Software Books

When OS 9 Classic was retired, it forced a radical transition to reorganize and manage fonts without the ATM.

This book is the clearest and simplest guide for OSX users to understand how font functionality has altered in the OSX environment. Also vital to crossplatform users, the author Zardetto Aker simplifies the complex nature of sharing fonts between two platform radicals (Windows and APPLE).

Those who earn their living in computer design using real world situations would benefit from buying this book.

One analogy that describes it best:

Any graphic project is like the recipe for a perfect pot of "CHILI"
FONTS are the spices going into that pot.
If you don't manage the spice in your chili, like not managing the fonts in your project .... You wind up with disaster.

MUST READING ... Zardetto Akers' Font Management in OSX takes the confusion out of the font dynamics restructured on OSX.

I love my Mac, & I love typography. What I don't love is the mind-numbing complexity of OSX's font handling. Although I don't lament the passing of the ever-crashing OS9, it's framework for fonts was beautifully simple. There's a price for progress.

This book provides what's needed to understand the foundation concepts and terminology, and to deal confidently with common font issues. Thoroughly explained, it's made apparent that the font framework of OSX is not so incomprehensible after all. For any tech-savvy graphic artist or designer, an indispensable volume for your reference shelf.

What a splendid guide! Even if you are content to use TIMES ROMAN all the time, you should still look at this book to see a model of how to write a computer guide. None of the breezy self conscious humor you find in some books (the Dummy series or Scott Kelby's otherwise informative PhotoShop books). But friendlier and more attuned to the reader's anxieties and potential mistakes than the standard dry guides (e.g. the Missing Manuals series, which are not bad). Aker seems to sense exactly what you might need to know at just the right moment, but yet does not overwhelm you without a lot of detail all at once.

I recently switched from a PC (since 1980)to Mac, which is as everyone said so much more elegant, stable and better in almost every respect. But the font system is just as complicated and eccentric in OS X as in Windows XP. You need to do some housekeeping even if you are not a font maven. Follow the steps carefully laid out in Chapter 2 (rather tedious but precise), and your system will run more smoothly and you will know a lot about where your fonts are, and how to keep them behaving well.

I am almost never moved to write reviews here, and certainly not of computer books. But this is an exceptional contribution.

Face it - you'd think just putting your fonts in the FONT folder would be sufficient. But, strange things do happen. And, for me it is never at a good time. Like when you upgrade Adobe CS ... which made half my fonts DISAPPEAR.
Thanks for the info and instructions about AdobeFntXX.lst alone - made this book a must have in my library.
And, that was just one small enlightened moment Aker's offered

I do graphics and own Macs from October, 1985. I passed thru all the font technologies that were done into the computer... from enlarging 72pt bitmaps and correcting them, the early times of Adobe's ATM and so on.
But --maybe I'm getting old-- with the introduction of Mac OS X, typography went almost out of control for me. Althought I do not use per se Office I need to install it to open others files... and it destroy any organizated fonts folders that you had managed,
Then, in a desperate move, I bought Zardetto's book!
And everything came back to order: clear instructions lead me in a clever and consistent way. I confess I did it twice. First time I said myself: "I'm an old macintoshian..." But then I realized that following the step-by-step instructions was more inteligent. Then, with everything in order, I was back "in control".
So, my advice --for newbies and oldies-- follow the instructions and then personalize your fonts. OK, first buy and read the book!

Even though there is not a single line of code in this book, it is one that all people who are involved in the process of managing software development should read. In most cases, investment professionals will have an easier time understanding it than software developers will. The decision to invest organization resources in a software development project is treated as an investment and the point of the analysis is to determine if it is a sound one.
Part one starts with the fundamental concepts of how business decisions are made. Cash flow diagrams are used to illustrate how the flow of money relative to your organization can be visually modeled. Entire chapters are devoted to the various ways interest can be computed, the formulas used to compare the net worth of two different proposals and how to develop mutually exclusive alternatives. A large number of formulas are used, so if you are unfamiliar with the mathematics of finance, you will probably have a difficult time understanding them.
Parts two and three deal with how to make decisions in for-profit companies. Decision analysis, economic life, replacement decisions, salvage value, factoring in inflation/deflation, depreciation, cost accounting, and the impact of income taxes on business decisions are all examined using formulas, charts and diagrams. At times it gets very technical. To give you some idea, here are the titles of some sections:

*) Calculating after-tax cash-flow streams.
*) Inflation and after-tax cash-flow streams.
*) Gain or loss when selling or scrapping depreciable assets.
*) Comparing financing methods in after-tax cash-flow terms.

