ACM Books

Ok, so maybe the subject matter isn't the most riveting but I truly found this book so totally boring that I have never been able to finish it despite several attempts. Thankfully this book has been superseded by many other titles.

This book tackles business process reengineering from an information technology perspective. While I personally disagree with some of the assumptions made by the author, there is a lot of value here for ANYONE involved in process improvement initiatives. In fact, I believe that some of the insights provided by this work are available in no other book on the subject - making this book indispensable for process improvement managers and consultants. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me - adamleft@webspan.net.

With Booch's OOA/D and Rumbaugh et al's OMT of the same mid-90's era, Jacobsen's Use Cases complete a set of the most powerful contemporary approaches to software development prior to UML (no coincidence that they joined forces at Rational!).

The well-integrated contents include: business engineering (definitions, the "new company", BPR, risk management), what is business modelling (definitions, traditional ways of modelling- SA/SD, IDEF, SADT, working with business models), object orientation (definitions & modelling), OO business modelling (re-engineering, business context), architecture, reversing the existing business, forward business engineering, an example, building the supporting information system, managing OO business engineering, and scaling up to a large business.

Strengths include the attractive appropriate use of figures, sidebars, references and supporting material; and the depth of proven use cases and applications supporting the credibility of approach. A book you can read cover to cover, or dip into a section for reference. Much of the approach is now included in Rational's UML - so the book still has value for business and software development.

Criticisms include the lack of more fully worked examples, and the lack of checklists (although chapter summaries are good).

Overall a great intermediate-level text (not introductory nor complete enough to be expert) for software developers, engineers, and business information systems consultants.

Only two reviews here?? This book precedes Ivar Jacobson's role in UML, so it may be slightly redundant today, but it is an excellent use cases book, and it still comes down from the shelf now and then.

A well-organized and concise distillation of graphic design rules backed up by extensive research. While not nearly as pretty as some books, for instance the Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Tufte, this is a far more valuable summary of specific design rules. This book is worth the price just for the "Ten Commandments of Color", an area about which most people responsible for graphic interfaces seem to be clueless.

A entry level book to a designer, document and GUI.

This is a 'classic' and very useful when it comes to screen and page layout. I have used this book as a reference for classes in interface design for many years. My copy went missing so I bought another one.

This book is meant for beginners who want to learn how to program. This book will teach you anything and everything you ever wanted to know about computer programming in every programming language out there.

This book is compiled as a reaction on the Internet Worm beginning of the 90ties). It leaves you untouched, unless you have a historical interest in what happened and how the worm was found, traced, dissected, etc.

It is not worthless, but I wouldn't buy it today.

Computing Patterns in Strings by B. Smyth is a very useful book. String algorithms is a separate discipline in Europe (France, UK, Italy etc.) and in many other places in the world. However, in North America, this is not the case and the research and the results are scattered among many disciplines and many books. Thus most significant books on the topics concerning string algorithms are not of North American provenance. Smyth's book provide the reader with a comprehensive up-to-date overview of the discipline, rather than covering a few topics. The author exhibits a witty and readable style and, except for a few errors one always has to expect in a book covering so many algorithms and a well-founded reader can easily spot and disregard, the book is an excellent introduction to the discipline. I can highly recommend it to anyone seriously considering extending his/her knowledge of computer science. I certainly enjoyed it.

If you are looking for a dry, obscure, pedantic monograph that uses cryptic hieroglyphics to describe algorithms, well, friend, this text is for you! On the other hand, if you are looking for a practical text that can be read by non-Math majors, move on. THERE IS ZERO USEABLE MATERIAL that I was able to glean from the book, and I've been programming commercial search engines and parsers for 9 years.

I have no doubt that the author knows what he's talking about, but the information is, for all practical purposes, encrypted and I don't have the keys.

And the quotes from dead Romans and literary figures that are on most pages are just pretentious, distracting, and annoying.

I'd love to get my money back.

Internet Besieged - Countering Cyberspace Scofflaws Dorothy E. Denning Peter J. Denning Addison- Wesley 1998

This is a collection of thirty essays covering a variety of aspects of information security written well known American commentators. The 1998 publication date on this book is slightly misleading since some of the essays contained within it date back to 1992. The majority of the papers date from 1996. But this should not seriously deter the reader since the many of the articles are likely to become the foundation texts of the industry and stand the test of time and distance.

