Computers Books

The CWAP book covers concepts on wireless analysis for physical and MAC layers, IDS solutions,etc. This book should be referred to by all wireless professionals who want to troubleshoot any wireless problem or just understand the different frames being transmitted and received. Additionally this book helped me pass the CWAP exam :)

A great reference book from Devin and his team at Planet3. Well written with many examples and diagrams; they make a tough subject easier to understand. Includes everything you wanted to know about those bits flying thru the air. Worked for over 3 years in the wireless security area - wished I had this book (and the others in the Certified Wireless series) early on.

Regardless if you plan on taking the CWAP exam, if you're in the WLAN industry, you should at least have it in your bookshelf.
It goes over every field in the 802.11 packets, packet types, etc.
Now, if you're studying for the CWAP exam, you should read it twice and make sure you understand all that is explained in the book.
I used this book on my CWAP exam preparation, and I passed it.

I was in the beta CWAP class last year in Atlanta, enjoyed it - and found it to be very helpfull in understanding Wireless, down to the very roots it is built on. I never conduct anything to do with wireless - without this book by my side to refer to.

I have not come across anything related to wireless analysis that I needed to implement that was not discussed or referenced in this book.

The knowledge in this book should be added to your wireless toolkit, even if you are not going to be taking the test.

Great book!

Ranj.
Secure-Wireless Ltd.

This review was helpful to you..................

If this is your first foray into wireless protocol analysis then this book is very very helpful and easy to read but the flow of some of the topics needs to be corrected. For example in several of the first few chapters the authors throw around terms such as mmpdu, bsa, msdu, etc. before they are defined to the reader. The reader does not get the full definition of such words until chapter 5 and 6 and this can make things confusing for the first time reader. Since I had read the Cisco press 802.11 book before, those terms were not strange to me but their placement or use before the clarity could confuse some readers. Also, the Key Terms on page 127 for the chapter #4 of "configuration options and protections mechanisms" looks like the key terms from one of the earlier chapters.

My other issue is that the authors state that PCF is not wildly used and will only be covered in a summary fashion yet there is a lot of detail about PCF.

I disagree with the other reviewers about trace screens there should be more, see the Cisco press 802.11 book.

The layout of the frames and operation are very good and the book does make learning this topic a little easier. I did learn a few new things that I didn't get from the Cisco press book. I used the book mostly for the CWAP went through 4 reads plus 4 read of the Cisco press. I labbed a lot of the protocol traces to learn. The book is very good and does make it easier to learn and grasp. But, there is a lot to cover in this text for the exam. I was able to pass on the first attempt with a decent score.

The book, although very good for a first edition, does have a lot of errors and the errata is growing.

I and others have posted many of the errors to be included in the errata on the CWNP forum.

Overall it is an excellent book but these inconsistencies should be corrected in the second edition. It has the potential to be one of those all time great guides and professional reference once the errors are corrected.

Worth every penny and worth taking the CWAP. I learned a lot from this book....

Hello, Folks this is a great audiobook. Excellent, thrilling, gripping story. Wonderful sound effects. Jason Culp did a fantastic job as narrator. I will listen to F2F many more times. I am going to try and obtain some of Phil Finch's other audiobooks if available. Get this audiobook, now !

The worst part of this book is that it could be real, never let your children at the internet alone, and you have to take care of what are you saying on the net.

Anything by this guy is fantastic! What a future vision...paranoia about keeping your personal information off the public domain seems like a good thing after reading this work.

Great book Phil! Miss you guys!

Rusty In KC

Better than tape!

Once you log on the Net...anyone can find you! April 19, 2001 My father handed me this book becasue I was a "computer guy" and he thought I might enjoy it. (He would have given it 3 stars at most); but being as I am in computers...and you can do everything that is done in this book....I enjoyed it. Anyone who uses a computer, a chat room and a bulletin board will really appreciated it. The deaths are a little more gruesome than is required...but once you get pass that, the book keeps your attention.

