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 Software Portability with imake is the boa constrictor, a snake of the Boidae family. Boa constrictors are typically grey or silver with a series of brown or deep red saddles along their backs. They are found in the warmest parts of America, from Mexico to Argentina, and can reach lengths up to eighteen feet. Their young are born live, an average brood consisting of thirty to fifty one-foot snakes. The Boids, which include boas, anacondas, and pythons, are the giants of the snake world (anacondas can reach lengths of thirty feet and can weigh over three hundred pounds).

Boas feed on birds, reptiles, and mammals. A constrictor will seize prey with its mouth, swiftly coil around it, and tighten the grip so that the victim cannot expand its chest to breathe. Contrary to popular rumor or belief, boa constrictors pose little threat to humans. When a boa perceives danger, it will usually flee or threaten by hissing with a sound that can be heard over one hundred feet away. UNIX and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks(R) help you tame them.

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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 QuarkXPress 3.1 using the ITC Garamond font.

The inside layout was formatted in sqtroff by Lenny Muellner using ITC Garamond Light and ITC Garamond Book fonts, and was designed by Edie Freedman. The figures were created in Aldus Freehand 3.1 by Jeff Robbins. The colophon was written by Michael Kalantarian.