Software Books

A must-have for anybody working 6.5, 7, and 2000 MSSQL. Very well scoped-out in its depth of coverage. Explains aspects of the RDBMS that will be required knowledge for any DBA coming from a non-MSSQL background. Covers differences from SQL 6.5 through SQL 2000. Sure, there is a lot that is not in here, but it is impressive how much is covered (from basics of physical design, to ACID transactions, to replication-related stored procedures). The smaller form factor makes it easy to carry around, which is an absolute bonus. The material in this book (and the "for Experienced DBAs" book in the Osborne series) must be distilled from a vast amount of real-world experience-- sadly, not out there yet for SQL 2005.

This is an essential book for anyone who works with, or is curious about SQL. This book covers all aspects of SQL from installation to Back Up and restoration scenarios. Covering all flavors of SQL from version 6.5 to current this book is compact and contains an unbelievable amount of knowledge into less than 500 Pages. I could not get over how detailed and clear this book is. After having read many other books on these topics it was truly refreshing to read a technical book that succinctly touched on all aspects of administrating a SQL box.

It was unfortunate to discover that some of what I had thought was good techniques were proved to be flawed, and when after implementing the suggestions in this book I was thrilled to see an increase in efficiency of Data Calls, and Network Load.

It is clear to see that the authors of this book have carefully and clearly defined all that could be needed in a small easy to reference book. This book is a necessity for any desk where SQL Server is running. It is a small cost to pay for so much knowledge, well worth every cent.

If there is one book that you are considering for SQL Server Administration, this is the one to buy. Covering all the major topics of administration, this book goes above and beyond other SQL Server books for several reasons. Not only does it live up to the promise of an easy to find guide for everyday tasks, it offers the ability to read up quickly on several advanced topics and gain knowledge rapidly. Taken into consideration, are the three latest versions; SQL Server 2000, 7.0 and 6.5, detailing out differences between versions where applicable. Everything is explained clearly. The authors have done an excellent job of providing a wealth of information in short and concise content. It is very refreshing to see a book that was obviously written to be as brief possible without skimping on important details...clearly no fluff here!!!! This has two benefits to the reader, 1; information is easy to find, no time is wasted reading through frivolous content, 2; the cost is lower than those 1,000 page volumes that contain less valuable information. Hopefully this is the start of a new trend in technical books.

In just a few minutes after flipping through, and reading up on backups, I realized that I'm not backing up my production data properly, and can substantially decrease data loss risk by backing up my transaction logs regularly with the data. Also, some security concepts I had a bit of difficulty fully comprehending became clear to me as well.

Reading through this book, it is obvious the authors have extensive experience with SQL Server, as this book has many insider tips that only experts would know through practice. It is also apparent that the authors worked well together as this book reads as though one person wrote it. Definitely a must buy and well worth the cost. I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars.

This was a great read! Very concise and packed with useful information that no DBA should be without. Whether you are a SQL specialist already or new to SQL altogether, this book is packed with great information in one, small and manageable format and an easy read. Kudos to Steve and Damir!

Even though I have read only the first two chapters so far, I can still say this book is definately worth owning. The amount of information in the introductory chapters alone make this book a worthwhile purchase, especially given its relatively low price. The author's writing style is conversational without being condescending or idiotically simplistic. Reading the book, I feel I have an experienced friend giving me many worthwhile tips and suggestions. I really think you will find this book to be a worthwhile purchase.

Although this book is over 10 years old, it could have been written this year. The concepts are still relevant.
The author concludes that there are 2 primary reasons to undertake a metrics program for software development -- 1) tracking progress and 2) identifying improvements. The book is divided into 2 parts, with the first part discussing project management metrics and the second part metrics to improve your software development processes. I particularly liked the goal/question/metric approach to validate the metrics you are collecting. The text is loaded with examples from the author's experience at HP. There are several charts and diagrams. This is not an academic read, but as the title says -- practical. The author also covers people issues, such as selling your metrics program to management and staff. It is a quick read and a very useful reference book.

