Apple Mac OS X Text Books (Part Two)

 by Jack Carter

Since writing on this subject last November, several new books have now been published. A current list of most Mac OS X books can be obtained by taking a print out on the main Apple Mac web site, http://www.apple.com/macosx/books.

WHEN APPLE COMPUTER INC. released the retail version of their new operating system on 24 March, 2001 the documentation was glossy but sparse. In part, that reflected the 'work-in-progress' state of the first release and in the months afterwards, only a few books were brought out to fill the large empty space.

In September 2001, Apple released a significant update, 10.1, and the subject matter had stabilized such that many authors and publishers felt they could write and print books about the new OS without their work becoming outdated quickly. It is now safe to buy a book on Mac OS X! There are now about 20 books on Mac OS X suitable for beginners through to UNIX gurus. This piece offers a round-up of the current crop (at April 2002) and a guide to choosing a book suitable for one's own needs.

A current list of most Mac OS X books can be had on a page on the main Apple website. Another good source of current books is the on-line book seller Amazon. The list below is based on this Apple list, but I have inserted the publisher and other detail.

When I first looked at Apple's Mac OS X book list I thought that Sybex Mastering Mac OS X, was the best one; and Osborne Mac OS X, was next best. But as more books were published I had to revise my assesment. Two books in particular stood out: SAMS, Mac OS X Unleashed and Que, Using Mac OS X.

I maintain that every serious student - and would-be expert - of the new Mac OSX system should aim to have at least two top-level books on this subject. The advanced student or expert person could have the SAMS book and one other of the top books. While the artistic or publishing expert could perhaps choose the Que book, or one of the books listed below.

I will deal here only with SAMS Mac OS X Unleashed, as I see this book as a breakthrough and a book that the advanced Mac user and the users of other operating systems have been waiting for.

COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEMS have been quite fascinating areas to study over the past 35 years. The Unix system was developed by AT &T in Bell Labs by its two leading experts Thompson and Ritchie. At the end of the main development period, in the early 1970's, one of them, Ken Thompson, the first leader, took the basic system to Berkeley University and worked on it for a further year or more. He and his associates there, then transformed the parts of it, into a free BSD Berkeley System Distribution to all the universities. Subsequently under Ritchie and others, the original system was modified by AT&T and made into a sophisticated licensed system of the Mainframe UNIX V system users.

Virtually all the classical Unix books are written about the commercially licensed UNIX V system. (This thumbnail summary leaves aside the other free (GNU) UNIX system used in Linux, which is important in other contexts, but is a relatively recent aspect.) Fundamentally there is only one additional "file" involved in the V system over the BSD system. This is countered in the BSD system by the "manuals" on all the different parts of the BSD system having a very extensive internal system of history and help built into them, that is not present in the classical manuals.

The BSD manuals are meant to be helpful. (In the same way other operating systems of the period, like OS/2 and DOS, in ZTreeBold and Xtree, had History and extensive help built into their "user friendly" "command systems". However the BSD manuals internal help is so extensive that it is almost overwhelming. This can happen the first time you try to access it by yourself, and do not have a textbook that sets it out in printed form, or a mentor to show you how it all works, or is supposed to work.

For some of us, the good news is that SAMS Mac OS X Unleashed actually has some third of its 1,464 pages displaying command line print outs. This is just what is needed by those who are involved in computer programming, or aspire to work at that level in the future.

This awe-inspiring book is published by SAMS and is written by J. Ray and W. Ray who both work at the Ohio State University. With a background like this they naturally are well up on Unix matters and the subtleties of the Berkeley University BSD Unix Software distributions, and why Apple has chosen to base a significant part of its new Mac OS X system on the tcsh UNIX shell.

This book has a positive attitude to using the UNIX terminal command line in the many areas of the Mac OS X system, where it has unique and vital powers. Why do I say vital? It is important to realize that the system has to have a terminal command access to the BSD UNIX system. For example if ever your computer has a serious fault that cannot be resolved by normal methods it may well be fixed by an advanced "NZ$100 an hour computer expert" carrying out "surgery" on very small parts of your system via the UNIX terminal command line. The (BSD) UNIX system and its command terminal is not an option that can be really left out.

However the SAMS Mac OS X Unleashed book brings out that there are certain areas of the background UNIX system that are disabled, and should not be used, and also where in some cases other procedures like Apple's use of the NetInfo Manager database is better.

SAMS Mac OS X Unleashed book contains hundreds of pages of command line examples, from chapters 12 to 18. This includes advanced shell scripting programming. It displays all this in a step-by-step way, by which a serious student will be able to gain an understanding and mastery of its fundamentals.

The book costs about NZ$132 or AU$108. It has only been available in UK six weeks ago, and for the last two weeks in NZ and Australia. Over the past two years I have bought some five books on UNIX, and this book by SAMS indicates that some of them do have UNIX information that is pertinent to the Apple Mac OS X system.

I therefore recommend SAMS Mac OS X Unleashed by John Ray and William Ray to all the technically advanced Apple Mac OS X users; and to all advanced computer operating system programmers and designers.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly I advocate, that others should, as finances permit buy and study textbooks that will really extend their knowledge. Of course textbook study does not guarantee success for everyone. Attending and supporting meetings of common interest groups, getting and giving practical help to one another, are equally important for many people. However there is now available a real range of useful books that can be used to master the new Apple Mac OS X operating system and enjoy its outstanding stability and performance qualities.

Jack's summary of the latest Apple Mac OSX Book List, including:- http://www.apple.com/macosx/books.