Part four deals with making decisions in government and nonprofit organizations. This is a very short section, less than twenty pages in length. Since these organizations generally cannot lose money either, the main focus is on the different ways government and nonprofit organizations finance their expenditures. Part five covers present economy, how to do break-even and optimization analysis. The primary focus is on how to perform various types of break-even analysis.
Part six examines estimation, risk and uncertainty. How to recognize and model the level of uncertainty and how to make decisions in situations with a great deal of uncertainty. This requires some knowledge of the fundamentals of probability and expectation. The last section covers the situation where there is more decision criteria than just the basic cost. This of course can be rather difficult, as it can enter the area of personal opinions. It is often due to the ordinal form of the data, where the range of assignments can be something like, {very poor, poor, average, good, very good}. While all can agree that poor comes before average, what one person will consider average, another would categorize as good. Fortunately, it is fairly easy to assign numeric values to the categories for standard numerical analysis of the data.
This is probably the hardest "computer" book I have ever read. I know a reasonable amount of financial mathematics, but it was still difficult to wade through all the equations, charts and diagrams. Despite this difficulty that you will most likely also face, I strongly encourage all managers to thoroughly study the contents. There is a set of self-study questions at the end of each section and solutions to most of them are included in an appendix. The software development industry has a (largely deserved) reputation for lax financial planning and the person who reads and comprehends the material in this book will have an enormous competitive advantage in the battle for jobs, revenue and profits.

Published in Journal of Object Technology reprinted with permission

Engineering is the practical and economical application of science in building products and services. So it puzzles me how financial aspects are so often neglected in teaching Software Engineering or Computer Science. What a big mistake! This is a skill that no Software Engineer should left unmastered. By the way - this is very useful even if you're not dealing with software and for your private life as it allows you to make informed decisions based on a sound rational. Steve Tockey writes in a very concisive and interesting way and provides several examples for each topic. I highly recommend it!

First, a confession, I know Steve Tockey. I work with Steve. That may bias my review a bit depending on how much I like Steve. One thing about Steve is that he home brews many nice beers and brings them into work where we get to share. I like Steve.
I also like his book. Now, I will admit that this is no thriller where you are excited to turn the next page (though I did get a little worked up on Analytical Hierarchical Process). It is designed to be an entry level economics text for the world of software engineering. The world of computer science and software engineering needed a book like this and didn't have one. So, Steve brewed this one up.
Part one (chapters 1-9) contain the basic economic theory you would find in most basic economic books. The topics are based around making decisions to make the most money (for profit companies) or to deliver the most benefit (non-profit). The text in these sections tends to get acronym heavy and Steve had to use the equation editor to type all the fancy mathematical formulas needed for things like interest for equal-payment-series capitol recovery. If you have had a basic economics course in college you can probably skip the first part without any pain. If you haven't or had forgotten (like me), then reading them is warranted. I found Steve's prose on this very dry subject to be reasonable.
Parts two through five carry on in the same way (chapters 10 - 20). Part two in decision making in for-profit companies and part three is advanced decision making in for-profit companies. Again, if you have concepts like Minimum Attractive Rate of Return, Cash-Flow Streams, Planning Horizons, Sunk Cost & Salvage, Inflation & Purchasing Power, Depreciation, Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System, etc. then you can skip these sections. Same sort of story for part four, decisions in non-profit companies and part five, present economy.
BUT WAIT, there is part six! Estimation, risk, and uncertainty. Now here is a section that everybody should read, at least a couple of times. In my work and consulting, I find I am recommending to my clients that they read this section carefully. People building software seems to really miss these economic concepts. Steve does a very good job here in explaining how estimation, risk, and uncertainty work together (often against) on a work effort. He then provides several decision making strategies that work within the reality of uncertainty.
Part seven completes the teaching part with working with multiple-attribute decisions with a good discussion on number theory and how to rationally make comparisons. This is another section that I find most people don't understand too well and highly recommend that everybody reads this part.
There is a part eight but it is a summary and conclusion.
So, my bottom line is that some parts of the book are a must read. So parts are a could read. If you don't mind skimming the parts that you know or are not applicable for the current situation, this book should work out fine. It is also one of those books that you will actually pull off the shelf next time you are asked to lead the selection of a new Commercial Off The Self (COTS) system, choose between two competing project ideas, or just want to make a better personal finance decision.

How I was introduced to this book:
About nine months before this book was published I was researching the return on investment of software projects. While doing my research, I was introduced to Steve Tockey who asked if I might be interested in reviewing his book.

My background:
For almost 10 years I've worked in the software and consulting industry. Currently, I work at one of the leading CRM software companies worldwide where I spent three years advising customers on how they can get the most out of their investment in our software. At the time of my research, it was imperative that our division understood how software investments are impacted by certain business decisions and related financial considerations. Today, I am responsible for planning, implementing, and measuring the outcomes of investments and projects within our marketing organization.

Comments on the book:
This book does an excellent job covering the financial aspects of investing in software systems (or really any investment) as well as covering decision-making and risk management techniques. If your career path includes the development of any business case for software systems, this book explains many of the concepts you will have to use. While the introductory portions of the book explain how financial principles generally apply to software, the book goes far beyond an introduction - honestly, it's depth in content will give it a home on my bookshelf as a trusted reference for years to come. Besides clear explanations and good fundamental examples, the accompanying self-study questions, website, and tools will help readers truly understand and use what is being taught.

If you are familiar with Steve McConnell's books on software, you will not be disappointed with this one (as Steve Tockey works at Construx Software).

