Programming Books

Over the past couple of months I've read a small pile of computer graphics books from the "Inspired" and New Riders [digital] series and others. I would put 3D design in the position of being one of the first practial how-to books a beginner should work with. Each section is clearly laid out, doesn't confuse with too much detail, and helps you gently step into CG. This book will get you oriented and everything after this will just be deeper studies in specific areas.

A lush, beautiful introduction to the world of 3D. Perfect for newbies and those just wondering what 3D is all about. Plus it includes a Cinema 4D tutorial (building a photo-realistic pool cue).

This book left me wanting more from this publisher and this author.

The BEST book out there for beginning 3D artists. Period. Should be included with all 3D software packages. If you're thinking about getting into 3D design, buy this first!!!!!!

Digital 3D Design is like a visual dictionary for the 3D design world. Out of all the 3D books I own, this is the one I recommend the most in teaching 3D and animation classes (with Bill Fleming's Photorealistic Toolkit a close second!).

It covers concepts and terms (introductory and advanced) in very clear and concise ways, fully illustrated.

It discusses all the major 3D packages, including Maya, LightWave, Cinema 4DXL, ElectricImage, SoftImage and others, discussing advantages of each.

It covers views, 3D space, lighting, shading, textures, resolution, UV mapping, splines, curves, polygons, points, advanced modeling concepts, raytracing, rendering, radiosity, setting up skeletons, animation, inverse kinematics--everything you'd expect if you were looking for the ideal textbook for a 3D class (I'm using it for my modeling and animation classes).

All this for around less than $30. A book every 3D designer, and instructor, should own! Highly recommended.

We used this book for an intro course on computer engineering.

The book, despite being the 1st edition, is very clear and concise, and I turned to it a number of times when the lectures weren't as clear and specific as they might be. Duecks book delves into a bit more detail with more examples {on things like flipflops, latches etc} than other similar books on the market. It also relates the material learned to actual computers looking at the structure of RAM in home PC's.

We didn't use the VHDL or CPLD portions of the book, so I cannot comment on their usefulness... but judging by the rest of the book they should be well written.

I recommend this book for a good introduction to digital electronics.

The teaching of digital electronics using CPLD is very useful, the book covers theory, truth table, gate level implementation. The examples show you how to create a module, for instance,a multiplexer.It doesnt only end here, it further demonstrate the application of the multiplexer. From there, you can have better understanding from gate level up to system level. I benefit a lot from this approach. The examples are very useful despite I am not writing in VHDL.

The book also explain the internal architecture of CPLD, starting from the history development of programmable logic devices. If you want to learn on CPLD, this is definitely the book for you, even if you are not using VHDL.

This is a good book for beginners to digital logic and VHDL. It spends a lot of time explaining how different components like encoders, decoders, muxes, state machines, etc work. That's good for people who haven't been exposed to the material before. If you want to learn that stuff and apply it in VHDL, it's a great book. If you're just trying to learn one or another aspect, there are probably better books out there. If you want to learn VHDL from the book and already know a fair amount about digital logic, it's tough because you keep on skipping stuff you already know and and then later find out that there was VHDL information buried in that section on seven-segment displays. Similarly, people just trying to learn digital logic who are uninterested in VHDL will probably find that they spend a lot of time skipping past explanation of VHDL. Add in the fact that lots of space is taken up by screenshots of Altera software, and the book ends up containing surprisingly little information for its size. People who want a thorough discussion of digital logic or VHDL should look elsewhere. Beginners will probably be right at home.

This is one of the best presentations of digital electronics in the CPLD Altera MAX Plus II design enviroment and VHDL I have ever seen. I do not know of another digital book like it.

It also includes Altera's MAX Plus II software on CD in back of the book along with design files for use with the book prepared by the author.

The real power of Director is in Lingo, Director's programming language. I have more than 10 books covering Macromedia Director; most are designed for the beginner and intermediate level user. Warren's book is by far the best introduction to programming in Director.

I am an instructor at a small college in Colorado and find Mr. Ockrassa's text a pleasant resource for my students and myself. I have been working with Director for 5 years and have learned a great deal from his book. He has great examples of how to write effective and efficient code. This is the best example of a technical text I have ever worked with. We can only hope that he writes an intermediate and advanced text as well.

