Programming Books

For me this has become a reference for solving problems, organizing teams, prioritizing tasks, and generally getting things accomplished. I would recommend it to anyone that could use some very practical help in becoming more effective. Thought provoking and useful. I'm looking forward to Brecht's next book.

The 5-A Process is an extremely powerful and dynamic problem solving and improvement tool. Brecht does a superb job of relating real life experiences to the process to help the reader visualize the process. With over twenty years in the engineering and utility industry this is without a doubt the clearest and easiest problem solving process that I have seen. The 5-A process works and will bring you to the right solution or decision quickly and efficiently!

Everyone who routinely has to make decisions needs to read and apply this book to their lives!

In reading this book I found it giving a very good in detail, (I might add) program on how to solve a problem, and how to approach the total process step by step.I also liked the complete review on the process its self. Its ease to see how this process could be used in alot of different situations just by using some basic fundamentals. As the author says the power of the program is in its simplicity. The flow chart is there all you have to do in plug in and use it. I can see how you would get alot of verbal input using this program. In following the flow of the chart once you establish your problem , should you reach a point and not agree you simply return and re-analyze and follow the flow. Its a very detailed program. Its easy to see alot of time and effort went into developing this process. I enjoyed reading the book.

The 5-A Process of Programming is a simple, powerful way to make decisions, whether complex or small decisions. It is street-wise and can be invoked by one person or a group of people. The 5-A is applicable in any venue; personal or business. It is a fairly quick read, yet intellectual enough to make one want to get back into it to study and apply. The book has real stories that one can equate to and relate to one's own circumstance. Bottom-line, it works. It is worth reading, studying and applying to decisions that we all make every day.

This is really a rare book. Not stupid-funny, and so knowledgeable and pedagogic. I had bought my new iMac, the first since my Mac+ nearly 20 years ago. It looked like a modern Mac, and worked as such. Then I got Joe Kissel's book! And discovered all the stuff underneath. The holy grail of UNIX. And how smart the engineers at Apple still are! I was amazed by how many intelligent goodies they have put into the box. And really enjoyed the profound know-how of Joe Kissell, and his many step-by-step guided tours into the heart of the iMac. I learnt to install a firewall- and that I already had a firewall in my box. I was taught GIMP, and file sharing, and all about the iApp's. Backing up, booting and so on. Apache-in-the-box too. Thank you VERY much, Joe!

I've been using a spare iBook as a webserver for about 8 months now and decided to turn it into an email server as well. In just a few pages, this book explained exactly how to do it with Sendmail.

Unfortunately however, Panther ships with Postfix preinstalled (and from what I've read Postfix is a better alternative to Sendmail) so obviously the steps for configuring Postfix weren't included in the book. I emailed the author (who thoughtfully provides his email address in the book for help related questions) asking for instructions to configure Postfix, and within hours he emailed me concise details of how to configure Postfix with a shareware program called Postfix Enabler.

Just a short while later my iBook was not only an HTTP web server, but a POP/IMAP email server too. I had no idea it would be so easy, and there's 49 other wonderful techniques that are simple to follow: everything from using the command line with Terminal to installing PHP and MySQL and so much more.

The front of the book does say, "Covers Jaguar!", but I've been using it with Panther and the only trouble I had was with the Postfix issue. It's one of the most helpful OS X books I've ever read.

This is a wonderful book for all us souls who use OSX. The techniques are almost always a way to either solve a particular problem or learn a particular tool. I have only gone through about 30 of them, but each one has made my life either a little easier or a lot. A couple of examples are that I know understand how to best utilize the Finder and am no longer intimidated by Terminal. The style is breezy and very easy to understand without being condescending or dumbed-down. Strongly recommended

Joe Kissell writes for both the techie and we "normal" folk. His teaching of UNIX basics leaves you with knowledge, not boredom, and is worth the price of the book by itself. Most of the improvements he describes for both OS X and MAC are useful, and in some cases just plain fun, to any MAC user, and his ability to explain his techniques to the reader is an absolute pleasure. Can't wait for his OS 10.3 version.

It is great for teaching class on the basics of MS ACCESS.

Byron Giles
www.gilestechgroup.com

Each chapter is a Project. Project 1 took you through what you should already know about other Windows applications. I felt that I would not be trying to learn Access if I did not know how to use "Help" in other Windows applications.

