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Books or primers on shell scripting?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Durham, NC
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I think I'm going to find some use for shell scripts later this year, so I want to start learning to write them. I don't think I'll have much trouble learning, but am not sure where to start. If anyone can recommend a good reference book or online resource, I'd appreciate it.
I'm one of those people who likes to use physical books for learning computery/programming topics, but I don't mind supplementing them with digital sources, so recommendations of both kinds are welcome.
Thanks.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Houston, TX
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Durham, NC
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I don't actually know just yet. I'm going to grad school in the fall, and I've heard that there's shell scripting that comes in handy for the kind of data analysis I might be doing. I didn't ask what shell folks use, though I imagine it'll be up to me.
I don't have a preference of yet, and I'd ask for recommendations, but I realize that it's one of those topics that can get religious. Are the scripting differences huge between the shells?
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Admin Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Boston, MA
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slugslugslug,
Shell scripts can be very useful. Many people write bash scripts regardless of what shell they use.
However, I strongly encourage you to learn a language like Python instead, which make things just as easy as shell scripts and offers you a better language with less quirks that can be scaled up.
Python scripts can be invoked just like a shell script and almost every modern system has Python already installed on it.
Also if you're doing data analysis, hands down Python wins over traditional shell scripting languages. :-)
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"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain" (Schiller)
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Durham, NC
Status:
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Thanks parallax. I'm actually already working through Learning Python. It seems like a lot of folks like it, and the latest version of SPSS has some Python APIs. So it seemed like a good time to at least get a handle on that. I just figured I'd pick up on shell scripting as well.
I may be working on some fMRI experiments, and from what I understand folks use shell scripts to invoke command-line data analysis tools for batch processing. I imagine this'll also be doable via Python (or pretty much any language that lets you run shell commands), but if I come across other folks' examples written as shell scripts, I want to be able to read them. So the tip about bash is useful.
Maybe I'll get O'Reilly's bash book while they've still got the buy-2-get-1-free sale on their website.
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