Programming Books

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.

Just bought the book and it has been useful already. If you are serious enough about computer science to want to know what is in the professional literature this is full of wonderful summaries.

This book is an incredible resource for all people interested in software engineering and AI. I've used numerous ideas in from this book in current research projects, and I'm sure that my copy will become well worn with time! -Ben Peterson, Computer Science student

This book is a compilation of texts on different, very interesting, fields on theory of complexity and theory of algorithms. It is very usefull for all that are interesting in the field. Contains mary recent results and concepts.

Knuth's Art of Computer Programming summarized the state-of-the-art in research into algorithms in the seventies and set bar formidably high both in breadth and depth of presentation. Atallah's Handbook is one of the better attempts to survery the present, much wider scope of research in the field, even if it's lacking in Knuth's profundity. It most certainly makes an interesting read if you have the time it takes. If you enjoyed reading Knuth, you will enjoy browsing through Atallah as well.

I have been using this book as a second reference in my Algorithm
Engineering class during the whole semester. I found it extremely useful for its nice structure, content and diversity of subjects treated, especially the ones in computational geometry such as Geometric Sweeping and Voronoi diagrams, for instance. I believe this book should be useful to any student taking algorithms class for its structureness, clearness, and completeness.

This is a great book overall, but I give it 4 stars as it lacks the mathematical explanations that I personally was looking for. I am graduate student in Computer Science and a E-Commerce Consultant by profession. This book is more detailed than the Sedweick (I can't spell his name) in the sense that it has some more of a mathematical approach. It lacks the level of explanation that the Sedweick book provided. It has some math, but overlooks some steps thus targeting someone with a pretty solid math background, not someone with sophomore level undergraduate math background.

Overall.. if you're a student taking an algorithms or advanced algorithms class (especially a graduate class), you might want to invest in this book.

I have studied both undergrad and grad algorithm courses from this book at KFUPM. For a beginner, the author provides a moderate level of mathematical analysis which helps in building a solid foundation, but avoids minor details that may obscure the overall grasp of the subject. The Exercise sets at the end of each chapter vary from easy to challenging....

The book represents a well written, consistent and easy to follow view on the area of algorithm analysis. It gives an excellent overview of various mathematical and computer science areas, including but not limited to combinatorial geometry, NP-problems, complexity theory, graph theory, algorithm analysis, dynamic programming and even computational geometry.

Most of the chapters are intended for a senior level undergraduate and graduate student, but some (such as part 4 devoted to complexity problems) are more suitable for "mature" audience and require some preliminary knowledge in the area.

I found chapters on sorting, data structures, recursion and functional programming well written and structured, and examples to be practical as well as informative.

Sections on amortized analysis, randomized algorithms, approximation algorithms and iteration improvement deal with current directions in the algorithmic research and provide an excellent overview of the "state-of-the-art" in these areas. I also enjoyed reading through the section on greedy algorithms (shortest path and minimum spanning tree problems).

Section on computational complexity and analysis of the relationship between complexity classes seems to be a bit complicated, those who are interested in this area should probably do some preliminary reading.

The last section on computational geometry (my area of expertise) and applications of Voronoi diagrams could be extended, but even in the current state it givs a pretty good idea of what computational geometry is all about.

Overall, I give to this book a "5 star" review and recommend it for anyone who is seriously interested in learning exactly how algorithm design and analysis work. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and can only wish that author would write more books like that in the future!

This book helps ease the monumental transition from Avid to FCP. It is definitely a must for anyone going through the change, but becomes less useful once you get the hang of FCP. Once you are through the transtion, then get the book Final Cut Pro 5 for Mac, which answers the rest.

This book I could only find used, it is not easy to come by...

If you are ever forced to quickly learn Final Cut pro for the odd job where Avid is not a viable option, or you want to start editing your on stuff on the cheap, buy this, read it and practise it for a week and you will be a Pro at Pro, knowing everything there is to know, at least, where to find it and whether it is doable or not. It is a book written by an Avid editor for Avid editors who have to go through the same learning curve. You can be very surprised going through it on how similar the two editing systems are and most of all, how quickly you can synthesise the information and make it second nature. I fervently recommend this book being so well written, going always to the point and covering everything properly.

As an Avid editor and now learning FCP, I can recommend this book for helping to understand where everthing is. This book is a must unless you want to tear your hair out. If you know how it feels going from Media Composer to DS, then you will understand why you need this book and I might add others.

