Programming Books

Finally, an HTML book that is written with real,useful, coherent examples and explanations. I've wanted to learn HTML in a hands-on fashion without all the garbage...This book is it. Well worth it. I have a complete understanding of HTML and all the in and outs too. By the time I was done with the book, I had designed an entire web site...no hassle.

Not enough books take this hands-on approach, but this Workbook format really works! Gets you started immediately, although some of the earlier material is elementary if you have any experience at all with HTML. But the task-based exercises are key to finding the task you need to complete! I also have the Definitive Guide, which is decent as a reference, but this book is more hands-on, with excellent hands-on examples that can also serve as a great reference, and it's much more fun to learn with. Highly recommend it; I'm off to look for more Workbooks like this to beef up my Web programming skills.

If you are interested in web page design and don't know here to begin you might want to take a look at this book. What you'll find is that the author's have broken down HTML and web pages into a format that allows the reader to learn at a pact that's comfortable and easy.

Starting off this 320-page book is basic HTML layout including tags, the head section and comments. The creating and organizing of web pages are broken down into topics like lists, images, links, both internal, external and bookmarks.

Continuing on the topics of formatting the page with fonts, colors, backgrounds and sound are covered. You then move into the world of tables, CSS, and finally frames. You have over 60 labs to work with and learn from and there are review questions to aid in you studying.

With and wealth of examples to learn from you have just about everything you need. What the author's might want to include in the next version is a cd-rom with HTML editors, utilities and practice files. Overall this book is a great value for the money.

Finally, an HTML book that is written with real,useful, coherent examples and explanations. I've wanted to learn HTML in a hands-on fashion without all the garbage...This book is it. Well worth it. I have a complete understanding of HTML and all the in and outs too. By the time I was done with the book, I had designed an entire web site...no hassle.

Donald Alcock's Illustrating C is not just an outstanding intro into writing _idiomatic_ c, but it's a really beautiful model of how to put across a whole lot of the beautiful ideas of Computer Science. His illo's are hand drawn. Imagine really good blackboard illustrations of standard C.S. topics like linked lists and hash tables and so on, tidied up for publication. It just kills me that this wonderful little book is out of print. If you are a programmer of any stripe and you see a copy of this rascal, dive for it. You'll be glad you did. If you are a grizzled programmer that is taking up C, you'll find it a delight. If you are a gamer kid wanting to get into real programming, you'll find it hard, but worthwhile because there's so much great stuff presented in such a condensed manner. What a swell book!

This is the best C book on the market for visual thinkers like me! I used it to re-engineer a large embedded development project a few years ago. It's the only book I have found that explained link lists well. Buy it NOW!

Yes this book is very difficult to find.. The author has an incredible way of explaining each concept within a page or two, in a very concise and inuitive manor. This book is great for beginners, and equally valuable to the more advanced programmers. A must have for the library...

I got an "A" in my C course. And I used 5 text books. The ONLY textbook that really helped was Alcock's "Illustrating C". It uses diagrams in a truly "revolutionary" way that really helps understanding. It's like moving from black and white to colour. The intention is to provide the student with a set of course notes, complete with instructor black-board diagrams -- only better. It really works. It's enjoyable. Did I mention I got an "A"? I hope that other textbook writers pick up on Mr. Alcock's unique style! Bravo!!! I found C difficult until Mr. Alcock's diagrams made things clear -- the mysterious problem in teaching seems to be that many teachers and textbooks stop JUST BEFORE they reach the foundation of the matter -- and then you have to guess what's really going on. I suspect that this is because many teachers or textbook writers really don't have a profound understanding of their material -- and this becomes a difficulty for the student. Mr. Alcock understands the foundation of the matter and has managed to present it in the most accessible manner. You can really really learn from this surprisingly slight book!!! Bravo again!!!

Ms. Cohen's Quickstart Guide to InDesign was perfect for me to get a, er ... quick start in learning this sophisticated design tool. I write this as someone who's had lots of experience with other computer tools, but who's new to page layout; although I expect it'd be equally helpful to anyone who'd dare to approach anything as complex as a desktop page layout program.

The book's strengths, for me, are that it stays to the essentials (while including all of the essentials), is clearly and abundantly illustrated with screen shots, and focuses on a how-to approach with concise and consistently clear explantaions throughout. A perfect combination for me was to use this book to get started ... quickly ... and to refer to the Adobe manual and on-line help to research specific features in more depth.

