Programming Books

First of all I agree with the book that one should approach programming in a systematic way instead of brute force it. I like its four step programming model, but I am not sure it is fully developed. Many points the book brings up are excellent and well thought out, but some of them I don't quite agree with. I guess part of the reason is that they are subject to debate and there's no true answer to them.
By the way, the book mentions one tip that has truly saved me a bunch of time and effort. That I got to hand it to you. If it weren't for it I wouldn't have known it.
Overall, this book is a valuable resources for all programmers interested in studying C++.

The main point of the book is this "4 step" programming process. I agree that in general it can be applied to a programming task, but it needs to be further refined to be more useful. I like the profuse examples it gives in order to illustrate its point. The book's title has reference to C++, but most of its points are general and can be applied to any programming language (except C++ specific things like STL).

Also I feel that many chapters are extraneous and can be removed, but I understand that perhaps the author wants them there to support his points. I like the chapter on common causes of bugs.

Overall this is decent work on teaching programmers how to approach programming in an efficient way. I recommend picking it up if you are looking to sharpen your programming skills. It may give you a different yet better way to write a program.

I am a mechanical engineer major and I need to take introductory courses in C programming. This book really helps me a lot. It truly does what it claims to do: finish writing a program in finite amount of time and effort. One weakness would be it focuses on C++ primarily....

This book is not a tutorial on C++, nor is it a book on data structures, as the market is full of such work. The main focus of this book is to introduce a four-step programming model that has helped me finished each and every program in a finite amount of time and effort, hence the title "Finite Programming in C++". The book has many well-thought-out programming exercises to illustrate how to use this model to program efficiently. Any programmer will likely, if not definitely, benefit from reading this book. If you are the kind of programmer who has trouble having your programming assignments done on time, this book is a must read. If you never have problems having your programs done and you are concerned more with efficiency issues of a program, then move on. There are plenty of such books on the market. Happy programming~

This book is not a tutorial on C++, nor is it a book on data structures, as the market is full of such work. The main focus of this book is to introduce a four-step programming model that has helped me finished each and every program in a finite amount of time and effort, hence the title "Finite Programming in C++". The book has many well-thought-out programming exercises to illustrate how to use this model to program efficiently. Any programmer will likely, if not definitely, benefit from reading this book. If you are the kind of programmer who has trouble having your programming assignments done on time, this book is a must read. If you never have problems having your programs done and you are concerned more with efficiency issues of a program, then move on. There are plenty of such books on the market. Happy programming~

The philosophy behind frames and framing techniques astonishes me. It is revolutionary and practical. I like it very much.

Chancellor C.
http://www.extremephonecards.com

I have pretty much experience with object oriented and procedural programming in several languages, now getting into AOP and byte code engineering. The first 30 minutes with this book were dissapointing - i couldn't figure out what the heck this guy is talking about. So i started at the front, not back cover. And this is my hint - read it from the beginning, page by page. I knew, there is something wrong with software development in general, now i know what it is exactly, and why. I knew it! More - i know how i can break this vicious circle and burn the tires. We've been going the wrong way folks! This definitely is the most valuable book in my monster library (some 100 titles). This is the top secret knowledge, worth thousands and thousands of bucks. I really am not related to the author or publisher. Great stuff!

I have pretty much experience with object oriented and procedural programming in several languages, now getting into AOP and byte code engineering. The first 30 minutes with this book were dissapointing - i couldn't figure out what the heck this guy is talking about. So i started at the front, not back cover. And this is my hint - read it from the beginning, page by page. I knew, there is something wrong with software development in general, now i know what it is exactly, and why. I knew it! More - i know how i can break this vicious circle and burn the tires. We've been going the wrong way folks! This definitely is the most valuable book in my monster library (some 100 titles). This is the top secret knowledge, worth thousands and thousands of bucks. I really am not related to the author or publisher. Great stuff!

Found my first copy in the university book store in Ames, Iowa, and have been looking at it constantly, until I lost it in one of my numerous moves. Bassett has the right idea. Software should be **engineered**, not hand crafted, and Netron seems to have found at least one way to do it.

