Practitioners Books

Very good book. I am enjoying reading it (not complete yet, it is really very big book). The topics are covered at length. Very good coverage of important concepts with amazing knack of not making the subject boring or dull. Very nice suggestions / references / advices for further study. A A very good read for software engineering professionals.

When your interest fall in software engineering, there are *lots* of books on the subject but only a few of them cover the principles in an almost exhaustive way. One of the main errors that authors do is having the claim that all about software engineering can be covered in a single book. And this book is no exception. When you're reading a textbook, this isn't always bad: one of the main purposes of a textbook is introducing the concepts gradually, without much details and in the clearest way possible. A student doesn't need to know all. He/she just need to understand the fundamentals of the discipline. So, while this book is intended for a professional audience, it is structured like a textbook. The problem here is that it gives probably too much informations for students and too few informations for professionals. It gives a nice introduction on the subject, explaining why the software is a product, its features, its lacks and its myths (very interesting). Problems start with chapter 2: the process. While something is covered about some development models like waterfall, win-win model, RAD, concurrent, etc., it lacks any detail needed to really understand these development models and bring them in practice. One of the things I hate the most about this book are repetitions: the author repeat the same concepts many times during the exposition and this can be irritating. It covers many subjects, like user interface construction, project planning, temporal planning, quality assurance in software development, software architectures, component based engineering, conceptual modeling, etc. Each chapter is a small introduction to these subjects but the book gives small or no details at all on how to use these concepts in practice. You won't find code here. You won't find design patterns, UML diagrams, state charts, refactoring methods. While this is not necessarily bad, it makes clear this book is better used as a textbook and not as a practical (for practitioners) manual to learn software engineering methodologies directly on the field. So, if you're interested in software engineering and you want a solid introduction to it, buy this book. If you're a professional who want a practical exposition of the discipline to apply concepts on real projects, skip this book. I give it 3 stars because explanations are good and the book is well written but the title is a bit misleading: professionals generally needs other kinds of books.

I am using this book for a Master's course. The book is a bit different from most books as it consists of a collection of articles.

First, if you're looking for a book on managing software projects, this is not it. It is a very difficult subject to learn from a book. In fact, large organizations typically have their own project management practices, and have classes to teach their PM's.

Project Management is difficult to learn on your own, and is a hard topic to cover academically. This book can be used in others ways. For example, as a reference for experienced PM's; it can confirm notions of practices, or be referenced for very narrow topics, as software estimations.

Some of the articles are old, and may be out of date, and may be used anecdotally.

This book contains facsimiles of articles ranging from HBR to the highly technical, and a broad range of topics from personnel, to organization, to management, to technical. I found it interesting, but not very useful in terms of practice.

This is an excellent book and is being used as the standard for candidates for the diploma in dental homeopathy of the faculty of homeopathy in London. There is an excellent chapter on Mercury fillings and many dentists and patients will find it not only useful for dental homeopathic treatment but also for a good basis for general homeopathic conditions. As vice - chairman of the British Homeopathic Dental Association , I can highly reccommend this book to all interested in oral and dental health

This book was a great disappointment. Too much of it is devoted to general homeopathy and not specifically targetted to dental. What was there for dental was rather disappointing too. For example, for teeth clenching or grinding, he says to buy another book on Bach Flower Remedies.

Sadly, this book is similar to most on venture capital in that it is based on interviews of VCs. The weakness behind this approach is that it provides unorganized content that lacks depth and utility. In short, while it doesprovide some important insight, these insights are neither unique or critical and can be found in other books that provide a much better resource to the entrepreneur.

Finally! A practical, hands-on guide to raising venture capital. This step-by-step handbook gives an entrepreneur a clear, real-world roadmap to the fundraising process. I only wish I had a book like this when I started my company.

This book will bring you up to speed on all the buzz words for all the methodologies, but thats the extent of the book.

This book covers very little of actually process, how to analyze and existing process, how to setup a new process or improve a process. It actually does a very poor job of explaining what sofrware engineering is all about and leaves you feeling that is about writing documents, not about creating reliable, verifiable software.

I used this book in my Grad class and I'm still confused. I don't know what to make of this book. On the one hand, I think the author tries to cover most of the important topics, but on the other, the book falls short in intellectual substance.

Problems at the end of each chapter are very time consuming, and in some cases cannot be answered at all. This makes me wonder if the author can answer any of those tough questions that he wants you to ponder.

If you're looking for a good SE textbook, don't buy this one. You will regret it!