It starts slow and picks up with every page. I could not put it down. I finished it on one day! This book is a thriller even up to the last page. A must read.... this is a thoroughly entertaining novel.

Note: I now turn off my computer at night.

My father handed me this book becasue I was a "computer guy" and he thought I might enjoy it. (He would have given it 3 stars at most); but being as I am in computers...and you can do everything that is done in this book....I enjoyed it. Anyone who uses a computer, a chat room and a bulletin board will really appreciated it. The deaths are a little more gruesome than is required...but once you get pass that, the book keeps your attention.

It starts slow and picks up with every page. I could not put it down. I finished it on one day! This book is a thriller even up to the last page. A must read.... this is a thoroughly entertaining novel.

Note: I now turn off my computer at night.

I often play with Nigerian scammers though not to the extent that the author does. Some of his responses to the scammers email are really funny. A lot like the annals of "The Porcine Princess".

There are some hilarious pages in this book, some that had me crying and unable to speak. If the author had a little more variety it would have been a great book, but it did seem to repeat its formula in the responses to the email scams after a while.

A laugh-riot from start to finish--the funniest book I've read in years.

This was one of the funniest books I have enjoyed in a long, long time. The content is fun and light and makes for an easy read. There were times I had tears in my eyes and pain in my stomach from laughing so hard. It's an excellent book for when you need a break from this mad, mad, world.

It's one of those purchases you won't regret.

Highly recommended!

The Publishers Weekly review above is on the money, in that this book is gleefully offensive.

I'm fine with that.

If you're fine with that as well, this book will make you snort with laughter at inappropriate times. Do not read while sitting in bed next to your sleeping spouse. She will eventually punch you in the chest for waking her up.

It'll be worth the bruise.

When you're working with Group Policies or Profiles, it's simple: you must read this book. Jeremy Moskowitz learns you the tough parts of Windows in his own matchless style.

This book isn't for beginners but if you're a network or systems administrator it is an excellent source of group policy information for Windows servers and workstations (2000, XP, and 2003).

Great read and very informative. I've been using it as a reference ver since. Keep up the great work Jeremy!

For managing GPOs for locking down servers, this is not a complete book. This is an excellent book for managing desktops or workstations, laptops and terminal servers. There are many user rights assignments and security settings that are left completely out of this book.

Updates:

Since the author commented, I feel it's only fair to elaborate on some of the items, either as a thought for a "Group Policy - locking down your servers" book or possibly a future update to this one.

Most of the User Rights Assignments are the most sensitive rights you can grant. Several of them provide the ability to impersonate other users, including the obvious ones (Impersonate client after authentication). Other rights don't actually provide the functionality that users likely think (Create permanent shared objects - you wouldn't believe how many application teams thought this would let them share folders and printers). At the very least, a detailed list of rights that should be granted per setting for complete OS functionality(changing Impersonate Client... without granting the right to the Service builtin object will break a server running Windows Server 2003 with SP1, but have no effect on other versions of the OS) would be very helpful - the defaults for Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server are completely different.

Personally I think that another book about securing your servers via GPO would be nice. Not everyone should be securing their servers via GPO and it may add a certain level of complexity to an application environment that is not desired, but for larger environments that require an automatic mechanism to correct any security deficiencies or changes, GPOs are an excellent solution. A book that would cover Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 (or whatever Longhorn ends up being called) and the differences between the OS versions, would be fabulous for a security/AD/GPO admin in any environment that is much more complex. Particularly in a complex environment, all 3 versions of Windows Server that GPOs apply to should be covered. Many larger companies are slow to adopt new versions of software or upgrade that which they already have (if it ain't broke, don't fix it!), so finding OUs that have Windows 2000 Servers and Windows Server 2003 machines in the same structure of your organization is definitely far from abnormal and providing the reference to effectively secure all of the GPO functional server operating systems (or at least the MS ones).

I understand that the intention of this book is to talk about basically the user environment portions of the GPO, but the name doesn't define that, so won't update my rating. Maybe if it had a companion for the machine-side security related settings...

