Software Books

Mr. Smith's book is well illustrated and supported by the accompanying CD (images to work with that are in the book). His explanations are clear to the Photoshop user and he does explain some terms, as in methods of cropping and re-sizing an image and which method is suited for which type of image), file formats of images, and other areas like the applications under adjustments that I had not used until I began working with the book.
I have found some techniques that are similar to other authors (Scott Kelby, in particular, whose books I have enjoyed quite a lot), and that was part of my interest in purchasing the book-to broaden my reference library with people aside from Kelby, Deke McClelland, and some folks on-line like Earth-Bound Light and Photography, etc). I recommend purchase. Readable, well cross-referenced, and helps deliver results.

Excellent training material. I would also recomment The Photoshop CS2 Book For Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. The combination is outstanding.

I was really surprised this was such an excellent book. Usually I just read the chapters I am interested in , but I read this whole book--it was just so instructional and one that I will keep close to the computer for reference book.

I am an amaetuer photographer. This book has helped me fine tune my photos and bring out its full potential. I will gladly recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain more knowledge on photography and perhaps learn a very powerful photo editing tool.

This book has a lot of good information in it, but is not well written. You may be halfway through a paragraph before you get to the topic sentence and figure out what the author is talking about. It often takes a second or third trip through a paragraph to figure out what it's about. The author also is not consistent with his word usage. I've found as many as three or four different words used for the same thing. For instance luminosity and brightness are used interchangeably, sometimes on the same page or even the same paragraph. So, using the book can be frustrating, though the author clearly knows Photoshop and I have learned a lot from the book.
The book does not mention or discuss some of the neatest features of Photoshop CS2 including some of the Automate features such as Merge to HDR (high dynamic range). This feature combines an underexposed and an overexposed picture into one high dynamic range image (bright areas are not washed out and dark areas are not black). This is an amazing capability that is not mentioned.
I would buy this book again, but only after searching diligently for one that covers the same scope or more and is better written. Actually, I'd probably get a book that covers CS3 as well, and hopefully indicates where features are unique to CS3. Or maybe just a CS3 book if you are going to upgrade. I understand the upgrade to CS3 is well worth the price even though it is now $200. Ease of use alone makes CS3 valuable to novices from what I've read.

This book teaches with extreme clarity everything you need to know to program for Director/Shockwave 3D. A rarity amongst programming books due to the didactics, organization, and clarity/accuracy of code. It is current with Director MX 2004 and I suspect it is current with Director 11 given the information Adobe just released. You cannot go wrong with this one. The only problem is that it is hard to find, I had to buy my copy from a reseller.

I have every book publish about developing interactive 3D using director. This is the best one of the bunch. After reading this book I wish I hadn't purchased any of the others. Although the book is for director 8.5 it still the best book for Director 3D +

As anyone knows reading this review knows Director is the only program that will allow you to create 3D games and programs for the web. Hopefully Adobe will update it rather than let a very powerful program fade away.

This is an excellent book for Director and Director 3D. It is very in depth and involved, although a bit hard to understand at times. This book is not for beginners and requires a lot of hard work to obtain its end results, but they are very much worth it.

Other reviews have captured the gist of this wonderful, accessible, and thorough treatment of Director's 3D functionality. What I would like to add is that Catanese's book is just as current with Director MX as it is with Director 8.5.

If you plan to do 3D in Director MX, either games or presentations, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

I'm an IT student and possessing VB & C/C++. I have never learn about 3D and Director before. So when I want to make a Director project (game), I need a book!
And this book is the great answer. Everything you need about Director 3D is in this book! (although this book doesn't cover about Havok Physics Engine).

This book tells you WHAT and HOW, I mean, this book not only tells you HOW to make something (ex: primitive object) but also explains about that thing. (ex: what is a primitive object). So, you're not only able to programm but also understand about WHAT are you doing.

This book explains from basic and the last page explains advance technique. So, if you start from first page and finish the book, you'll become an advance 3D Director programmer (even before you read this, you're nill in 3D Director).

OK, I'll tell you what I get from this book, here is my project: a Multiplayer First Person Shooting (FPS) game! (like Counter Strike, Quake, etc). Notice that this is my FIRST 3D Director project! And I got A!

NB: if you're NOT a programmer and don't WANT to possessing 3D Director programming SERIOUSLY, I don't recommend this book, for this book is code heavy, full of code programming, just try "Macromedia Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio for 3D: Training from the Source" (by Phil Gross).
Just a note: I learn about Multiuser form Director 8.5 Studio (you won't find about Multiuser in Director's Third Dimension).

