Programming Books

The Good Thief was a wild and fun ride from the first chapter. Liked the characters, story, writing, and well, even the intimate details.

Hard to put down.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! The story grabbed me right away, hooked me and wouldn't let go. It is definetly one for the keeper shelf, and I would recommend THE GOOD THIEF to anyone. James Buchanan just gets better and better and is now on my auto buy list. No complaints or disappointments on this one...five stars all the way!

I read this author's story COYOTE CROSSING (also 5 stars) in the ARRESTING DEVELOPMENTS e-anthology from Aspen Mountain Press and loved it so much I decided I needed to give one of the author's other books a shot. So I checked out the backlist, found one of the longer books, and started reading. And then I couldn't put it down! This book is hot from page one.

Cop drama/suspense is not usually my cup of tea. THE GOOD THIEF is based on all the elements that usually make me roll my eyes and quit reading. One night stand, relationship between the Law Enforcement Officer and the Crook With a Heart of Gold, good cops/bad cops, political controversy, guardian/ward romance...all the things that, in the hands of a lesser author, would amount to nothing more than a bad episode of CSI. So how does James Buchanan make it work? Talent, that's how.

The plot here is good and solid. It's fairly simple, nothing too uncommon or outlandish, and the progress is straightforward and pretty true to real life. James doesn't try to reinvent the wheel here, but instead works with the familiar and keeps it real. I love the author's word choices. Buchanan uses everyday language, peppered with the Spanglish that I hear every day. But where this author really shines is characterization.

James Buchanan knows how to write amazing characters. Caesar and Nate practically jump off the page. I have a hard time picturing characters in my head when I'm reading a book, but I had no trouble picturing Caesar and Nate. They're incredibly real, and though their situation is a bit dramatic, their reactions to each other and the world around them are very appropriate.

There's no overwrought soap opera angst, no Big Misunderstanding, no crack psychology, and no cheesy public service announcements in this story. It's a suspenseful cop drama, but more than anything else it's a romance. This author obviously understands love and relationships, because I felt myself really relating to the two men and their love for one another.

This review isn't complete without a quick mention of the love scenes and the chemistry in this story. I felt like I was intruding into something very special and private. The love scenes are incredibly hot and sensual, yet so intimate and emotional that I felt like a voyeur. Even that first steamy encounter sizzled with electricity. There are some hot hookups in this book, but nothing cheap or trashy. Their sexual encounters are all intensly emotional, charged with energy and testosterone, and filled with promise.

It's really rare for me to actually connect with authors and their characters, so this book was a real treat for me. I plan to look up James Buchanan's entire backlist very soon.

Excellent read here! If you want to find two protagonists who are less alike and most likely NOT to make a go of a relationship, it is hard to find a better combination than an honest (and hot, hunky, muscled, tall, blond and handsome) cop (Nate) and a hard, lean, black haired, sexy, Hispanic, professional housebreaker/thief (Caesar). How can such a pair make it work as a relationship (aside from the continuous, HOT, passionate sex)? Only if one of them is willing to make a major change: either the good cop goes bad (so not going to happen) or the thief finds a way to make necesssary changes in his life and goes "straight," so to speak (fortunately not his sexuality). That's the crux of this novel and I actually thought Buchanan did an excellent job first of developing a steamy hot, passionate attraction between two very unlikely candidates for "couple of the year." Then, he put them under considerable conflict both between the two and with the two against outside forces and gave the thief a chance to redeem himself. Then the stress of the situation strained the "relationship" so that the reader doesn't really know whether or not a happy ending is actually going to come of all this stress. All along the way, the two hunks find their overwhelming attraction for one another getting in the way, then getting stronger, then leading both to look for ways to stay together. Damn fun read: the two characters, flaws and all, are both real, the conflict between the two is real, the stress from an outside event is highly credible in the way it affects everyone in the book, and the sex is awsome. Good romance story, good action adventure story, good erotic story, good characters. Great read. Go for it.

Well I think this book is my preferrend among James Buchanan's books I have read.

Caesar is a "good" thief: he is a burglar but he is a good guy inside. From the Ispanic side of the city, like a lot of guy like him he hasn't had a chance to become a good next boy door. From little thefts to big housebreaks the step is short and it passes through some convictions. But Caesar is also a very handsome guy. So he has his share of adventures and one of them leads him to Nate, a fair hair All American Boy he meets at a party.

