Distributed Computing Books

Think of this book as the equivalent of Kernighan and Ritchie's epochal book on C programming. It aspires to the same role, with respect to Unified Parallel C. Clearly, for ease of understanding the book, you should have already programmed in C. Which is a pretty safe assumption, as C has been and still is one of the most common languages.

UPC is a superset of C, so all existing C programs can run under UPC recompilation. The crucial difference is that UPC permits a set of threads, where these are fixed at runtime. A thread can have private variables, that other threads cannot access. Or it can have shared variables, so that threads can easily communicate. The latter is a nice aspect. Perhaps you have dealt with interprocess communications? Under unix, there are all sorts of complicated methods to do so. Locks, semaphores etc. By contrast, the text shows that accessing shared variables in UPC is quite easy.

Perhaps the biggest drawback about UPC is that it is not object oriented. The scaling difficulties with C code are well known, and proved crucial in driving the use of C++ and Java, and C# for that matter. If only the designers had chosen to have UPC extend C++, instead of C. But perhaps there were performance drawbacks in doing so, or that the resultant UPC compiler would have been too hard to build? The book avoids this discussion.

I've referenced the book many times, including the 6 other books included on the CD-Rom in HTML format, which is very easy to carry around. It helped our I.T department setup all of the Microsoft BackOffice products from the ground up. We've used it as a reference point for most "How Do I..." questions. A very usefull reference and guide.

This is a fantastic resource; it has saved us in many situations. We are in development with Java and CORBA access via BroadVision and this has helped us tremendously.

This book is more suitable for beginners that want an insight to the jargon-laden world of Java middleware.

CORBA is a powerful and complex method for distributed computing. This book does not go in depth into how to make use CORBA in practice. It gives a fairly shallow overview that frustratingly does not have much substance. It reminded me of an academic lecture I attended where I was positive that the lecturer did not have practical experience in the subject - and gave a theoretical discussion on the subject. This is fine as an introduction but frustrating if one wants to get over the theoretical summary of the concepts and work on what (and if) it works; and under what circumstances!

BUT this book is very useful to beginners that would like the 50K feet view first and then go elsewhere to drill for more information.

Another point to keep in mind is that this book was originally published in 1998 - some of the book's information is presently irrelevant. I am not sure if there was a reprint since 1998 but the information included is dated.

In conclusion, buy this book if you are a beginner and would like a reference guide.

Hope this is helpful!!

When you look at the table of contents, you can discover the book is not just about how Java and Corba work together. Or let me put it this way, that's not the only theme you can get from this insightful book. My take-away after reading all the parts where it discusses the history and difference between Corba and other distributed object technology is a satisfatorily complete overview of all these middleware/messaging technology, which are all important contributors to today's red hot J2EE-compliant application server market (BEA WebLogic, IBM Websphere), or what EJB likes to be known as: ORB with TP monitor capability.

Granted, the book is a little outdated (written in early 1998 apparently), and this is about the only drawback of the book. Hope the authors will come up with a new edition with all the latest development in this topic soon. And mind you again, I skipped all the implementation parts of the book (which is the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 stars - because I don't wanna be potentially overrating a part that I didn't read). I focussed on the high level discussion on CORBA concepts (which explains it better than other books I've read on this subject), how Sun started to endorse it with Java, as well as comparing technologies (comparable not in the technolgy purist's sense, but in the sense that they are 'enablers' for IT folks who wanna implement remote object invocation over enterprise LAN or over internet) such as traditional sockets, CGI, RMI, Servlet, and the major CORBA rival - DCOM. If you've used these various technologies before separately like I did, and sometimes felt a bit overwhelmed by all the different standard and practices, this book provides an EXCELLENT melting point where suddenly why there're all such various levels of technology, and the relative pros and cons of each of them all makes sense.

This is definitely the best stuff around for all CORBA lovers.The book is detailed and goes step by step.A reader who is already well aquainted with OO techniques,RMI,Java and C++ will find a few chapters a bit boring.This is one piece of work which gives self-starters a chance to start programming using the CORBA architecture.The comparisions between different clients & servers breaks quite a few notions about C++ clients and Java Servers.The undermined Java Application receives a boost with such a comparision. Further on, The different approaches to using CORBA and explaining them in depth is one of the achievements of this book.A good round up of various ORBs, Transcation Monitors is also well appreciated.

An exceptionally well-written book by best-selling authors. The book
is a great way to learn about Client/Server programming in general, and
CORBA in particular. This book is massive, totaling over 1000 pages
(a huge increase over the first edition). It includes a CDROM with all of the
code examples as well Borland's Vivibroker and others.