This is Grady's first book and it sets the tone for his later two books, Successful Software Process Improvement and Software Metrics: Establishing a Company-wide Program. What makes this book so important is that it is one of the first to integrate software metrics with project management metrics.

What I particularly like about this book includes:

(1) Complete view of metrics that matter, and the chronicle of how these metrics evolved in a large company (Hewlett-Packard).
(2) Recognition that any software metrics initiative extends beyond the project that delivers the software - Grady examines post-production metrics and ties them back to not only the development life cycle, but the product life cycle as well. Ten years after this book was published there are still large organizations that are struggling with doing this, yet Grady's book provides a clear roadmap to achieving this elusive goal.
(3) Continuous improvement is the central theme in this book. Grady does not stop with collecting and analyzing metrics, but how to effectively employ them to spot improvement opportunities and develop a strategy to effect those improvements.

The book is written as both a story of how a successful metrics program evolved, complete with anecdotes that will prove helpful, and as a collection of data that illustrates what is and is not important to a comprehensive metrics program.

Among all of Grady's books I like this one the best; however, I recommend that his other two also be carefully read if software process improvement is your goal. He has much to say and backs it up with data and a chronicle of his experiences from real projects.

I was introduced to Mr. Grady's work when I borrowed a copy of Software Metrics: Establishing a Company-Wide Program. Where that book interwove a storyline into metrics and how they support mature process improvement, this book is more like a desk reference. Mr. Grady has divided this book into two parts: tactical metrics, which are project-oriented, and strategic metrics which address process improvement.

The first part starts with a collection of practical rules of thumb for software managers. This collection of heuristics covers every phase of the development life cycle and are backed up with data gathered during 125 software projects at Hewlett-Packard. An example of one of these rules of thumb is that you will find 1 defect after software has been released into production for every 10 defects caught during testing. This, of course, is purely empirical, but is an interesting rule that I mentally filed away. Some highlights of the first part are: a good introduction to the goal-question-metric approach to determining what to measure based on your objectives, and a focus on project goals of maximizing customer satisfaction while minimizing project schedule and costs, and product defects. This is followed by chapters that address each of these goals. One of the best chapters in the first part of this book is work analysis. While I am more focused on the service delivery side of metrics (after the project has produced something that has been released into production), some of the metrics were very valuable to me - especially the ones that revolved around testing and QA.

Part 2 is squarely in my domain - production and application support, and service delivery. The best chapter, Dissecting Software Failures, was one of the most insightful descriptions of the defect life cycle I have ever read. It fully addresses defect data collection and analysis, and how to use this data to effect process and product improvement. Even better is the chapter on investing in process improvement. Here Mr. Grady gives a workable approach to using the defect data to developing a business case for process improvement. He guides you through developing a plan, selecting from among an array of solutions, and case studies.

This book is a quick read. It's main value lies in the many tables and facts provided on nearly every page. I use it as a desk reference, especially the appendices that summarize defect origins, types and modes, and metrics definitions. It spans both project and production metrics, and is as valuable to project managers as it is to application support professionals.

I bought this book about 5 years ago after getting certified as a project manager. This book give me a holistic view of how to intepret data collected from tracking the entire software lifecycle and manage and integrate best practices into a software business.

The author's vast experience in HP helps to provide good assurance that his concepts used were tried and robustly tested. Therefore, software failures, internal flags and customer feedbacks can immediately give you a fairly visible prognosis to the robustness of a release and flashes early warning signs of how you should manage that product to reduce damage to your business, etc.. Practical for technical managers having to manage the business operations.