Caesar has always had one night stands or little more (for him a long relationship is a guy who lasts three appointments) and so he delves into the chance to spend one night with Nate. But when the morning after he finds out that Nate is a cop, he leaves in an hurry. But then an accidental encounter with Nate leads to another hot sex session. And two. Nate is quickly becoming a long last relationship...

So when Caesar, during one of his "cleaning home work", finds some child pornography material, he can't ignore the thing and the first person he searches for help is Nate. But Nate is a cop and he has to do the right thing, and Caesar is a thief...

Caesar is the classical bad boy you can't resist. He sweats sex from every pore and he is also very nice (he has a very cute little dog who helps him to play the role of bad boy with heart). He doesn't hesitate a bit to do the right thing, even if it could be the wrong thing for his life. He is funny and has a easy way to approach life, but he is not selfish.

Nate is the good boy. Right family, right side of the street, maybe not a "straight" guy, but he has a family which supports him (even if we can read a bit of tension with his father, ex-cop). He doesn't hide his homosexuality, but he doesn't flaunt it. He works out, so when his colleagues see him, they see a big and tought man, and nobody has the courage to trouble him. But he can't prevent what is said behind his shoulders... and he heard them. So he is not at all easy with his sexual life, but he can't deny what he feels for Caesar, it's a too strong feeling. And like a good boy he doesn't hide nothing.

I like both Caesar then Nate, but maybe I have a soft spot for Nate, this big guy who is so sure of himself that has no problem to be a total bottom in bed, but only in a sexual way, cause Caesar and Nate are two very balanced characters in the day to day life.

The plot is a good mix of detective story, funny elements (don't miss the dog), good and health sex, and romance.

Graphic Design Portfolio Builder is a good supplemental book for designers and beginning students. I wrote supplemental because this book does not comprehensively cover the features of Photoshop and Illustrator software (and it wasn't suppose to) but to help beginners you get familiar with the software and up and running.

The book is very colorful, well laid out and full of useful information. What is comphrehensive is that it covers all aspects of what designers or artists would face and be challenged at work or in classrooms. Each lesson is written by an professional designers and artists with years of experience and I highly enjoyed reading the chapters so far.

The projects in the book are fairly challenging and somewhat time consuming which is good since it makes you explore the software to its full potential if you're feeling ambious.

For inspirations, I recommend you checkout other students work in the book or on their website. It really challenges you to come up with your best work and experiment with different ideas and creative concepts.

PROS:
Easy reading... lots of hands on pratice, which is also worded in an easy to understand language... Comes with a FREE membership to basically a webgroup website, but if you choose to take advantage of the service, the very authors of the book will critique and help you develop your projects, VERY HELPFUL/VERY COOL

CONS:
You have to have photoshop and illustrator in order to take advantage of this product

This book was so very helpful in aiding my desire to build a portfolio! It helped me learn more about Photoshop and Illustrator - plus gave me assignments that were reviewed and critiqued by a very helpful and polite instructor. This is more than just a book it is a full class at a book rate! I would recommend it to anyone looking for this type of work or just to improve what they already know.

[...] The company is centered around on line training in the general area of graphics design. ==This book is designed to go with one of their courses. The goal of this course is to help you create a portfolio of your work. It has a series of projects where you download various components of a project, then you do the project and post your results back on-line. A Sessions instructor will then give you a short critique of your work so you will have specific person to person contact that lets you know how you are progressing. This is kind of like working as a designer and having the client look at what you've done.

As you might well guess from the sub-title, these projects are oriented to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. This is not exactly a beginners course in these software package. You should have at least some beginning understanding of how to use these packages. The concentration hers is on improving your design skills, not on the details of the software.

Having taught graphic design for the last 13years, I am always looking for material to use as a reference or even text in my classes. This book gives many ideas on projects that students can use to create a quality looking portfolio for that first job interview. Even though I am constantly encouraging my students to go beyond the simple text assignment, many do not. This book my just give them that spark to do just that.

This book is a wonderful book for beginning hibernate. It has the right balance of theory and practice, and it is always right to the point and concise. I used it to get up to speed on hibernate 3 after not touching hibernate for two and a half years, and it was exactly what I needed. The paper quality is pretty bad, like some others have noted. However, I have read through about 70% of it (the only 70% I am going to read) and the paper/binding has shown no sign of deterioration, so do not let that keep you from reading it.

