Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Linux Development Platform

Posted by timothy on from the robust-but-grainy dept.

honestpuck writes "Back before the advent of Mac OS X, my favourite (and for many years, only) development environment was one variety of Unix or another. The nicest thing about Unix was that the development environment stayed pretty much the same regardless of the variety; this stayed the same with the introduction of Linux." Honestpuck examines how true this still is (as well how accurate the chosen title is) in his review of Prentice Hall's The Linux Development Platform, below. The Linux Development Platform author Rafeeq Ur Rehman and Christopher Paul pages 320 publisher Prentice Hall PTR rating 7 reviewer Tony Williams ISBN 0130091154 summary Good guide to developer tools

The Linux Development Platform might be better titled "The GNU Development Platform" since almost all of the tools discussed come from the FSF, and those that don't are nevertheless open source; as a result they will run on almost any Unix variety. You know that the 'Linux' in the title is almost just a marketing ploy, but we will forgive Prentice Hall and the authors. Certainly more people will buy this book to learn about using these tools under Linux than under any other *nix variety.

The book starts with a short chapter on software development per se before getting down to the nuts and bolts. It starts in the obvious spot, with editors, and quickly covers choosing an editor before taking a brief look at Emacs, Jed and VIM. The rest of the book is devoted to much less contentious issues.

As a whole, the text provides a good grounding in using gcc, make, CVS and GDB, with enough extra information on smaller tools and larger issues (such as cross-platform and embedded systems) that you will not need more than this book and, perhaps, the man pages to understand and use these tools. Of course others, have written entire volumes on each of these topics, but for most of us this book will provide the information we need.

The Linux Development Platform comes with a CD containing the source for a fair number of the tools discussed, so you can build any tools which happen to be missing on your platform, though some of the included apps are, of course, already a version or two behind.

The writing is mixed in quality: while never bad, it has a slightly heavy, technical feel to it, often a bit wordy or cumbersome. This rarely gets in the way of understanding, but it does slow you down. The topic coverage is good, moving from a beginner level right through to a good understanding of each tool discussed. More importantly, all the tools you will need are covered.

I imagine this would make an excellent companion text for any programming course: note that it doesn't provide details on any programming language, but covers everything else you need to know regarding the development tools. It is thinnest in the discussion of editors, really only giving a brief overview of each. I cannot really see this as a fault since detailed coverage really would take a separate book, and this quick look is better than pretending to cover the topic well and failing. The other possible weakness is that there is almost no coverage of general Linux usage, so calling the book The Linux Development Platform is a bit of a misnomer -- it is really devoted to the tools available for development, not the underlying operating system at all. Once again, I feel that this lack is not serious; most buyers should know enough about the operating system and any attempt to cover it adequately would have swelled the size and cost of the book.

Prentice Hall PTR have a site for the book with a Table of Contents or you can see the whole book in HTML format at FAQs.org.

I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a good, general introduction to developing software on a Unix platform. Though it's not a cheap book, it is a good one. It was certainly a relief for me to find a good book in Prentice Hall's 'Bruce Peren Open Source Series' after a couple of flawed ones.

You can purchase The Linux Development Platform from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit a review for consideration, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

6 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. It's the little things... by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... like glib, gnet, gtk+ (hah! little!) but you know what I mean - these were things that people needed, so they wrote. We all benefit, and so does linux and unix.

    I guess one of the strengths of the unix development model is that my SGI and Sun boxes have all the linux libraries on them, and I don't think that's at all strange...

    Unix (before linux became mainstream) didn't have as much work in the class libraries (which like it or loath it, VC++ provided quite well).... Now it does.

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  2. Re:If you're interested in GNU dev tools... by ArchAngelQ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'll second this, with one note on it's quality. It really goes off on tangents with some very complex lexx and yacc code, which, not being that level of a system programmer, felt very hard to wade through. Not only that, but it felt as though it was there just to pad the book's length, as an included cd with the program's source would have been much more useful, rather than having the code, in full, in the book. It's not as if I can run gcc (or configure.sh) on the book.

    That out of the way, the coverage of the actual material, where it is covered, is excelent, absolutely as detailed as it needs to get, which is very. It's a complex topic, but one that will serve you well if you plan on building projects, rather than just contributing code, and even then, if there are new requirements you add to a project, knowing these tools is very handy.

  3. Real programmers... by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Give me diff, patch, CVS or RCS, make and emacs and I am a happy camper.

    Every year I have some yahoo come in and say how one IDE can do this, that, and the other thing - the best thing since sliced bread. Of course bells and whistles do not an IDE make (I would have said 'make an IDE', but, then I would be a liar on two counts).

    Emacs is fully extensible, and interfaces with all of the tools above. Additionally, I can run it over a telnet/ssh connection with ease (I don't use the mouse very much for two reasons; 1, I keep the keystrokes in my head for when I do need to use a telnet session, and 2, I have gotten to the point where I can do things faster using the keyboard than a mouse and keyboard combo in emacs.

    I even do my primary editing on my windoze box using emacs, and am in the process of writing python language equivalents to the most common unix command line utilities (already completed 'grep.py' - then want: make, diff, patch and other tools unavailable on the windows command line) as a learning process.

    --

    Lodragan Draoidh
    The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
  4. Yes, but how much would an affiliate get by Hal+The+Computer · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Ya, but what kind of a comission does Amazon pay? 1%, 5% 10%?
    As a matter of fact it also a question of how you phrase your question. If I'd asked:
    Do you think that Amazon.com should get all of your money as opposed to a portion going to the nice helpful person who pointed out the link to you?
    Most people wouldn't have a problem. Personally I'm just curious. Besides which, what use is money when you've got Karma? (Yep my Karma just jumped to excellant today, WAHOO!)
    --

    int main(void){int x=01232;while(malloc(x));return x;}
  5. don't forget Eclipse by Chuck+Bucket · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been using IBM's Eclipse IDE, and have been really happy with it. My requirements are more towards the CVS side with some coding as second, but it seems like a very polished tool that I much prefer over Ajunta.

    CB

    --
    free ipod and free gmail!
  6. Linux centric by B'Trey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Linux Development Platform might be better titled "The GNU Development Platform" since almost all of the tools discussed come from the FSF, and those that don't are nevertheless open source; as a result they will run on almost any Unix variety. You know that the 'Linux' in the title is almost just a marketing ploy, but we will forgive Prentice Hall and the authors. Certainly more people will buy this book to learn about using these tools under Linux than under any other *nix variety.

    Almost all of the tools (command line utilities, not major user apps) in Linux come from the FSF. How should this book have been different if it was oriented purely for Linux users? What tools should have been included that were left out? If you can't answer that question, then how do you justify commenting on using the word "Linux" in the title as a marketing ploy? The point you make, that it's applicable to other *nix systems, is a side effect of how *nix works and of the goals of the FSF. It doesn't mean the book is really a generic *nix book that they're calling a Linux book.

    --

    "The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.