Applied Languages Books

This book was published in '89, yet it still covers 32 bit operating systems. I recently bought the book for a used local store, hoping on finding help creating my own operating system. I was sadly disapointed.

First, the 32 bit section was almost purely theoretical. Remember, that was before Windows 3.0-- which was just a shell for DOS. It was even slightly before Linux!

The 8 and 16 bit sections were detailed, but they focused on hard ware, and not how to contol it. If you have a good understanding of C or preferbly assembler, it might help. 16 bit is sadly outdated, though, so unless your trying to write an OS for the dinosaur in your garage, don't waste your time.

I'm disreguading the 4 bit section-- 4 bit processors have enough umph to power traffic lights, and not a whole lot more.

I gave this book 3 stars despite the fact it didn't help much, because when 16 bit programming was in its hay day (Late 80's, early 90's) this book would have been a lot more helpful.

My rating reflects dissatisfaction with the concept of v3.0, rather than with how it's been implemented. Given past experience, I'm sure the implementation is just fine.

I've been very happily using the parallel version of the v2.10 NR algorithms in Fortran 9x for the past year or more. My work needs the extra oomph of multiple processors, and the algorithms are all that they're supposed to be. You can imagine my astonishment to discover that v3.0 is sequential C++ code. The authors made a big deal about parallel Fortran being the future of scientific computing in the preface of their Second Edition. Now all it merits is a bowdlerization of Shakespeare in a footnote on p. xi. Indeed, "what a falling off was there!"

NR/v3.0 cuts off at least a portion of its high-end users, and that ain't progress. Had I realized this was going to happen, I would never have upgraded. As it is, I'm stuck with the Fortran 90 legacy portion of the CD. This might not be so bad if this code were supported, but it's not.

I strongly urge the authors to move to a parallel version of their new code and to support the Fortran code at least in the interim. The electronic text could provide a medium for so doing.

My displeasure obviously extends to the text, the production of which is superb, by the way.

This is a useful book, on a topic that will become more practical with greater use of CD-R's for image storage. The material is presented at a level that is reasonable, but it assumes that the reader has considerable programming experience in C++. Almost half of the book is C++ program code, and you will not learn much without going through the code in detail. Unfortunately, only BMP images are covered in the code. Also, although the test applications that were in executable code ran in the 16-bit versions, the 32-bit versions failed, and I have not been able to get support from the publisher.

A college-level textbook, this is an adequate but brief introduction to the types of writing most technology workers will be expected to produce on the job. Although the book includes a unique chapter on writing as part of a team, it does not cover two topics that many engineers and scientists will face at work: 1) writing product descriptions, white papers, and other input for marketing and sales materials; 2) how to be an effective subject expert when working with a professional technical writer or copywriter.

This is a great book. It has lots of really good information and wonderful activities. The comprehension questions are a little above where my kids are functioning....but for general education students it would probably be a great resource.

Why still program in Pascal? Yes, in the 70s, it and C contended for the same conceptual mindshare amongst many programmers who wanted something beyond Fortran or Algol. And, indeed, there was still little to choose between Pascal and C, circa 1982. Both had roughly the same functionality. It then became more a personal preference, or, more likely, what was more common in the programming environment of a company or class that you joined.

Now, granted, this book is indeed well written; with an emphasis on scientific applications. But since the 80s, C outran Pascal in the marketplace. Due in part to C and Unix being two sides of the same coin, when the minicomputer and workstation market took off. On the PC desktop, Pascal gave a worthy struggle. But even here, C garnered more usage.

At least in the United States. Given that this book is by a European publisher, and that Pascal was invented in Europe, maybe the market for Pascal is greater over there? Because in the US market, there is little room for this book, unfortunately.

The book looks at ways to measure the effectiveness of second language teaching methods. Based in the US, the second language typically considered is English. Related to the need to assimilate newcomers from different background and mother languages. Both written and spoken proficiencies are investigated.

One chapter looks at the nuances of native Hindi speakers who also know English. If the speakers are actually in India, then English is used by the educated elite in the professional and business fields. A phenomenon of code switching happens, but quite unlike other speakers in other countries.

There are better books - Willis, Skehan, Ellis, Edwards and Willis. I read the original of this book, and the new updated version is definitely better. Nunan a lot of the time when he thinks he's talking about TBL is in fact really talking about PPP. I have read almost everything on TBLT and Nunan in my view is a very minor figure rather than one of the important researchers/writers in this area of methodology. I bet in the future his next article or book won't be on this subject. So based on all the above I give it 3 and say there are better books out there.

I just got this book because I saw it had a paragraph in C#, and I was curious whether it had any useful info on that. The answer to that question is no. It even states that [...] objects are COM, which is fundamentally wrong. So don't look here for optimizing your .NET code. I think at least the author should have gotten better acquainted with .NET, and then he would have known that in itself .NET isn't necessarily slower, because it's compiled to machine code, just like C++ is. The only real argument is that the .NET (JIT) compilers do not heavily optimize and inline at this moment, and make no use of SIMD instructions. This makes .NET not a good candidate for heavy computation at this moment, but that ofcourse might change in future .NET versions.

I am going to read the rest of the book as well, so for that reason, it gets 3 stars so far... it might go up or down when I'm done.

I'm about 1/2 way through this book and probably going to stop reading it. It's really just a general overview of SQL Server 2005, and is really unhelpful if you actually want to learn to use the software.

overview of all aspects but not as clear as could be, lot's of pre-knowledge about visual basic is assumed and not that clearly organized. There are a lot better books out there.

There is nothing in this book that you can not find in another more organized book.

I have yet to find a book by Microsoft Press that is well-written, and this one is the worst of them all. It was certainly a waste of my money. There are many other books on SQL 2005 that are far better.

A very good material for beginers. I would have like to found this material when I first took a DB class...