There are hundreds of books on topics relevant to various aspects of software engineering. However, when we analyze what went wrong with so many of our large practical software projects, one of the leading culprits is a misunderstanding of the business, economic and financial aspects of the projects. Where are the books and courses to help us with this major problem?
University engineering programs often have a course such as Fundamentals of Engineering Economy. What Steve Tockey has done with his book is to apply these general engineering economics topics specifically to the field of Software Engineering and set a standard for the subfield of Software Engineering Economics. His is not the first such book (see, e. g., Barry Boehm, Software Engineering Economics, Prentice Hall, 1981 or Leon Levy, Taming the Tiger - Software Engineering and Software Economics, Springer-Verlag, 1987) but it is the most thorough and up-to-date one that I know. It is an excellent book on a very important subject. Every professional software engineer, whether CTO, group manager or programmer in the trenches, will benefit considerably from reading this book.
Return on Software is divided into several major parts: general concepts of business decision-making, interest and the value of money, and cash flow streams; business decision-making at for-profit companies; decision-making at government and not-for-profit organizations; estimation, risk and uncertainty; and decision-making based on criteria other than money such as reliability, quality, speed, and other important features (strict economists might argue that all of these other criteria could be equivalenced to money considerations but I think considering these other criteria on their own seems more natural to me).
Judging from the topics listed above, Steve believes business decision-making to be the key ingredient of successful software engineering. I could not agree more. The crucial chapter in the book is #4: The Business Decision-Making Process. The key topics in this chapter include understanding the real problem, defining the selection criteria, identifying all reasonable technically feasible solutions, evaluating those proposals, selecting the preferred proposal, and monitoring its performance. The remainder of the book is an elucidation of those topics.
Each chapter closes with a summary and a set of self-study questions supporting the book to being used as a textbook. My university will offer a course around "Return on Software" in the spring quarter for our Master of Software Engineering students and I expect the course to be offered regularly. The last time I checked, Steve's company was not offering a short course on his book's topic but it would not surprise me to see one soon.
To prove that I am not from the publisher's marketing department, I would like to suggest that the next edition include at least two more topics: buy-or-build decision-making and outsourcing (whether offshore or not).

I wouldn't say Flash MX is for the beginner, so if you are a fairly well versed PC user, and are trying to begin working with Flash, then this book will do the job. It offers a good table of contents which helps you find the information and directions you are looking for. It offers quality step by step instructions with illustrations to follow. It will help you to create a basic flash project, and does offer some advanced techniques.

Overall, I recommend this book as a good step by step guide. Just be sure you are really ready to take on such a powerful and often complicated multimedia program before you spend the cash!

I first got this book because one of my favorite websites recommends it. I got up and running pretty fast. The book made the learning curve pretty easy to ride. The only "negative" thing I have to say is that once you're up to speed, the book just fall short of one's appetite for power. But a good beginner book overall.

This book is perfect for beginners who are just starting out. You will learn Flash MX through step-by-step visual instructions. The book is excellently organized and has perfect chapters as you move on. By the end you will grasp all the great things you can do in Flash MX. It is an excellent way to jump in to ActionScript. Every lesson has a screenshot of Flash MX and show clear steps. So, get this book and see what this book can do for you.

This book is really easy to understand and easy to go about it. If you are a newbie and need some hints on "how to do", this is the book you need. Pretty simple, efficient and pack with a punch. For me, it was breeze and just to refresh things I had learned from past versions, yet I had never put it to use until now. If you are like me, and you want to know what is new on flash mx version. Be ready to breeze through, but if you are newbie. Be ready to dig in deep.

This is an excellent book, not just because its from a Canadian author. I picked the book up about a year ago but never gave it much chance. I finally decided that I wanted to learn Flash so I began to go through the book. In 5 days I finished the entire book and I learnt so much from this books style. Instead of the way alot of books are written, where you work on a project and apply a bunch of techniques to it, this book shows you all the functions and where they apply to without all the hassle of having to create a big project to learn new concepts. Excellent book for people who are new to Flash.

For anyone that tells you that you can't so solid code and script development on a Mac, they haven't been introduced to the application TextMate. There are several good options for doing power editing on the Macintosh and TextMate is one of those POWER options.

'TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac' by James Gray is a perfect companion manual for all TextMate users that want to lift the hood off of this power app and get to the nuts and bolts. If you develop on a Macintosh on a daily basis for work or fun and want to learn more about what you can do to make your life easier, pick up this book and you won't be disappointed. Written well and coming in at ~200 pages, there are 12 chapters which will teach you goodies in TextMate like how to create and use Macros, using Find & Replace to quickly edit text, and much, much more!!

The Mac is a great tool for developing code and TextMate is a great app for writing it, make yourself a more efficient coder today!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Books on editors are tricky things... I'm (still) a big fan and user of vi, but textmate is my tool of choice for more project level work for its capabilties. This book has brought me closer to to the keyboard level of productivity that vi allows for with its two modes.

Visuals:
The font size in the Pragmatic Programmers books is a little larger than say the O'Reilly books, which I personally like. Easy on the eyes. Screenshots are clearly printed.

Readability:
I found the reading style conversational and easy to follow. Of course, with this type of book which includes many keyboard short-cuts you really need to be at your computer and using them to commit them to memory. Even a reading of the book will give you insights into the power available at your finger tips with Textmate.

Practicality:
If you spend any amount of time in Textmate, this is really a no-brainer. This book will help you be more productive and get more out of your chosen text editing tool.

