scripting

LinuxCBT Scripting Edition
$495.00
LinuxCBT Scripting Edition is a unique approach to teaching GNU/Linux Scripting skills. Serious Linux IT-professionals are expected to have a command of various scripting environments for administrative purposes. It consists of 7 Modules:?BASH, Perl, Python, PHP, Regular Expressions (RegEx), Awk & Sed field (Column) and streams (Automated Text Editing), and KornShell. Syllabus:
http://www.LinuxCBT.com/products_linuxcbt_scripting_edition.php Demos:
http://www.LinuxCBT.com/demos.php

Classic Shell Scripting
$34.95
I've scrolled through lots of books, there is so much information out there, but this book has a tendency to keep it simple and to the point. It has good illustrative examples that not only are useful but also serve as a good practice guide.

Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting
$39.99
This book is an excellent guide to scripting. I was able to figure out how to script shapes very effectively. It is a well designed and laid out book. Another feature is the enthusiasm of the authors. They are responsive to emails and post other material on their web site.

BUY this BOOK!

Microsoft��� Windows��� Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide (Pro-Other)
$44.99
I got this as a freebie ebook when I bought the WMI scripting book.
What a total waste. I am new to Widows scripting but an old hack at *Nix shell scripting and perl. I needed to do some scripting for a client that doesn't have perl installed universally, but wants scripts to run universally on their windows servers.

I wasted a couple of days beating my head against the wall because I used this book. I finally bought "Windows 2000 Scripting Guide" and got my scripts working.

In addition to the complaints others have left indicating the the author does not explain the programming model, I found myself with a large hole in my foot because this author directed me to point a gun at my boot before pulling the trigger.

I used the sample scripts in the book as a starting point in my scripts, but unwittingly injected really bad practices into my programs.

The author states in Chapter 1:
"So 'On Error Resume Next' tells the computer that when something is messed up (causing an error), you want the computer to just skip that line and try the next line in the script. This process is called error handling,"

Actually, this is called ERROR HIDING (not handling) and it causes things that are messed up (causing an error) to be hidden from your view so you CAN'T find or fix them.

This is the worst bad practice that can be taught

Here is an example of how bad it is:
while using this directive your code that looks like:
IF condition THEN
positive_action
ELSE
negative_action
END IF

will, when an error is encountered in evaluating the condition, get transmogrified into simply:

positive_action

The "condition" that includes an error ALWAYS evaluates to true.
I can't think of a worse logic bomb to inject into your code or a better reason to skip this book.