Jeremy Moskowitz books are easy to read. He gives you great examples.

When acquiring this book, was due to its title Practical Solutions for Real-Life Programming my opinions until there is that there are quite excellent books on the market but for me the material does not seam to directly apply to my dayly job.
Though the first chapters were hard on the gums, because of the writing stile, but as soon you get into the spirit of the book its quite easy read.

Some of the concepts described are in other books, but interesting, when reading them attached to real life examples it gave me a new perspective.
Although at first the "real life examples" did not seam that real to me, but after reading the book I find my self returning to the book because I remembered that the book presented a similar situation.
Then I now have names to some programming concepts that I was implementing for example Veneers and Boltins. And of course learned new ones for example Shims and Type Tunnelling.

There are several good advices in through out the book. During the reading of the book there was one I new but to my shame was not implementing it, so I decided to do it: Make the Compiler your Batman (had some problems with the meaning of Batman since Im not a native English speaker). After forcing my self to implement this, I have probably saved my self from quite a few hours of Debugging.

And if you by Chapter 34 you have any doubts on Real-Life aspect of the book. Then Chapter 35 removes all of that doubts when you see with amazement the use of macros to improve source code readability. Not that I love macros but I totally agree with using the right tool for the right job and C++ has a lot of tools. In my little real world code readability is one of the first goals I try to accomplish.

Additionally I also found the stories in Appendix B quite inspiring since I could relate the main idea with some events of my personal life experience.

This is very different from the many 'intermediate C++' books that are on the market. If you've had your fill of reading about pimpls, use of const and which overloaded operators should be members, it's time to read 'Imperfect C++'.

Be warned, it does take a little while to get going, and the author has a rather unusual writing style, which can best be described as an informal hybrid of Aussie and British. And admittedly the opening part of the book covers material reminiscent of the likes of 'Effective C++', albeit with a stronger emphasis on optimisation.

But once it gets going, there's a whole new world opened up, rather remote from the rarefied atmosphere of more theoretical books. Imperfect C++ has a very 'in the trenches' feel, where you need to write programs that talk to C, and on a Windows platform. None of the book is about object oriented design as such, but has a library designer's appreciation for dealing with operating system quirks.

You know how lots of books have advice along the lines of "NEVER do this" or "ALWAYS do this"? Matthew Wilson takes great delight in providing examples where you might want to do the opposite, and covers a wide variety of topics, including defining a portable boolean, a NULL value, and C#/Pascal/Python-like properties.

Purists will almost certainly dislike the fairly heavy use of macros for some of the solutions here, you'll have to get used to the appearance of code with a plethora of underscores in. And the book assumes a reasonably high level of knowledge of C++. In particular, there's little hand holding. Entire class definitions are often provided, but you won't always get example application code to see it in action. This is a little unfortunate, particularly in the chapters where the author introduces his own idioms. It requires careful concentration to work out the physical layout of some of the solutions (e.g. are these free functions or member functions? In the same namespace or a different namespace?). On the other hand, some readers will no doubt welcome the vigorous thought that is required.

Overall, this is a very different, practical book to most of the C++ books out there, with a very high signal-to-noise ratio. Add it to your C++ recommended reading list.

Skipping aside the occasional misstep (here and there in the first part of the book) from this first time author, the material really comes into its own in Part 2.

I own a lot of C++ books - probably all the "bibles" and then some - and this is the only book of which I am aware that covers issues such as ABI (and how to emulate it), threading, contract programming, operator overloading, multi-dimensional arrays (and a whole lot more) in such practical and applicable terms.

And then there's all the stuff that the author's invented, which makes reading parts 4-6 both a challenge and a delight.

The author provides a number of tools and libraries on the accompanying CD, some of which are the summer 04 snapshots of various of his libraries. I've since become addicted to several of these, in no small part because they work with just about any compile you can name. (The book makes reference to compatibility issues in several places, and the libraries bear out this obsession's worth.)