Note the book is not just about teaching CORBA programming using
the Java language. It also provides large amounts of material on Java Beans and

Enterprise Java Beans. This is a teaching book not a reference book.
While it does provide Java coding examples, developers will not use it
to write their code (at least I don't).

Book Sections:
1- CORBA Meets Java (3 chapters)
2- Core CORBA/Java (3 chapters)
3- The Dynamic CORBA (3 chapters)
4- CORBA and Its Competitors (7 chapters)
5- The Existential CORBA (6 chapters)
6- JDBC 2-Tier Versus 3-Tier (4 chapters)
7- From JavaBeans to EnterpriseJavaBeans (8 chapters)
8- Grand Finale: Club Med with CORBA/JavaBeans (4 chapters)

The CORBA coverage is extensive: BOA, POA, Interface Repository, Java-to-IDL and
IDL-to-Java mappings, and DII among others. However, no coverage of the CORBA Services,
besides the Naming Service.

Be prepared for their style of writing. As with their other best-selling books,
they have Zog the Martian (see the cover) and Soapboxes, which give their insightful opinions on
issues and problems with the subject. Personally, I enjoyed it as it makes the
book more interesting.

Some Negatives. This book has become somewhat outdated, written in 1998,
with an intro by Marc Andreesen and a CDROM containing JDK 1.1! There are better
books on Enterprise Java Beans. A new edition of this book could be thinner
by reducing the EJB material. Its missing coverage of the new CORBA Component Model
(of course, CCM was not out in 1998).

In summary, I highly recommend this book for readers wanting to learn Client/Server

programming and CORBA (using Java). I bought many copies of this book over the years
for training people at my company.

I think it's highly unfair to have a list of 'reviews' when if you look carefully they don't actually apply to this edition of Abap Objects. Most of the reviews on this site that are 'recommended' for this book were written for the previous edition of this book. Until more people purchase this edition and review it, please keep this in mind if you are using the reviews to help make a decision...

If you're planning on making use of the NetWeaver trial system, be aware that it will not install on Windows Vista. On Windows XP, the instructions on the SAP site do NOT work...the system is simply not usable...After two hours of attempting to figure out how to fix the installation, I just removed it...

In my opinion, the examples in the book are nice, but without a working system to review HOW the examples work, the book is of limited value to an SAP programmer....

By far the best ABAP book available. It covers the essentials of good coding using the object-oriented paradigm. If you want to be coding at a high level fast, read - no study - this book.

I got this book last week from SAP press.i read first 5 chapters and i can say this book clearly explains all the concepts. The writers explained the differences between procedural ABAP and object oriented ABAP where ever neceessary. Also the usage of obsolete statements are marked for the reader. this will be a good book for those who have previous ABAP experience and wanted to learn the Object oriented concepts from scratch. My only problem is i cant install the software that comes with the book. its like you cant install ABAP server on Vista.Be patient and read it its a 1000+ pages book.

The book "ABAP Objects - ABAP Programming in SAP NetWeaver" (grey Cover, 950 pages, published by SAP PRESS, March 15, 2007, ISBN-10: 1592290795 ISBN-13: 978-1592290796) is the new edition of the book "ABAP Objects: Introduction to Programming SAP Applications" (black Cover, 576 pages, published by Addison-Wesley, June 14, 2002, ISBN-10: 0201750805, ISBN-13: 978-0201750805).

The new book replaces the old book. The new book covers release 7.0 of the ABAP Application Server (former SAP Basis). The old book covers release 4.6. The software of the new book is a Trial Version of the ABAP Application Server 7.0 that is supported in the SAP Developers Network (SDN). The software of the old book is a Mini Basis 4.6 and is not supported any more.

The contents of the old book is partly out of date. The software of the old book should not be installed any more. The programming examples of the old book are still valid and can also be carried out with the software of the new book. If you have the old book and want to install the software of the new book, you can download it from the SDN.

The problem with Learning Web Services is just one - there is too much happening..the technology has grappled everyone's attention and a lot of Organizations are on it..
A beginner to web services just doesn't know where to look..strong foundations give 'empire estates', this book does just that
The primer on XML was one of the best i ever read anywhere and i am a big fan of Dr.Google, the clarity of the authors on WSDL Element model is very informative. All in all - if you need a book to trace Web Service concepts and build your foundations - i would strongly refer this book.

If you are looking for a quick reference/book to get started in implementation you should look elsewhere..Sam's 'Teach Yourself Web Services in 24 Hours' is a good choice..but then i believe that this book is definitely worth a reference because it goes a distance conceptually.
Kudos to the authors

This book has helped me immensely in implementing some really intense production quality data interchange across systems using web services.