Another thing. To my knowledge, no one else in the field has advocated the notion of **balance** between source level changes and the re-use of executeable objects. This is probably the most important idea expressed here.

I thought I was becoming comfortable with OO until I ran into a group of Smalltalkers. What a mind bender! I learned things about OO that I didn't know. I also became concerned as, ostensibly for reuse purposes, the design stage decoupled logically unrelated functionality and fragmented real-world objects far beyond their natural granularity, to the point that I found myself mired in bitty components and methods with so little responsibility that I could no longer see the big picture. Worse, those myriad components now had complex interrelationships, most of which I could no longer see. I fully agreed that reuse was a worthy goal - but at the expense of readability and maintainability? Paul G. Bassett not only identifies and describes all of these issues (and much more), he has concrete solutions to these problems, with bottom line statistics to back up some pretty wild claims. His book is small - initially a concern for me. Don't worry. Paul G. Bassett is clear, concise, correct, complete. This, I strongly believe, is where we're headed.

When I was coming of age in the 1960's,one of my favorite TV shows was "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In"-It was downright hysterical-When I heard that a book had come out about the program,I knew I had to purchase it-Author Hal Erickson begins his book by listing several performers whose comedic style paved the way for "Laugh-In",such as the vaudeville team of Olsen & Johnson & Ernie Kovacs-"Laugh-In" ran from January 1968 to May 1973-Along the way,it introduced us to some truly talented individuals such as Arte Johnson,Ruth Buzzi,Goldie Hawn,& Lily Tomlin-"Laugh-In" was the top rated show from 1968-1970-However,once certain cast members started to leave,the show diminished in popularity-NBC cancelled the show in early 1973-There's an appendix in the back of the book that features a brief synopsis of each & every episode-If you're a bona fide "Laugh-In" fan,you must purchase this book.

I am a huge fan of "Laugh-In." If you are a fan also, this is THE book for you. It includes everything. The only thing missing are pictures- there are not any. However, all of the behind the scenes, inside info about the show, its history, series revival attempts (thus far- there is talk about another one,) and reunion specials, is all here. All of your questions are answered. I know mine were. Also included is a season by season episode guide, with a detailed synopsis for each episode for all of the six seasons.

This book is usually pretty expensive, but it is worth the cost. Every TV show should have a book written about it that is this wonderfully brilliant. Double thumbs up!

A very worthwhile piece of literature which belongs in any library of comedy or television. It chronicals the history of one of the best and most inventive events in TV history. The book is more the history of the show than the humor but it does contain lots of the wit and the flavor.. Now I want a book of the jokes with photos. Good work.. Buy it.

A thorough history of a legendary television classic. The book paints a picture of the popular culture of a time that will surely not be repeated. I highly recommend this for anyone who wants to learn about a fascinating era or just simply wants to revisit a phenomenon long gone.

It's been a year-and-a-half since Hal Erickson's "Sid and Marty Krofft" was published...too long for this reader, as Mr. Erickson is quickly becoming as vital to the world of TV history as Brooks and Marsh. The bulk of "From Beautiful Downtown Burbank" recaps the origin, growth, and ultimate demise of "Laugh-In" with Mr. Erickson's trademark savvy enthusiasm, the kind that comes only aftermonths of research and interviews. What's more, the book's appendix isn't to be missed, since you'd be hard pressed to find a more thorough "Laugh-In" episode guide anywhere (it even includes the never-been-syndicated sixth season). The lack of photographs is completely made up for by Mr. Erickson's gifted ability to recreate the show's backstage atmosphere. Can't ask for more than that in a history book... Perhaps the only question the book doesn't answer: why Ian Bernard replaced the program'soriginal theme song in the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th season, only to resurrect it in the 5th. Asking that is pure hairsplitting, though, and shouldn't dissuade anybody from doing themselves the favor of purchasing this book,a gripping read from a multi-talented writer. So until Columbia House or Rhino immortalize "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" (heck, even after they do), "From Beautiful Downtown Burbank" is the definitive tribute to a marvelous and groundbreaking program.