There is nothing much in this text that's closely related to what the author is asking you to consider. His book is based on fluff, and lacks the important stuff; just a bunch of snippets.

You will get an "F".

This is by far the worst textbook I have ever read, and isn't worth $128 dollars.

Thanks for nothing Roger, but you deserve at least 1 star!

This is a good book. I have several editions of this book, including a very early one. In my view, in looking for a thorough perspective of software engineering, there are two major routes: McConnell/Weigers series or one of the comprehensive volumes by Pressman or Sommerville. McConnell's books (Code Complete, Rapid Software Development, and Software Estimation) and Weigers (Software Requirements) are each highly detailed. Hence, four-plus books. Pressman encapsulates the whole shebang into one big comprehensive volume. Not as detailed as those Microsoft Press authors, but that's not a drawback. If you've been practicing for a long time or you're a project manager, sometimes a substantive overview is what you need, not minute details. You're not living in the deep details anyway, your engineers are. Plus, the coverage of the more advanced development technologies, like formal methods, are very good and not included in the Microsoft Press books. Bottom line: if you're a technology director or project manager and want the big picture (in one place), get Pressman. If you're a systems analyst or software engineer and want the larger view, get McConnell and Weigers. (I have not read the Sommerville text, but from the table of contents there's a chapter on security which the other books only cover lightly.)

I had the 4th edition of the book back in college. When I started studying for the CSDP (Certified Software Development Professional) Exam, I ordered the 6th edition. The 6th edition is a huge improvement over the 4th.

This book covers just about everything you need to know on the subject of software engineering. Great book, great reading. Applying the concepts on the job will help out tremendously in your career.

I'm not a student. I am software development manager and have over 20 years of real-world experience developing sophisticated banking and financial applications. I have one of the original first addition books, and I have to say that this book was critical to my learning software engineering principles. The criticism of this book are unfounded in my opinion. This book contains the critical elements to implement SE principles.

The complaints seem to be from students and they seem to think it is a poor text book. Well, that's probably a good sign, as good text books are usually worthless for real world examples, and books that give you worthwhile information aren't usually good text books.

If you look through all the 5 star reviews, they are from Software Engineers working in the field. If you look at all the 1 star reviews, they are all from students who, frankly don't know what really is important and what isn't when it comes to developing quality software. (I know I didn't when i was a student). That alone gives speaks volumes about the book.

Some said that Code Complete is a better book. Where do you think the authors of Code Complete got their material? This book is first published 15 years before Code Complete. Code Complete is a good book, but doesn't explain the "why" of things, whereas this book does. Studying this book will give you the "why" on certain principles so you can enact them to whatever situation you are in. It is not an "ABC" book on how to do "XYZ."

The theories and examples on the programmer productivity were very valuable to me, and I have saved me countless hours and money on developers time because I learned how to maximize programmer productivity. This book is the framework on how to development high-quality software. I can speak from experience that the software I've been respopnsible for developing, using the priniciples I learned from this book, has been excellent. The software failure rates I have experienced are far lower than industry averages. I have some applications that have run for many years without any software failures. It can be done, but this doesn't garantee your success. This book shows you the blueprint. You still need experienced developers to be able to create high-quality code, but only by following the principles laid out in the book.

Perhaps if all you students had to see all the poorly written software in use in the world, you would appreciate this book more. This book is well worth it the price. If you plan on having anything to do with software development, keep this book, and don't sell back to a book store. I ordered the latest version and read it, and Pressman has done a good job in keeping up with the latest in software engineering. With out a doubt, the book is worth the price. My copy has paid for itself many times over.

Is there a list available with all the errors in the book? Does anyone know where to get it?

Accessible to practitioners but occasionally superficial with some flaws in structure and content real options.

Be warned! This is a "partial" work.
Mr. Copeland's work is great and insightful (once you download 26 pages of errata and keep it close by). He starts off with NPV and builds up to "rainbow" options. The detail is comprehensive and the chapter end questions are challenging. And this is my beef. You have to pay The Monitor Group an additional $US 30.00 for the solutions to the problems. This is not what I would call "a parishioners guide" but another example of an American corporate rip-off!.

Due to the fact that the errata was the longest I have come across, that the editing was generally so poor, and the solutions are an additional charge, I feel that Texere owes me a complete parishioners guide to real options. By using Real option analysis or NPV, the additional costs in time and money can not justify an investment in this book. A real sunk cost for me.

Mr. Copeland, do not let your name go on such a poorly finished product again.