Anyway, this was a great BASIC Access book. I did, however, have to send an email to Prentice Hall. After a week, I still have not heard from them. There are sections in the book called, "Discovery Zone Exercises". They let you figure out what to do by using "Help". Sometimes "Help" is no "Help". My advice to you is, if you can not figure out the "Zone" exercises just go on. I found one answer in the "Intermediate" book. Another at a book store.

With all that, the book is well written. They have you do the same thing more than once and sometimes in different ways. It earns 5 star's.

I am now starting on the "essentials Access 2000 intermediate" book. Look for that review.

I bought all three book, beginning, intermediate & advanced to use in a course that I teach in Theories of Database. My students used these books to learn Access on their own. The book is very clear with practical examples. It includes many hints and tips that help avoid many of the pitfalls that beginners will typically encounter. Gives plenty of assignments and examples. My only complaint in that the binding on the spiral addition is pretty flimsy. I highly recommend this book for beginners or for teachers looking for a good access "workbook".

Great way to learn Access basics. Interesting examples, lots of stuff to help you along, plus neat tips and pitfalls. Good CD for practice.

serves as a valuable tool regarding my project on AN

This is an excellent book for the signal processing community as the stress is mainly on algorithms and implementation. A reseacher who wants to work in this field without much background in acoustics, finds this book very useful and it enables him to get to know how he can apply his adaptive signal processing skills to active noise control. This book provides in a simple way the active noise control field and its associated problems. As the book provides only required amount of acoustical details and explains the filtered LMS algorithm very clearly unlike other books, for a beginer it is a very good book. I didn't know any thing aboout ANC when I started, but to day I am able to contribute even to international journals and conferences. Further I have under taken projects at national level from government agencies to develop ANC systems. I feel this book is really well written and it makes the reader keen to know about the subject and provides him high level of confidence. I sincerely recommend this book for any person who is new to this field and has signal processing background. It is a very very very excellent book.

This is an excellent book for persons with signal processing background. The book provides only minimum information about acoustics for a signal processing person and does not confuse with too much of details. In this way, the book makes to reader comfortable. Also many aspects of signal processing which can improve the performance of an active noise control (ANC)system are explained and hence the reader feels more confident that he too can work in this field. This is very much essential as the adaptive algorithms play a crucial role in the ANC implementation. The FXLMS algorithm and its problems are well described. To start with I did not know any thing about ANC, but this book has helped me to get good understanding about it. Presnently, I am able to do research contributions to international journal and to conferences. Further, I have taken up projects at national level in ANC. I feel this book has presented the subject in a simple way retaining all the intricate details. This background enables a reseacher even to follow new developments taking place in this filed. This is a very very useful and excellent book.

This excellent text is written for advanced study and practicing engineers who need to design controllers for active noise control systems. The emphasis is on the algorithms that are usually implemented in a Digital Signal Processor. The book's treatment of acoustics, sensors, and actuators is not as in-depth as texts by Fuller or Nelson. Included in the book is C and assembly code for the most popular adaptive control techniques, but beware of bugs and patent issues. One of the algorithms covered in detail is the Filtered-X Least Mean Squares technique that one of the Authors (Morgan) help to make popular in the community.

[Also posted on my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/luisabreu/archive/2008/06/11/book-review-ado-net-3-5-cookbook.aspx]
After several days, I've finally finished reading this book. This is really a very complete book wit lots and lots (and lots!) of examples. It's fair to say that it covers most (if not all) ADO.NET related scenarios (I'm an SQL Server user but if you're into Oracle then it also has several examples that show how to use ADO.NET and Oracle).

I do have one complaint though: chapter 8. Currently, I'll personally "hurt" anyone that is working on the same project as me and that uses ADO.NET objects on window forms or ASP.NET front ents! Ok, I'm not violent, so I wouldn't really hurt anyone :) serioulsy, don't use ADO.NET objects on your UI.

Having said this, I still recommend it (specially if you're working with ADO.NET).

The 'ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook' is a great resource for every .NET database developer out in the world. With 950+ pages of content you will not be reading thin, as this goodies book comes with 222 tidbits of information that will help you in your everyday work.