This is an excellent book on Networking in Java. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn sockets, TCP/IP and UDP. Just make sure you have the API available when you're reading this book.

This book is what Im finding to develop server applications with Java language, it is filling the market gap.

This book describes its subject from the basics of the underlying IP networking technologies (including both TCP and UDP) all the way up through the "traditional" socket classes to the new Channel classes.

Personally I particularly benefitted from the discussion of channels and the rest of the NIO (New IO) package, but I believe that the solid coverage of Java networking basics in tandem with the comprehensive description of the available libraries makes this both a good introductory text and a good reference to the more obscure niches. It helps that while there are quite a few reference tables and lengthy discussion sections this is still a hands-on book with plenty of code examples.

Not quite suitable for a complete Java beginner - but any novice developer with a grip on syntax and the core API would benefit from this.

I have never read a more concise but clearly written technical book, and the code looks beautiful too. Pretty much every software engineer needs this book.

If you absolutely know what you are doing it reduces the solution time for most known problems from hours to minutes. If you are not all that clued up about IP but want/need to be, this is the book. Fundamental Networking in Java could just as easily be just called Fundamental Networking.

I expect this book will become the standard text in Software Engineering courses on Networking. And if your course has a different text, this book is probably a better choice. It will be one of the very few textbooks that will survive your transition into the working world.

And the beauty of this book is that because it is written in crystal clear english it is also very useful to a much wider audience - technology manager, business analyst, etcetera.

Pitt demonstrates how to connect between machines in a TCP/IP network, when at least one of the machines is running java. He explains that the standard java, which you get free from Sun comes replete with a a core set of networking classes. These free you from a lot of the grungy low level I/O issues that programmers using C and the default unix libraries have endured since the 1980s. C network programming is notorious for the amount of sweat that developers have to endure.

In contrast, the book is an easy and concise read of a compelling alternative. The java networking classes also include the ability to connect to an arbitrary URL and to download data (usually a web page). A fundamental subroutine for Web access.

Hopefully, the book will deter you from going back to C networking.

I am an instructor for a 3D Game Content course and Game Art is one of our books. The industry art pipeline and procedures are very well laid-out in this book. Would love a second edition covering the next gen techniques that will be surfacing.

Great book that covers modeling techniques for game companies, uv layout's , future Tech Compontents such as Normal Maps, etc. A well good purchase for anyone who wants to know how it's done or to improve there knowledge.

I have read this book and find it extremely informative. The book is written with the readers perspective in mind. It gives beautiful insight into the industry and the dynamics of it. It also has great walk-throughs with media on a CD that you can use as part of the "practical" experience.

Good Job!

People don't think alike. The person who can handle the programming complexity of doing a graphics engine is often not the person who is capable of designing the characters, scenery, and equipment needed for the rest of the game. In this area, the digital artist comes into his/her own. Note this says digital artist. This requires two separate skills, one is the ability to create vizualize what art is needed, the other is to use a computer rather than some other media to generate the desired image.

The game design business represents an opportunity for the digital artist to obtain jobs with real companies that are relatively well paying. This book gives an artist's perspective into the game industry. It talks about the industry, the work, and gives insight on how to get a job. But mostly it talks about what kind of art is needed for gaming. It shows the detail that is necessary to produce a visually pleasing game.

The CD included with the book includes numerous illustrations and files from Maya and ds max. It also includes a trial version of Rt/Shader software. The book presumes that you have a workingknowledge of at least one major 3D program (3ds max or Maya) and Photoshop.

This is a splendid book that is positioned to take an aspiring digital artist and carry him to the next level -- employment doing a job well beyond flipping burgers.

I was an art director in the video game industry for a number of years and one of the most frustrating aspects was interviewing artists that wanted to be part of the industry but did not know how to prepare themselves. This book addresses that problem in a thoughtful and comprehensive way.