Another of my favorite features is Ms. Cohen's informative, engaging and often amusing commentary in the chapter intros and sidebars. These lend a personal and welcoming touch to her deft and experienced treatment of her information-dense topic, and remind us that words can be fun, too.

Ms. Cohen's Quickstart Guide to InDesign was perfect for me to get a, er ... quick start in learning this sophisticated design tool. I write this as someone who's had lots of experience with other computer tools, but who's new to page layout; although I expect it'd be equally helpful to anyone who'd dare to approach anything as complex as a desktop page layout program.

The book's strengths, for me, are that it stays to the essentials (while including all of the essentials), is clearly and abundantly illustrated with screen shots, and focuses on a how-to approach with concise and consistently clear explantaions throughout. A perfect combination for me was to use this book to get started ... quickly ... and to refer to the Adobe manual and on-line help to research specific features in more depth.

Another of my favorite features is Ms. Cohen's informative, engaging and often amusing commentary in the chapter intros and sidebars. These lend a personal and welcoming touch to her deft and experienced treatment of her information-dense topic, and remind us that words can be fun, too.

This is my favorite book in the "Quick Start" series; as a novice typesetter and Adobe products users, I have them all. This is written in plain, everyday English, not tech-talk and begins at the beginning of the layout process with getting your first page formatted with margins and other variables. It also includes a quick start for Pagemaker and Quark users who might be more familiar with page layout programs. Numerous illustrations on each page help one figure out, among other things, what the buttons look like and what a baseline guide is. While InDesign borrows much from Pagemaker, Photoshop and Illustrator, it combines them into one program so one doesn't have to switch from one program to another to perform a task. This is my choice for InDesign books, although as the program matures, many others will surely follow. If you buy only one book about InDesign, buy this one. Aside from its' usefulness, it is an outstanding value, too!

This is the best yet book in this series. It is arranged logically and begins at the beginning in simple English and takes one through the program step by step, each step building on the one before it and adding to your proficiency level. I have sat with this book and followed it exactly and I think that it has been excellent in getting me started. Now I actually know enough to ask questions and look things up in the index! It truly is an easily understood book and very comprehensive and if you have any prior experience with Quark or Pagemaker, it will be a breeze to get up and running with InDesign. This book is an excellent value and the one you should really buy first. I doubt you'll need any of the others after reading this one.

In a word, this book is excellent.

Graham Nelson is a great writer, and he knows this subject VERY
well. The book serves as an excellent introduction to the
Inform language and to interactive fiction authoring generally
and also a good reference source. (In fact, this book is
probably a large part of the reason that Inform is so much more
popular than TADS, which is older.) Additionally, the section
on the world model, with the Ruins examples, makes a great
introduction to object-oriented programming generally. The
essays on game design issues are useful even to people using
other languages than Inform to create interactive fiction or,
for that matter, related genres such as graphical adventures.

The writing style throughout is excellent -- clear and easy
to follow, but with adequate detail. (The sidebars sometimes
provide more detail than is necessary for beginners, but these
can be safely skipped until later, and the main text makes
sense without them.) Only the appendices really come across
as very technical.

I was initially introduced to this book through the third
edition, which introduced me to and has shaped my view of
object-oriented programming. Naturally, when I saw the
announcement that the fourth edition was going to be made
available in print form, and that it would include the Ruins
examples, I rushed to preorder, and I was not disappointed.

This book is also available in other formats, which are
convenient for searching, but if you are like me you will
want a print copy.

First of all, this book is well made. At first glance, it looks like one of those O'Rielly books, but closer inspection will reveal it's lay-flat binding that lets you open the book completely, without worrying about creasing the spine.

This book is well written. Inform (the compiler) was written by Graham Nelson while he was writing his classic game "Curses." So not only are you getting a manual written by a top notch programmer, but an excellent writer as well.

Really, though, I consider this book to be a part of Internet History. How often do you get the chance to be part of a small, relatively obscure group of artists & programmers (Interactive Fiction Authors) all over the world, and own a *physical* piece of it? I mean... sure you can download the Inform manual in PDF format and take it to Kinkos to have it bound, but the extremely limited printings of this book make it something worth having.