It covers majority of the database topics and is a very useful reference.

I am a MS SQL DBA learning Oracle and this was the first book I read after going through the Oracle's official curriculum. Here are my thoughts.

1)This book is definitely not for the beginners. I highly recommend you start with a more basic book that gives you an overview of Oracle. Oracle tools are highly unintuitive and using them can be a frustrating experience especially for MS SQL DBAs *smirk*. Learning to just to connect to an Oracle database is a learning experience that will take knowledge on how Oracle's network and security function.

2)If you already have a working knowledge on how to operate an Oracle database, this book will no doubt provide a more solid foundation for your knowledge (except RAC). I particularly found its chapters on RMAN and IMPORT/EXPORT utilties particularly helpful.

3)Perhaps the best part of this book is that it encompasses what the author believes is the most essential knowledge to becoming a highly competent Oracle DBA. The book does not try to be a reference for every Oracle topic. Instead, the author has smartly picked the most important information needed and presented them in a readable format.

4)My only issue with this book is that it is wordy. The book is 1200 pages long and it could easily have been 1000 pages or fewer.

An excellent book covering all essential DBA topics for Oracle 9i Administration. Explained very well covering In-depth details, Illustrations and examples makes this book invaluable. I use it as a true source of reference and I will strongly recommend this book.

This is a great book. All Oracle people must have this.

I just got this book from the library and I decided to read through it before I buy. I think I will buy a copy of it. The book touched pretty much all the areas of Oracle 9i. It is a book to have on your desk as key reference. I will recommend this book to new DBA. The author did a pretty good job. The book seems too big but very useful. I give 4 stars.

The problem I've seen with technical books is that either they are in tutorial/textbook format which includes lessons and then review questions at the end of each chapter, or they are purely reference type books ideal for looking up things on occasion and not really good for a beginner to learn the subject matter. This book was the first one I felt that was ideal in both textbook form as well as a reference book for looking things up.

The chapters were basic enough for the beginner to grasp the material, and the lessons were rife with hands-on examples which I thought was the best part. I like to try things out as I go through the lessons and so the material was very useful for me.

The printing of the material was interesting and draws the reader into the subject, important notes and pitfalls are highlighted between the text to avoid the paragraphs from becoming too long and drawn out. The writer's diction is sometimes humorous to avoid the reader from losing interest.

The book is kind of bulky and thick so as a consequence of regular use, the glue based binding gave way somewhere in the middle of the book so when I open it, the first half of the book is attched merely by a shred to the second half, so I have to be careful now when I lookup things in it. I wouldn't trade this book for anything.

I have never taken any instructional classes on Perl scripting and can safely say that everything I know about Perl scripting I've learned from this book. That being said I am able to write fairly sophisticated perl scripts and have the ability to understand fairly obfuscated perl code without difficulty. I use perl as a very strong and useful tool in my day to day tasks for scripting and text processing needs and I often dazzle and amaze my colleagues at work with the tricks I'm able to pull off by using perl scripting and I owe it all to this book.

In short, I give two enthusiastic thumbs up for this book and the 5 star rating that I gave this book was merely due to the amazon limitation on the number of stars you can give in your review.

I started learning Perl two years ago. I first browsed libraries, free tutorials, news groups etc... It was nice for the beginning but soon enough I understood that's not the way :)

I started looking around for good Perl books and somehow got to this one. I think I can clearly say, that this book did the work. Teached me Perl from the ground up. I'm now planning on buying "MySQL and mSQL" to start working with databases. I also consider buying "Mastering Algorithms With Perl" & "Programming Web Graphics with Perl & GNU Software".

Anyway, if you want to start learning Perl, buy this book. I also use it as a reference.

The book is a good and detailed tutorial for all novices who want to learn Perl. No hit around the bush stuff and the chapters were well thought of. Credit should be given to the author and the publishing group for these helpful information. The Source codes on the CD-Rom comes handy when when you want to test out the sample codes in the book. The questions at the end of each chapter is a good revision after scanning the chapter. I strongly recommend those who want to learn Perl to get a copy of this book as their first book.

After the Camel book, of course. This book is very well paced with well thought out examples. I needed it as a refresher last year, and now use it as a reference.

The only down side is that the Web Based interactive segment is no longer available. not a big deal since it's the same quizes as in the book, but there was a gee-whiz, isn't it fun factor to have it available online.