I am an instructor at a small college in Colorado and find Mr. Ockrassa's text a pleasant resource for my students and myself. I have been working with Director for 5 years and have learned a great deal from this book. This is the only text I have come across as a student or as an instructor that really teaches the fundamentals of programming in a way that can be easily followed and understood. Mr. Ockrassa did an excellent job with his examples and his explanations. I recommend this book to anybody that is new to Director and anybody who has been at it for a while. We can only hope he does an intermediate and advanced text as well.

I'm just getting into the world of Director, and this book has been my guide. It is written in an entertaining manner, (thankfully not overly cute,) and is making my learning experience an enjoyable one so far. Each lesson is laid out in an easy to read manner and features quick quizzes through out the text, designed to make sure that the important concepts are driven home. I recommend it for other readers looking to begin their Director education!

The DOM these days is available in a multitude of programming languages and environments. Not so many people have the knowledge to properly handle the topic, moving back and forward across different languages and implementations, Joe Marini is definitely one of the few. As a matter of fact this is the first book ever available on the subject, and long awaited one! Joe covers much more than just DOM programming for browsers and the books contains a few gems like coverage of Xerces, Dreamweaver's API, generic DOM algorithms and a dedicated chapter on the future of DOM. A must have for anyone doing sophisticated client-side programming for web browsers, this book will be also very useful to anyone dealing with the DOM in any other environment

I have a great deal of interest in the document object model, as it is the basis of HTML and XML documents. Anyone interested in working with HTML, XML, DHTML in an advanced way should read this book and learn from it. This isn't a book for people with a passing interest in slapping together Web pages in Front Page, but it will give you a solid knowledge of the advanced topics of DOM manipulation using JavaScript.

The book starts with some solid theory and explanation of the DOM API, but quickly moves to some practical examples, such as some useful debugging tools, and some HTML interface components (popup menus, in-place list editing) which will get you off on the right foot thinking about how you can implement your own interface elements. That's really the strongest aspect of the book -- getting you to think in new ways.

I read through this book in detail, and I must say that I learned a lot about the DOM that I had previously glossed over. The DOM spec is much more powerful and interesting than what most folks assume. This book gives you insights on building real-world applications using the DOM, as well as helping to deal with cross-browser issues. As I said, it's a great resource for both web developers and web-based application developers.

This book rightfully deserves 5 stars. Is it revolutionary in the sense of "unleashing" DOM? No. If you love reading HTML documentation you can get pretty much the same scope at the W3C site (which the author himself acknowledges). It is more of a wake-up call for web developers.

The ideas presented in the book are very elegant which makes them very valuable. The author explains subtle and obvious differences in the DOM support as implemented by different browser vendors. It has been of great help in my work since I read this book.

Part III alone ("Practical Uses of the DOM") is worth the time and money for its real-life applications of DOM!

This is an excellent book for beginning and intermediate modelers. I found it to be engaging, practical, and easy to understand. Dynamic modeling has become an essential tool to facilitate understanding developments in our increasingly complex and interdependent world, to communicate ideas across disciplinary boundaries, and to help solve problems. This book is a great place to begin. It offers a hands-on introduction to dynamic modeling.

The authors start with an easy to understand, step-by-step description of the modeling process, key principles of modeling, and general methods of modeling. This is followed-up with and numerous examples from chemistry, genetics, ecology, economics, and engineering. But this is not just a book to read. The book comes with run-time versions of the easy to learn STELLA and Madonna software as well as copies of the various models developed in each of the 37 chapters.

The authors encourage readers to build the models themselves as they work through the chapters, and then explore the dynamics by experimenting with the models. This is an active, fun way to learn. It definitely helped me to expand my systems thinking capability. Although my substantive interest is organizations, I learned a great deal by analogy from working through models of problems from other disciplines. Basic systems principles apply across disciplines, and useful insights can be gleaned from recognizing similar dynamic structures underlying different systems.

I particularly liked the instruction by example that is used throughout this book. I learned so much from this book because the reading and modeling, modeling and reading formed a positive feedback loop. The reading provided direction and engaged me in the modeling, and the modeling clarified and reinforced the concepts in the reading. Drawing from my experience with this book, I think it is ideal for those who are just getting started in dynamic modeling or have been learning for several years but want to sharpen and expand their systems thinking and modeling skills.