For any aspiring artist that wants to be in the video game industry, this is the book. The examples and explanations are clear and easy to follow. Using this book, you would be able to prepare a very capable portfolio.

Buy it, read it, and put the knowledge to use.

I like this book so much, I've purchased it 3 times! (My first copy was "borrowed" by one of my designer/producers, my second copy was left at Ubisoft SF, and this is my 3rd copy for myself.)

Great mixture of theories, old-school practices, and new-school techniques.

Although I personally disagree with some parts of what this book teaches, it this game design book is one of the most comprehensive I've seen. Well-recommended.

This might be a good book for teachers looking for material in their classes gamedesign or gamedevelopment. It may also be a good book for selfstudy, if you have the discipline to do the exercises. You need to have played a lot of the classic videogames though, otherwise you might not be able to do the exercises, which are mostly about thinking about gamedesigns and making little designs or design alterations on existing games.

Few people realize just how big a business digital gaming has become. Think of it this way: It's bigger than the domestic box office of the film industry. The amount of time spent playing games by young people now exceeds everything but television in time spent on entertainment. The main factor driving the development of the new extremely powerful computers is gaming, slower machines are capable of handling almost all office tasks.

The authors of this book have a great deal of experience in both designing games and teaching how to design games. This has given them an understanding of how beginning designers grasp the structured elements of games, common traps they fall into, and certain developmental exercises that help the student learn to make better games.

Note that this is not a programming manual, nor is it a graphics design manual. It is on game design. What are the characteristics that make a game, how can you prototype and play test the game without a horrendous programming expense, and finally some input on the game industry and how to decide on how you might like to be employeed in that industry.

I consider this an excellent book on game design. As an amatuer board game and basic computer game designer, I found a lot of the material extremely useful in the *process* of coming up with a game from start to finish.

The chapter on prototyping did a great job in showing how to go ahead and create a prototype from a game idea, while keeping it simple and concentrating on the "core gameplay mechanism."

The chapter on "Playtesting" and "Functionality, Completeness, and Balance" builds on the prototype chapter by emphasizing the iterative nature of design where one go aheads and evaluates, tries new things, identify problems and keep evolving.

The next chapter following is maybe the most important chapter that discusses whether you game is fun, goes in to some theory of what makes a game fun, and relates various techniques of improving player's choices so as to make the game fun.

This is a great book that gives you the necessary tools to go ahead and be able to at the very least create a viable prototype of a game that is possibly fun and playable.

Let me join the chorus here, this is a really well written book. The focus on free and current software tools (Stanti's Editor especially) makes following along easy. It may be a testament to the ease of use when it comes to python in general (just beware your use of the tab key!), but I had no problems getting the results described and learned buckets as a result.

If you're new to game programming (or even programming in general) Andy Harris' book is certainly a great place to start. I am by no means an "expert" in the programming field, in fact, I only picked up programming again for the first time in about 10 years. Python is a very powerful, user-friendly environment to program in and coupled with what you'll learn in this book, you have the tools and potential to become almost an expert in no time. Game programming is a great place to start if you're looking to pick up programming in general.

"Game Programming: The L Line" is very excellently and comprehensively written. In my opinion, Harris has made a very useful guide to game programming and I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have!

Andy Harris did a great job on this book. I sponsor a computer programming club for high school students and this book is the best at getting to actual game creation. The first three chapters go over basics of programming, but then graphics and pygame are used early and well.

This book is a bargain at 570 truly helpful pages.

For someone who has never coded a game before, and who perhaps is also new to the entire field of programming, this can be daunting. Commercial games are usually coded in C++. Which is quite an intricate language, especially for the neophyte. Harris furnishes a plausible alternative, where the scripting language Python is used to teach an introductory course in game programming.

You do need some earlier exposure to Python. Though if you still feel awkward in it, you can use this book for the extra reason of gaining experience in Python. Harris explains that there is an open source Python gaming site, that offers the eponymous pygame. You download and install this on your machine. It gives a simple, very bare bones Integrated Development Environment for game coding. If you have used more general purpose IDEs, like Microsoft's Visual Studio, then you can certainly learn pygame. It is much smaller.