Audience:
The book does not list an intended target audience, but if you use Textmate at all I would say you have a bulls-eye right on you.

Overall:
If you use Textmate get this book.

"TextMate is actually a thin shell over a personalized team of robot ninjas ready to do your bidding."

The funny thing is, to people who have never used TextMate for more than a few minutes the above phrase sounds like an exaggeration. It's not. (As long as you can accept the analogy of "really awesome code running on a Mac" = "robot ninjas"...)

Anyway, this book targets a pretty specific market: 1) Humans, 2) who own Macs, 3) and use TextMate. I'm here to tell you that, if you're human you should have a Mac; and if you have a Mac you should buy TextMate; and if you have TextMate you should buy this book. So there, now it covers everyone.

As with all of the Pragmatic Programmer books, I found this book to be concise without missing anything important. You may be thinking, "200 pages about a text editor!? That's crazy talk!" But you would be wrong, my friend. The amount of functionality built into TextMate is incredible, but I didn't even know the half of it until I started reading this book!

I don't want to give away the ending, but:

Three of my favorite simple features I didn't know about until I read this book:
- Pressing [ESC] to complete the word you're typing.
- The built in TODO list functionality (so crucial!!)
- [Cmd-Enter] to add a new line below this one and go to the beginning of it.

Things I wouldn't have been able to do without TextMate and this book:
- Edit some of my Bundles to make TextMate work even more how *I* like
- Complete an after-hours Web Site project *way* under time and budget

Seriously. TextMate is the One True Editor for Mac (it makes me loath using any other editor on any platform) and this is a great book for learning how to *really* take hold of its power.

This book is the perfect primer for what I have found to be one of the most indispensible Mac OS X applications - TextMate. If you are a software developer or web designer or anyone else that edits text on a frequent basis and you have not already discovered TextMate, stop right now and visit http://www.macromates.com.

The Pragmatic Programmers' book, TextMate Power Editing for the Mac is a thorough introduction to TextMate. Edward Gray II has written a very accessible book, that covers the product very well.

The first third of the book is devoted to the basics - things you do every day in your text editor. The second third of the book dives into the details of some really sweet features of TextMate that you'll find yourself using all the time: bundles, snippets, macros and UNIX shell commands.

TextMate ships with over thirty 'bundles'. Each bundle is a directory of related files that provide additional functionality to TextMate. Let's say you're working on an HTML file. The HTML bundle will help you with loads of things related to your document: validate the syntax of the document, open the document in the default browser, refresh the document in the current browser session, insert open/close tags for the current word, strip all HTML tags from the document - just to name a few. Each bundle provides functionality that applies not only to the syntax of the language you're currently working with, but repetitive tasks that would apply as well.

As I mentioned, a couple dozen bundles ship with TextMate and many more are available for free download from various websites. You can even create your own bundles to extend the product in ways that only you can imagine. Here are a few of the bundles that ship with TextMate: Blogging, CSS, HTML, Java, Markdown, Objective-C, Python, Rails, Ruby, SQL, Subversion, Text, Textile, Xcode and XML. Bundles provide you with lots of help editing files and performing related tasks.

Snippets are a smart completion mechanism that go way beyond the simple concept of 'finish this word'. For example, if you are editing a Ruby file and you type array_object.ea followed by the TAB key (where 'array_object' is an arbitrary Array object), the snippet feature will automatically fill in the skeleton of the 'each' iterator, including the opening and closing curly braces, the text '|e|' with the letter 'e' highlighted. You simply type the name of the variable you want to represent the next element (or simply leave it as it is), hit the TAB key again and the cursor will be placed between the closing '|' character and the closing '}' character, ready for you to type in an expression. Very cool. This same trick works for dozens of different scenarios in your Ruby code. And that's just the snippets that apply to Ruby code. There are snippets that apply to a large number of file types.

You've probably seen macros in other editors and TextMate's macro facility works as you might expect: you start recording a macro, perform some actions and save the macro. TextMate saves the macros as XML files, so it's a snap to edit a macro after recording if you need to tweak it a bit.

The ability to fire off UNIX shell commands from within TextMate gives you another powerful tool to use while editing files. You can fire off one-liner shell commands by simply pressing the ^R key on a line containing a shell command. You can also use shell commands to act on all or part of the current document.

For the advanced TextMate user, the tail end of the book shows you how to create your own language syntax for use in TextMate, including how to describe the grammar of the language in terms TextMate will understand. So, if you program in some far out funky language that TextMate doesn't support out of the box, you can add the language grammar to TextMate and program away!

Overall, I found this book extremely useful and easy to read. TextMate ships with an excellent help system that will answer many of your questions. The TextMate Power Editing for the Mac book will take you beyond the built-in help and give you an in-depth guide for this great Mac application.

This book is amazing, I didn't expect a book on software engineering to be so easy to read and understand.

Most of the other software engineering books I read are too academic and detached from the industry.

The case studies provided in this book are things I can totally relate to as a software developer. Question/Answer sections are great.

Overall this book is very well written, it is a true masterpiece.

