4. Books on Shell, Script, and Web Programming

Programming Perl (Second Edition)

Wall, Larry & Christiansen, Tom & Schwartz, Randal; O'Reilly; 1997; ISBN 0-56592-149-6; 644pp.
See http://www.ora.com/catalog/pperl2/noframes.html.

Shell (as a programming language for more than trivial scripting) is dead. Perl rules in its place. This is the second edition of the definitive Perl book -- vastly better organized than the first, and it covers Perl 5.

Emmanuel Pierre keeps a short list of Perl books.

Programming Python

Lutz, Mark; O'Reilly; 1997; ISBN 0-56592-197-6; 880pp.
See http://www.ora.com/catalog/python/noframes.html.

The next step beyond Perl. Python is beautifully designed, has better integration with C, and scales up better to large projects.

HTML: The Definitive Guide (2nd Edition)

Musciano, Chuck & Kennedy. Bill; O'Reilly; 1997; ISBN 0-56592-235-2; 552pp.
See http://www.ora.com/catalog/html2/noframes.html.

The best HTML tutorial/reference I have ever seen, and the only HTML book you need unless you want to do CGI.

The Unix Programming Environment

Kernighan, Brian, and Pike, Rob; Prentice-Hall; 1984; ISBN 0-13-937681-X; 1984.

A true classic -- possibly the best single-book exposition of the Unix philosophy.