If you're a programmer and you're reading this, wondering just what the heck this is all about, this is a compiler & series of libraries that allow you to relatively quickly, create classic text adventure games. Instead of creating your own physics model, Inform comes with libraries that let you quickly define rooms, bottles, clocks, rubber tubing, white houses, mailboxes, elvish swords, and so on. Once you create a game, it will be playable on any number of platforms, from gameboy to palm to mac, pc, java...

If you're an enthusiastic game player with little to no programming experience looking to create a piece of interactive art... run. Run screaming. Run screaming, and don't look back. Programming isn't easy, and it will be many many months or years before you can produce a viable game.

If you're a beginning programmer looking for a fun way to get some experience, this may be a good, fun way to start. A few early successes will hopefully encourage you to work harder, and the C-like syntax will help you grasp a few programming basics.

If you're any or none of the above, check out rec.arts.int-fiction, which is where all the IF game designers hang out. :-)

Interactive Fiction holds a fond place in my heart, having been raised on the works of Infocom with a Commodore 64 from my pre-teen days well into High School. Thus, it was a joy to discover the Inform development system while in college, and to have the tools to develop my own text adventure in the same format as the games I had grown up with.

As a professional games developer, with several titles on the PC and XBox under my belt, I can say that Nelson's 4th Edition Inform Designers Manual is easily the most friendly read of all game development technical books. Presenting a clear "how to" style, while exposing the power of his interactive fiction development system in a logical and easy to follow manner, this book will have you running around a few rooms of your own design within an hour. Within days, any reasonable person, developer or not, will have the tools at their disposal to create complex puzzles, environments, and characters in their own text adventure.

An added bonus is the Craft Of Adventure section, which provides a brief history of Interactive Fiction, as well as design notes on what makes good puzzles; how to layout flow, pacing, and plot; what players love and what they hate (i.e. Mazes); and how to create a game that is polished, compelling, and enveloping.

This is the only book I would recommend to a young teenager interested in games development. Not only is Interactive Fiction one of the few types of games that can still be developed by a single person, but the introduction to object oriented coding, game state management, and the complexity of game development offered by Inform are invaluable lessons for anyone considering a career in games development. In fact, I wish more professional game developers read this book (especially the "Craft" section) and developed Interactive Fiction in their spare time to hone their skills and better understand the roots of their discipline.

Remember Infocom and their games, such as Zork, Suspect, and The Lurking Horror?

Well those games were called Interactive Fiction, and in the mid-eighties, ruled the software sales charts. Soon enough though, graphicical games took their place in popularity and Interactive Fiction seemed to have disappeared from the landscape.

Then in the early 90's, a couple of developers revived the genre with a couple of compilers, one of them called Inform. Appropriately, Inform creates games files that run against the exact same virtual machine that was used by Infocom, called the Z-Machine.

Inform is a complete language, compiler, and set of library extensions that lets an author/programmer create the same type of Interactive Fiction that was so popular in past times.

The Inform Designer's Manual: 4th Edition is the technical manual for the Inform compiler and includes an entire section on the history of the artform.

This is one of the best technical books you could ever hope for and if you have any interest in the Interactive Genre, it's a must-have for your collection.

Internet Security for the Macintosh - A Guide for the Rest of Us is I believe a "Must Have" Computer Manual, alongside David Pouges "Missing Manual" and Steve Schwartz "Internet Explorer for Macintosh" for every serious Mac Users reference library

The authors, Oppenheimer and Whittaker come impeccably credentialed and their expertise as filtered by joint authorship has clearly made use of their backgrounds with measured and pragmatic effective advice taking you carefully through security requirements from the bottom up. One undeniable advantage in this respect is that they also currently provide ISP services so they know what the real world is about and it shines through.

In addition the timing of the publication is excellent.

Whilst it is Mac specific it could well be considered an essential basic Internet Security Manual for PC Users as well.

The Manual of around 400 pages and 18 chapters is broken down into four sections 1. General Security Principles 2. Securing Internet Services 3. Enhancing Overall Security and 4. Advanced Topics.

The message comes through. If you don't get the basics right even if you apply the advanced advice there may be holes in your system (Microsoft where have we experienced this before!)

There are chapters on Viruses, Personal Firewalls, Home Networking, Securing Mac OS X and an intriguing - Just say no to FTP!

Here I believe in the one place is pragmatic and sensible advice which if followed will make your computer far less vulnerable to Villains, Hackers and Mischief Makers, particularly now that the migration to Cable, ADSL and other broadband DSL technologies leave us a lot more vulnerable than with dial up connections.