The book is extremely well written and is so far the best attempt by any author(s)to achieve the right mix of theory and practice in the field of system dynamics. The organization of contents of the book is unique and it highlights the potential use of system dynamics principles for modeling a variety of hydro, ecological, environmental and engineered systems. The principles of system dynamics modeling and the complexities of physical systems are clearly explained by the authors and real-world examples from a number of disciplines are provided. Modelers can benefit from the actual code/examples from the simulation modeling environment, STELLA. The book includes a CD-ROM with all the examples/models discussed in the text to enhance the learning experience of modelers.

I have been involved in static data modeling as part of database design throughout my career, and because of that know very well that to really learn how to model, you have to do more than listen to lectures or read a text. This book, along with the accompanying STELLA modeling tool, is an excellent blend of concept and practice.

The book begins with a short tutorial of the STELLA tool, a run-time version of which is included. (STELLA is very easy to use, and although the math underlying it relies heavily on differential equations, the user can be completely removed from that and still model effectively.) The early chapters gradually develop an understanding of dynamic modeling by building on basic concepts. The following chapters work through models in various areas, such as genetics, economics, and ecology, and provide exposure to modeling in these disciplines, as well as introducing some very interesting aspects of models, such as chaos, randomness, and non-predictable results.

By way of introduction to modeling concepts, case studies are presented clearly and concisely. These are followed by an explanation of a basic model of the system being examined. There are always additional questions that lead to expansion of the ideas being presented, so that the reader can increase their understanding and have opportunities to practice the skills presented.

I used this book for a course in Dynamic Modeling, and found it to be great in presenting the basic concepts of dynamic modeling and in developing a heightened awareness that any system being studied is really a dynamic process. It took this understanding to the next step and showed how to model that process and how to run the model and watch the dynamics in action, while honing the skills of analyzing, refining, and looking for trends and unanticipated results. The book opened up a whole new way of viewing systems for me.

The book teaches the use of a modelling program called STELLA, that can be used to simulate the behaviour of dynamical systems. You can treat the text as an extended user's manual about the capabilities of STELLA. It appears to be an easy program to learn. Its user interface hides the gory details of coupled integro-differential equations that actually model the systems.

More generally, the theory of modelling a dynamical system is developed. With a deprecating of the maths. Showing how positive and negative feedback and randomness can or should be introduced. The idea is to introduce STELLA to a broad audience, who can then perform modelling. Where otherwise they might have been put off by the amount of maths to be understood or the amount of code to be written.

Then, several chapters go into important special cases. There is a chapter on chemical models for mass action. This chapter is a little terse. No mention of molecular dynamics, which has been a very active area of simulation for decades and is highly developed.

And a chapter on genetics, where evolution is discussed. Then a chapter on different types of models of ecologies. Including, naturally, the predator-prey models. And a perhaps very topical section on how epidemics might spread. This is important in trying to understand how to contain AIDS, SARS or a new influenza.

Economic modelling is also gone into. Simulating scarcity of resources and how firms might compete.

It's an excellent book about software science metric.

This book have great value in the field of metric of software science.The theory reffered in this book play an important role.

It's an excellent book about software science metric.

This book have great value in the field of metric of software science.The theory reffered in this book play an important role.

It's a very technical book, and contains the sum of Dilts & DeLozier contribution to NLP. Full of treasures, its best contribution is for me the "new code of NLP", that provides a general coherence to many recent developments in this field.
A must have for those who are seriously involved in NLP.

When NLP, Volume I came out around 1979, the title of that book indicated that Robert Dilts wanted to write a volume II. Robert has been writing a dozen of books since that time, including the "Strategies of Genius" series, which came the closest to the original feat. The current encyclopedia is the result of years and years of work: I saw the first version of the first 3 letters at the NLP leadership conference in summer 1997, 3 years before the book finally came out. The only inconcenience about this encyclopedia is that it is too biased. This is clearly the Encyclopedia of "Dilts' NLP"

Still, this is a book that persons that are really serious about NLP (e.g. people training NLP) should own. END

Without doubt this is the work of geniuses, the work and obvious veneration of the science and art , that is NLP is verified here. These volumes reflect not only a love of the discipline of NLP but also the desire of Dilts et al to indeed create a world to which people want to belong. If you are one of the lucky owners of these books...you are very lucky indeed!! Well done, NLPU.

