Learning the Korn Shell (2nd Edition)

sed & awk (2nd Edition)

Hands-On KornShell 93 Programming

Mastering UNIX Shell Scripting

Learning the vi Editor (6th Edition)

Shell

The New KornShell Command And Programming Language (2nd Edition)

Format: Paperback
Author: Morris I. Bolsky
ReleaseDate: 27 March, 1995
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Rating:

Best book for ksh88 or ksh93
I still find it to be the best
reference. I have been using this book in my shell scripting classes for
about seven years now. One of the many things I like about it is that it
clearly identifies ksh88 and newer (e. g. , ksh93) features. It
does not address pdksh, found on many Linux systems as /bin/ksh,
but you can get real AT&T ksh93 for free so why use pdksh? My
only complaint is that the book is rather long in the tooth
(1995) and there are a lot of new features in ksh93-k+ let alone
ksh93-o (the current release). A new edition is overdue.

In the same shell scripting class, I teach ksh93, nawk, sed, and
expect. I find, with this book, the students can do everything
they might have done in nawk or sed in straight ksh93. Other
ksh books do not, in my experience, give the students the
information necessary that they can do that.

Still the best
That goes for C++ (Stroustrup), Java (Gosling), and C (Ritchie). I always recommend reading the book by the inventor/creator of the language. This book is no exception. Warning: it is a bit dry at times. It is heavily cross-referenced. The backcover is invaluable as a reference.
There is one gotcha, however. This is about Ksh93 and most UNIX computers (unfortunately) run Kornshell 88. Ksh93 is much better.

Good for language implementors, bad for others

Clearly, it is the canonical reference for the Korn Shell Language. ksh is the shell of my choice, thus I was anxious to read "the" book co-authored by David Korn himself. Every single feature and obscurity of ksh is described here.

However, the book is not in the least an enjoyable read, nor is it of use for people who, like me, prefer a book with lots of practical code examples, rather than dry text only.

The typesetting quality is very poor. The text looks like a 300k ASCII file printed out. For example, I believe this is the only technical book I know of that doesn't use any tables (!). These things (among others) make it very hard to come back to certain information while writing your scripts. All in all, a much clearer visual structuring would be desirable.

There are way too few programming examples (many of which are quite obscure). If you are looking for those small and practical code snipplets for "everyday use", pick up the ksh93 book by Barry Rosenberg instead of this one!.