Subjects covered include:

- connecting to a variety of data sources
- working with disconnected data objects (datasets)
- querying data
- executing functions and stored procedures
- using LINQ
- searching and filtering data
- adding and updating data
- copying/transferring data
- database integrity
- binding data to web forms
- XML data
- optimizing .NET data access
- debugging stored procedures
- doing batch updates
- enumerating SQL servers
- SQL Server CLR integration

I feel that is an outstanding companion book for .NET database developers that are looking for a resource that specifically outlines tasks into a neat, organized manner. Instead of thumbing through a book to figure out a particular way to do something, these common tasks and questions are broken up for ease of use and efficiency. If you are a .NET DB developer you definitely owe it to yourself to add this great book to your collection of technical books immediately.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for a review by a "technical expert". I really liked how the book was laid out with a problem-solution-reasoning approach (known as a recipe). Each one was generally useful for those unaware of how to do things in ADO.NET. The examples were short and too the point. The topics were quite varied so just about everyone will find something in this book. In particular the recipes on getting schema information programmatically will really benefit a lot of people because it is neither common nor easy.

I had only a few complaints about the book. The first complaint is with the title. It says ADO.NET v3.5 but in reality almost all the recipes cover any version of ADO.NET from v2 on. This might cause some people to shy away from the book. This book is really for anybody using ADO.NET.

This leads me to the second complaint. There really was no 3.5 content mentioned. LINQ and SQL 2008 were mentioned a few times but they aren't specific to ADO.NET v3.5. LINQ itself seemed out of place for the topic.

The final complaint I had was that the recipes are mostly designed to be copy and pasted into working code. The code samples don't really follow what I would consider an appropriate pattern for professional code. Therefore simply copy/paste will cause more problems than not. It really would have required no additional lines of code and would not have complicated things to have "done it right". Still this seems to be standard practice for most technical books so I can't harp too much.

Overall I recommend this book for anyone who works with (or will) ADO.NET of any version.

(Full Disclosure: I was a tech reviewer for this book and received a free copy)

I've been using the various incarnations of Microsoft data access technologies for quite some time and have been using ADO.NET for a few years, so I wondered whether I was going to learn anything new from this book. It covers all of the territory to get started (connection strings, basic usage of ADO.NET classes, etc.), but what I really appreciated was that it topics that advanced ADO.NET users would find useful and I certainly learned a few new tricks.

The topic on writing provider and database independent code (Section 10.22) which covers how to do it right if you are targeting .NET 1.1 (which we do) was particularly useful to me. Chapter 10 (Optimizing .NET Data Access) is just generally a good chapter no matter what your level and covers asynchronous SQL calls (executing and cancelling), ASP.NET data caching, paging queries, SQL Server stored procedure debugging and more.

Since my job was to actually run every code snippet, I can vouch for their quality. Most are built off the AdventureWorks sample database that comes with SQL Server Express, so they are ready to run. The rest come with full DDL to create what you need (databases, stored procedures, etc), and the code and SQL is available online so you don't have to type it in.

This book was excellent and very informative. Mr. Young impeccably explains how to use PDFs to achieve the desired results of your product. I've often been confused on how to precisly use various PDF products, but with this book, I can now design my product the way I want it to look. This book is definitely a "must read"!

I'm one of those people who buys every software book on the market. I've looked at lots of books on PDF. This is the best yet. It's practical and tells me how to avoid making the most common mistakes in creating a PDF. I wish the rest of my colleagues would read this.

Unlike many books in this category, Carl Young's book is not a rewrite of the Acrobat Help file. He lays out the most common mistakes creators of PDFs make, and then provides step-by-step solutions. Highly recommended.

Every graphic designer should own this book! Designers constantly send PDFs
that are waaaaay to big, or have missing fonts to my small marketing/pr
firm. I may buy copies for every designer I work with.

The book shouldn't be called Used, its was Crisp as New, and exactly what you wanna expect at the start of a new class, having a colourful mak free book in your hands.

The coverage of C++ and data structures looks pretty good. There are lots of programming examples, and the book is written very well. I'm recommending it for our 2nd year course in data structures and C++. Our students know Java, but not C++, so it's been a challenge finding a data structures book that packages a semi-introductory version of C++ with a standard course in data structures. This book appears to be the best suited out of about 5-10 books that I've reviewed for this course.

I actually feel that this book is a mixed bag. On one hand, the concepts are intuitively presented and are easy to understand. On the other hand, the book doesn't delve too much into technical details, which may or may not be a godsend to various students. Personally, I'd rather use the Drozdek Data Structures text, since it goes into much more detail into analysis and logic behind choosing various data structures and algorithms in order to implement an ADT.

Anyway, it's still a great textbook for an introductory course in data structures. Just be sure to get another textbook on the same material down the road if you want to get a more detailed understanding of the concepts presented.