While this may seem pricy, it is a true encyclopedia. Articles range from single paragraph definitions of terms and brief biographical notes to elaborate presentations of complete models for creating change. Another reviewer said it was only an encyclopedia of Robert Dilts' vision of NLP. I don't agree with that assessment. Surely any work is written from the perspective of the person who creates it - no real news there. Moreover, entries in this encyclopedia cover many people, ideas, and schools of thought which have influenced not only NLP but change work in general.

There are many NLP techniques here which have not been widely publicized elsewhere ... for examples such models as SCORE, ROLE, BAGLE, etc. are presented here in great detail. Robert Dilts is a different kind of writer in the NLP area. His interest seems to be very theoretical so he thinks out his material and constructs rather comprehensive models for those things that interest him - then he communicates them clearly. He is therefore able to convey the material rather more completely than other writers. I don't feel there is any "good" or "bad" in these differing styles, it is just that Dilts is more detailed and comprehensive while other writers are rather more vague and metaphorical at times. What approach works best is probably a function of what the reader is looking for.

For anyone who wishes to gain a really comprehensive knowledge of NLP and change work (Dilts' viewpoint or otherwise) I would enthusiastically recommend this wonderful work.

Many 'engineering' matlab books don't live up their titles. They are simply written as general introductions to matlab with a few useless thoughts about engineering thrown in.

In my opinion, a good matlab engineering book focuses less on general tips that you could get anywhere, and more on practical problem solving techniques and methodologies that provide insight into a paticular engineering problem and its solution.

This books succeeds in that respect. Though it gives space to the more general issues of using matlab, it gives ample room to specific engineering problems. I found its information and examples very useful. The topics are focused on mechanical engineering fields, such as vibration and control; however, the math used for such topics are used across engineering and science disciplines. Thus, any scientist or engineer will find this book useful.

The book is written so that engineers at many levels can benefit from it. For example, as a former graduate student, I found the treatments of vibration response analysis insightful. However, an undergraduate or otherwise inexperienced user would benefit from this book as well, because there is alot of general discussion of how to effectively and efficiently use matlab and write m-files.

All in all, I found this book excellent for both its treatment of high level engineering analysis issues and its more general matlab tips and discussion.

This is one of the best books out there. I not only used it in my vibrations class back as an undergraduate (and I had vibrations with Magrab too!), I have continued to find new ways to use it in the work world today. Dr. Magrab and the others have written a very useful book that definitely relates engineering to this program.

Excellent! ... Applied Engineering using computers, it doesn't get any better than this. Examples, programs, applications .. this is where this book beats the competition. Matlab is a powerful program, and this book shows why. It has been written for beginners and experienced users alike. Introduction to matrices, then goes into functions, and 2D/3D plotting ... then the fun begins with Engineering Applications in fields such as Machine Design, Vibrations, Control Systems, Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer and even Statistics and Optimization! Numerous programs and examples serve as practice for the reader. I am currently using the text to write programs for calculating the vibration of thin beams in my Grad Vibrations class. I only wish I could have gotten my hands on a book such as this when I took many of my undergrad courses. By the way, this book refers to MATLAB 5.3 (Release 11). Congratulations to the authors on such a thorough guide.

This one is really for engineers, it goes over the basics first, subsequently it goes into more details. It has handy examples of mechanics, dynamics...etc. if you are a mechanical or an electrical engineer, and you are a matlab user, this book would mean a lot to you.

Forget about class factories and such...
The real issue in COM is type libraries and proxy/stubs and how these are created using IDL. Also of great importance is designing COM interfaces so that they may be utilized by VB and C++. This is a one stop reference for all that good information.
If you program COM, buy this book. It will pay for itself in minutes.

This is a great book that teaches you how to design and develop COM interfaces that work for C++ and VB clients and also explains the intricacies of the Interface Definition Language.