The knowledge I gleaned from this textbook was directly responsible for my getting a high paying software engineering job immediately after leaving college - that alone should be a testament to its value. It gives a wide reaching survey (yet certainly not lacking for details) of the latest cutting-edge methods for software engineering as well as the tried-and-true methods that have been in use for decades, while placing a primary emphasis on writing software that is trustworthy on time and within budget. In a software engineering world where ethics have fallen out of favor and the "almighty schedule" has become more important than quality and security, this textbook is an extremely refreshing view of how to apply modern principles and process to produce not merely programs but supportable, trustworthy programming systems products. And best of all, Bernstein shows you how to do it ON-TIME and WITHIN BUDGET by performing quantitative cost and time estimation prior to and during the development process. If software engineering is to reach the level of professionalism long associated with other engineering disciplines, we must all embrace the methods and principles discussed in Bernstein's book.

It's important to note also that there are many case studies in this book from Bernstein's distinguished career at Bell Labs, and they are extremely valuable in learning what "works" and what should be avoided. Software engineering as a discipline doesn't learn from its mistakes as well as other engineering fields, but this book takes 35 years of hard-earned experience and the latest research by Bernstein, Boehm, Parnas, and others, and condenses it into what I consider the best software engineering textbook on the market. This is a must-read for any computer science practitioner who wants to consider himself a true engineer and a professional.

This book does a great job of covering the key tools and techniques used in the development of software systems. It is very readable, and is suitable as a course text or an informative reference guide for practicing programmers and managers. A wealth of case study material provides insights into how to develop reliable software, on time and within budget. Sprinkled throughout are pragmatic rules of thumb and metrics. A good read and a good addition to any reference collection!

The most commendable single aspect of this book is the extensive set of real case studies. The main author (Bernstein) comes from decades in high tech industry and this permeates the entire book. The book is extremely broad in scope too, so the prospective reader or student gets a tour of a vast array of related subjects. The quantitative basis for the entire book constantly reminds the reader of the usefulness of a quantitative approach to all sorts of aspects of software engineering. Prospective buyers can dive in to the text at Amazon and make up their own mind about the usefulness for their own purposes. Take a look!

Well, this is certainly a much different type of software engineering textbook than I have seen in the last score of years ☺! I was a reviewer of early editions of Pressman, and a user of every edition since the second one at four different universities. Shooman's classic 20+ years ago is another early data point for a graduate course. The Software Engineering Lectures of Tom DeMarco and Ed Yourdon from 1979 are still shelved six feet away from me, and have been referenced in every undergrad and graduate software engineering related course I have taught since 1984. The same shelves contain Pfleeger, Leach, Lethbridge, Peters, Watts & Humphrey, Sommerville, Thayer and many others within the combined 12 foot lineal span. They obviously are used, but not to the extent of Pressman.

That may be about to be changed! Larry Bernstein's new text states on page 32 ".. none of these [principles of sound organizations] will work unless our profession recognizes the next core element in the evolution of software processes as a fundamental principle. Software trustworthiness is the next major area in which academic and industry must focus -- both for national security reasons as well as to ensure that the U.S. software industry maintains its leadership. The three attributes of software reliability, security and safety comprise trustworthiness."

I totally agree with the belief about where we should focus our attention in coming years, but not for the reasons that Larry cites. Let me explain:
* Having worked as a software/knowledge engineer on the Space Shuttle program for Rockwell International for four years, including the maiden flight of Discovery within a few months of my hire date in 1984, I am a very firm believer that the trustworthiness of the software in the shuttle and all the support effort was a gold standard at the time. I was also a full-time professor of CS concurrently, so could bring such issues to all of my classes. Although I have given up my dream of going to the moon, hatched when my small team of high school students fired off rockets in a farmer's field prior to Sputnik, I still hope to make it to the international space station, so a trustworthy system is not only of academic interest! In the last 20+ years, the ubiquity of computing, particularly embedded systems in all modes of transportation, makes such a standard a MUST, not just "nice to have" in our cars, trucks, planes, etc. When a team of Ford software engineers showed up in my office 10+ years ago, asking for help in developing safe software systems for next generation side impact sensors, I could not brush off their concerns! Obviously, software systems pervade the lives of many of the 6.6 billion people residing on this planet today, not just the billion or so who access the Internet. It is irresponsible, not to mention a direct violation of codes of ethics for computing and software engineering, NOT to develop such trustworthy systems.
* I cannot agree with Larry's rationale about the leadership of the U.S. in software. Trustworthiness of software systems knows no national boundaries! Other engineering artifacts do not know such artificial boundaries - do we want the bridges and high rise buildings of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, Africa, etc. to be less safe, reliable and secure than those in the United States? I think not, if for not other reason than millions of our citizens travel to and live in those countries every day. Clearly, the lives of people across the world are just as valuable as those fortunate enough to live in our 50 states. The state-of-the-art in engineering methods is being advanced on a world-wide basis - why should we think software engineering education is somehow an exception? I would hope that this new text would be published in many languages and used by students and practitioners worldwide. I had first met Professor Bernstein on November 30, 2000 during my sabbatical to set up an International Software Engineering University Consortium (www.iseuc.org). So Larry clearly knows of my penchant for the world-wide importance of software engineering ☺!