At the end of the book, he promises to return in "Extended STL". Judging from the apparent progress on his site for that book - www.extendedstl.com - we may not have to wait too much longer.

If you're listening, Dr. Wilson, please allow us the pleasure of your second book before too long. The world of C++ needs practical protagonists who are also practiced pedagogists.

"Imperfect C++" was an amazing surprise to me when I read it a year ago, it was the first time I knew that there're so many imperfections in C++, a language I thought I knew quite well before; and it was the first time I knew that nearly all those imperfections could be circumvented, and circumvented pretty well.

As a C++ fan myself, I've been spending quite a portion of my free time on C++, and that is 6 years+. Among all the books I've read about C++, I think this one fill the right gap, that is, most of the C++ books focus on isolated tricks and techniques which, while interesting, often don't take real world constraints in consideration(such as performance, compile-time enforcements, flexibility).

I finished "Imperfect C++" last night, and it's definitely my "Book of the Month" (and last month, and the one before that). It is clearly written, and Wilson's hard won experience definitely shines through.

I liked the practical hands-on angle of the book, "Imperfect Practitioners", indeed, which is different from other books, and I look forward to Wilson's next book(s).

Perhaps, what impressed me the most was the way Wilson took common problems or ideas to their maximum logical consequences and implications. It is not common to actually think through all the possible implications of a particular design decision in terms of (mis-)use, efficiency, robustness and portability. Usually, one does what time permits and what works for the current project. Rarely, are the solutions so well thought out and robust to abuse.

From beginner C++ programmers to advanced demi-gurus, all will find something new in this book.

It is a worthy and valuable addition to any serious C++ developer's bookshelf.

This is a readable, practical, and deep book. It's one of those books which teaches or refreshes Java and OO theory and practice as you read. I am also reading it for pleasure!

This is a great book. It is directed at users of JUnit, the Java unit testing framework. But in my mind the book gives sound advice for solving your programming problems in general, not just for Java or JUnit testing. It stresses the importance of unit testing, programming to interfaces instead of implementations and just simple common sense. The author is clearly passionate about his field and extremely experiences. The combination of enthusiasm and experience comes through on every page.

This isn't necessarily the best introduction for absolute beginners (I would recommend /Pragmatic Unit Testing/ for that), but it is required reading for server-side Java, as most other reviewers have pointed out. But it's more than that--it's one of those rare computer books that transcends its subject matter. Why? Because it can make you a better programmer. While some of the credit can rightly be given to unit testing and Test-Driven Development in general, Rainsberger's book makes you /see/ better ways to write and refactor your code. The breadth and depth of examples is astonishing--he convincingly shatters "but it's too hard to test that" arguments with well-researched, non-trivial examples. In fact, I'd say that this is almost a better J2EE tutorial than most books about J2EE proper.

I'm withholding a star for one reason: the book doesn't cover GUI testing tools like Jemmy, JFCUnit, or Abbot/Costello. These JUnit extensions are ripe for a book with this depth; it's just too bad that this couldn't be that book. Other than that, I find that I turn to Rainsberger's book far more often than any other testing book or online reference.

This review also appears on StickyMinds at http://www.stickyminds.com/s.asp?F=S767_BOOK_4

JUnit Recipes is a comprehensive tome of practical methods and techniques for the opensource JUnit tool to develop automated unit-tests for Java/J2EE applications. The book is split into four parts: Building Blocks, Testing J2EE, Additional JUnit Techniques, and Appendices. The Building Blocks cover the basics of using JUnit to create basic tests, organize and manage test suites and test data, running JUnit tests and reporting the results. It even includes a section on troubleshooting. Testing J2EE covers XML, JDBC, EJB, web components (including JSPs), and J2EE applications. Additional techniques include testing some well known design patterns, using JUnit add-ons and JUnit libraries (like GSBase). The Appendices include complete solutions (including code of course), some short and sweet essays on testing, and a modest recommended reading list.

