Well, here's a computer book with an attitude. The Unix-Haters Handbook, by Simson Garfinkel, Daniel Weise and Steve Strassman (Programmer's Press/IDG Books, $16.95 paper) takes the form of a 12-step recovery book as it both educates users on the real advantages of Unix over Windows and OS/2, while consoling them on its darn-near unusability. 

If the book feels lumpy at first, it is because the publisher has included, bound into the back cover, a genuine "Unix Barf Bag." Not being a Unix user, except indirectly through the Internet, I have using mine to hold coffee beans. Unix, for you lucky folks that reside in the Macintosh and Windows world, is an antiquated, non-mnemonic operating system, sort of like DOS only more cryptic and more verbose. 

Developed almost 30 years ago by AT&T as a rugged all-terrain vehicle for the Department of Defense, it today shoulders the load of most of the world's workstation installations and undergirds the Internet network of networks. Every computer company that uses Unix has created its own slightly different version: XENIX, AIX, DYNIX, AUX, UNIX V.4, SUN OS, ULTRIX, HP/UX, DG/UX and NEXTSTEP. 

Its commands can be quite simple: cp (for copy), rm (for remove), and ls (for list). Or they can pile together into a horrible chokehold, worse than rush hour traffic on Interstate 280. Most everyday users today use a shell to get around Unix's command structure. But even they know that lurking just below the pretty boxes and icons is the curling worm of Unix, just aching to do something inexplicable. 

The authors of The Unix Haters Handbook liken Unix to: computer viruses Like a virus, Unix started out small and portable, and wound up mutating horribly, commandeering the resources of its hosts. "If the Andromeda Strain had been software, it would have been Unix." 

herpes "Lots of people have it, nobody wants it, they got screwed when they got it, and if they could they would get rid of it." 

drugs In the early days AT&T gave free samples of Unix away to universities and research centers. Unix was cheap and it ran on junk hardware. In the early 1970s, it was a real high. But oh, the morning after. the North American brown bat, whose diet, like Unix's, is composed principally of bugs. 

The authors sail into the rhetorical clouds in their denunciation of the operating system that will not die: 

"Did users want the operating system where bugs didn't get fixed? Not likely. Did users want the operating system with a terrible tool set? Probably not. Did users want the OS with a terrible and dangerous user interface? No way. Did users want the OS that couldn't stay up more than a few days (sometimes hours) at a time? Nope. Did users want the only OS without intelligent typeahead? Indeed not. Did users want the cheapest workstation money could buy? Absolutely. They were willing to make a few sacrifices." 

The "I-hate-Unix" message is not just a frowny-face plastered on top of an otherwise straightforward book. The frown persists through the very last page. Chapters cover such material as: "The X-Windows Disaster," subtitled "How to make a 50-MIPS Workstation Run like a 4.77 MHz IBM PC" "The Oxymoronic World of Unix Security" Unix's Network File System, or NFS, which Unix haters have redubbed to stand for "Nightmare File System." 

They even include a specious appendix containing a news release in which the creators of Unix fess up that the entire operating system was created as a zany April Fools prank 30 years ago. "Things just got out of hand." 

What I like about The Unix Haters Handbook is its ability to subvert the material it covers even as it teaches you about it. When I was done with it, I felt I not only had a good basic understanding of the entire operating system, plus X-Windows, the Internet, and programming in C++, but I also had a full quiver of remarks to unloose during tense social moments after hours at the programmers' hangouts. 

Now, you may be thinking, "What does this have to do with me? I run a Mac, or Windows. My life is unsullied by this feckless murk." Well, Unix may not be growing, but it isn't going away, either. For better or worse, even with all its proprietary permutations it is still the best shot we have at achieving a common communicating floor -- non-proprietary "open systems" computers that can truly talk to each other without falling down the stairs. It's a rugged son of a gun. 

In a world of crashes and meltdowns, Unix cruises on like a Sherman tank. Finally, the Internet is the Information Superhighway, no matter what Al Gore says, and it is planted firmly on a Unix foundation. You can love it or hate it, but God help us, Unix works.

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