'Harnessing Hibernate' is a great resource for learning more about and how to use the Hibernate technology to map Java code to relational databases and vice versa. In today's programming world you want to be able to create object that directly map to database tables and fields. Not only does this allow for persistence and good scalability, it hides the SQL stuff that can otherwise make for difficult programming and puts them into familiar classes instead. Before this book there really wasn't great resources out on the market for learning about this technology but that is no longer the case. With 350+ pages spread over 14 chapters, good writing and separation of content this is a must have for all seasoned Java database and Hibernate developers.

***** RECOMMENDED

While I was at work one day, I decided to write the persistence layer of an application that my team was working on. I had minimal experience with Hibernate because I had worked on another project where a coworker implemented the persistence layer and used Hibernate. I got to see a bit of the magic that Hibernate provides, and I thought it would be excellent for my current project. My problem was that I did not really know how to set everything up.

I searched on Amazon for books about Hibernate, and I wanted to make sure I bought one that was fairly current so that I could see how to use it with the latest technologies. I came upon Harnessing Hibernate which is only a few months old. Even though there were only two reviews, after reading them, I decided to take a chance on this book. Wow, these reviewers were exactly right!

The authors take you through a music cataloging project. Their progression through the concepts is nothing short of amazing. They seem to give the perfect amount of detail and explanation at each step, and then you begin to form questions in your mind. They seem to anticipate them, because these questions always seem to be answered in the next section.

I should inform you that I often dislike reading books on computer technologies. I find that most authors tend to make the books as dry as possible, going on and on, ad nauseam, about every detail and idiosyncrasy of the topic. The authors of Harnessing Hibernate, however, make the book completely enjoyable to read. Their style is conversational, and they do not try to talk over anyone's head. They give you plenty of useful information that you can use immediately, and inform you of other sources to investigate if you want more information on a particular aspect of the material.

Anyway, if you want to learn Hibernate in a clear and concise manner, then you will not be disappointed if you buy this book. It will keep you reading, and you won't fall asleep while doing so. And hey, you'll understand all of the material and you will even learn a lot about Hibernate! I do not give complements lightly, but this is indeed a perfect book.

I just got this book in the mail last week, as it was just recently released. From reaing it, I can tell you that it carries on the tradition of high quality editing and content that we expect from O'Riely books.

There has been a real lack of good, up to date, READABLE books about Hibernate on the market. You only have to scan amazon to see some of the horrible reviews many books have received. But this book is excellent, and I can assure you that many five star reviews will follow this one.

Harnessing Hibernate is a fine book, which uses the most efficient ways to achieve its goal. Though focusing on Hibernate, the book enlists the usage of various frameworks such as Spring Framework, Stripes and Maven.


Part I: Hibernate in a hurry: The core

Build:
The book starts with how you should build which used to be a dread. The authors choose to use Ant - Maven task, which is cool. I use Maven directly, but that's beside the point. Both approaches are better than finding the JARs on the web.

Database:
HSQLDB is what the book recommends and for some reason it makes sense . It really is the best way to go. I am not suggesting to format your Oracle DB server and install HSQLDB; but I am suggesting you stay focused and worry about the big DB later; the book goes back to a larger DB; so don't worry too much right now.

The Project Hierarchy:
This one, I must admit, I do not care for; I think Maven directory structure is better and one should not have to create this manually, but that's probably personal. This is later reviewed in Chapter 12: Maven in More Depth.

Core hibernate:
The book doesn't mess around too much. It explains how to configure hibernate and before long you find your hands in hibernate mapping. From chapter 2 through chapter 9 you'll find yourself in the core of Hibernate: mapping, hibernate configuration, persistent objects (creating and finding), collections and associations, richer associations, custom value types, annotations, criteria queries and a look at HQL.

Part II: Playing nice with others: beyond the core

MySQL - a nice short intro to MySQL is shown.

Hibernate and Eclipse - yes, this is in here too (and up to date Eclipse v3.3). And just in time for you to get ready for a later chapter, Spring and Hibernate, which is the way J2EE is going anyway (lightweight).

Maven in more depth - Maven does not have many books out there and this is a very nice in depth explanation. If you think you've gotten short changed, take a look at Java Power Tools (you'll love that book too). The chapter is enough to get you moving with Maven, and if your Maven experience is anything like mine, you'll never go back to Ant.

