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Sink or Swim
Post 309 by Neo on Tuesday 21st of November 2000 05:24:35 PM
11-21-2000
Administrator
The paraphrase or interpretation of our posts to the tune "trial-by-fire" and "sink-or-swim" is somewhat misleading, but interesting 
Throughout all the posts, the advice has been to get the foundation texts (and the references are provided below),
build your own UNIX system(s) and learn step-by-step. As PxT says, the limiting factor is your own personal motivation to learn.
If you have not bought the texts, built your own systems, learned to code, or learned the basics of the UNIX operating system (or plan to before moving into the UNIX field) I suggest that seeking a UNIX job is not for you.
UNIX is a vast field which requires a great amount of personal motivation, late night wrangling, reading, and hands on practice. There is no trial-by-fire or sink-or-swim. If you follow the suggested path, you will be an expert. There are no shortcuts to learning a powerful infrastructure such as UNIX, network programming, C or C++, shell programming, etc. These are skills which are acquired by fire, not tried by fire. First, you must acquire the skills.
One analogy is martial arts training. At a good school, two years of training gives a black belt. The black belt is a symbol of learning the basics; not of finality. The black belt signifies some (small degree) of acquired knowledge. A yellow belt who gets into the ring with a 'second degree black belt' is a fool and no 'real' black belt would allow that to happen.
UNIX is very similar. Only a foolish novice tries to pass themselves off a black belt and get into a job which requires advanced "black belt" UNIX skills. There is no sink-or-swim and no trial-by-fire. There is only hard work, patience, practice and more hard work. If you follow the advice in the threads on which books to study and build you own systems, you will progress. There are no shortcuts to becoming a UNIX master just like there are no shortcuts to becoming a master of any other discipline.
My sincere apologies if this post is too direct and has an impatient tone. That is not my intent. It is difficult, for me, to explain to someone that there are no shortcuts in life and we are only limited by the barriers that we create as individuals. One does not 'jump to UNIX', one 'becomes familiar with the UNIX operating system and environment'. Just like golf, you don't just go out, buy clubs, shoes and balls and then play par golf. There is no 'sink or swim' in golf, you practice, learn to play, progress, and practice more. It's just Zen, really, and in this context, Zen means 'understanding things for what they actually are, not what we want them to be'.
[Edited by Neo on 11-21-2000 at 11:15 PM]
Throughout all the posts, the advice has been to get the foundation texts (and the references are provided below),Quote:
If you have not bought the texts, built your own systems, learned to code, or learned the basics of the UNIX operating system (or plan to before moving into the UNIX field) I suggest that seeking a UNIX job is not for you.
UNIX is a vast field which requires a great amount of personal motivation, late night wrangling, reading, and hands on practice. There is no trial-by-fire or sink-or-swim. If you follow the suggested path, you will be an expert. There are no shortcuts to learning a powerful infrastructure such as UNIX, network programming, C or C++, shell programming, etc. These are skills which are acquired by fire, not tried by fire. First, you must acquire the skills.
One analogy is martial arts training. At a good school, two years of training gives a black belt. The black belt is a symbol of learning the basics; not of finality. The black belt signifies some (small degree) of acquired knowledge. A yellow belt who gets into the ring with a 'second degree black belt' is a fool and no 'real' black belt would allow that to happen.
UNIX is very similar. Only a foolish novice tries to pass themselves off a black belt and get into a job which requires advanced "black belt" UNIX skills. There is no sink-or-swim and no trial-by-fire. There is only hard work, patience, practice and more hard work. If you follow the advice in the threads on which books to study and build you own systems, you will progress. There are no shortcuts to becoming a UNIX master just like there are no shortcuts to becoming a master of any other discipline.
My sincere apologies if this post is too direct and has an impatient tone. That is not my intent. It is difficult, for me, to explain to someone that there are no shortcuts in life and we are only limited by the barriers that we create as individuals. One does not 'jump to UNIX', one 'becomes familiar with the UNIX operating system and environment'. Just like golf, you don't just go out, buy clubs, shoes and balls and then play par golf. There is no 'sink or swim' in golf, you practice, learn to play, progress, and practice more. It's just Zen, really, and in this context, Zen means 'understanding things for what they actually are, not what we want them to be'.
[Edited by Neo on 11-21-2000 at 11:15 PM]
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standards(5) File Formats Manual standards(5) NAME
standards - UNIX standards behavior on HP-UX DESCRIPTION
HP-UX conforms to various UNIX standards. In some cases, these standards conflict. This manpage describes the methods that programmers and users must follow to have an application conform and execute according to a particular UNIX standard. UNIX Standard Conformant Programmer Environment The following table lists feature test macros and environment variables that must be defined while compiling an application. Both a fea- ture test macro and an environment variable must be defined while compiling the application so that the application conforms and executes according to a particular UNIX standard. Otherwise, the behavior is undefined. Standard Feature Test Macros to be Environment variable defined during compilation to be set UNIX 95 _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED=1 UNIX95 or UNIX_STD=95 or UNIX_STD=1995 UNIX 2003 _XOPEN_SOURCE=600 UNIX_STD=2003 The compiler uses the feature test macros to obtain the appropriate namespace from the header files. The compiler uses the environment variable to link in an appropriate object file to the executable. Using the environment variable customizes libc to match UNIX standards for various functions. If an application has already been compiled for default HP-UX behavior or for one particular standard, and needs to change to a particular UNIX standard behavior, recompile the application as specified in the above table. For an HP-UX command to conform to a particular UNIX standard behavior, the application has to set the corresponding environment variable as specified in the above table before executing that command. UNIX Standard Conformant User Environment To enable a particular UNIX standard conformant user environment, set the corresponding environment variable as defined in the above table. EXAMPLES
The following examples shows an application example. To have the system be conformant to UNIX2003 behavior, set the environment variable to and define the feature test macro before compilation. The following example changes the command to have UNIX95 behavior by setting one of the environment variables to or to before executing that command. There are three ways of setting the environment variable for UNIX95: or or SEE ALSO
cc(1), stdsyms(5). standards(5)