Why do I think this new text is different from earlier ones and would recommend strongly that all current faculty and practitioners consider it carefully, especially for an introduction? The rationale includes the following. The text:
1. Focuses on the increasingly vital role that trustworthy software systems will play in the lives of current and future generations. Consequently, it is quite easy to engage or "hook" students in an introductory software engineering course about the importance of the topic - they see the impact of the lack of such systems on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Many of them will be able to share personal and professional experiences. The marvelous column by Neumann in every copy of ACM's SIGSOFT Software Engineering News provides ample examples, in any case.
2. Is cleverly written with excellent and realistic case studies with real questions and answers
3. Draws on the demonstrated expertise of the primary author when he was the CTO for Bell Labs
4. Truly demonstrates the rationale for the role of quantitative software engineering methods throughout the development life-cycle, beginning on page 4!
Reliabilty = e-k?t, where k is a normalizing constant, ? is complexity/(effectiveness x
staffing) and t is the time the software executes from its launch.
5. Emphasizes the "why" as well as the "how"
6. Includes excerpts from student teams related to the growing use of Real Projects for Real Client Courses - RPRCC-in software engineering and other courses
7. Covers most of the topics in a traditionally-structured software engineering text, but does so in a more contemporary and intuitive way. Some of the topics in other texts that wind up at the end, hence often not covered, are main-line chapters in the Bernstein text*. The newest edition of Sommerville's text does indeed have a 20-page chapter 3 on "Critical Systems" and a complete 120 page Part 4 on the same topic, but this is certainly an anomaly among current texts. The Bernstein text emphasizes trustworthiness as a continuing theme throughout, with the continual use of quantitative measures - witness the large number of "Magic Number" boxes for empirical results and heuristics contained in virtually each chapter. I admit that there would be a "learning curve" for most of us, but hey, aren't we supposed to be paragons for "life-long learning" that we espouse for our students?
8. Has fewer pages than virtually every other text. This is a real advantage. Students (and faculty) feel they have a "prayer" of being able to use the material in one course!
9. Has nice on-line support site.
10. And, finally, Larry will go to great personal lengths to support his text ☺!

A couple of possible sources of improvement for the second edition would include the following:
1. Include Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) as a major component when designing critical systems. This is a common engineering tool that was used in the design and testing of the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) over the last 30 years.
2. How can the vital concept covered in the text be applied to the massive task of rendering trustworthy the extant base of millions of software systems? The text does a superb job for developing such systems, but can trustworthiness be "bolted on" existing systems? I doubt it, but cannot see an easy answer here.
3. A friendlier website for both instructors and students would be helpful, ala those for other software engineering textbooks

*Topics in the text
Part I. Getting Started
1. Think Like an Engineer - Especially for Software
2. People, Product, Process, Project - The Big Four

Part II. Ethics and Professionalism
3. Software Requirements
4. Prototyping
5. Architecture
6. Estimation, Planning, and Investment
7. Design for Trustworthiness

Part III. Taking the Measure of the System
8. Identifying and Managing Risk
9. Human Factors in Software Engineering
10. Implementation Details
11. Testing and Configuration Management
12. The Final Project: By Students, For Students

I own a lot of books on NT Server (too many in fact) and this is one of my favorites. Anyone responsible for the support of NT Server should have this book without question. Curt Aubley has produced a book that is easy to digest yet comprehensively covers all aspects of optimizing NT Server in your own environment.

It includes many ideas and suggestions that you can implement immediately and see true performance gains. If you've ever wondered, "What RAID configuration would be best for my new application server?" or "Which performance monitor counter is really the best to use to monitor this or that?", then this book is definitely for you.

Let's hope Curt produces a similar book of the same quality for Windows 2000. This book sits right beside Mastering Windows NT Server by Mark Minasi on my desk, and between the two of these and Technet, one doesn't need much more to support an enterprise Windows NT 4.0 environment.

I've been very impressed with the results of implementing what I've learned from this book. I've used the techniques at a few different Fortune 500 companies, and all my clients have been very satisfied. I would reccomend this book to anyone who takes tuning Windows NT for the Enterprise seriously.

This is the best written book I have read to date. It starts out like it should...what to do if you don't want to read the whole book. I have suggested this book to many of my friends and they have the same feeling. Great Job Curt !!!! Publish another one !!!!

Mr. Aubley's book is an excellent technical resource which addresses the difficult task of correctly sizing NT Server implementations and also how to tune NT for maximum performance with regards to various hardware and software considerations. Mr. Aubley explains the complex tasks succinctly and concisely and draws on many obvious years of experience to present hands-on solutions and case studies for reference. I would recommend this book to any NT admin that is responsible for scaling NT beyond humble file and print services. It has presented approaches to the tasks at hand that I have successfully used to effect client solutions.

I own a lot of books on NT Server (too many in fact) and this is one of my favorites. Anyone responsible for the support of NT Server should have this book without question. Curt Aubley has produced a book that is easy to digest yet comprehensively covers all aspects of optimizing NT Server in your own environment.

It includes many ideas and suggestions that you can implement immediately and see true performance gains. If you've ever wondered, "What RAID configuration would be best for my new application server?" or "Which perfmon counter should I use to monitor this or that?", then this book is definitely for you.

