Exploring Expect A Tcl-based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs

By Don Libes
Price: $34.95 USD
£24.95 GBP

Cover | Table of Contents | Sample Chapter | Colophon

---

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal featured on the cover of Exploring Expect is a chimpanzee, a primate of the Pongidae family, which also includes orangutans and gorillas. The chimpanzee is the mostly closely related to man of all animals, biochem ically, physiologically, behaviorally, and in brain structure. Chimpanzees are known to express emotions similar to those commonly associated with humans, including anger, affection, sadness, and happiness. They also display behavior similar to that of humans in their ability and inclination to pick up, examine, and manipulate objects. Until recently it was believed that humans are the only animals able to build tools. It has since been discovered that chimpanzees often build simple instruments to help retrieve food from holes in the ground, logs, or other hard-to-reach places.

Chimpanzees use a vast array of facial expressions, postures, and gestures to communicate with each other, in addition to at least 32 different sounds. There is some evidence to suggest that chimpanzees are able to learn symbolic languages.

The natural habitat of the chimpanzee is western Africa, from Sierra Leone to the Great Lakes east of the Congo. Living primarily in forested areas, chimpanzees will spend 50 to 70 percent of their time in trees. They are omnivores, eating primarily fruits and vegetables, but they will also hunt and eat small animals. They live in family groups, which consist of about twice as many females as males. While adult chimpanzees are not monogamous, there is a close bond between a young chimp and its parents, and this bond remains unbroken for life. Chimpanzees are very sociable and affectionate animals, and frequently hug, kiss, stroke each other, or hold hands. Violent fights often break out within a social group. The loser of the fight makes up to the winner by displaying submissive behavior and conciliatory gestures. In this way they maintain the social harmony.

Though able to, the chimpanzee rarely walks erect on both feet. Short arm muscles prevent simultaneous extension of the wrists and fingers. Because of this, chimpanzees are unable to walk with their hands flat; when walking on all fours, only the knuckles of their hands touch the ground. Unlike human feet, chimpanzee feet also have an opposing toe, but it is used mainly for climbing and for walking on precarious footing. The foot is rarely used for picking up objects. UNIX and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks help you tame them. ... Edie Freedman designed this cover and the entire UNIX bestiary that appears on other Nutshell Handbooks. The beasts themselves are adapted from 19th-century engravings from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with Adobe Photoshop 2.5 and Quark XPress 3.3 for the Macintosh, using the Adobe ITC Garamond font.

The inside layout was designed by Edie Freedman and Jennifer Niederst and implemented by Mike Sierra in FrameMaker using Adobe ITC Garamond and New Courier fonts. The figures were created in FrameMaker by Don Libes. The colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.

Return to Exploring Expect