesley, 1988 - 210 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Put this in your toolbox

I've become a big fan of Awk. Some people may tell you that Awk is outdated and no longer useful; not with other languages such as Perl and Ruby available. Well, Awk does one thing and does it well. It does it "fast enough" most of the time, and does it with a very small language.

Perl and Ruby are fine, but if you lean towards "small is beautiful", you must learn Awk. For times when you need it, it's a Godsend. I've used it recently to automatically generate SQL insert statements from some flat files and to do automatic code generation for larger languages.

Some of the best tools have survived the test of time.

In this book, I feel like I learned all the things I need to know about Awk - all the way from beginner to advanced. It's a classic. Not a lot of books get five stars for me. This book fulfills it's goals perfectly, so deserves a perfect rating.

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Not what I expected

I am torn about this book. My primary complaint is that this book costs so much. Its only a 200 page paper back book. I'm a sucker for classic books though. This text appears to be the original 1988 version by the authors. The actual text of the book is very good and being written by the authors of AWK, provides a certain view on the language and their intent that was well received. I do carry this book with me as a reference which I have found invaluable in my shell scripting endeavors. This book will give you a solid overview of the language. Be prepared for example references to the world of 1988 such as the USSR. Despite my complaints about the price, I have to admit that I enjoy owning this bit of Unix history and having the authors own words about AWK. From a practical standpoint however, I think that you can learn every bit as much about AWK by learning from freely available internet content on GNU/Linux versions of AWK (gawk). Since I have worked with Unix since about 1984, I have to concede being blinded by a bit of nostalgia. However, AWK is still a vital tool for anyone's shell scripting bag of tricks and this book will help you further develop your skills with AWK if you have only used it lightly in the past.

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If you could have only one programming book...

This is my choice for the answer to the question "If you were stranded on a deserted island and you could have only one programming book which book would you choose?". Over the years I have periodically returned to this book to read or work through for fun. "The AWK Programming Language" may be from 1988 but it is still outstanding! It has an incredible amount of depth for a book of only 200 or so pages. Well-written, concise, with great examples. Truly an enjoyable book to work through.

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The Publishers Should Be Ashamed of Themselves

This is a wonderful book -- but the price is ridiculous. I purchased a paperback copy of "The Awk Programming Language" about 15 years ago, and its price was in the $20 range. Times change, and prices go up, but $73 for a 200-page book, even if it is a hardcover, verges on outright theft.

Which is a shame, because this is a great book, written by the men who developed the language. In addition to a lengthy tutorial, it contains many examples of sophisticated programs that can be constructed from the simple tools provided by Awk. Anyone who supports computers for a living, whether in the Unix or Windows environment, can find valuable ideas here.

But the price: c'mon guys, you've got to be kidding. This book has been in print for 20 years now. You've long since made back the initial costs of publishing it. The authors are famous in computer science circles, and have written many other books. I'm sure they don't need the money. So I have to conclude that this is just a cash cow for the publishers.

If you're looking to learn about Awk, and you're on a budget, I would suggest "Effective Awk Programming" by Arnold Robbins. It's available in PDF form as a free download. If you'd like to support the author, buy a printed copy of the book, as I did. Published by O'Reilly, it's available in paperback at Amazon for about $26.

And if you can find a reasonably-priced copy of "The Awk Programming Language", by all means, grab it. It's a classic. Thanks to the publishers, however, it's a classic that's out of most people's reach.

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Amazing little language and book that will grow with you

In Unix today, several scripting languages exist: awk, perl, tcl and python. Awk is a small, easy-to-learn, yet powerful programming language, and is language of choice for quick, think- and analyze-on-the-fly tasks. This book is written by the inventors of this wonderful language. It provides an excellent introduction to the language, with many practical examples for day-to-day use. Over many years, it has also served as a good reference to the language. In addition, this book gives concise introduction to numerous fundamental algorithms in computer science (interpreter, calculator, parser, sorting, graph algorithms, ..), which I consult for complex tasks even today.

Always a joy to read! Highly recommended.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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