Let's hope Curt produces a similar book of the same quality for Windows 2000. This book sits right beside Mastering Windows NT Server by Mark Minasin on my desk, and between the two of these and Technet, one doesn't need much more to support an enterprise Windows NT 4.0 environment.

Lafore has done a wonderful job. Specially his explanation of the C syntax in this book is excellent. If you are an absolute beginner then this is your book. Learn C in a painless way. Moreover this book also teaches you C graphics! that is something you will not find in most of the great C books in the market.

This book is best for people who are getting introduced to programming ... or C for that matter. It is THE best start-up material. Tip: Read it to build up concepts and move to books dealing with more advanced topic for the highest personal gain.
A book worth digesting !!!

Its a good and well written book. This was my first book which I used to delve into programming. Found it very useful. Cannot be really used as reference, but its good to clear your concepts of OOP.

LeFore's book is a great book for beginning programmers. I have taught C/C++ at our local community college and have often recommended this book to students and friends. It is well written and not overly complex. It has clear explanations of constructs and good examples. Kudos to the author. All beginning books should be so easy to understand.

I'm a chem e of 15 years beginning an MS CS degree. A PHD candidate CS friend of mine recommended this book. My programming in C class uses Deitel. Deitel is very poor in explaining the basics of functions and pointers. Lafore does not go into as much depth as Deitel, but does an excellent job with the basics of arrays, functions, pointers, and the syntax around them. By the time Deitel got to fucntions, pointers and pointers to functions from within other functions, I got lost because I couldn't follow the synax in the examples with any certainty. Lafore saved me. I read the chapter on functions and the first 5 pages on pointers and gained a much clearer understanding of the basics. I was then able to understand the more in depth examples of Deitel. I deduct one star for Lafore's lack of depth.

This an awesome book. This book is the to have for all web developers.

This text book is of very high quality and an engaging read. Apart from the expected target audience of web developers, I will suggest that website owners and non-developers should consider getting hold of this vital textbook.

The fact that it leaves you wanting more is a compliment to its quality. Even though it is bulky, I wished it had covered certain areas in more detail.

One small criticism relates to the javascript examples. The discussion of events refers to techniques that are questionable in terms of robustness and re-usability, issues that, to be fair, the author does point out. [Background; search for "addEvent considered harmful" in your favorite search engine.] Yet no definitive solution is given, and the reader is left hanging. More serious is the very poor quality javascript code sample given for the cssjs() utility function, which is poorly designed (needs to be repackaged, should be a class), is inefficient, and is fragile as it contains (at least) two immediately apparent critical bugs.

But such small gripes should on no account not put you off buying this text. The overall verdict, "Outstanding."

Anyway, the numerous authors are to be congratulated. Indeed, given the size of the field and the rapid pace of developments, a second "part II - advanced" volume would be a very good idea indeed.

If you are serious about accessibility (and you should be), this book will not dissapoint. The authors know what they are talking about, and do a good job and presenting both the facts and their opinions in a clear relavent way.

The only reasons I do not give it 5 stars is many items within the book are redundant (I think due to the great number of authors (11!), and perhaps they wanted the book to serve as a reference also), and because the presentation is generally dry. Good information, but not coffee-table reading.

Still in all, as a web developer I would highly reccomend this book to any other developer weather you just want a little understanding of accessibility, or a big dose.

Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance, written by eleven experts and released in July of 2006 by friends of Ed, is one of very few books about web accessibility. It is also the best. The writers include luminaries and pioneers in accessibility - Jim Thatcher, Cynthia Waddell; and technical experts - Christian Heilmann and Andrew Kirkpatrick, to name a few.

The book is an overview of accessible best practices in web technology, and the legal landscape it inhabits. It was compiled with several target audiences in mind.

Certainly, it is intended for developers - newcomers as well as veterans. This is the group that most needs to understand the technology, and unfortunately, seems to "get it" the least.

Another audience is the managers and administrators; that group that should be most adverse to risk and whose responsibility is to keep their government and corporate employers out of the courts and headlines (like those that have embarrassed [Target retailer]). Covered in some detail are the ADA section 504 and section 508 requirements, and in lesser detail international laws.

The technical information is very current. There is a chapter on accessible JavaScript (most would consider that term an oxymoron) even though it has only recently seen coverage in articles and blogs online. Likewise, there is good information on making Flash content accessible.

A book assembled as a compendium of contributions begs to be updated frequently. The next release, for example, could add much needed chapters on AJAX and Web 2.0, podcasting, and learning management technologies. Regardless, all practitioners of accessibility will find this book valuable.

Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance is the
perfect reference for any site development team. Everything you've
wanted to know about Accessibility and the Web is here in a single text.
Each member of the team will find necessary information and practical
solutions in one or more of the thorough discussions here. For the
designer/developer who works alone, Web Accessibility: Web Standards and
Regulatory Compliance is the all-in-one reference with the most
up-to-date information and techniques. Thanks to the clear organization,
two tables of contents, and index, all information is easy to find as
well.

For those of us who like background and theory, the book contains lively
discussions of accessibility standards, of the intent of the standards,
and suggestions for using the standards. For me, though, the heart of
the text is in the practical discussions and how-to guides in order to
improve accessibility of every common web technology -- from PDF to
Flash, from javascript to data forms. In addition, we finds clear
descriptions of the law and web accessibility. Importantly, these
discussions are international in scope.