Hibernate and Spring - this book could not have gotten any better than this. Spring, is like a dream. Rod Johnson, Colin Sampaleanu and team have done it well. Unlike the other monolithic approach, Spring takes advantage of already existing frameworks and offers this invisible layer to allow you to focus on what's important; your business code... and, of course, the book delivers. It shows you how Spring simplifies Hibernate development. If you're new to layered development a la separation of concerns (SoC) the book first introduces you to the DAO pattern. It then continues with the reason so many of us like the Spring framework: HibernateDAOSupport and the HibernateTemplate. Although I prefer to use the HibernateTemplate directly and avoid loosing my one chance at inheritance, I agree with the book examples. The authors are tying to help you understand what kind of support Spring offers.

Stripes with Spring and Hibernate - Now, the book could just end here and be done with it, but no, it continues with the web app. I mean, wow. The book ends with style. It uses Tomcat - and I think it does it to prove a point. You don't need a fancy big server to get J2EE running these days. Stripes is a cool project to work with and I thank the authors for introducing me to a framework I was clueless about.

This book is truly amazing. If you're looking for an in-depth approach to Hibernate take a look at Java Persistence with Hibernate. If, however, you're an impatient developer this is the book for you. I think it offers just enough in-depth theory and it keeps you awake with frequent easy to understand code.

James Elliott, Timothy M. O'Brien and Ryan Fowler; I thank you all for writing this book.

/.Will

Before reading Roger's book I was pretty sure I had a solid understanding of Honeypots, how they work, how they should be deployed, etc. I can honestly say that I still learned a lot from this book. Recommended for beginner to advanced user. The examples are great and very specific. Running a honeypot in a windows environment definately benefits many of my clients because they are unsure how to properly secure a *nix machine. This book showed me step-by-step how to set-up a fully functional Windows Honeypot that anyone can administer. Thanks for the great info Mr. Grimes, can't wait to read the next book.

I have been recently doing research on honeypots/nets and having read through Know Your Enemy(honeynet project) and Tracking Hackers(Lance Spitzner). Both were full of great information but this book really lays out the what it takes to have a succeful honeypot and gives step by step instructions on how to set up a few different types. Its easy to read for a beginner, and easy to follow. It's also the only good guide to honeypots on the Windows side, and as a bonus all of the tools and information are current, as it was published this year(2005).

Honeypots are an exciting technology with tremendous potential for the security community. However, one of their limitations has been they have primarily been Unix based. Roger does an outstanding job of addressing this issue, bringing them into the Windows community.

Review by Lou Vega of the Greater Charleston .NET User Group

This book provides immediate and useful information whether you have previous experience with Honeypots or hadn't even heard of one until you picked up the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever been interested in network and systems security as it pertains to a Microsoft Windows environment, especially in light of the fact that most previous books and articles with information about Honeypots were geared toward *nix systems.

Those who have no previous experience with Honeypots and would like a background lesson can jump right into Chapters 1 and 2 which should give them a fair basic understanding of what's involved. Those persons who want to get right to work...start browsing between chapters 3 and 8 for hands on information including screenshots and installation/configuration information. Later chapters cover more advanced information concerning the monitoring and analysis of the traffic captured using your Honeypot.

The author doesn't leave you stranded with just setting up a Honeypot either. The chapters on Network Analysis, Honeypot Monitoring and alerting, and Honeypot data analysis give you a chance to begin to make real use of the Honeypot and the data gathered while using it. The walkthroughs for setting these analysis and monitoring tools seem easy enough and the author makes good use of available open source tools out there for those who don't have the budget for some of the commercial applications available.

An added bonus for any networking security person is the wealth of information concerning how to harden a Windows Server, common ports used in malware and numerous configuration demonstrations make this a handy book to keep as a general security reference.

This book will make a fine addition to any IT professional's reference collection.

Grimes has a valid gripe. Honeypots have risen to prominence as an aggressive anti-cracker method. So that, for example, the well known Honeynet Project has been running for several years, with good results. But the bulk of these honeypot efforts has been in unix machines. If you run a network of Microsoft boxes, there is a dearth of comprehensive documentation, until this book came along.

It is written for the Microsoft sysadmin who wants to establish a honeypot that is state of the art. This could be one or more machines on her network. Grimes gives detailed instructions. Most importantly, for the honeyd program. Two chapters are devoted to its installation and running.

But even aside from whether you end up running a honeypot, the book has value. It explains network traffic analysis and various tools that aid in this, such as Snort or Ethereal. With or without a honeypot, you'll need more than a passing acquaintance with traffic analysis, and the book can aid in this.