This book will quickly help you understand the entire XML stack of technologies that you will need for Web Services.

The authors have uniquely enabled the readers to develop an understanding of the underlying technologies that make up the web services. Certainly expect to put in some effort in understanding the content.

Without a doubt one of the worst computer books I have ever bought. The intent of buying a book about programming is to actually learn programming. I have fought the XML section until I have a screaming headache with very little accomplished. So far I have found it impossible to get the so-called examples to run. The source code is not available from the publisher in spite of what others may tell you. Yes, there is a file to be downloaded. However, it has almost none of the source code in it. For example, it only contains the source code for one .jsp file for the entire 2nd chapter. The writing style is practically incomprehensible, jumping around all over the place without ever finishing anything. There are nine authors listed on the cover. Perhaps that is why this book is such a clusterf#@k. How did this thing get to a 2nd printing? STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK. I cannot stress that enough.

I am still wondering why the authors don't provide all the code, since the book describes an application and that should have been tested and the code is there. Just a few wsdl files don't help very much.

The writers either do not understand the topics, or they want to confuse the readers intentionally. You will find their writing style extremly annoying. They use the Skatestown(??) example to mislead the readers whenever they need to explain something. I dont know how such a bad written book can make it out to the book stores. If you buy this book, it will be the biggest waste of money.

I bought two books at the same time when I start to learn rmi. One is this book, another one is "java.rmi Guide".
Before I start, the second one seems more attractive as its name implies,so I decided to use "java.rmi Guide" as the main book, use the Distributed programming with Java only as a reference, but when I start learning, I read the "java.rmi Guide", I was totally lost, the book full of concepts with few examples.
So finally, I spent most of my time on "Distributed programming in Java" because this book not only explains the concepts very clearly, but also gives out many good examples. At least, when I read it and run the codes in this book, I know what I am doing and why.
As some readers suggested: maybe the java.rmi Guide is good for experienced, but not for beginners.
For beginners who want to learn RMI and CORBA, "Distributed Programming with Java" is the most appropiate book for them.

I have been looking for a good book to learn sockets programming. I saw this book @ BN and I liked the stuff on sockets. I bought it and I have enjoyed the chapters on sockets programming -- cool stuff with lots of sample examples. There are some minor errors here and there but it was worth the money.

I bought this book for its coverage on RMI. When comparing similar books at the bookstore I simply bought the book with the most pages of coverage for RMI. Well, I made a terrible choice. I've read and reread the coverage of RMI in this book. It IS frought with errors and the coverage of the topic is shallow. Examples are presented without sufficient explanation (besides containing errors). If you want to learn RMI, PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!

The book was a required text for a 4th year course at my university. I bought the book and I found it to be great. The stuff on sockets and RMI is superb -- provides implementations for several protocols.

I am new to network programming. I bought this book to learn about it. I like the book very much. The easy-to-understand examples throughout the book are very helpful in understanding network programming. Well written.

I don't know how this book got only a rating of 2.5. This is one of the best book on the market on MTS/n-tier app development. I don't thing anyone else could write a better book on this subject. Eventhough it is little outdated with the arrival of Win2K and COM EXPLORER you could still get a wealth of information.

This book is a great way to get going with MTS. It proved to be practical and hands on. I never rely on a single source when digging into a new area and this was one of the best beginners books I've used. When I moved on to more advanced, up-to-date books, I found myself going back to this book for clarification. The sample code wasn't perfect but it was better than other MTS books I've studied.

The book never goes below the surface of MTS but since I had never used MTS before that's not what I was looking for. The text provides the essential information I needed to start developing components that would work with MTS.

This book serves as an adequate introduction to MTS but won't carry you very far. Like so many books about Microsoft technology there isn't enough technical depth and there are too many trivial examples. In addition with the advent of the Visual Studio 6 set of products the book is becoming quickly dated. However, as mentioned earlier the book still serves as an adequate introduction to MTS and what is now being called the Windows DNA architecture. Best suited for absolute beginners.

I purchased the book in order to get up-to-speed with MTS. Although it left some unanswered questions, the book lived up to its promise to get me up-and-running with MTS in a flash. Using the sample code as a basis, I built and deployed my first MTS app in a little less than a month. A follow-up book providing deeper insight into the MTS runtime would be desirable.

First of all, the book is full of errors. I can tell right from Project1. No need to read further.