Content : A
The book enables the reader to understand the world of real options without having to take a course on stochastic calculus, which is good because otherwise Real Options would be too hard to sell to management. The book is rich on examples and presents the building blocks of almost every combination imaginable. More case studies though would have been a big plus.

Presentation : F
You absolutely should not read the book without first [knowing] the corrections.... There are so many errors everywhere - in formulas, calculations and text (a total of 177 for 350 pages of relevant content !!) - that I could only shake my head in disbelief. Quite obviously, nobody has made even a half-baked attempt to proof-read the book.

The phrase, "stochastic differential equations" may not trip off your tongue and you may not initially see the joy of learning that replicating portfolio value = mV + B. Yet Tom Copeland and Vladimir Antikarov guarantee that their book is a practical, everyman's guide to the sometimes serious math world of Real Options Analysis (ROA). Thanks to the availability of personal computers and modeling software, everyone can now use ROA. Before PCs, only doctoral students of finance or economics would have been safe attempting it. Sure, ROA is harder than the traditional valuation methods or Net Present Value (NPV), but real options allow you to understand the full value of an asset by taking into account the factors of flexibility, risk and uncertainty. Company case models, the theory behind ROA and equations are all showcased in the book. This can be a challenging text, but we from getAbstract strongly recommend it to all CFOs and anyone charged with evaluating business strategies.

By chapter 3 I realized Dr. Cox completely fails to document the assumptions and reasoning behind the formulas he illustrates. He fails to even clearly list formulas in the book. He provides mini C-code programs that will quickly become dated and the book totally useless that you can spend time picking through to eventually derive formulas, assuming they are even correct at this point in time. Do yourself a favor, check it out from the library and take a look at it first. Don't get stuck like I did with an overpriced paperweight. A "first course in fuzzy logic" by Hung Nguyen may be better. I looked through random pages and at least it has the formulas, how and why they are developed. I'm going to check it out of the library first. Ours did not carry Dr. Cox's book so I could not look at it before buying.

This is the best hands on fuzzy logic book that I have used thus far. I succesfully used the first edition of the book as reference to develop real world fuzzy applications. I see that some reviewers are somewhat upset about the source code shipping with the book. It is a pity that the C++ code, is so difficult to get going with, because this detracts from some very valuable chapters in the book itself. However, Mr Cox was very helpful in providing me with updated code. I highly recommend the book.

I'm pretty comfortable with C++, so I found fixing the couple of bugs in the shipped code to be not a problem. (Quit your whining its nearly free code.) I can't vouch for the Hisss VB interface, but then I'd drive a cab before I coded with VB. There is one serious bug but its from a typo. Email me and I'll send you the patch.

On to the good part. This is the first good Fuzzy Logic book I found. I've read several others before I got to this one and each one left me more confused than the rest. Earl finnally explained what its all about and what sort of problems this technique solves. There is a bit of "Fuzzy Logic is better than Neural Nets" but no real concrete examples to prove it. I ignored that and used his examples to learn how to do this and his code in some game AI. It worked well.

Also in case you don't know the thing that Fuzzy logic does well is smooth out transistions, ie it keeps things from oscillating between two single states. It's also good for when you have multiple inputs all of which contribute to deciding whether a threshold has been reached. You set weights to the inputs contribution and analyize the result, meets the threshold or not. You can also adjust the threshold depending on the state of the object. Coupled with a Finite State machine and you've got a basic game AI.

I have also taken some time (about a week) and cleaned the code up. It wasn't too difficult and I now have an OOP interface to it which made things a lot easier to understand. Earl obviously has a for sale system using the original code. He must have cut a chunk out and put it on the disk. I also have about a dozen emails from him, and I've sent him the updates. He's a busy guy, bug him to put the fixed code on his site. Maybe he'll get around to it.

If you want a book that gives basic explanation of fuzzy logic - this one is not that bad. If you want this book because it comes with 'free' code - look elsewhere. I'm a programmer with 10 years of C++ experience but I have not seen worse code than is supplied with this book. And believe me, I've seen a lot of bad code - I even wrote some of it :).

I am about halfway through the book and in general it's a decent guide to fuzzy logic. Earl explains the concepts well and provides decent real work examples. The code, as everyone else here has already said, is basically worthless. The book would be far more valuable if he just removed the code entirely from it and focused more on fuzzy logic. Another complaint: reading the first 50 pages made me feel as if I were reading a religious text, not a fuzzy systems book. Earl spends a great deal of time convincing the reader that Fuzzy Logic easily beats out other competing expert systems such as Bayes logic and neural networks. He dismisses those who do not agree with him as "uneducated" and spends time hurling personal insults at them rather than focusing on the benefits of fuzzy logic. I almost put the book down and returned it when reading the first 2 chapters. Altogether this is a decent introduction to fuzzy logic if you disregard the useless code and pedantics of the author.