I am teaching the second programming / first data structure course in the department of electrical and computer engineering. I have used the first edition of this book several times, and as of fall of 2004 I am into the third of semester of using this second edition as a mandatory text.

This book is very good for students who already know how to program in C, C++ or Java. The first C or C++ course does not have to cover introduction to OOP though. My students learn C part of C++ in the first programming course. This book covers object oriented programming part of C++, and introduces/reintroduces pointers, file IO with streams, and C++ strings (good for former Java programmers). Then it follows into data structures. It starts with its own definitions of dynamic array that grows, and a simple linked list as basic data containers. Then it focuses on organizing access to data with stack and queue, and then migrates to the standard template library (STL). Everything is kept on the undergraduate student level. All other STL books I know assume that you are already an expert in programming or at lest for students after two programming courses, and are too difficult for average non-CS students.

I originally rated the first edition with four-stars only because it introduced pointers very late, out of the proper sequence and added the fifth star for the unique blend of introduction to OOP C++ and data structures, and STL. However, this edition is free from this inconvenience and it also makes C++ and data structures course accessible to former Java programmers. It gets true five stars from me this time.

This is definately the book to get to get up to speed with powerbuilder. I just picked up the advanced book in this series. by the way, newer versions covering powerbuilder versions thru 10.5 are available from the author/publisher, [...] And you won't have to pay more than the list price, which is what some used copies are listing for.

The intro book was excellent, so it was a no-brainer getting the advanced book. The advanced book provided excellent help for me as a new PowerBuilder user. As soon as you open the book, you're already learning plenty of tips that will help you later. Yes, this info is in PowerBuilder help, but here it's all in a nice, consise 'get-to-the-point' format. This book is used in the company's actual advanced class, so you also get a disk with exercises and solutions. The price may seem a little much for some, but for someone having to learn this quickly, which makes sense economically - 1)spend a couple of thousand in some 3 day 'quick' class or 2)spend a couple of hundred and get what you need without leaving your desk? This book is definitely worth it. The chapters on the datawindow report presentation styles (tabular, grid, etc) are excellent!

This book realy help me in construction of classes and objects using the PowerBuilder 7. It's desvending and show the secrets. If you want a way to mastering PowerBuilder, this is the right way.

If there was ever a book teaching Powerbuilder 7 advanced secrets then this is it. A must have for all developers of Powerbuilder. What you learn in this book is invaluable

"Advanced Sharepoint Services Solutions" is the second book by Scott Hiller, on Sharepoint Technologies. The first one was about building basic web parts. This book is for developers who have good knowledge of Sharepoint technologies. It is also assumed that you have already built some web parts and also have good understanding of .NET development. If you are looking for basic Sharepoint stuff, refer to his other book "Microsoft Sharepoint Building Office 2003 Solutions".

The Advanced book is not a complete reference on Sharepoint technologies. Instead it contains 8 chapters, which covers widely different areas. There are few chapters which are not covered by other Sharepoint books. This book is good source for CAML, Information Bridge Framework, Business Scorecard Accelerator, Sharepoint and BizTalk Integration, and for Sharepoint and Content Management Server Integration.
Since these topics are usually not covered in regular Sharepoint books, it becomes good source for these topics.

The book has good amount of source code (in C#) along with the text and provides some great ideas for system integrations. But as I said before it is not a complete reference book, just some great solutions for customizing and integrating Sharepoint technologies.

Well, so Hillier's first book on SharePoint wasn't enough for some readers! Apparently, he found demand for explanations of broader, more advanced usages, that he furnishes here in this book.

Perhaps the more important of these are discussed in the second half of the book. Microsoft has developed several other intricate applications, independently of SharePoint. But consider how it integrated the various parts of its Office suite, so that you can easily go from Excel to PowerPoint, say. In similar wise, Hillier explains how SharePoint is compatible with Information Bridge Framework, Business Score Cards Accelerator, BizTalk Server 2004 and the Content Management Service. Granted, none of these is as successful and widespread as something like Excel. These packages are far more specialised and their usages might often involve some programming effort. Thus too, using SharePoint with them also necessitates programming.

Ok, there are parts where you might pass an XML data file to an application, where this file tells it much of what you want it to do. And the XML approach is declarative, not procedural, so it minimises your programming effort. But typically, there are places where you still need the latter.

My impression of what Hillier describes is that Microsoft is not done with further refining of this integration. There are simply too many low level programming steps to be currently dealt with. No fault of Hillier's, naturally. He's calling it as it is. But let us hope that Microsoft continues improving these products.