The organization of the book flows very logically and the writing style is very clear and easy to follow. Along the way many insights into important design principles and testing techniques are revealed: the reader will learn about the "Hollywood principle", the Open-Closed principle, design patterns, POJOs, Mock Objects, Private and Parameterized Test-Cases, Abstract Test-Cases, Self-Shunts, and Spys. The book's coverage is very comprehensive and touches on many other popular Java/Enterprise projects and frameworks such as Struts, JBOSS, Prevayler, XDoclet, Tomcat, XPath, XMLUnit, HTTPUnit, Ant, Jakarta, and others.

Even though JUnit is often associated with "Agile" development and much of the wisdom apparent in the book applies to agile Java development, the book is useful to any Java developer on any Java project (agile or otherwise). The book also goes into considerable detail, with working code examples, to spell out exactly how to perform and apply the techniques it describes.

The book's primary audience is Java developers. Java Tester's will still find some good nuggets of information but it's quite clear that Java programmers and developers are the target audience. This isn't some high-level theoretical book mostly of concepts and ideas. This is an imminently pragmatic guide that not only conveys a great deal of highly practical wisdom but also clearly and comprehensively walks you through the explanations and the code to accomplish and apply the techniques it describes. The book is also not a "How To" for coming up-to-speed on setting up and running JUnit.

Another book from the same publisher, "JUnit in Action" is a great overview on learning more about the basics of running and using JUnit and on using JUnit to tackle a number of basic challenges with unit-testing Java and J2EE code. JUnit Recipes has some overlapping material but pretty much "picks up" where "JUnit in Action" leaves off, and JUnit Recipes goes into much more breadth and depth of coverage of JUnit methods, practices and techniques and use with other Java projects and frameworks.

I would say JUnit Recipes should probably be required reading for anyone attempting to use Java, J2EE and JUnit in the real-world.

Rainsberger does a very good job of detailing the techniques to unit test difficult code; including xml, ejb, servlets, jsps etc.

I have actually used this reference for years as needed for ActionScript. I still had a good use for this text in ensuring compatibility with Flash MX until the lack of features became too overwhelming. This is in the face of newer versions of Flash such as CS3 (9.0) that use ActionScript 2.0/3.0. All in all, this book was wonderful until the release of Flash 8.

Because of the new Filters that have come out with Flash 8.0 and the features of ActionScript 2.0 to support these and other enhancements, I would instead recommend Flash 8 ActionScript Bible if one is concerned with cross-compatibility in their ActionScript code and wishes to still be able to use AS with newer features such as Filters (but not as new as Transitions or other CS3 exclusive features - for that, I'd recommend ActionScript 3.0 Bible or something similar).

As far as who I could possibly recommend this book for: It's good for somebody who is still working with Flash MX 2004 and below to Flash 5 (much of the text is compatible with Flash 5), however, I don't know that there are many of those sorts of individuals.

This book is a great resource for when you're looking for that specific line of code. Its terrible to read from front to back, but its an excellent way to find exactly what you're looking for. Its so much code, it'll make your eyes bleed.

One of the few comprehensive actionsctipt titles on the market. The first half of the book boasts a large variety of tutorials and examples that skillfully lead the reader through both the syntax and use of actionscript. Personally I found the text clear and practical. The chapters on OOP were of particular value as they went beyond actionscript basics into application, bordering on philosophical.

The second half is an invaluable reference of the entire actionscript dictionary with a comprehensive CD full of .fla example files and bonus chapters on the XML Object. As a qualified teacher I found it hard to fault the methodology employed by the various authors.

Well worth the purchase.

I am a former programming teacher and I have a style to teach my students the most UNDERSTANDABLE way to do something not just how to do it. This text/reference achieves that purpose. If you have an understanding of Flash (which you should have before getting into scripting see Weinman books) then this book will serve you well. There are other books on scripting - great books - such as Moock's books but they are more so for the programmer. This book is for the novelist programmer that desires to learn about action scripting.

5 stars if you know Flash well.
1 star if you haven't had any experience with it at all.