The first of the book's five sections covers the background of the Internet from a security perspective. The second focuses on the weaknesses of Internet-connected computer systems and shows how criminals exploit them. Part 3, details the cryptographic methods available to help secure systems, while the fourth section explores the particular challenges of electronic commerce. The final section looks at the larger and non- technical issues of Internet practices, laws, and policies.

The first section is a well balanced picture of the Internet as it stands today . The best parts are the overview chapters by Peter Denning "The Internet After Thirty Years" and Dorothy E. Denning "Cyberspace Attacks and Countermeasures" The second section on Internet Security is less interesting as too many of the papers are unnecessarily technical -better analysis can of the problem can be found in some computer science text books. The book is strongest, naturally given its main authors, in the cryptographic section - although I still prefer Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" for an overview of the subject. The electronic commerce section is completely out of date - a great deal has happened in the two years since it was written. But the final section has three interesting papers by Dorothy E. Denning "Encryption Policy and Market Trends" (which should be required reading for anyone wishing! to take issue with the DTI's proposals on encryption and key escrow and a couple of nice essays by Bruce Sterling on legal and ethical issues.

This is a good book to dip into to get ideas on computer security. The bibliographies are thorough and the tone, in the main, is light but authoritative.

Alistair KELMAN

This book was okay at best. I found 'Life and Death on the Internet' by Keith Schroeder to be a far better, interesting and informative book. Personally, I would pass on this book and get Mr. Schroeder's.

Mikhail M. Gilula, The Set Model for Database and Information Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1994)

Gilula, at one point in this book, says "As far as possible, we have attempted to simplify the presentation in order to make it intelligible to readers who have had no special training in the field of mathematical logic." Could have fooled me. It's possible for the bachelor's earner to grasp, but just barely and after multiple readings. You're probably better off not trying to tackle this one unless your bachelor's is in math, or you've earned an advanced degree.

That said, is there really any reason to tackle it at all? A number of websearches on set theory as it applies to current database technology (and specifically Starset, the language proposed and outlined herein) turns up precious little, leading this reviewer to believe that the relational model, which is what Gilula and co. are trying to overthrow, has won this battle without too much effort. This book is, at this point in time, going to appeal at most to a niche market. Gilula mentions that the original Starset interpreters were written in C, and the appendix has more than enough info for the hobbyist or vertical-market software developer to reverse-engineer Starset and program a home version of it. And Gilula certainly does make an interesting case for set-model databases, and he does so with just enough clarity to make the average DBA wonder if, perhaps, a set-model database might be of more use than a relational database for any given purpose. However, unless that DBA has unlimited time and resources, this is probably going to remain no more than an interesting artifact. **

The finest treatise on post-relational database theory and practice I've ever read. Completely free of object-oriented nonsense. The text is a bit technical in spots, but the concepts are pure gold. Inspired in part by this book, my company developed a wysiwyg version of a "set model" database and have been using it, without modification, for almost a decade. Great stuff.

I purchased this book after reading several very positive reviews of it in PC Week and EMEDIA. Despite being a couple of years old now which is very long in this business, I find myself frequently taking this book off the shelf to read about the basics and framework in this changing industry. Well worth having

As a required text, this book was a dismal waste of my money. Not only is the book long-winded and filled with useless and sometimes inaccuate information, it is written by professionals that appearantly stumbled into the multimedia arena after trying their hand at other work. (A degree in Applied Mathematics proves to be of little value to Mr. Agnew when he speaks of multimedia.) This book reads like a high school research paper that the student was not interested in completing... There is little organized thought, facts are found every 30 pages or so, and are based on out-of-date information. Pathetic interjections of dry, witless humor make the reading all the more painful. Disagree with me if you wish, but I have seen far better analyses on Multimedia and its current trends out there. Purchasing this book for any personal reason is just plain stupid, and purchasing it for a required reason is unfortunate.

I found that Knuth's reputation for eccenctricity gets in the way of actually getting to the meat of the book. For example, getting the programs to compile under Windows was not as straightforward as it could be (although not that difficult). Much harder was to get used to the idea of using CTANGLE and CWEB in order to get Graphbase to a state where you can actually compile it.

It does not help at all that Chapter 3 of the book is when how to install Graphbase is actually discussed. Just for these alone I have to give the book a 3 star rating. Perhaps I will change this once I have had the opportunity peruse the _real_ contents of the book.

This book discusses a method by which workflow based systems can be developed. It focuses on delivering a clear roadmap for the business person who wants to be able to carry out process re-engineering in his/her organisation.

The discussion is at an architectural level and is kept independent of any particular implementation platform or specific software solution.