The list below is divided into four categories and each entry shows publisher, title, author, pages and price, together with comments.

I: for beginners ...

i SAMS, Teach Yourself OS X in 24 Hours, by John Ray, Robin Ness, Anne Groves, 429 pages, ISBN 0-672-32284-6. December 2001. (John Ray is a co-writer to a much larger book that was published subsequently in the Sams "Unleashed series"). I have seen this 24 Hour series book but not bought it. It is a good small book that would meet the basic needs of many users.

ii Peachpit Press, The Little Mac OS X Book, Robin Williams. 802 pages. $53 ISBN 0-200-74866-5. First printed in 2002. This book is quite outstanding and excellent for beginners or people coming from other operating systems. However, they will eventually need another book of similar quality between this book and the Ray & Ray 'masterpiece'.

iii Alpha, The complete Idiots Guide To Mac OS X, by Kate Binder, 365 pages, NZ$50. This has a tear-off front page of useful keyboard shortcuts. Also it has a useful list of web sites. The book makes a feature of catering for those who only want to learn the least they need to know about every thing, but nevertheless want to feel happy and positive about this approach.

iv Dummies Press, Mac OS X For Dummies, by Bob Levitus, 334 pages, NZ$30. This covers fewer points than most, but in some detail. The book has a lot of "dummies talk," but away from that, some of its information was very helpful when it first came out.

v Peachpit, Mac OS X Visual Quick Start, by Maria Langer, 247 pages, NZ$50. This book was produced before Mac OS X was publicly available, with the result that a small number of pictures were missing. The Visual Quick Start Series of books is very useful as an inexpensive, comprehensive, dictionary-like source of the important Mac dialog boxes.

II: intermediate books ...

i O'Reilly, Mac OS X: The Missing Manual by David Pogue ISBN 0-596-00082-0. Published March 2002. 524 pages. It is a good medium-sized book that will meet the needs of most users.

ii Peachpit, Mac OS X Visual Quick Pro Guide, by Maria Langer It is of a similar style to Mac OS X Quick Start but in a different series. "Visual QuickPro Guide" is pitched at intermediate to advanced readers. It is called Mac OS X Advanced. This newer book mainly contains material omitted from the beginners' book. It should be considered as a new book to purchase.

iii Coriolis, Mac OS X Little Black Book, by Gene Steinberg, 466 pages, NZ$90. The Little Black Book adopted a two-stage process of handling many topics. First a brief theoretical approach to each subject, followed by several practical solutions. This means that it covers perhaps fewer aspects, but what it does, it does well. (This book complemented the same publishers earlier book, The Mac OS 9.1 Black Book, by Bell & Suggs, NZ$125.) Both were well written and appropriate to the time when they appeared.

iv MacWorld (USA) Special issue, April/June 2002, 98 pages plus a 36 page Mac OS X tips and UNIX tricks booklet.

III: advanced ...

i SAMS Mac OS X Unleashed, by John Ray & William C Ray, 1464 pages, NZ$132. This is clearly the outstanding book and it has been discussed in some detail above. The SAMS Unleashed books have a great tradition of thoroughness and quality.

ii MacWorld. The Mac OS X Bible by Lon Poole and Dennis Cohen. 779 pages. ISBN 0-7645-3467-X. Distributed by IDG and others. This is very good; not as extensive as the two Ray's book, but does include some material not covered in that book.

iii Que, Using Mac OS X, by Brad Miser, 796 pages, NZ$105. This is a very good book, typical of the Que "Using" series of computer books. I had no problem in deciding to buy this book.

iv Coriolis, The Mac OS X Book, by Mark Bell, about 900 pages. About NZ$100. This is another very good book. Depending on what books you have already and a closer inspection of this books contents, it could be the book for you.

v Sybex, Mastering Mac OS X, by Todd Stauffer, 809 pages, NZ$90. This is second in my rating. It organizes some 25 chapters into five main parts, and is well written.

vi Osborne, Mac OS X Complete Reference, by Jessie Feiler, 764 pages, NZ$95. This has two very concise chapters 21 and 22 on using the command line and programming the Mac OS. This book also has separate chapters on Carbon, chapter 24 p.657 to p.670. Also it has two separate chapters on Cocoa. Chapter 25, p.671 to p.682, and another one, creating a Cocoa program, chapter 26 p.683 to p.715. (This book is similar in style and conciseness to the earlier Osborne Mac OS 9 The Complete Reference. by Gene Steinberg of 917 pages and costing NZ$90).

IV: some specialist books ...

i O'Reilly, Learning (Apple Mac) Carbon, by Apple programmers, not seen. Written in the context of system 9. The text is apparently still current.

ii O'Reilly, Learning Cocoa, by Apple Developers. Not inspected. But this subject is covered in chapters 25 and 26 of Sybex Mastering Mac OS X.

iii Prentice Hall. Mac OS X Web Server Hand Book, by David Hart, 395 pages, NZ$105. This is an excellent specialist book. It may be out of print now. Note that SAMS Mac OS X Unleashed has two chapters on web servers.

iv Wrox Press, Early Adopter Mac OS X Java, Murray T. Williams, Eric Albert, James Hart, John Hopkins, Daniel Steinberg, $100, 198 pages. A small super book for the specialist.

v New Riders, Mac OS X Programming, Dan Parks Sydow, $100, 362 pages, This is a book for the expert programmer, but large sections of it are suitable for the advanced user who seeks an understanding of Apple Mac OS X.

jackcarter_nz@mac.com

Wellington, NZ
11 April 2002