I don't even have an iMac yet. I purchased this book to learn more about them and I did. It answered all of my questions completely and opened my eyes to a number of abilities the iMac has that I hadn't realized.

I have had my Indigo iMac for 1 1/2 years now. I bought
several beginner books, being a computer 'newbie'.
This book is so fantastic (it's big), but even if you don't
have time to read it cover-to-cover, you can jump into
any section you want to learn about, and you will never
feel frustrated learning to use the computer. It is fantastic,
everything concise, clear, and above all the MOST
comprehensive iMac manual I have found! A must have,
just amazing. It's got it all!

This book goes into great detail about both the iMac hardware and the software programs included with it. It is very well written, with easy-to-follow instructions and explanations as well as lots of illustrations and screen shots. The index is comprehensive and helpful. This book covers all iMac models up to the most current iMac DV, and has very useful explanations of and instructions for using System 9. It also functions as a very good manual for AppleWorks and other software. I bought this book for my 73-year-old father, who has never used a computer before, and I recommend it for everyone who is buying an iMac for the first time.

I bought this book 2 days after purchasing my IMac, and boy was it helpful! It takes you through all the steps you need to REALLY get your machine up and running! This is a must have for people who are new to the Mac and work on PCs mostly.

Just as the title says this book provides you with instructions on how to do virtually everything with your iMac (hey, somebody can probably think of a useful iMac job it does'nt address). "Todd" starts off with setup and goes from there, even presenting options in peripherals (external drives), and software (utilities). This book is basic enough to be understood by a new iMac user and goes far enough to probably help a "techie". I initially bought this book to help me get to know the machine before it was delivered--now I keep my copy next to my iMac for reference.

I read this book several years ago when I first got in to web design. This book was so easy to follow and clear to understand that it only took me a few days of reading before I was able to build my first web site. While this book is a little old by technology standards, the information it has about HTML is still valid and current.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning HTML.

A good primer on HTML and web publishing in general, if you don't want to get too deep. The tags are laid out clearly, and the methods to achieve certain looks or feels are plainly illustrated, but the book doesn't teach that much theory, so you are generally stuck with the methods they teach. Some of the methods are somewhat non-standard, which worries me, but as a whole the book is sound and easy to read. I would recommend _HTML 4 for the Worldwide Web_, by Elizabeth Castro, instead. It is very clear and basic, but it covers more of the theory so you can be a more powerful designer.

This book is so wonderful! I thought the "For Dummies" series would be easy enough, but I've found those types of books often have excess information I really don't care about. I will be taking a class in a few weeks that requires knowledge of HTML, so I needed to learn it easily, and quickly. I'm the type of individual who learns best in bulleted or outlined lists and HTML In An Instant is laid out just this way.

The book is setup perfectly and takes you from the basic concepts HTML structure, all the way up to Java applications. It's not too big and is consistently formatted throughout.

I had previously purchased the Visual Quickstart series and quickly found out these are not so "quick." Frustrated, I finally just sat down in a Borders and pulled out several HTML books and selected this one. I can't rave about it more....

This book is good well designed for someone who has not time to cut through a text book just to find a simple way of coding one thing in HTML. The pictures are clear and precise. You can have a website or any other HTML document up and working before you have to learn the theory behind it. Even for experts a quick reference can help. This book is also the basics behind all the extended languages. Some people use the skills learned in this book just to make their Discussion Boards more colorful and add the dimension of pictures and sound.
Table of Contents:
1. The internet
2. Introduction to Creating Web Pages
3. Getting Started (display Web page in Web Browser)
4. Change Appearance of Text
5. Add Images
6. Work with Images
7. Create Links
8. Create Tables
9. Add Sounds and Videos
10. Create Forms
11. Create Frames
12. Advanced Web Pages (JavaScript and Java Applets)
13. Set up Style Sheets
14. Using Style Sheets
15. Publish Web Pages
16. Summary of HTML Tags

There are thicker books out there but none so graphic.

It is exactly what I was looking for. I have VB experience but am new to HTML. The whole book is examples of code with screen shots of how a web page would appear. It even goes into creating classes, style sheets, and adding Javescript. It is a good reference for someone with experience (I have had developers borrow mine) and simplistic enough for a beginner. I definatly recommend it.

This is THE very best book on Linux Kernel in general. Without refering any piece of kernel code, it explains very neatly not only the Linux kernel architecture in detail but also the most advanced features of IA64 CPU giving simple examples. This book will definitely move you one step forward to face the challenges in dealing with Linux kernel.

