One of my original three superpowers after my first superhero origin was the ability to make any source code compile and run on a Unix operating system. I let that power rust when I became a full time systems administrator but I occasionally like to dabble again in that field. Towards that end I read a technical book on a related topic recently, Advanced Linux Programming. It’s been on my shelf for some time, perhaps years.
Despite the age it’s still pertinent to developing in C or C++ in the Linux environment. It does a decent job of covering the core concepts of different kinds of resources used by processes including threads. Many code examples make the nitty gritty manifest and it has pointers to even more resources, including a site dedicated to the book.
The target audience of this book is purportedly primarily Windows developers who have decided to develop on Linux. Right. Because that happens. But as it turns out, this book is well targeted for rusty Unix developers and dabblers like myself.
Who might like this book
- C coders who have somehow mysteriously failed to use this ‘looooo-nix’ thing
- Linux system administrators who can shrug off their sick dependency on webmin long enough to look at a command line
- Someone wanting to read about the innards of the Linux environment
Who might not like this book
- Windows users. It contains no Wizards, bluescreens
