Conclusion
If this book is your first introduction to Unix, you'll be tackling it with less first-hand guidance than I had when I was first shown a SunOS login shell in 1994. It's a rare and adventurous soul who dives straight into the world of the Unix shell and tries to learn all about it on his own, without a mentor or guru handy to point out the pitfalls and offer helpful shortcuts. There are so many of these potential traps that even a thick book dedicated to Unix can't cover them all; only experience can give you the familiarity you need to be completely fluent and efficient at the shell. Still, this chapter attempts to provide the cornerstones to an understanding of what kinds of expectations Unix has of you, the user; and in the process, you will have learned how to extrapolate from what you know to find out how to overcome the rest of the obstacles you'll encounter.