This is a terrific text, that simultaneously throws light on the arcane of the IA64 architecture and the Linux kernel. I just wish this book had been available when I started messing around with low-level IA64 stuff.

In one word - EXCELLENT!

I bought this book to fulfill my desire of knowing how an OS works under the hood. I am happy to say this book served the purpose extremely well. In addition, now I better understand all the necessary details of IA-64 architecture. This book not only answers 'how is it done' but also gives a precise 'why' to every 'how'.

Right from the print quality to the content everything is just wonderful. I still enjoy repeatedly reading the Virtual Memory chapter.

This book should certainly be useful to anyone interested in understanding how modern CPUs function. More importantly it will help you gain insight on modern operating system design and implementation along with the finer points of why a particular function is implemented in a certain way.

In all a in-depth, well written book which is also well-built! You should not find anything to complain about it.

My search for a good book on linux internals ended with this book. What makes this book different from the other linux internals is the fact that unlike other books, this book does not dump the kernel code as is. Instead it gives a very good description about various subsystems and design criteria which helps one understand the concept very easily.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about linux/ia64 kernel.

Not only it this a fine book, the book mentions the website: www.lia64.org/book which has a book search feature. This is sooo much more powerful than a printed index. I wish ALL books had a site like this so they can be electronically searched!

This is a very good book for every programmer to grow to next level. Book is written to address almost all issues related to software development. Need to have book for every programmer.

All .Net developers have to keep Patterns & Practices publications under thier radar screen because one of the best works come out of that group.

A great book that covers in detail any areas you need: CLR, strings management, collections, asp.net, ado.net, xml, SQL Server and much more. A practical handbook that should be on your desktop as a reference for you everyday programming.
[...]

To be honest, I hate two kilos books. Usually such a book contains not much information. But not this book.
It starts from design guidelines and 40-pages(!) length questionnaire, and covers in detail a lot of subjects, including CLR, interop, remoting, ASP, XML, Web Services, etc. performance. How to measure, how to test, how to tune.
If you have to know a lot of things about a lot of things concerned with .NET performance, this book is for you.

In a word...WOW! There is such a wealth of info in this book. Direct for the source, one of the performance architects of the CLR (among other authors). This book is a must have for any developer who writes high use web apps or web services. The book goes into so much detail, and explains why one coding method is more efficient than another. Probably not a good beginner book, you should have a good grasp on .Net development first.

Well written and concise. How about keeping it in print, I ordered another copy.

Unless you have a bent for philosophy, don't buy this book until you have seen at least part of Chapter 4! This is not "10 Quick Tips to Improve Your C++ Skills." It is a seminal text that attempts to alter the fundamental way you perceive the process of programming.

This book seeks to correlate object-oriented programming with cognitive science. To this end, an abstract Object Model is created which is language-independent. This level of power and generality invariably exacts a toll in readability. Rather than illustrating the concepts with specific examples from a programming language, the author instead conveys the essence of the concepts first and only then clarifies this abstraction with programmatic examples.

Readers familiar with Ada will recognize certain terminology and concepts. For example, "attribute" is formally defined, and we see that an Ada attribute indeed conforms to this formal definition, and that the Ada construct was aptly named. The first part of the book deals with Abstract Data Types and is extremely relevant to both Ada and C++ programmers. The second half is concerned with Object Orientation and would only be of use to Ada95 (and, of course, C++) programmers.

I had the privilege of working with Bob Meehan, a brilliant PhD in mathematics. Bob had an uncanny ability to create a mental map of a program and then translate this abstract mental map into a working program. Over the years, I have learned to achieve this using Ada, but was at a loss to transfer this facility into C++. Reading this book has given me a glimpse into the way Bob's mind worked, and I am confident that after I have read (and re-read!) this book and fully absorbed its content, any expertise that I may have acquired in Ada will be fully transferable to C++.

This book is a treasure trove, but its nuggets are not easily mined. To absorb its message, you are asked to learn a number of abstract concepts whose pertinence to programming is not at all apparent. But, as an earlier reviewer has stated, if you keep at it the light eventually dawns and you find that you have been handed the key to correct thinking--because the author has altered your cognitive processes and enabled you to perceive and function in a completely new way.