This book covers everything from soup to nuts. It starts the learner off slowly with the basic perl syntax and then smoothly moves into subroutines, OOP, DBI modules, Security, etc. all with the same interesting and amusing style.

I don't know if it's mentioned in the Editorial review, but the author is the Editor of The Perl Journal (www.tpj.com) which is a magazine devoted to the perl programming language. So Jon Orwant *knows* his topic.

I've read and use most of the Perl books out on the market today, but none comes close to getting you going well with Perl as does Jon Orwant's book. I still use it as a reference today, but it is the best any money can buy for learning Perl. I'm back buying another copy because I loaned mine to a friend and I miss it so much that I want to make sure I'll always have a copy handy. My old copy is so well worn that a fresh copy is enticing also. As for extras in the book: the quizzes are great for testing your understanding, and someone has done a great job at proofreading this book -- I don't know whether that person is at the Waite Group or is Jon himself, but I know that anytime I have questioned an answer, or a script, or anything in the book I have always found the book to be accurate on closer inspection. It is very much like the Camel Book in being authoritative -- what Jon says is Perl Gospel Truth - if I had to pick two Perl books, I'd pick this one for learning and the Camel Book for ultimate reference. Jon's book should be rated a 5 and a half star - this is the best that it ever gets!

No obtiene la quinta estrella por no hacer referencia alguna al manejo de los archivos BVH. Por lo demás, genial!

This book has become one of my references for Poser 6. It's clearly written and covers topics from basic to advanced. I recommend this book for anyone learning or using Poser 6!

It was very easy to follow and made it easy to learn Poser 6.

I avoid buying software books because many of my past purchases were a complete waste of money. The authors rehash the software's free manuals and provide explanations and tutorials so basic that it seems their target reader is somebody who bought their first PC just last week.

Based on strong reviews, I took a chance and bought Practical Poser 6. I'm not going to cover the content, which is already described very thoroughly in other reviews here. I'll just say that if you have tried to use Poser without any tutorial or learning aids, this book is for you. I had a copy of Poser 5 and had just bought Poser 6 a few weeks before getting this book. My measure of a good instructional book is how much it taught me that I didn't know already. I estimate 50-60% of this book contains info that I'd only have learned by painful trial-and-error, and was really useful to me. And this is not to say that it's for experienced users only -- whether you're just starting out with Poser or already have a few years of experience, there's some explanations, tips and general good reading in this book for you. Highly recommended!

I found Practical Poser 6 a valuable training tutorial into the world of 3D graphics. Not only did it explain the functions and usages of Poser 6 in understandable terms, it illustrated examples in easy to follow, step-by-step instructions. This book is a recommended must-have for individuals who are thinking about entering the realm of 3D graphics or serious artists who want to refine their technique and squeeze a little more 'mileage' from their programs. A first-rate, well written book in it's field.

This is among my favorite computer science books. I read the first edition straight through from cover to cover, even though I had some prior knowledge of the subject. I have since purchased the second edition, which exceeds the high standards set by the first edition. Scott's book would have made the programming languages course I took as an undergraduate much more enlightening, had it existed at the time.

As a software engineer, I tend to be picky about my books, but this one is very in depth and a good read. You will learn a lot about different programming languages, and why certain languages are better than others for solving different types of prroblems.

Over the years the Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (2nd Edition) (also knwon as the dragon book) has become the de facto standard for introducing compilers and related topics at universities. This is very unfortunate because "Programming Language Pragmatics" is in a completely different league and should be the one used instead. It gives the student (or the self taught) a complete and through overview of parsing, grammar, automata theory and other key language constructs. What really differentiates this book from others (and most notably the (in)famous "Dragon Book") is that it does so in a easy to understand manner and with lots of well written examples.

Many people find compiler and language theory to be dark magic, and it would be wrong not to acknowledge that these subjects are considerably harder than say creating a web page in PHP or writing a small Java/C# program. But much of the confusion also stems from the long history of porly written books which all have lacked explaining key areas or assumed that the readers just know some obscure CS topics beforehand. This book does not travel down that road, it is well written, contains both simple and advanced examples and is simply a delightful read.

Overall, "Programming Language Pragmatics" (PLP) is a very good book. According to the Preface:

"It aims, quite simply, to be the most comprehensive and accurate languages text available, in a style that is engaging and accessible to the typical undergraduate....