The collective experience of the authors of this text is impressive.
These are the experts to whom we've turned to assist us with accessible
design and development for years. In this text, we have a collection of
the most knowledgeable voices on the subject of accessibility, who speak from a real-world
perspective. They share freely their best techniques, so that we can
create the "best possible experience for the greatest number of
visitors."

For me, Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regularory Compliance is a
must-have.

I am not an expert developer but I have a fair amount of experience building financial applications in Java and C++. I spent quite some time looking for a book that would get me started with Web technologies. It is not easy. Yes, there are many books that describe one or another technology but I wanted to find one that puts these technologies in prospective. I was very pleased when I found this book. I can always dig deeper in one direction when I need to but this book helps me to understand how to get started and where to concentrate my efforts. I like it, I think it is very useful.

I have to disagree with the reviewer who disparaged this book's emphasis on history. The background on TCP/IP protocols explained how HTTP came to be and why servers and browsers work the way they do. Discussion of how web development platforms evolved provided insight into the problems newer approaches tried to solve and the problems some of them created. The authors may have gone overboard spouting the merits of "separating content from presentation" and touting the praises of MVC approaches, but their point is a valid one you can really relate to if you've worked with page-centric platforms like ASP and JSP. The historical review of different approaches explained the authors' reasons for ultimately choosing an MVC approach with Struts and JSTL, and offered insights into how development platforms may evolve in the future. This is a book that starts with basics and builds on them, covering protocols, markup languages, and development platforms. The history helps drive the points home. Personally, I learned a lot from this book. I agree that they could have provided a CD-ROM, but it turns out their website (webappbuilders.com) is pretty good and has other good info aside from the app's source code, including some articles from the authors.

This book is an ideal text for providing intermediate-level web developers with a solid grounding in architectural principles and more advanced techniques. Before going into why I like this book I do want to offer one caveat - the authors' approach is towards the Model-View-Controller paradigm, and is based on Java Standard Tag Library, Jarkata struts and Apache. These are solid elements, but if you are working in a different environment you will not appreciate this book as much.

The historical material in this book is not fluff if you approach it with the intent to gain a fuller understanding of the major components of the Internet and web. This material is rich with details about why the core web technologies developed and evolved, including design choices the pioneers made in the face of constraints. In a subtle way this part of the book is a primer on design and architecture.

What makes this book so valuable is the non-trivial application that brings this book alive. This is a refreshing change from other books that use thinly contrived snippets of code or trivial applications. The code for this application can be downloaded from the book's supporting web site, which also contains errata (thus far there are only two entries), and articles that are valuable resources with or without this book.

Overall this is one of the better books on web application design and development, and one that dives into code and technical details.

I've been writing Windows-based mutlimedia applications since Windows 95 was released. I've been looking for a good book to help the crossover to web application development, and I found that this was just the ticket. Explanations were solid and presented in a way that made experimentation easy (both from the browser and server side). Quite simply, this book served as a great jumping off point for deeper exploration into session management, security, web services (both SOAP and Rest), etc. Definitely a great introduction for folks with a software engineering background.

I always thought Amazon search is good but I stumbled upon this book at a store. It's a useful summary, but not a reference. I particularly like the examples and the way they build up from trivial to complex. The level of detail is right. Altogether, very refreshing.

Kalpanik blends art, craft and wit into a narrative which teaches us lessons we did not know we know.

This book combines elements from good humor, a memoir, a scenic travelogue, a touching love story, science fiction and philosophy.

Whether you ever wondered about meaning of it all, or you want to read something light amusing, or want to see places like Seattle, San Diego, and Nashville from the eyes of the writer, or vicariously live the life of a
student at University of California, this book is for you!

The author, purportedly an Artificial Imagination computer program simulating a life/career journey through the Hi Tech and yet very scenic world of California and Washington (Settle) is witty still though down to earth and funny! The book is written in a very conversational style, as if you are reading a letter from a close friend!!

Great book, love it! It's hilarious! I could not stop giggling, I cracked up page after page. Really Nice!

And so many nice photographs. I felt I was traveling with the author, no, I was him, feeling his ambitions, his surprise, excitement and pain. And what a brave soul! He (yes, despite its claims to have been written by an AI program, this book is written by a loving, feeling, breathing human for sure!)--He is able to maintain his sense of humor even as he moves from one place to another, faces one set back after another! He always comes back!

Wow! What a story!!

This book transcends genres -- it's a good collection of memoirs, entertaining style, nice splash of humor, an extremely detailed travelogue with beautiful photographs, a good description of technology, a touch of Science Fiction (since it is purportedly written by a Artificial Imagination program) and suffused with philosophical musing and last but not the least, a moving love story.

Even though it's obviously written by a Technologist, the book is very human. It is primarily about the immigrant experience, but Kalpanik is extremely observant and has an eye to look for the unusual, notice what stands out and build humorous side of people, places and his own life.

Wonderful! I am specially moved by his bitter-sweet love story at the beginning.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R167JUBPRPS0DJ Entertaining and interesting!