Peachpit Press has set up a website to facilitate feedback updates and more recent information for purchasers of the guide.

The book excellently and up-to-date describes the technical issues and is so well-written that we may read it and be glad we did, but it is also so nice and lacks an inspiring ending that we may not do much about Internet security for our Macintoshes once we have put the book down.

At last..a timely and well written book that specifically details the essentials of Mac security...highly recommended

This book is just what it promises, "a guide for the rest of us." It explains how things work, clearly and in logical order, and is laid out so you can easily pick out the parts you need to read.
I used the book to set up a firewall. I had previously purchased a perfectly good one with simple controls, but had no idea what all the buttons meant in terms of blocking unwanted intrusions while retaining normal Internet access. (I'm an experienced Macintosh user, but naive about the underlying mechanisms of the Internet.)
Oppenheimer defines the underlying concepts and provides simple instructions, and with his book I was able to set up my computer security system in less than an hour.

A "must have" for anyone serious about understanding IBM's Information Management System. Clear, concise information for those in the know too! Don't format your RAA without it!

I've been documenting IMS- and DB2-related products for almost 20 years. I had the pleasure of working with Dean Meltz on a long ago version of IMS, and knew then that his knowledge of the database was detailed and comprehensive.

I'm so glad that he was able to put much of that knowledge into one, easy-to-understand IMS primer. While many IMS gurus are retiring, and replacements are hard to find, I think this book is a staple for any IMS shop. This is not an operator's reference. (IMS already has a good one of those.) But it does provide a good overview of database structure and design and explains key points well, with very good illustrations.

This book is a much needed addition to IMS literature. I'm sure it will stand the test of decades, just as the database has done.

After giving a very brief history of IMS, the authors give us a guided tour of its extensive capabilities.

You will learn that IMS has continually evolved from its roots as a hierarchical database to an industrial strength transaction manager that services both SNA and TCP/IP and supports Java, XML and SQL access via stored procedures.

This book does not attempt to describe every nuance of all the IMS features. Instead, it touches upon each capability and discusses the most-used functions. If there is more to know, the reader is directed to the applicable IMS manuals (available on the web).

You can sit down and read this book cover to cover, or you can reference individual chapters to find out what you need, when you need it.

This reference will be close at hand on my bookshelf.

This is the most complete reference book for IMS I have ever seen.

This is a very good java programming book, especially for beginning programmers. I've used it for both my java classes in college and it has helped me immensely in laying the foundations of my knowledge about java. It is very well organized and there is a nice flow to the book (the illustrations and examples are really helpful).

The best thing about this book is that it explains each new concept in detail, so that it would make perfect sense to somebody who has never had any prior programming experience.

This is one book that keeps you glued to the pages and makes learning a new language seem almost simple! I highly recommend buying this book!!!

I've used this book in my Java 2 class and found it very useful and accessible. I also used it as a reference when grading other homeworks. Either way the book was extremely good. This book shows clearly the authors knowledge of the subject and mentality of meeting the students at least halfway as they learn programming.

Heartily recommend this to anyone!

The Dean's emphasis on readability make this book very easy for someone who is not experienced with the philosophies of programming (OOP) and the Java language. Having used the materials for my own use, the content definitely help pave the way for mastery of other languages (c++, objective-c, javascript, etc) - thanks to the fundamentals from this book.

I would definitely recommend this book to those wanting to pick up Java or build a good foundation for understanding the principles of software development!!

This is the best Java book I ever seen. It explains all topics in a simple and efficient way. You can start knowing nothing about programming and you will finish with the first steps to be an expert. Reading this book helped me get 2nd place on the ACM Regional Programming Contest last year and several other awards. I've read some other Java books and this the best. I recommend this book to anyone!!!

If one wants to learn S-PLUS, there couldn't be a better book than this. Similar in style to Kernighan and Ritchie's books, this book is brief but covers a lot of ground. Lot of care and thought has gone into professor Phil Spector's writing and in my professional life I have always turned to this book whenever I was unable to solve any S-PLUS problem myself.

Some of the readers who have never programmed before or have been used to 1000+ pages books with zillions of screen shots and similar page fillers will find that this book will require a somewhat slower reading in the beginning to fully comprehend it. But it will be a worthwhile effort.

I have taken statistical computing courses under Phil Spector and they have been fun and this book is no different. My only regret is that he has not written books on other programming languages. (He just does not have time.) However, currently I am relearning SAS from reading his free notes (downloadable from his webpage at UCB, and I have picked up a lot in a short period of time.