At its core, PLP is a book about how programming languages work. Rather than enumerate the details of many different languages, it focuses on concepts that underlie all the languages the student is likely to encounter, illustrating those concepts with a variety of concrete examples, and exploring the tradeoffs that explain why different languages were designed in different ways."

I'm not knowledgeable enough to pass judgment on "the most comprehensive and accurate" part. But, I'm pretty happy about the book meeting the rest of those goals. I read through the book on my own and have only a few significant gripes:

- Chapters 2 (Programming Language Syntax) and 4 (Semantic Analysis) are tough to get through. They're basically trying to teach enough about Alphabets, Languages, Regular Expressions, Context-Free Grammars, Finite Automata and Push-Down Automata for the reader to understand what the rest of the book is based on. I've read Cohen's Introduction to Computer Theory, which is dedicated solely to this material and I still had some trouble. With an instructor in a class to walk through the things, it should be doable. But, for a person reading the book on his own, ugh.

- All of Section III: Alternative Programming Models, seems to depart from the format of the rest of the book (as noted in the Preface) where the author talks about the concepts and then how the different languages implement them. Instead, he focuses on the languages themselves and almost seems to be trying to cram a primer into his text. Since the section seems to be a special case, it wouldn't be so bad except that the languages covered are a bit out of the mainstream and so that degree of depth gets pretty unreadable at times. Again, with a professor around, things would be better.

- At a more pedagogical level, the author has a tendency to merely explain what his example Figures are doing in general terms. The problem is that a lot of the code/pseudocode involves fairly advanced structures in several languages (many of which most people won't have run across). It would have made things a lot easier if he had walked his way through each of those Figures line-by-line and explained what each line did. Once again, this wouldn't be that much of a problem in a normal teaching environment since a professor could do it.

Other than those three things, this is a very good and readable book. I rate it at four stars out of five.

Every good programmer should know more than one programming language, that much is almost a consensus. But more than that, every programmer should educate himself about programming languages in general, what they mean and how they work. It's important to know at least the major programming paradigms, because they form the "mental model" of computation that is available to a programmer in a language from that paradigm.

And then it's always illustrative to know about the differences in many common languages, to see where different decisions have been made and what are the consequences. To know that certain legacy languages (e.g. C, Fortran) have features that were not designed because they were the "best" option (for some definition of best), but because the design was constrained by what technology was currently available.

This knowledge is not only required of compiler writers. It should be required of every good programmer. Compiler writers, of course, must know this, and probably in more detail. But Scott's book is a good resource about programming languages, in a level of detail that I believe adequate for all programmers.

There are two main kinds of books on programming languages: they are "survey" and "implementation".

Survey books show how things work in a lot of languages, comparing them along the way. Often the comparison gets down to small details that can affect the meaning, or semantics, of similar programs written in these languages. These books contain one individual chapter for every major topic, and inside such a chapter all languages are compared in relation to the topic. For example, one such chapter covers "subroutines" and then compare a host of different languages on how they implement subroutines.

Implementation books are different: they show how to implement many language features, usually by presenting code for interpreters and compilers. The reader doesn't learn that Ada permits nested subroutines, but instead how nested subroutines really work and how to implement them in a language, for example. A very good book of this kind is "Essentials of Programming Languages" by Friedman, Wand & Haynes.

I normally prefer the implementation books. I'm not really interested if Standard Pascal permits functions to be passed as parameters or not; if I do need to write a Standard Pascal compiler I'll look for a reference manual. I much prefer to know how to implement functions as parameters, and be done with it. Comparing minutiae about extant programming languages can sometimes be very enlightening, and sometimes be mostly dull.

Scott's book, however, really shines because it mixes feature descriptions and implementation details in the presentation. It does the usual routine of comparing a lot of different languages, most of the time the more popular ones like C++ and Java, but it then shows how the implementations differ because of differences in features. The book strikes a good balance between "language design" and "implementation" approaches, although it is clearly slanted towards design, and so more of a traditional "survey" book.

It wins over other survey books by including implementation information about almost every topic, and by the clear writing and style. Also, most survey books concentrate on mainstream imperative languages (nowadays C++, Java, C#) and leave other paradigms to chapters at the end. Scott's book is a bit better in this respect: the presentation often includes Common Lisp, Scheme and Standard ML in the comparisons. There are separate chapters about functional and logic programming too, but considerations about functional programming are spread in the whole book. This is important because paradigms change, and a good programmer must be able to adapt.

It's a good reference for language implementors and good education for most programmers. I look forward to the next editions.