We have been an Avid only edit house for years, but reciently purchased two Final Cut systems. Most of the transition was pretty easy, but trying to figure out how to do some of the things in FCP that we did in our sleep on the Avid slowed us down a bit. This book draws great parallels between the two systems.

This is an excellent training course. It is not just about UML, but puts UML into practice for an object-oriented approach. The video material is of a high quality and clarity. If this is the future of "interactive" training, then I am all for it. A worthwhile purchase.

If you like Craig Larman's Applying UML and Patterns, then this multimedia CD-ROM is absolutely faithful to the real thing. Congratulations to PTG Interactive and Craig Larman for creating a useful multimedia application! Larman appears in a small box in the upper left corner of a QuickTime video with the majority of the video showing diagrams and slides, which Larman narrates. The quality of the video is good and the sound is excellent. The material covers most of the 2nd Edition of Larman's book and adds some additional material on the GoF Patterns. In order to really benefit from this video, you should get the book as well and read along. It is the leading book published on the UML.

This is such a wonderful educational tool for beginners or anyone interested in Object orientated analysis and design. I really do think people new to Java, C# etc.. would benefit from purchasing this course. Everyone knows the quality of Craig Larmans books, this course is quality too. Excellent Product!!

Finally someone who can put a wide range of OO concepts into a format that the average developer can understand. We need more titles in this format. I especially enjoyed his defense of iterative development (versus waterfall), and recommendations for XP documentation. May be too basic for some OO developers, but still good as a review. Also time well spent in preparation for the IBM UML certification exam, or play it during lunch for your friends at work!

The books are very detailed and take a lot of analysis... they are not written in a current Object Oriented Language... that was a disappointment but otherwise it is very good... just uses old "spaghetti code"

This fascicle can perhaps best be read as a sequel to Knuth's Volume 3, on sorting and searching, where he discusses trees. The fascicle extends that into how does one generate every tree. Of the four fascicles thus published, this might be the skimpiest in terms of current mathematical knowledge. Though to a practising programmer, trees are a vital construct and the book could well have germane analysis. And, as with his other books in this series, there is a tough set problems that can be just as instructive and interesting as the text.

Still, to perhaps compensate for the thin length, the book contains a distinctive section on the history of combinatorial generation. Knuth delves into this subject while giving a deeper treatment of the maths than one would likely encounter in a popular text directed at a general audience. He cites the I Ching, as well as ancient Indian and Arab manuscripts. The I Ching is notable as it is still in print and likely to be familiar to many.

With the publication of this fascicle, the collective set of four would make a respectable book in its own right. However, Knuth is scarcely done yet. We can expect more fascicles, and soon, one might hope. And eventually, a hardcover.

The fourth volume in the classic ART OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING: GENERATING ALL TREES: HISTORY OF COMBINATORIAL GENERATION add to and expands upon a multi-volume work on the analysis of algorithms in classical programming, updating sections of the set using a series of small fascicle books. This covers the generatio of all trees, a topic covered in the first three volumes of ART OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, and provides over a hundred new exercises to programmers.

I've known about The Art of Computer Programming volumes by Donald E. Knuth for some time, but I've always avoided reviewing them for fear of not being able to do them justice. But after being contacted specifically by the publisher asking if I was interested in the latest - The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 4, Fascicle 4 : Generating All Trees--History of Combinatorial Generation - I decided to give it a try. For the right audience, this is really good stuff. But I can tell you that I'm not it...

Content:
Chapter 7 - Combinatorial Searching: 7.2 - Generating All Possibilities; 7.2.1 - Generating Basic Combinatorial Patterns; 7.2.1.1 - Generating all n-tuples; 7.2.1.2 - Generating all permutations; 7.2.1.3 - Generating all combinations; 7.2.1.4 - Generating all partitions; 7.2.1.5 - Generating all set partitions; 7.2.1.6 - Generating all trees; 7.2.1.7 - History and further references; Answers to Exercises; Index and Glossary

Don't refresh your browser thinking the Content section didn't load properly. There's just chapter 7... For those who don't understand the "fascicle" concept (like I didn't before getting this volume), it's a small book (120 pages) of material that either updates writings in previous volumes or a "preview" of material that will eventually be rolled into a single volume (in this case, volume 4). Knuth has a lot of information he wants to convey, and by using fascicles, the public can get a steady flow of information and help shape the continuing evolution of the series. Interesting concept, and one I can appreciate. Another review stated that this was probably one of the "skimpiest" volumes in terms of mathematical knowledge. If true, then I fear what will await me with future installments. To get the most of out Knuth's work, you really do need to be well-grounded in computer science and mathematical theory. Every page is populated with numerous formulas to prove the subject matter, and I'll admit to being completely lost in most of it. That doesn't mean the book isn't good. It *is* excellent work, but I'm definitely not the target audience. I don't come from a formal computer science and mathematics background, so I'd have to really slog through everything from page 1 with supporting texts in order to fully benefit from it.