Thanks Professor Spector.

The book "An Introduction to S and S-Plus" by Phil Spector is an excellent text for anyone who wants to get things done with the S/S-Plus statistical package. The book covers the basics of loading data into the system, how to manipulate datasets using the various operators and functions of S-Plus, as well as how to make full use of the graphics subsystem. Advanced topics such as how to dynamically load object code into S are also covered. The best part of the book is that it offers very useful examples of how to do things. Unlike many other computer books, the examples aren't contrived expository devices that the author cooked up in a minute. I've found that, even after using S-Plus for many years, I come back to this book over and over again for guidance on how to get things done. I give the book my highest recommendation.

Clear, concise, and to the point. Dr. Spector teaches statistics courses at UC Berkeley, and it shows.

This is a great book for the S-Plus novice. While it doesn't cover every topic it does explain a lot of basics in easy to understand English. The examples and explanations are very informative.

After taking a class from Phil, I went ahead and bought his book. I have found it to be one of the best resources for general Java matter, as well as in depth discussions on advanced technologies. A+ Phil.

This books introduces the more advanced Java topics, wich are mentioned in other books but never explained. This book explains these topics in clear and easy to understand way. If i see a Sybex book i mostly leave it in the bookstore, but this book is ok to pick up!

The book presents the relevant concepts of the likes of the delegation event model excellently, and even delineates the APIs quite succintly. But,somehow,it lacks sufficiently detailed, concrete examples for advanced topics like RMI and JDBC-ODBC bridges, et cetera. However, all taken into account, it most definitey can be considered eponymously as a ( package one.In.All && must.Buy() deskTop::Reference() && nice::bedSide.Read()) for solid Java developers in the market eg. guess who!!! -Apurba Krishna Sircar

This is definitely one of the better (a lot better!) books on Java I've bought so far(I've got about 10 others). Explains difficult topics well. I use a more general book on Java for a general view of the language/classes and I use this one for more difficult topics which a lot of books only mention but do not explain. The use of diagrams and figures together with easy to follow explanations gives a better understanding of Java topics like streams, threads and networking.

Although the book uses a specific JMS engine for the examples the details and the concepts were all right on and covered everything I needed for JMS. It literally saved my bacon, especially the peer to peer stuff over topics. Whew!

Super job.

Sam

Eric Bruno's JAVA MESSAGING explores different ways of messaging using Java software, from JavaBean events and JMS to SOAP. Web programmers receive all the basics to using these features, tips on how and why to use each feature and when to choose something else, how to combine features, and more. The basics of Java communication processes are revealed in chapters which form 'classes' to link related information in a logical progression. An excellent, basic foundation for Java users.

As we look at how much we use the web, it is sometimes hard to remember just how new this concept of worldwide packet switching really is. Java was started as a new language before a lot of the new concepts like XML and SOAP were conceived. But as a new language it has been able to move into using these new concepts faster than nearly any other language.

What I especially liked about this book was the first chapter. So often computer books start with programming. This one starts with a description of what we're trying to do here. He gives several examples of the types of communications that he is going to cover in the book. I had a particular application in mind when I got the book, but in reading the first chapter I began to see several other ways that messaging would help our system.

After the first chapter, I've go to say that it's a pretty regular computer software book. It tells you how to do the things that you want to do. It is quite clear on all the different software protocols, packages, and philosophies. Basically it is all that a Java programmer needs to implement messaging in Java.

The CD included with the book gives you all the sample code from the book, as well as the complete messaging toolkit and several open source tools.

Excellent introduction to messaging, including healthy portions on JMS and web services.

The writing style is clear, consistent, and to the point. Probably what I liked most was this no-nonsense writing style. If it's on a page, it's important to understand. The author doesn't waste your time with irrelevant discussions or out of scope topics.

Editing and code presentation are top notch, making it easy to follow, and build upon from one example to the next. The author also shares some gotchas and considerations that I wouldn't have expected to see in an introductory discussion which were particularly valuable.

Another great feature is one of the drawbacks of the book. The framework presented in the book is elegant, but in many of the examples, there is too much cognitive overhead involved in grokking the level of abstraction in the framework, and this takes away from actually learning the concepts. I would have liked to see more non-framework code for the introduction, which is then tied together with the framework.