I thought this was a great resource when studying. it was a great review of info and there were a ton of questions to go through. there is also a cd to use in your computer with questions. i thought this was well worth the price i paid.

This review book was pretty thorough, I used it more than the saunders. THe saunders questions are easier to understand than these, but other than that it is a good book and cdrom

The latest version is fine for NCLEX studying, those are past reviews that will influence your decision. It is up to date and has alot of good information and great for studying.

This is a very detailed book with a lot of information! It gives rationales for every answer. The CD is also pretty good. It takes a second to go to the next page, but it also has rationales for every answer. The book also has charts and photos with details marked. I am now an LPN, and I practiced using this book and CD.

this did not include the cd as indicated, the main reason I purchased this item

INTRO:
The SSCP exam and certification is a great way to make headways into the IT Security world. The exam requires 1 year of experience and application via (ISC)2's website. This book does not contains the most up to date information, but is a great companion to the Common Body of Knowledge (CBK) that (ISC)2 has published more recently (2006).

EXAM:
This book should cover all the material (7 domains) tested on the exam. It is a prudent measure, to use more than one resource to study for any IT exam. I would also recommend the practice exams offered by (ISC)2.

CONCLUSION:
If you want to learn about the fascinating world of IT Security, have passed CompTIA's Security+ exam and are looking for a challenge, or do not have the years of work experience to qualify for (ISC)2's CISSP exam, this book is for you. I would also add the yellow book published by (ISC)2 for a complete body of study material.

The SSCP DVD and Training System was probably the most useless training mechanism I have ever used. The book is divided correctly, however it fails to cover important information on the exam. Some chapters are unclear, and overlap to an extent where it becomes unclear as to what domain you are actually covering.

The DVD was the biggest disappointment of all. It is a quick PowerPoint presentation with the author in a PIP window giving an overview of "key points".

Needless to say I used this as my single point for studying and FAILED the exam.

DO NOT BUY!!

Well, as far as test preparation books go, this is an OK resource. I would not call it stellar, but it's not drivel or a waste of time either. The information is presented fairly well, but as others have noted there is a lot of repetition and the grammatical errors and typos ARE distracting.

Bottom Line -- Will the information help you on the test? Yes. Is it all you need to pass even with experience? No. Is the information accurate? Yes, I think so.

I would suggest an SSCP candidate compliment his/her studies with the "other" book that's out there as well and all the freebies available on the Internet. Case in point, the Syngress book did not cover such topics as Continuity Planning in as great of detail as the other book. While not a reason to drop the Syngress book like a rock, if the SSCP candidate is looking to really learn the information, this is essential information to know and have to solidify the base understanding.

With respect to the DVD, I can appreciate the other reviewers' feedback. While I didn't *zing* it across the room after 15 minutes of listening, I do agree the injected humor seems forced and the author/narrator a little elitist in his approach. However, if you are not familiar with Information Security, the topics covered are indeed worth listening to via the DVD forum.

With lack of number of preparation books out there, the Syngress study guide is not bad on the whole.

I ordered this book with the intent that it would be my primary SSCP test preparation guide aside from my own education and experience. However, upon reading the first few chapters the lack of quality editing and attention to detail was apparent. In the second chapter alone there are numerous typographical and grammatical errors and at least one clearly incorrect diagram (pg. 33). Some of the wording is confusing and makes me wonder if the authors understand what they are writing about. Because of these obvious errors, I can't trust that the information this book contains is correct.

The DVD that comes with this book basically contains a series of powerpoint presentations given by the book's editor where each presentation covers a different CBK domain. These presentations do not go very deep into the domains and offer little in addition to the material covered in the book. I found the DVD to be of little use to me, which may be because of my particular learning style, but others might find it to be somewhat useful.

My advice to anyone looking for an SSCP test prep guide is to order "The SSCP Prep Guide" by Debra and Michael Isaac and pass on this book unless you absolutely must have the DVD training system. "The SSCP Prep Guide," published by John Wiley & Sons, is definitely of much better quality than this book and is also great as a reference book. Whatever you do, do not count on the "SSCP Study Guide and DVD Training System" to be your primary test preparation resource.

First, let me start by saying that I am one of the authors of the SSCP Study Guide and DVD Training System. I recommended the book to an associate of mine and he alerted me to the bad reviews this book was receiving, so I would like to clear things up.