It wasn't a total loss for me, though... I enjoyed the History and Further References chapter, where he shows the tree theory and how it affected such things as literature and culture through the ages. Whether the ancient Chinese had all this in mind when developing the I Ching is open to debate, but the theory and underpinnings of trees is definitely there. And for those readers who really want to work through and apply the material, there are exercises galore at the end (with answers graciously provided for those who get stuck). You could likely set up a college level course based on this (and associated) book, and it would be foundational to a computer science degree.

So, for the right audience, this is the type of book that will allow for weeks of thought and learning. But if you're more like me, someone who deals more with business systems and development (without a comp sci degree to back it up), you'll likely miss most of the value here.

ASN.1 Communication Between Heterogeneous Systems is a book written for novices and experienced ASN.1 users alike. Inside, you'll find all the introduction you need to begin mastering ASN.1, followed by a detailed User's Guide and Reference Manual. Organized in order of increasing difficulty, this section teaches you ASN.1 syntax and semantics and the techniques you need to know to use the notation-whether to specify a new protocol or to apply an existing ASN.1 protocol in a new application. More experienced users can move directly to complete coverage of ASN.1 encoding rules and transfer syntaxes. Additional advanced material focuses on questions/issues that commonly arise when implementing ASN.1 applications, ranging from automatic treatments of specifications to editing tools.

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, October 2000

All I wanted to know about ASN.1 was there, especially BER encoding. In my view this book is a bit superior to ASN.1 Complete from Larmouth but having both was great. A bit more details on DER encoding would have been even better.

ASN.1 education of the reader is divided into 4 parts in this book, making it a wonderful tool not only for beginners but also for those who have an advanced understanding for ASN.1 and encoding rules and transfer syntaxes. I found the book easy to read and the many quotes scattered throughout the book were quite appropriate and added a distinct sense of humor. The numerous Figures and Tables throughout the book make a difficult subject much easier to understand. Anyone who needs or wants to know more about ASN.1 should read this book.

Olivier Dubuisson's book is cleverly arranged, so that those who don't need a lot of technical information can get an understanding of ASN.1, and those who want to know all about ASN.1 can go through the entire book. The book progresses from beginner to advanced in a logical manner and is easy to follow.

I read it in May (in pdf format) and found it easy to understand as a newcomer to ASN.1. I have since re-read it, working my way up from ASN.1 cluelessness, and have found this book an invaluable help at each step of ASN.1 education.

Mr. Dubuisson's writing style turns what could be a very dry and boring subject into something with a bit of humor and very reader-friendly. Five stars to ASN.1 Communication between Heterogeneous Systems by Olivier Dubuisson!

By far the best book to learn assembly bar none!
Before reading this book I thought the Jeff Duntemann assembly book was pretty good but this book makes it look bad!
First half of book has you working in debug which comes with every version of windows and easier to get going than masm.
2nd half covers masm but code still works with latest version of microsoft assembler 8.0 which I'm currently using!

I've read this book, and I really liked it. It is great. It teaches assembly language in a simple a versatile way. If you want lo learn Assembly language, this is a MUST-READ.

Norton and Socha's authority makes this book a must to every "beginner" assembly programmer. This book presents basic items such as binary numbers, registers & basic arithmetic inside the 8086 family processors into part 1. The contents of the book becomes closely related with DSKPATCH - a real program written in assembly - so the reader has a UNIQUE opportunity to see how real programmers (and here Norton is a PC guru) use step-wise refinements techniques and modular projects in a real world. The 2nd edition is based in MASM 5/5.1, Borland TASM and OPTASM features. Maybe we must wait for MASM 6.1 update... then it'll become a rating 10...

This book has the great advantage of presenting such a difficult subject just like a personal teacher would do. It's written in a clear way and explains some important concepts about the 8086 processor.My advice is:if you want to learn assembler here's a good book to start with (even if it seems a little dated!)