Whether you're a fledgling company trying to design quality software with no guidelines to go by or a well-developed organization with processes in place, this book offers up many ways that you can improve your software quality.

i didnot think that i would like this book because for me apress is famous with their books having lacking style of examples. Normally you find yourself lost in the examples eventough the topic is covered very well.
This book is different than others absolutely; it starts with what is ajax; and why ajax and with simple examples.
if you dont know javascript; it is still ok because one of the chapters covers javascript; so you can learn enough javascript to handle the simple ajax pages.
Before diving into ajax; it tells you about different ajax libraries; so i like this part too; you will have an idea about other ajax libraries too.
I could not run the first example which is the easiest one and i struggle a lot to solve it;but most of the codes in the book is easy to implement.
And guess what; as you can see from the title; the book is for .NET developers; so if you are a .NET developer; this is right book to buy.
It is not like other apress books that have coding examples problem. the sequence for the chapter makes the book easy to follow.
After reading this book; i start reading some tutorials about Atlas ( which is basically Microsoft's Ajax ) and it really helps you to understand atlas too;
If you like google maps; or virtual maps; this books has a suprise for you :)
i read 4-5 different books from apress and this one is the best; i will highly recommend this book to all .net developers who want to learn ajax with .net

Pro Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform gets high marks from me because it is concise, informative and easy to follow. After reading the first three chapters I had a clear understanding of what Ajax really is. Author Dan Woolston has extensive experience with AJAX and he seemed to share it all here without overwhelming this reader.

Woolston did not waste my time in getting me up to speed. In the first three chapters I learned how to write my own reusable (cross browser) JavaScript functions that will work together to execute an Ajax call.

Of course I might rely on one of the various existing frameworks to do this for me. However, now I know what's going on under the covers and I can make an informed decision about what Ajax to use and when. I know exactly what is happening when Ajax is implemented and why.The book also does a nice job of covering CSS and the DOM (document object model). As you know (or will know after reading), these combine with JavaScript to create the foundation of Ajax! Once you understand how they work together you'll know more about Ajax than 90% of your developer friends.

Excellent Feature #1: The overview of JavaScript, CSS and the DOM is fantastic. I really appreciated the fact that it was concise and dead-on accurate in addressing the specific elements that a .NET developer needs to understand in order to code Ajax.

Continuing on, after the book had me up to speed with Ajax, it went into n-tier design. This is important because, in theory, a programmer can go hog wild on Ajax and break tons of rules regarding sound application architecture. So I was impressed that Woolston transitioned directly into best-practices for how and when to use Ajax.

The first third of the book covers Ajax theory and best-practices. With Ajax, one size does not fit all. Therefore, chapter seven includes overviews of many popular Ajax frameworks including non .NET frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, WebORB, xajax (PHP) and Direct Web Remoting (Java). It also covers .NET frameworks including Ajax.NET, Anthem and Atlas.

The other two thirds of the book are devoted to Ajax programming concepts. The author uses the Anthem framework for most of this coding. Anthem is an open-source, .NET framework in C# that is compatible with ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0. It is extremely lightweight, requiring only one class file for core functionality.

Excellent Feature #2: The book's code walkthroughs are based on a fully functional n-tier sample application that you can download free. The sample application uses the AdventureWorks database which is also a free download from Microsoft if you don't already have access to it.

You might think that some .NET features and topics lend themselves to Ajax technology and therefore should be covered in more detail. You'd be right. Woolston sets aside complete chapters on Web services, Custom Controls, ASP.NET Security and Web Parts.

Excellent Feature #3: When you're done learning how to build your own Ajax, there are two chapters devoted to debugging and testing Ajax.

One of the last chapters was my favorite. Chapter 19 is all about usability. As you may know, Ajax solves many usability problems. But can also create new ones. Woolston addresses the good, the bad and the ugly.

The book provides ideas and examples of good Ajax. The author has test-driven many Ajax controls and shares his trials and tribulations. This feedback no doubt will save developers valuable time.

The book also discusses potential pitfalls of using Ajax. Woolston tackles cross-browser compatibility issues and how to best overcome them. He also talks about how to deal with the browser's back button. How to handle browsers with disabled JavaScript and how to work past the problem of pageshifting.

Some of the other usability topics covered in Chapter 19 include Ajax menus, bookmarking, type-aheads, connected controls, code visibility and page paradigms.