Within pygame, you can code small games. Yes, small. But the pedagogy is important. The games elucidated in the text have properties common to many, much larger games. As in how to write event driven code, for example. Or drawing geometric figures on the screen. And using sprites.

The flavour of the games is like those games of the early 80s. Or the current games for cellphones.

Don't judge this book by it's cover! For some reason,
this book is part of a series of Wiley books, and they
all have the same cover.

This is a book about learning how to program computer
games using the Python programming language and the
PyGame package. PyGame is a Python wrapper around the
SDL library. This book offers step-by-step tutorials
that introduce game programming with complete Python
programs. All the programs work on several platforms:
MS-Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux. Chapters 1-3 introduce
the Python programming language. Starting with Chapter
4, you begin to learn about graphics programming. In
Chapter 6 the programs begin to use OOP/classes. Then,
in Chapter 7, you begin to learn how to make 2D games
with sprites, sound FX, and keyboard and mouse control.
Game programming is a fun way to learn how to program
a computer, and Python with PyGame makes it relatively
easy as well.

This book has detailed information on creating graphics
and sounds for your games, using free, open source
third-party tools that are available on all platforms.
The GIMP is used for graphics, and Audacirty is used
for sounds. So unlike many other game programming books
which require expensive third-party programs in order
to make games, ALL the programs in this book are free.

The book has an easy-going, conversational style of writing
that makes it seem that the author is looking over your
shoulder, helping you to learn game programming. I'm really
glad I bought this book. It is worth many times its cover
price considering the amount of information it contains.

Things I like about this book:
1. Easy to read and understand with step-by-step tutorials.
2. Helpful reference tables throughout the book.
3. Complete example game programs.
4. All the third-party programs required are free and open.
5. Source code and extra appendices available for download.

Happy Programming!

I got this book in time and in perfect condition. Prompt delivery!!!

Nelder and Wedderburn wrote the seminal paper on generalized linear models in the 1970s. Since then John Nelder has pioneered the research and software development of the methods. This is the first of several excellent texts on generalized linear models. It illustrates how through the use of a link function many classical statistical models can be unified into one general form of model. This unification is helpful both theoretically and computationally. Various applications are presented in a clear manner.

Nelder and Wedderburn wrote the seminal paper on generalized linear models in the 1970s. Since then John Nelder has pioneered the research and software development of the methods. This is the first of several excellent texts on generalized linear models. It illustrates how through the use of a link function many classical statistical models can be unified into one general form of model. This unification is helpful both theoretically and computationally. Various applications are presented in a clear manner.

This is an important book. It is a mature, deep introduction to generalized linear models.

General linear models extend multiple linear models to include cases in which the distribution of the dependent variable is part of the exponential family and the expected value of the dependent variable is a function of the linear predictor. Besides the normal (Gaussian) distribution, the binomial distribution, the Poisson distribution and the Gamma distribution, are just some of the exponential family members most frequently encountered in the scientific literature. Using appropriate functions to join the dependent variable to the linear predictor many classic models of applied statistics are included in the broad frame of generalized linear models: "logistic regression", log-linear models, Cox's proportional hazards models are just some of them.

Further extensions to the "base" family of generalized linear models, such as those based on the use of quasi-likelihood functions, and models in which both the expected value and the dispersion are function of a linear predictor, are well presented in the book.

Examples, and exercises, introduce many non-banal, useful, designs.

There are some minor drawbacks. Some more advanced topics might have been introduced more smoothly (i.e. conditional likelihood). Some other topics are better understood when you are already familiar with the specific object of study (i.e. Cox's proportional hazards models as a generalized linear model). The book does not provide software examples, nor is it related with any specific statistical package. However, the maturity of the reader to whom the book is addressed should be so high that translating the majority of the examples presented in the book in the "language" of a familiar statistical package should not be a problem.

The first edition is already a well-known text and reference, this expanded version is even better. Very comprehensive and very helpful.

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.

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.