Michael W Lucas

Thank goodness for tech writers like Michael W. Lucas, who have senses of humor and aren't afraid to show this off in their books. Most tech books are as much fun to read as the ingredients on a box of breakfast cereal -- not this one. If you are running (or planning to run) OpenBSD, you will want this.

The only downside is that it needs updating -- badly. I have the 2nd edition ... and much has changed since the book was released. This is of course a testament to the vigor of OpenBSD, but it makes writing books about the system kind of a pain.… (meer)

April fools joke or not, this book is seriously useful. Even though I will likely never use ed(1) directly on purpose, I'm now comfortable enough to get by. More importantly, I discovered a lot of the underlying logic behind vim's Ex mode, g/re/p, and sed that weren't as intuitive before. Michael's tone and humor kept what could have been a very boring topic wildly engaging. I was sharing snippets with people all throughout my read and even went back to give the regex section a second pass.

If this book has come across your path, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It's worth every penny.… (meer)