Second of all, the code is poorly written.
For example, on Project1, if you move your mouse over Update and Delete hyperlinks on the page that displays all the contacts, you would see the actual IDs that you created in your database at the bottom along with the pages that willt ake you to if you click the links . This will allow the hackers to target easily to your webpage and database. The author should get more professional skills before he decides to write a book. Waste of my money and time.

might be 4 stars if the proper code updates were placed on the website.

this book contains lots of errors. The author even don't care to upload the correct codes to his website.

I considered many books before choosing this one because it had an approach which fit the way that I learn.
I'll be reviewing some of the projects many times to understand the method behind the design of the projects.
Unfortunately, some of the projects were simply unfinished, or had problems that would prevent them from working correctly.
It's still worth it -- there's a lot here.

The projects are hosted on the internet at www.10ProjectsWithASP.net and they work well.
But you better make sure the book you buy has a CD in it because you cannot download the code online. That is extremely bogus in my case because I bought a used book at amazon marketplace and the seller said it was with a CD and that was a lie. smoky mtn books if you are curious who it was.
Otherwise the projects are really useful, real world projects.

I am a technical person who thought the word "Foundation" in the title would be a good starting point. Howver, "Foundation Class Librry" is a very specific thing for programmers who already know the software. Makes a good doorstop.

This book does nothing more than put the online documentation in a book form. There is no real help for developers trying to learn tricks or just how to use the PFC. While it is a slight improvement from the documentation, it should have been what was provided from Powersoft. This book is a waste of time.

The book describes a few things about PFC. Interestingly half the time, to know about any detailed services of a particular type it says "More information about 'xyz' can be found in Powerbuilder Online Books and PFC online help."

Then why do you need to buy this book ?????

This will serve as an expensive guide for those who simply hate printing topics from the PFC help file or feel they may be missing something from supplied documentation. Save for two very basic examples (e.g. page 407 - pfc treeview object) and a CD containing a hastily developed sample application, the reader would most certainly learn more by opening up objects in the PFC layer and studying the source code. To date, there still remains a shortage of documentation/case studies on proper object-oriented or service-oriented use of Powerbuilder for large-scale enterprise application development, and this book does little to fill that void.

If you read in other reviews that this book is mostly a reprint of the Sybase documentation, believe it

Being a novice PB programmer I wanted more from the book than just a mention of all PB elements. It does mention more than the Fundamentals book. I guess I was looking for a book called 'Operational PB' which might have had more real-world examples in it about how to do the ordinary type things any programmer might weant to do in the average PB application. This wasn't it. I'll have to write it myself, sometime. This book was more an advanced accessory to PB help.

Hello. I read this book. It was okay! I have read many powerbuilder books and to this date, I have not found one that really covers what I want. Maybe my expectations are too hight! I guess all of the authors write for what they would like to write about and not for what we want.

However, I registered my book, and I did receive a corrections page. I think the corrections page is also available on the publisher's web site.

I know for a fact that this author, on his web site is looking for suggestions for his next book. So I guess they are listening....

I wanted to say that I really liked this book. I am surprized that someone posted a message saying that the validation rules were wrong. The order of the validation rules are CORRECT. I guess this person needs to learn Power Builder. Since version 5, Powersoft changed the order of the validation rules. I enjoyed reading this book. I also found the database chapters very good too.

My suggestion to Mr. gorgani is to concentrate on one major feature of Power Builder for the next release like pfc or distributed.

This is to the reader from New York, NY:

I think you need to call Powersoft and find out for yourself that the "Validation Rules" are as described in this book. These validation rules were changed since version 5.0 and differ from version 4.0. I made the same mistake as you when I took the datawindow advanced course but to my surprize, I found out that the validtion rules were changes.

Sorry but I had to jump in.

I'd start to say that only buy this book if you are an experienced powerbuilder developer. Why? Because there is some errors that could lead an inexperienced developer to sink. To be more precisely, I will list some errors that scared me:

Page 89: ... the control array for the Tab control is only updated when tab pages are created in the Painters. It's wrong. The control array is update automatically by Powerbuilder when you use the following funtions: 1. OpenTab( ) 2. OpenUserObject( ) 3. OpenTabWithParm() 4. OpenUserObjectWithParm( ) 5. CloseTab( ) 6. CloseUserObject( ) 7. MoveTab( ) It's a new feature of Powerbuilder 6

Page 41: ... Code table can be defined for the following edit styles: * Checkbox * DropdownDatawindow * Etc There is no table code for checkbox.

Page 473: ...Here are valid values: (communication drivers) * Winsock * OpenClientServer * NamedPipes * Local OpenClientServer driver is no more available in Powerbuilder 6

Well, there are others errors. But if you are good enough to detect them...go ahead.... buy the book, it'd worth. But if you are not prone to detect and correct others mistakes, I'd suggest try another book.