As of the time I wrote this, the book received 3 1/2 stars based on 5 reviews. The first review gave 1 star with the title "Do not buy". It seems that this harsh review was posted after the reader failed the exam. At the end of the review the reader stated that "...I used this as my single point for studying and failed the exam". I can assure you that this is a good study guide for the SSCP exam, however I would NEVER use only one point of reference for ANY exam or anything else important in life.

The next 3 reviews are the EXACT SAME REVIEW giving the book 2 stars with the title "Poor Editing, Bad Reference Book". In this review it is unclear if the reader actually read the entire book or is just trying to promote another book.

All authors of the SSCP Study Guide and DVD Training System have been through and passed at least one (ISC)2 exam. These are NOT easy exams. They cover a vast amount of material that can be overwhelming. The SSCP Study Guide and DVD Training System book does however cover a vast majority of the information you will be required to know for the exam. If you have the required experience and the desire to pass this exam I would suggest the following:

- Buy this book
- Read through this book and pay attention to the subject matter covered. Many subjects in this book have entire books written about them. As you hit a subject that you don't understand, or need more in depth coverage to understand; study it separately. Then come back to this book.
- Don't take the exam until you are comfortable with all the Domains covered in this book.

The SSCP is a hard exam. Studying for it is a tedious task. This book makes that task A LOT easier. We have passed this exam based This book can and will help you pass the exam. Good luck.

I think this book is well written and gives good explanations of the complicated astrology/numerology aspects of Feng Shui. But part of it seems to contradict Ms. Too's earlier book, The Complete Illustrated Guide to Feng Shui (1996). In that one, the facing direction of the back door determines good and bad areas (the eight locations). A house with back door facing NW is a West-group Chien house with its good and bad areas matching those of West-group people. But in this newer book the facing direction of the front door is used and a SE-facing house is labelled "West-group" but its good and bad areas match those of East-group people (see page 184). I feel very frustrated because I thought I understood this -- but now, not. I wonder if it's a mistake, because I've found mistakes in other books by this author, specifically in the drawings and diagrams. In The Complete Illustrated guide, I think the diagram on page 96 has mixed up "good" and "bad" locations, they conflict with the text. In Smart Feng Shui for the Home, the East trigram on yang pa kua is wrong (page 31). In the new book Flying Star Feng Shui for Period 8, the mountain and water star numbers are switched in the NW sector (page 67). The books are fascinating to me and have lots of information. I feel they need to be more careful in the proofreading stage.

I admire Lillian Too's writing skills and I'm glad she finnaly starts writing the more serious feng shui stuff.

I have great interest in learning classical feng shui and I have collected the works of other well known and authoritative classical feng shui teachers. But most these books are advanced and may too complicated for a beginner. Ms Lillian Too has been able to borrow and extract the formulae out of these authors and cleverly rearranged them in her own abridged style.

A good book must always have an acknowledgement of the author's original source of reference. Unfortunately, Ms Lillian Too has not shared with us her sources of reference and has not given due credit to those authors from which her information for this book is derived. I'm sure there are many eager learners like me out there who would like to for more substance by buying not just her books but also others who created the originals.

I disagree with most of the reviews here. I am a huge fan of Ms. Too's and have no doubt this author knows her stuff! (by the way she graduated from Harvard Business school - very smart lady) This book is perfect for those interested in extending their skill levels in flying star feng shui. I found it most helpful and saw no contradictions from previous books. I would caution those without a good grasp of basic flying star or compass school feng shui not to purchase this book until they are "ready". It can be confusing for those who haven't studied this science extensively.

Not quite what I have expected. She should stick to what she writes best - all about superstitions and buying feng shui stuffs. Classical feng shui are for the classical feng shui writers. Would rather read Eva Wong's books. I think she got most of the originals from other classical feng shui writers. It's disgraceful!

For those who are used to Lillian Toos Feng Shui books, this will come as something as a shock. With great respect to Lillian, her books to date are very "pop culture" just dusting the top of the simplest Feng Shui for the mass market.

This is vastly different and shows she really does know her stuff! In depth detail of Flying Star and Eight Mansions with details on loss lines, Castle Gates, the Luo Pan rings and more. However, this would be for the more advanced reader as it really assumes you are familiar with the concepts of qi, five elements etc.

I am not an expert, but it is definitely what is known as "Classical Feng Shui". I can't vouch for her interpretation of Flying Star, but I am happy to add it to my collection!