Ada actively enforced the Object-Based paradigm. Resistance was futile and the compiler ruthlessly punished infractions. C++ relies on convention and the integrity of the programmer to enforce the Object-Oriented paradigm. Other than type-checking, the C++ compiler is promiscuous. Indeed, it has to be, since it needs to be able to compile C programs. Without the broader view and greater understanding imparted by this book, strict adherence to the OO paradigm would be quite difficult. Kurt Godel pointed out that a framework can only be completely understood from a broader, more inclusive framework that encompasses the original framework. This book, if you have the tenacity, will impart that broader framework and will change the very way you perceive the world.

This book is excellent! It is what a C++ intermediate book should be. The emphasis is on teaching what the Object Model is and how to implement it using C++ language constructs "sensibly". I wish the author would bring it up to date and write an advanced version. I would also enjoy seeing the author's recommended reading list.

Thank you Dr. Papurt for this book. Please write more.

This book will delight the intermediate to experienced C++ developer. The focus is on concepts supported by the C++ language features. Short code snippets make the implementation of those concepts clear and practical. A book worth reading more than once. A book in which you can find justifications for a particular design choice. If you need to strenghthen your use of C++ on a conceptual level, if you pay attention to program in the right way, if you are a purist towards the use of C++, read this book !

This book is a sleeper. When I started to read it I thought it irrelevant. Then a light dawned, and I began to understand a new, and correct way, of thinking about OO programming while gaining a greater knowledge of modeling and C++ programming techniques. I've read it twice and refer to it frequently for clarification and reference on some fine points. A truly useful book for active C++ programmers.

A pleasure to read, both for the inspiration coming from reading about people being very successful being idealistic, and from learning about the history of the Desktop Publishing revolution.

We at the Designer's Bookshelf have just awarded this book "THE BOOK OF THE YEAR" award for 2002. These awards are given by the editors and staff at the Design Bookshelf, DT&G Magazine, and the Graphic Design network as top choices for all those involved in the design, publishing and visual arts fields.

The only real flaw in this book is I want more. Adobe's story is fascinating, and I could probably read a detailed history of each product without being bored. (And I would have loved to have found out why Adobe never made an Illustrator 5 or 6 for the PC).

I got the book in the morning and started reading right away, skipped lunch and finished. Short read you might say... not at all; the text and the images are excellent and the book reads like a novel (reason why I skipped lunch). What a story!

It answered many questions that came up in my 10+ years of experience as a graphic design professional. Why Adobe this and how Adobe that.

The great thing about the book that it made me re-live my experiences; the advent of the mac and the LaserWriter, early releases of the software (it is quite touching to see pictures of the first, say, Illustrator), the successes and the failure the company went through. Those of us (graphic designers) who have pasted photostated type on the blue outline grid by hand will relate.

The book is about what and how things happened to allow us (graphic designers) to work the way we do today; it is, however, also about how Adobe changed the publishing world and global communication altogether.

Thumbs up on this one. Thank you Pamela Pfiffner for a great piece of research and writing. Thank you Adobe for the perseverance in bringing it all together towards the age of Network Publishing.

Anyone who uses a computer to design graphics, create printed documents, edit Web graphics, make movies and animations, or just type a letter should read this book.

While most people recognize the contributions Apple and Microsoft made to computers, few realize how much Adobe was right in there with those other companies.

This book tells that story--and does so with humor, behind-the-scenes gossip, and inside information. What were the "Font wars" of 1989? What were Adobe's original plans for Photoshop? What was the original purpose for the Acrobat PDF format?

Even better the quotes from industry greats. What did Steve Jobs think the first time he saw PostScript added to a printer? How did designers such as Roger Black and Louis Fishauf feel about products such as Illustrator and Photoshop?

The book is filled with tons of candid photos of those early days. You'll gasp as you see the much-younger versions of today's famous speakers and industry giants. My favorite is the extremely young Steve Jobs (in a tie and jacket!) at the debut of the PostScript LaserWriter.

The author must have been given quite a bit of leeway with the writing because she also describes those times Adobe didn't get it exactly right. What were the mistakes Adobe made in their first Web page-creation program? What was the problem with the original distribution of Acrobat Reader? And who was the only person at Adobe who could easily use the original Illustrator Pen tool?

And in an age of trade paperbacks, this book is a physical joy--a beautifully bound embossed-hardcover book with a varnish-coated dust jacket. The inside pages are exquisitely designed, with full-color photos throughout the book.

This is the sort of book you pick up and read, then pick up again, then again, then again. There's always one more little tidbit to laugh or smile over.