I liked the detailed coverage of the way in which high volume, parallel workflow can be modelled (including a diagrammatic notation). It is good to see that these concepts are proven to produce actual working systems (via the toolset which Twaddle has developed in his role as Technical Director at Beta Computers and Sherwood International).

This approach is particularly relevant when looking to move to web-based solutions (especially because of the careful attention given to the design of the workflow). At the end of each chapter there is a set of questions which helps the reader to check his/her understanding of the material. Some of these questions are quite challenging and thought provoking.

Business Process Implementation isn't a quick (or simple) read, but is a detailed and thorough coverage by two experts in the field. A 'must have' text for practitioners in this area of business.

To clarify something that Reviewer Yves Chaix said... "As a reference though, I think that 90% of what I learnt, I actually picked from studying the excellent documents produced by the Workflow Manufacturers Coalition (www.wfmc.com)."

Readers should know that the organization in question is the Workflow Management Coalition, and the website is www.wfmc.org. The WfMC is releasing the Workflow Handbook 2001 in October 2000, by the way. This is the new definitive reference to workflow management, with particular attention to e-business and B2B integration. It includes the full Wf-XML specification and glossary.

My assignment was to evaluate a certain number of production type workflow engines for my client and, if the bill was too high, estimate what it would take to develop a custom engine. Since I knew - and still do - very little about workflow engines, obviously I had to turn to the existing bibliography. As a reference though, I think that 90% of what I learnt, I actually picked from studying the excellent documents produced by the Workflow Manufacturers Coalition (www.wfmc.com).

Anyway, my initial impression, when I went through my first diagonal reading of this book was "what a total waste of time". However, going over it more thoroughly, I did find a few chapters that brought interesting insights.

To sum it up, I find the title misleading "Business Process Implementation: Building Workflow Systems" transmits the idea that after reading the book, you will be able to BUILD a workflow (engine). Well, forget it. The content can only qualify as a basic description of requirements, at the initial step of the life cycle: analysis. What I feel was a wrong initial decision by the authors, is that a book offering to help you build workflow systems should assume that its readers will not be knowledgeable in data structure as a minimum. But the book dedicates fully 2/3 to 3/4 of its content teaching entities, relationships and a few basic concepts about object orientation, as if the reader started out without any knowledge about Information Technology.

All in all, chapters 4, 6, part of 7, and part of 8 actually deal specifically with worflow concepts. About 65 pages out of 227 are relevant to the field (Unless you accept the authors'premise that you also need to be taught how to design your ERD).

As for the relevant part, I liked the scope of the definitions given by the authors for what should be expected of a workflow engine. The relationships between the lifecycle, stages and tasks states are clear enough so you can start sweating over writing your own algorithms. There is a much too short mention about rules, enough to let you detect a black hole there, but not enough to know what to do about it. The treatment of backtracking is useful as well as that of relevant stages for a task (have not found it mentionned in any wkf engine) and so are the general ideas of when to start and end a task to minimize the cost of backtracking.

On the down side, don't look for block diagrams, structured map, component diagrams, UML definitions, state transition diagrams, sample source code, etc. that you would need to actually build a workflow system.

But then, the question becomes more general: "Can you expect to find in a $45 book enough information and specifications to start building what it took others $100,000 or a $1,000,000?". After all, the book is based on the acquired knowledge of developping a real commercial engine, so maybe I was a little ingenuous in thinking I would find it all ready to take home. I really don't know the answer to that one. Still, as an example among many, I have a book (Simulation Modeling and Analysis, by Law and Kelton) that give you the source code for a basic simulation engine in Fortran, Pascal and C. You really know what simulation is about after reading it. Maybe MM.Jackson and Twaddle could have been slightly more detailed with their experience!

So, if you are a manager and want to understand what the salesmen from FileNet or Oak Grove, are talking about or you are suddenly developping an interest in the subject but never heard of System Architecture I, then this book is for you. To be fair, I am still looking for the right book for what I need!

The book serves as a luke warm introdution to neural networks. For the reader planning on applying the material in an industrial setting the book is far from sufficient. An average entry-level programmer could probably successfully code a couple of different types of neural networks as the book supplies nicely written pseudo-code for only couple types. As soon as the reader is interested in pursuing any kind of variation on these basic networks he hits a dead-end wall with 'references for further study' carved in the concrete.

For early undergraduate and advanced highschool students the text provides a great introduction to the field without wasting time on opinion and praising. Rather the reader can dive write into the heart of basic neural network algorithms and brief analyses of why they work and what they are good for.