Suffices to say this book packs a big Ajax punch. I highly recommend it to any of my peers who are interested in building Ajax functionality into their web applications. This book is applicable to .NET developers who are working with ASP.NET 1.1 or 2.0. In my opinion, web developers of any skill level will find it helpful.

About 3/4 done with this book. Today I just built my 1st Ajax feature in a few hours at work with the suff I learned. This books is a quick read with great examples works in both 1.1 and 2.0. Buy it!

I hardly ever review books and probably wouldn't have bothered this time if it were not for an email from Amazon seeking one. I decided to go ahead with a review because this book really filled a need I had for working with AJAX for the first time. It had me up and running in very short order. Did it go over a couple things along the way that I already knew? Yes. But I didn't mind it in that it treated all topics in an intelligent manner and helped explain where AJAX fit into the broader world of web development. Definitely geared for .NET. That's what I wanted. If that's what you're looking for, you won't be disappointed.

I had done some little test applications utilizing Ajax and/or Atlas prior to reading this book, and I wanted this book to really give a solid base from which to move forward with.

Mr. Woolston's writing style is personable but not too over the top. One thing I did not like about the writing style is the manner in which code is laid out at times. For instance, with many of the sample applications, Mr. Woolston will dump about 5-6 pages of code into the book and then work towards restating it in part afterwards with some explanation. I can see where it would be useful if not in front of the sample code/a PC, but in reality this book will not be useful if not in front of a computer working on the examples.

There are other times where some of the content is not really useful in furthering education about Ajax and certain examples it feels are stretched to make the chapters longer. I think there was likely a challenge in filling out a reasonable sized book because simply put - the fundamental elements of Ajax aren't that complex. I found myself done with the book in a period of less than a week.

Those things said, after reading the book I can certainly say the overall content has an excellent "perspective of the landscape". From a history of Ajax to a little primer on Javascript, CSS/DOM, and the XmlHttpRequest, he moves forward to examples of Ajax demonstrating the technology with an Ajax framework named Anthem. The main meat of the book are really these examples, where practice implements the ideas from the prior chapters.

Lastly, the book closes with a few chapters covering security, testing, usability, performance, and a token chapter on Atlas.

One other element that I appreciated in this book was the identification of a few free tools out there to aid in Ajax development. Those tools in their own right would have definitely contributed to some time savings a week or two ago when I was struggling with a couple DOM/CSS issues prior to reading this book!

In summary, perhaps a book stretched to fit it's cover but nevertheless a very useful read to me and I would certainly recommend it.

This particular book provides the reader with a comprehensive view of PHP development. I was pleased with the vast amount of topics covered. This book is a very useful tool for developers.

This is a great book in that the author provides comprehensive coverage of a complicated subject, and does it in clear, concise and understandable language. The book should be a promary resource for programmers. I look forward to more contributions from this author.

'Pro PHP XML and Web Services' by Robert Richards is a great book to help you learn your way around these technologies. Packing in over 900+ pages, this book gives a broad overview of the subject matter which is outlined here:

01. Introduction to XML and Web Services
02. XML Structure
03. Validation
04. XPath, XPointer, XInclude
05. PHP and XML
06. Document Object Model
07. SimpleXML
08. Simple API for XML
09. XMLReader
10. Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations
11. Effective and Efficient Processing
12. XML Security
13. PEAR and XML
14. Content Syndication: RSS and Atom
15. Web Distributed Data Exchange
16. XML-RPC
17. Representational State Transfer
18. SOAP
19. Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)
20. PEAR and Web Services
21. Other XML Technologies and Extensions

If you need a book that dives into the XML technology and doesn't look back, this is a nice pickup that gets the job done. Lots of other Apress books I feel are a bit too long, but this book at over 900 pages I have less complaints about. It's solidly written and a nice companion book to have on your bookshelf for anyone that programs with XML.