Even if you use COM at a higher level - ATL wizards, VB wizards and dont really write your own IDL file, you need to read this book to get an understanding of how you can do write even better COM clients and servers.

One thing i wish it also had is information about accessing these COM classes from VBScript.

This book goes into more detail about IDL than most people care about. However if you start wondering why your interface is not being properly marshalled, knowing your IDL will save you from scratching your head in biwilderment.

If you dont want any surprises from COM marshalling this is the book to get. Even in the .NET world, this book will be useful. All the COM components out there today are not just going to go away.

COM programmers have waited a long time for a definitive book on IDL, and Mr. Gudgin has written it. A superb summary of the language that is central to real-world COM programming, and a one-stop resource for developers struggling with IDL. Chock full of juicy details, with coverage of topics ranging from the structure of IDL files to method aliasing and asynchronous COM. If you're a COM programmer, this book will pay for itself many times over.

Kent Tong Ka Iok's book contains far more code than commentary, and I'm learning, really learning, some of these skills now in a way that never came through in all of the dozen or so books on agile techniques that I've read before.

Oh, I'd occasionally like a little more commentary than he delivers, and I'd sure like a good editor to work it over and clean up the prose, but the examples are first-rate, non-toy examples, and the chapter exercises are making me think in whole new ways about writing my own code. I'd love to see lots more examples and exercises in some of the chapters, especially the code smells chapter (where he only covers a few of the smells from Martin Fowler's list in Refactoring). I've also found a few errata that I haven't been able to report because of problems on Kent's site (www.agileskills.org) - but I've emailed him about that.

I don't want to pull punches here, which is why I've mentioned several negatives about the book. But those are nothing compared to the book's qualities. This is one of those great, really valuable books, like Fowler's Refactoring and Freeman & Freeman's Head First Design Patterns. You can find out how great without spending a penny: download the chapters from Kent's site (but note that they won't print, and you can't copy the text, which is why I eagerly came to Amazon and bought the hard copy, which I'm avidly annotating as I work through the examples and exercises). Get this book!

Kent is really doing a good job on writing this book that focus on OO problems and solutions by using examples without using too much boring theory words.

The idea of pointing out "code smell" in source code described in this book really helps programmers know when they should do something OO to keep code fit.

I highly recommended people should read this book first before reading any OO design pattern books. Once you understand the OO basic and concept, later you will figure out "Oh, that example in this book is using strategy pattern!, oh that code is using visitor pattern!" I am sure after you read this book, you will believe how amazing that this book can help you and me!

Kent, a programming genius in Macao, has been actively promoting XP for serveral years. This is a good book coming from the course material of the XP course in CPTTM. I was ever a newbie of XP, however, with this book, I merge my mind with a newer, more powerful, more effective devopment methodology.

Automate Testing and Test Driven is the kernel of XP. Readers are able to learn a more effective way of how to write tests, especially acceptance tests.

Not only does Kent introduce new skills of testing, but also introduce important skills of OO programming. Once and Once Only, IOC principle,etc, newbies of OO can learn essential skills from this book under Kent's simple explaination.

Kent is my teacher of OO. Without him, I was still struggling at the dark age of the Procedure Oriented programming.

If you are a newbie of OO or stranger of XP, don't doubt, read this book immediately. You will soon realize that the sky of OO and XP 's world is Free !

This is a book for software developers interested in gaining the right skills for agile development.

This book has an elegant yet highly effective minimalist style. Rather than long theoretical discussion (of the type I'm sometimes guilty of writing) the book does what it does by example - and there's plenty of example code given.

For example, in chapter 2 - turning comments into code - Kent examines some typical code (I've seen enough like it) littered with comments that are apparently intended to make life easier. Step by step he takes us through removing the comments and expanding variable and method names to show the intent of the code - along the way pointing out useful refactorings to improve the overall code structure and make clearer what's going on. It's a convincing description and easily applied.

Overall the book covers many topics and issues related to agile software development, including: keeping code fit; handling inappropriate references; seperating database, UI and domain logic; unit testing and acceptance testing amongst others.

The thing I really like about this book, and the reason I would recommend it to developers, is that even if you're not doing full on "agile" development, there's still plenty of useful material in it. The lack of hype is also refreshing - the book focuses on examples and shows good solutions. You should get it!