I was a beginner once, who couldn't figure out Flash at all. I'd like to help you build a bridge between where you may be now, as a beginner, to where you may find yourself aspiring to go.

If your only experience with Flash is to have seen the many wonderful and breathtaking Flash movies on the Internet and just had a look at the authoring tool, I strongly recommend that you leave this book until much later. It has its place in the learning curve but it isn't, in my opinion, the first book to see.

There are understandings to possess that this book doesn't cover sufficiently well enough for those whose minds work in particular ways. This is a programming book, for using the phenomenon of programming to create great design and animations. Whilst the focus is on design, you aren't using the design tools on the interface. With this book, you are using the Actionscript language and you have to have a logical mind for this activity (as well as keeping your strong creative one).

I began my steep learning curve with Flash by watching others and watching video tutorials, especially those by George Pierson. In this way, I can ask questions that are tailored for me and I get tailored responses. Books aren't always able to do so well here.

What is great about this book is the MX Actionscript reference in it and the seemingly well designed theory tutorials. I can't find a fault with the reference. The theory is quite good. In the reference, all Flash MX commands are covered. There are examples of how to use them, but the coverage may not be enough for some. Brill. Just BRILL. I can be excited but because I can follow Actionscript.

Approach this book when you are successfully making Flash movies on your own. Yes, on your own. For me, this book is an aid for when I am going to where I haven't gone to before. It helps me make judgements on ideas I get.

This is a recommended book to read for people who would like to read about statistics and maths. People with few knowledge about these sciences will find it a bit difficult to read.

This is the best book I have found for a general study of the of neural networks. I found this particularly useful when looking at how to write my own NN frameworks. The depth of the mathematics allowed me to easily answer questions like: 'what if I replaced function abc with xyz'. I have found other texts failed to show key mathematical derivations, or to explore the subtleties of what the maths imply.

The book covers a plethora of topics from simple gradient descent through second order techniques and conjugate gradient, through to the use of 'bayesian techniques' (basically confidence intervals on network outputs), monte carlo techniques etc. Similarly error functions, non-linearities (sigmoids, softmax etc.) and data preparation are all treated.

The extensive bibliography also provides excellent references for further study, (a whos who of the field, as well as actual titles). My copy is now dog earred from frequent reading.

The theories of NN and PR are quite difficult to understand. But this book makes them much easier. The author can explain the concepts without using too much formula. If other authors could follow his step then the life is much easier!

Mr Bishop's book is very well written and contains a lot of useful information on neural networks. It is outlined well and progresses in a logical form. If, however, you are looking for a book that gives discussions with concrete examples of neural networks applications or set ups, you will be sorely disappointed. The mathematical treatment is universally generalized with very few specific concrete examples shown. Even the exercises will not serve you well. The term 'graded' is used; however, that simply referes to the description of difficulty. There are no answers to these exercises, so unless you have a teacher or are already firmly familiar with the material, you will not know if you have completed them correctly or not. Even worse, the exercises are in general not written to reinforce concepts in the chapter, but in most cases extend the chapter material into new regions.

In summary, this book should only be purchased by someone already familiar with neural networks and their mathematical basis. Anyone else will be wasting their money.

If you want a very good, intermediate introduction to pattern classification this book must be on your bookshelf. It even does a very nice job explaining the EM algorithm in a few pages! Basic calculus is all you need to understand the book. A must read.

I read this book and Couchman's Oracle 8 DBA Certification Guide (from Oracle Press). The Exam Cram book did a great job covering the bases needed for the Oracle networking exam. It is very concise and to the point. If you ignore the number of silly typos, the book attacked the topics very well from examination point of view. I think it was a very poor proofreading effort!
I gave a 5 star because the topics are laid out well and details are to the point.

This book contains everything you'll need to pass the Oracle8 Network Administration. It has the good standard Exam Cram format, but it contains more info than the usual Crams do. It's more like a study guide than a study guide companion, without repeating the classic mistake of being too wordy. This is one of my favorite Exam Crams.