**** RECOMMENDED

This book is amazingly well written. The content is organized in an intuitive and logical fashion. The author explains base concepts and progresses into advanced topics, providing consistent depth of coverage along the way. The author's writing and concise examples get the message across on the first reading - unlike some texts that require multiple passes. It's also noteworthy that the Technical Reviewers, Christian Stocker and Adam Trachtenberg, are renowned PHP experts and authors. If you plan to study or work with PHP and XML, this book is a MUST HAVE.

This is first and foremost an XML reference. The author takes the reader through over 100 pages XML background in the first three chapters, then an overview of a few utilities like XPath and XPointer before he touches on PHP. Having provided some grounding in the basics, he then proceeds to develop the use of XML in PHP from the basic topics of DOM (Document Object Model) and XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) to the more advanced topics of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and web services.

Along the way Richards introduces the reader to utility classes like SimpleXML, SAX (Simple API for XML), XMLReader. He also touches on PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) utility classes and topics like security, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration). The author's examples are reasonably concise and readable; making the necessary points without getting carried away.

The bottom line is that this is a highly effective reference (that means fairly comprehensive, but dry reading; I read cover to cover, but it was relatively tedious) on XML and its varied uses in association with PHP. This is not a book for the newcomer to programming, nor is it a cookbook for examples for the casual programmer/web developer, although the author does provide PEAR examples for connecting with major web services like Amazon, Google and Yahoo (among others). My suggestion for readers is to review what you need of the first 11-12 chapters to ensure a firm grounding in XML, and then hop to the chapters specific to the problem being faced.
P-)

Professional BizTalk Server 2006 is one of those books which really goes over and above what you can find on online documentation . There are only few BizTalk books and thank god we have one like this . The books has a lot of hidden gems that will make you go 'aha '.

Absolute Must read if you love the Product. A great Chapter on Testing which I have not seen in any other BizTalk book .

Great book for all who want to know HOW BT really works and WHY it works like that. Very valuable purchase.

It took a long time for decent BizTalk Server books to start appearing, and those of us who have been committed to the product for some time know the pain (and fun) of having to work out, for ourselves, how this product works, how best to apply it to real-life scenarios and how to exploit its rich functionality.

I was really impressed with this book. It has two characteristics which I think are particularly noteworthy. The first is that it offers a huge breadth of coverage, but also manages to combine this with reasonable depth. This is hard to achieve when writing about BizTalk Server because it is such a rich an extensive product. The second characteristic is that it reads like a book written by practitioners - people with real-life experience of using the product, and the scars to prove it. Indeed, that it very much the case, and it means that the book provides far more than just rehashed information. It provides guidance, advice and best practice which is rooted in reality.

I like to think I know a thing or two about BizTalk Server (though it still manages to spring surprises on me quite regularly). I am not greatly addicted to computer books, because so many fail to be of any very practical use. However, I can report that this is the first BizTalk book (and one of very few books, generally) that I've carried with me into engagements to use as a reference. Warmly commended and highly recommended, especially for those who have done enough with BizTalk Server to realise the extent of the mountain they must climb.

I've been on a couple of BizTalk projects, all of them for Fortune 50 clients. We did a lot of things wrong, hence a lot of lessons learned. This book is good...REALLY good. How good? Well, let's just say that I never, repeat NEVER write book reviews, even if a book was the greatest thing since the bread slicer. (I guess because I'm too busy building Orchestrations and Custom Pipeline Components.) That alone should convince you that this book is a must-have for anyone wanting to know anything about BizTalk.

DISCLAIMER: Allow me to contradict that last statement... This isn't for everyone, however. It is really in-depth and explains more than the minimum required. The book also targets those of use that continue to ask the question "Why?" and it quenches our curious thirst. If I were to pick this book up when I was first learning BizTalk, I would throw it down and stomp on it. But now that I've been around the block a few times and I know the difference between a best practice and a "you're on your own" practice, I am able to get a lot from reading this material.