While this book covers all the significant technology in the area, it is a much better read for all those things you wondered about in Sci Fi Could they really do that? Also the policy issues are critical to our privacy rights and conversly national security.

Anyone who uses a mobile phone, relies upon oversees Internet connectivity, or worries about personal security should get acquainted with this book. Mr. Vacca has once again produced a very accessible yet easily readable tome on the dangers and promise of satellite encryption. Pick it up and you'll learn about or government policies regarding satellite communications management and security. By the time you put it down, you'll understand everything from pagers to the electronic battlefield. It's a must-read!

Great book - detailed and technical, but still a good read

As always, John Vacca provides an incredible level of detail in a readable manner. The Internet implications are particularly applicable to almost any reader. In our case, where the line-of-sight constraints of radio transmission in our wireless WANs are forcing us to look at satellite options, this book is an invaluable resource. And the tales told herein about encryption break-ins and techniques make fascinating reading in their own right.

Technical from orbit to chip, and immensely readable as well!

I think that the tittle of this book is a bit misleading. If one reads through all the enthusiastic reviews of the book one can actually get a clear picture of what it is about. It is a general overview of politics of encryption with some technical information included in between. I cannot understand the reason for more than one hundred pages of information about different types of military equipment. Yes, this book is interesting but it is not about cryptography and encryption. These subjects are only a small part of the book. I returned Satellite Encryption after very thorough consideration.

I'm still getting to know the many changes in Microsoft Office Home/Student for 2007, but one thing I really appreciate is the ability to save documents as earlier versions of Word, like the 2003 or earlier versions. Computers that don't have 2007 versions of the Office components don't seem to be able to open the 2007 version files. Even my HP laptop with Windows Vista on board couldn't do more than read and print the Word 2007 files after the trial version had expired. I think being able to save docs in earlier versions is crucial! Beyond that I'm still learning to navigate around the menues, etc. I'm sure it's a great product, I just think the learning curve is a bit steep!

Good book, if you do not want to buy all the individual books in the Office Suite, this one give you a good leg up. If you want advanced features, the help file links provided and the ones within Office will get you to the site.

I liked this book and it provided allot of answers to the new functions of what in my opinion are good products for what each are suppose to do and MS usually does a good job at patches as needed. The book was informative and laid out well and is a good reference when needed.

I am a long-time subscriber to Woody's Access news, so I expected to find an enthusiastic, simplified approach and am not disappointed. Great resource.

Every "Using" book I own (more than a dozen) has been valuable, well written and packed with good information. This is no exception. The authors know Office. I started with Word and quickly absorbed the "flavor" of the new interface. This book will cut my frustration time dramatically.

A "must read" for anyone in manufacturing. It is the basis for all modern manufacturing, and for any business process or flow. The author describes the two pillars of the Toyota production system as autonomation and just-in-time. He explaines the six rules associated with the kanban. He also describes the seven wastes and the value of asking "Why" five times. The book is very easy and quick reading, and provides a complete backgroung to the Toyota development and success.

Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production
Great tool for understanding basics and roots of TPS

I got this as a present for my father for his birthday last weekend. He has already started reading it and making notes. It is everything we hoped it would be and met his expectations. I would recommend it for marketing students, teachers, and anyone interested in that type of thing.

"Toyota Production System" was published in 1979 in Japanese and, in English in 1988. It is the source material on the toyota production system and, in my view, it is often good to go back to the source. Sadly, I found this book disappointing. The writing style is clunky (perhaps a poor translation) and the book lacks structure; being more of a semi-random collection of points than a development of ideas. Nevertheless there is some interesting stuff in here. The honesty that this is a long slow process (taking Toyota 30+ years) is refreshing, and I hadn't realised that Mr Ohno ranked kanban (with quick changeovers) as the core of the system and essential to success. Often in lean kanban seems to be a bit of a side issue: here it is vital. Also there is an interesting analysis of some of Henry Ford's early writings compared to TPS. This would be good material for a student essay. However, for the philosophy of TPS you will get much more out of "The Toyota Way" or "The Toyota Way Fieldbook"; and for the tools of lean go to "Lean Production Simplified" or the many other books in this area. Overall this book is a bit of a let-down I am sad to say.

There are many myths around the Toyota Production System (TPS). Ohno Taiichi merits my deepest respects, considering he was able almost a half century ago to observe and learn from others. Considering the simple target given to him, to "catch up with America" he studied in-depth the work of Ford and recognised the idea of copying the US supermarket system for his operational purpose.

