The UUASC mailing list has been a hotbed of discussion recently about various UNIX shell tricks. Many UNIX users don't come from a programming background and are unfamiliar with the power available at the command line. Pipelining together some of the several hundred commands available with a modern UNIX, and using the control structures of various shells, can produce extremely powerful and compact tools.

For our February meeting, several members have agreed to step forward and lead a discussion of some of these topics. We'll focus on a comparison of how to accomplish various useful tasks using the Bourne shell versus the C shell - and their derivatives. The panel will take problems from the audience.