With BizTalk, there's so many ways to skin the proverbial cat. This books explains all of them (from what I've read), but then it points out the preferred approaches that one should take when implementing an integration solution via BizTalk Server...lots of Notes & Caveats sections, things that I crave.

This book will give you very objective insights into BizTalk. And you don't need to worry about reading it with your rose-colored glasses, either. It's neither half-empty nor half-full, it just is, you know?

This book has information in it that you simply will not find anywhere else. Its written by people who have worked with the product on some of the largest and most important projects where BizTalk has been the platform of choice, and the knowledge that thay pass on is exceptional.

While I wouldn't recommend this book to beginning programmers, it's great for people who already know another language (preferably C/C++) and a little about object-oriented programming. It touches on many subjects, so you won't need a whole bookshelf of Java books ("Let's see...one for language reference...one for graphics and the AWT...one for networking..."). I take this book back and forth every day between work and home. What would I do without it?

This is one of the first books I bought to get an understanding of Java and how it is comprable to what I already know of C/C++. This book is the perfect starting point, giving every comprable declaration to C/C++. Kudos to the authors, can't wait for a more up-to-date version though.

Excellent book, but now that Swing is moving ahead of AWT, this book is useless for GUI. But as for the basics, it's an complete book. Good for someone who already knows a programming language

Fantastic book. Pithy style, very readable, no fluff, excellent as a reference. Anyone coming to Java from C++ should get this book. About the only thing I would do to improve it would be to have at least a short chapter on database access.

Even though this is one of my oldest Java books I keep going back to it. I wish it would be updated for the new Event model and swing however. The coverage of the 1.0 JDK is very good and I still go back to the gridbag description and examples when I get confused.

This book is excellent for any web systems tester. It covers all areas of functional and non-functional testing related to the Web.
It covers how to most efficiently model a web application using a specific use case approach, in addition it covers how to test for security, performance, usability of a web site. The book has been very useful in our testing efforts.

Although the authors of this book are noted experts in software testing this book goes far beyond testing by addressing the full range of quality and design issues for web-based systems.

All of the major elements of web-engineering and quality are addressed, including SECURITY (this is the first test or quality book that fully acknowledges the relationship between quality and security, which is a cornerstone of the Reliability-Availability-Support triad for systems in production), PERFORMANCE (I especially liked this section because it got into the guts of performance and scalability), COMPATIBILITY (essential for ensuring that your system works with the world of users over whom you have no control - web-based systems can and usually do extend into the great unknown), and USABILITY (this will make or break a commercial web site).

Aside for the complete coverage of all of the important topics that need to be considered, and the life cycle approach to quality and testing this book contained a real gem: RSI approach to use cases. RSI (Requirements-Service-Interface) is an interesting and highly useful approach to use cases. Some key strengths of using the RSI paradigm is that you will ensure traceability between requirements and the services and interfaces that are implemented. Moreover, this approach partitions services and interfaces, which allows you to manage the complexities when developing a test strategy and associated test cases. To me the chapter on RSI was worth the price of the book.

Overall, this is a solid book that covers testing, as well as the larger domain of systems quality. It gives some unique insights of issues and factors related to testing, but is not solely about web testing. It should be read by all key team members including requirements analysts, architects, developers, test engineers and project managers *before* a web project is initiated.

This book covers quality assurance of web systems beyond merely testing. It offers practical insight for designers, developers, project managers and quality assurance team members. A big bonus is the appendix which details and compares automated test tools.

This is one of the best quality assurance books in a while... Thinner than Automated Software Testing, but as informative! If you are doing any kind of web testing, this one's a must have for your library. Talks about all aspects of software testing on the web. I give it 5 stars hands down!

This book was a joy to read. It gives a great overview of quality issues within "Web systems" - meaning Web applications and architectures. The book balances a too-specific look with a too-general look and succeeds quite well in a balanced treatment that will make the whole worth the attention of any quality assurance or quality tester professional in the Information Technology industry.

