Thoughts on learning KSH (Korn Shell)
Suppose you're a person with minimal Unix experience, several years in the past, but now you have a job with some opportunity for KSH (Korn Shell) scripting.
What's a good way to go about learning it?
Here's a reasonably good "Korn Shell Beginner's Guide". A good place to spend and hour and learn the basic concepts: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-kornshellscripting/index.html
It's from IBM, and mentions "AIX", but ksh is portable software and should work the same everywhere.
The next step depends on your goals.
Scenario 1: If you have simple ksh scripts you need to create, pick one that seems relatively easy, and start writing! Some tips:
- Lots of simple questions can be answered by Googling. For example: "How to count to 10 in ksh" yields http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/it/UNIX/unix-help/system/korn_itr.html
- But Googling won't work for everyting so find someone that can answer your questions. Someone in your company or area that knows ksh and can help you when you get stuck is best. But, if you can't find a local human, you might get help from:
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs
http://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming
- To learn, just keep writing and writing. It takes time, but every time you learn something or write something you're making progress.
Scenario 2: But, if you want to learn KSH, but don't yet have scripts you need to write, but you want to learn ksh?
- I used to buy books, but now believe I can learn almost anything I want from online resources.
Here is more info about ksh: http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/~johnb/comp/unix/ksh.html
And there is: http://www.computerhope.com/unix/uksh.htm
In fact here is a pretty good book you can apparently read on-line! http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/unix/ksh/ch04_01.htm
I had hoped to find a good, free "how to learn programming with ksh" website, but I didn't. Sigh.
In any case, good luck!
-- Bryan