Scot Hillier is the best SharePoint author - period.

For example: developers need to write web parts. Web parts are custom controls. Can't view a custom control at design/development time, right? Need to install it into SharePoint, run it, test. Right?

Wrong! Scott shows you how to design, develop, and debug at design-time. This little tidbit alone is worth the price of the book.

All of his books will help you become the best SharePoint developer out there.

Sharepoint is so confusing when you get into the backend and this book answered almost all of my questions. Best book I've found. You can tell the author spent a lot of time digging around in the guts of SP and was probably as frustrated as most of us are trying to figure out how to do the simplest of things. Small book, high price. WORTH IT.

I have used this book to do a literature review on the topic for a wargame proposal. It has the most complete collection of state-of-the-art computational approaches to adversarial reasoning. Each chapter is carefully introduced with a few words to distinguish its approach from other chapters. Adversarial reasoning is a subdomain of AI that covers opponent modeling, deception reasoning and imperfect information games because of the inherent covert nature of the adversary. Some of the computational approaches illustrated include Bayesian nets, plan recognition, swarm intelligence, game theory, linquistic geometry, and approximating algorithms to scale up to large state space.

Traditional thinking about adversaries has addressed easily observable and quantifiable issues, such as what? how many? who? The undiscovered country is a place where other, perhgaps more relevant questions are answered: when? why? how likely? under what conditions? It is a place where, perhaps, one can makes reasonable stabs at "what is the adversary likely to do next?"

For anyone interested in going beyond the exercise of counting and analyzing things (airplanes, missiles, bullets, etc), this book is an essential addition. Why? Because it shows new applications of maturing fields of science to the task of UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY.

The only weakness, and a minor one at that, is that the book, though new, does not address some of the state-of-the-art analytical tools now becoming available. But, perhaps these will be covered in follow-on books. They should be.

As early as the 1950's and 60's computer scientists began to apply computers to game theory. The results appeared as a series of computer games. As computer power has increased so has the complexity of the games. Playing the game at verious skill levels soon followed. This has required the analysis of what the game adversary can do to you in terms of the resources he has, where your resources are deployed, etc.

The inverse of this problem is to analyze what the adversary can or might do that would affect your own security. As this capability began to be realized, DARPA, the central research authority of the US Department of Defense began several research programs to assist in predicting what an adversary might do.

This book is written by several researchers in the field who describe the particular aspects of their own research as it ties into the overall research being conducted. The book is organized into three general areas:

Determinining the Opponents Intent and Plans,
Detecting Deception,
Operating with Limited and Perhaps Corrupted Information.

This book represents the state of the art in the field as it ties in game theory, artificial intelligence, behaviorial science, statistical and probabilistical methods, along with numerous computer science procedures to begin to see what our adversaries are planning.

"Adversarial Reasoning" is a powerful work and relevant for folks who are not computer oriented.

Coming from a liberal arts background (masters in poli-sci, BA in classical humanities), things like sigma notations and multiple Greek letters in a formula make me break out in a cold sweat and the shakes. Despite this disadvantage, the qualitative parts of each chapter were of great relevance to anyone involved in predictive analysis of n-player games (like geo-politics). Each chapter started with a clear and well articulated presentation of the material before going into the maths and computer applications of the concepts. It is this presentation that I read, before having to go for a lie-down when I saw all the formulae.

The book was laid out logically, with a handy little matrix to show the appropriate chapter for a given sub-topic up front. The first section was a discussion of the opponent and infering and identifying the opponent's intent. The second section was a discussion of deception. The third section was split between the impact of imperfect information and strategizing. Deception (building on the discussions of opponent's intent) was both the best developed concept, and probably the one most directly applicable by the non-computer person. Imperfect information, however, may be the most important discussion in the book as this is the situation most disturbing to real world actors.

The closest thing to a criticism is just a vague perception that the authors might be a little naive about the ruthlessness of real world actors. This may be an artifact of the academic language. Also, a closer examination of situations of asymmetric utility and the impact of this situation on all actors in game play would be valuable to real world applications.

Over all, a great work. This work re-written in purely qualitative terms for poli-sci and military folks (n.b. history is the most common major among Army officers) would be a valuble addition to the education of future political and military leaders.

For folks from liberal arts backgrounds - don't let the numbers cow you, there is a lot of value in the first pages of each chapter.