Very good book, started from basic knowledge of net8 to advanced options.

Nice to have before you take the DBA Net exam.

This book has very useful tips and is excellent exam guide. Highly recommended.

I bought this book as a complement to Couchman's Oracle 8i DBA Certification Guide (from Oracle Press), because the latter's networking coverage was clearly a rushed effort. The Exam Cram book does an admirable job covering the bases needed for the Oracle networking exam. In general, the material is explained well and concisely. Overall the test questions in the book matched the breadth of those on the real test. There are a couple of notable exceptions. My test had FOUR "fill in the blank with the name of the parameter or view" questions. (Giving V$SHARED_SERVERS instead of V$SHARED_SERVER is wrong). There are no questions of this type in the book. Additionally, the actual test generally asked more demanding questions regarding CMAN and MTS than are in this book (in my opinion).

If you're taking the 8i exam, be sure to look over the Oracle docs on load balancing, which is not fully covered in this volume (which is designated for 8).

This book loses a star due to the sheer volume of silly typos and cut-and-paste errors. A look at Coriolis's errata page (on their web site) for this book reveals over 50 reported errors. I found many more, about one every other page. And on the web site errata page the utility "lsnrctl" is spelled, in multiple places, as "1snrct1" (digit 1 instead of letter l)! Doesn't anyone proofread this stuff? (The author works at the Washington Post!)

I'm still working through the book but was pleased to FINALLY find an author whose style is clear without being boring. An enjoyable book which has already cleared up some confusion I had before. I have a couple of comments for other reviewers, though:
(1) The title is a play on words. It doesn't mean that the book is supposed to be
entirely about pointers, as a couple of reviewers seemed to think. I think its a great title! (2) The book IS expensive, probably because it is widely used as a textbook. Textbook publishers have been gouging students for years, and in this case it affects more than just university students. (I'm a prof myself.)

This book is an excellent book on C for people who have previous programming experience. Although the title might be a little deceiving - does not cover just pointers - the author does dedicate the better part of the book discussing. The book has many excellent explanations that are not covered in books that I have read such as a whole chapter pertaining to lists (linked lists, and binary trees) using pointers. The main disadvantage is that the examples in the book are incomplete, thus you are not able to type them in and see the results. Beyond that disadvantage the book is great and offers answers to all the questions (on the website) which is something that I felt to be lacking on many books that I have read so far.

As before I bought this book I have problems about advance pointer like a pointer to function, array of pointer to function, pointer to structure or other topic like this. The author explain this topic very well.
By the way, the purpose of buying this book is to solve reading C language code on embedded linux which involve pointer and hardware. The author do not give enogh information about this topic.
However I still rate this book five stars for the topic Pointer on C.

When programming in C you must use, love and own pointers. Look at the function templates for the standard C lib. What do these functions return? POINTERS! If you don't want to learn pointers, or think about solving problems using pointers, then please go drive a truck or program in Basic or some other half-wit language. C will frustrate you to tears if you insist on using subscripts. It's not how the language approaches problems.

I am having to use C# right now and want to gag. Any language that claims to be "C" but doesn't support pointers is an oxymoron. Have a glass of dry water while you try to swallowing that load of bull. Thanks MicroSlop for ruining two languages, Basic (who cares) and C, the language that built the computer revolution (punishable by death in a better world). Arrrghhh. Thanks Ken for a great book for the strong and the brave amongst us.

As others have noted, this book is exremely expensive. I was lucky enough to get a used copy for about half the retail price here on Amazon and I intend to keep it. I haven't read every book on C, so I may be ambitious to say this, but this is the best explanation of pointers I've read to date. The author doesn't assume anything and this is helpful when learning something as tricky as pointers for those new to the concept. The author explains concepts with clarity while being concise. I don't develop software for a living, but need to write the occasional program here and there. I thought this book accurately described the methodology of writing the most compact, yet readable code, for the problems presented. I'd reccommend this book despite the price. Those new to the C programming language won't be disappointed.