The book describes very well what constraints he was given from the owners when Toyota started to get into the automotive business and what path they followed until the first fully operated TPS plant went operational at the 60s.

Many thinkings of Ohno Taiichi are still actual. He is capable of bringing key problems to the point: efficiency gains are worthless until they really lead to cost reduction. Unfortunatelly we all now the opposite from this wisdom - and many "growth-strategies" of companies today are nothing else than to try to increase business with the same workforce. Furthermore the author gives good examples how Toyota handled different issues, as e.g. the syncronization of production with final assembly.

The reader will not find any operational theory or formulas in this book and if you are looking for books teaching you about designing and sizing Pull-systems you should look for books as "Kanban made simple" or similar. TPS is not about installing software than about eliminating everything which is waste and does mainly not contribute to the succes of your business.

Anyway this book is a must read for any readers interested in first hand information about the basis that made TMC what they are today - a business model developed by smart people many years ago and dearing to ask simple questions, to find sound and robust solutions and to steadily develop the system and its people working in it.

My deepest respect to Ohno Taiichi,
Domo arrigato,

Oliver

Well, I can't say much that the other reviewers haven't already said. This is a terrific text that very clearly explains how things work in computers, right down to the finest level. Hyde writes in a casual, conversation-like tone (sometimes bordering on poor grammar) that makes this text a lot more stomachable than I would have thought. Typos are minimal (I recall maybe 4 or 5).

Now that I've been through the book (after maybe 2 weeks, at an easy pace), I can't say that I'm going to go write assembly programs. I can say that I know a great deal more about how computers work, and how I can write code that works more harmoniously with computers. My background is mechanical engineering with a ridiculous dose of electrical engineering, so a lot of the concepts presented were review for me (digital circuitry, binary math, etc)...but it is always good to hear the same material again in a different way. As I said before, the casual tone makes the material easy to follow, as well as Hyde's very clear explanations. However, as a mechanical engineer my programming background was just "writing code," i.e. how to get various programs to run correctly. I read the chapter in the text on memory twice- I found that chapter alone to make the book well worth the money to me, as I am currently writing codes that demand every inch of speed and memory that the computer can offer.

So overall, its a good book, worth the money, and worth taking the time to read.

This is a great way to understand data flow at the machine level.

I especially like the part on memory and IO.

Author has explained low-level concepts lucidly. It is easy on eyes. Basic concepts become very clear. It is one of those 'can't keep down without reading few chapters at a stretch' kind of technical book. Very few books have this edge. Just don't feel like stopping reading it.

Beginners must read this book before attempting to read more in-depth low-level technical books. This book is a must for people who are exposed to high-level languages but have not studied Computer Science.

This is a great book but I have to disagree with the overall viewpoint. I've been doing embedded programming for a while and if that's all I'd ever done I would totally agree that understanding low level concepts helps write better code. However, I also write a lot of code in C#. People who normally use high level languages such as C#, VB.Net, or JAVA are probably not going to benefit much from this book. These languages are so far abstracted from the hardware level that the concepts are hard to apply anywhere. On the other hand, if you still use malloc on a daily basis, you need to read the book :) Anyway, the book is easy to read and I never caught any errors. If you want to learn about computers at a low level, then this is a great book to start with!

If you're like most IT people out in the workforce today, you've got pressures from all sides - deadlines, keeping current with changes in platforms, hardware, software tools, etc. Gah! It never ends!

So, you pick up these "Write Great Code" books, thinking that you'll be a better programmer.

And it's interesting in a way that you remember when you were just getting into the IT field as a student and later as an employee and maybe now as a consultant or contractor.

But, then you realize that this is like thinking about how your car's components are working while you're driving madly to work on some beltway. Only your skills as a driver can keep you from getting hit by a big semi, not the working knowledge of your V8 engine. Guys who work on their cars on the weekend, know more about them than you do, but hey, it gets you to work and back.

And so, you sigh and put the book down and concentrate on your SQL, or your VB or whatever else keeps you employed.

Why?

Because your users and your manager don't care about what goes on at the machine level. They want the deliverables NOW. The efficiency of your code is of no importance to them, though it is to you.

However, with enough discipline and some thought to what you're doing, you CAN make this book work for you, and get an edge over someone else's sloppy code and maybe even save yourself some programming time.

Because this book is for the guys who are the computer counterparts of the greasy-looking guys on the street who could tell you what's wrong with your car, even if you can't.