In particular, the second chapter, on the RSI Approach, is a nice addition as this is something that most practitioners of quality subjects will not find elsewhere and the general subject matter is generally that which is avoided in books of this type. Another topic often avoided in these books is that of usability and accessibility concerns and yet these are covered here in good detail chapter six.

In general, I think the book offered a great amount of detail just where it was needed and gave a lot of "mini best-practices" in each chapter with the use of bulleted lists to highlight specific points. The detail of the book extends to various topics, like performance, compatibility, usability, and security - all topics that are of high concern in the current world of making qualitly Web systems that customers and user respond to. The appendices in the book are also excellent. The "Test Tool Evaluations" section will be a welcome addition to those who wish there are more concise evaluation forms for automated tool solutions.

I highly recommend this book to quality assurance/testing professionals, quality assurance managers, and even those who work more in the project management and development spheres. Those latter will get benefit from the book because the book manages to highlight topics of concern to both groups and also gives them insight into the quality aspects of the projects and products that are developed within an organization.

A well organized, logical progression of accounting and financial concepts, taught and applied in a unified fashion to give the user a high level of understanding and control over his or her business. If you want to sincerly understand your business operations, to identify opportunites and to make it better, this book is for you.

As a CPA I found this book to be completely accurate and recommend it to all my clients. No book can be all things to all businesses, but this comes close.

I ended up looking for another book after receiving this book. It didn't seem to answer any of the specific questions I had regarding Quick books - It seemed to be more of a hardcopy version of the help function online which was a big disappointment. I would look at the online help in the software and if it works for you, don't waste your money on this.

A cogent resource for easily and thoroughly navigating QuickBooks. The author provides a comprehensive source enabling all business professionals to utilize QuickBooks for maximum business advantage. Highly recommended, its on my desk and should be on yours.

An invaluable resource for any business who
uses Quick Books. Concise, well-organized and complete
QuickBooks 2005 Bible is a resource we are already putting to great use in our business.

If you are a beginner to Renderman like I WAS go and get this book. ... This book will give you enough confidence and get you hooked to Renderman...big time!!..So you have been warned!!..The title should read "Get hooked to Renderman"...or "Get high on Renderman"...:). It was a little hard when I started reading the Advanced Renderman book sometime ago..Having almost gone through much of the RfB book a lot of things that were "deep" in the advanced Renderman book is very clear now...This book is simple enough to read and yet the topics are covered in great detail and depth...Can't wait to get my hands on the RSL Guide book from the same author.Indispensable if you want to learn Renderman.

i have been reading this book for some time now and frankly the much i have read i am fully satisifed with it. its well written and clears lot of concepts.


Regards

Renderman is one of the most powerful rendering packages out there, and this book forms a good guide to the self motivated reader. The author assumes little previous graphics knowledge. The basic ideas of matrix algebra and how these can be applied to graphics operations are demonstrated. Aided by numerous clear figures.

More involved operations are also explained. Bezier surfaces, NURBs, anamorphic warping etc. The Renderman language is seen as compact and versatile.

As a grad student in graphics, I've found that creating nicely rendered images is essential for effectively displaying results. I began learning RenderMan with a more advanced book, but found that my overall understanding was lacking. "Rendering for Beginners" has filled in the gaps, giving me a much better foundation for generating images. The book is easy to read and understand, and it is full of images and code snippets (full code is available on the web - which is great!)

The book and companion website has greatly enhanced my understanding, from rendering basic scenes such as wire-frame meshes to writing complex shaders. I highly recommend this book to both those beginning to learn RenderMan and people who want to strengthen their understanding of the basics.

This is a terrific book - and not just for beginners. The author gives a very clear grounding in the concepts that underpin 3D rendering applications, and shows his own deep experience with Pixar's Renderman specification and the implementations built on it by Pixar and others. He also conveys very strongly his own enthusiasm for Renderman and the underlying REYES algorithm, and this is infectious. After a few pages, you will certainly want to access one of the free or trial implementations, and give them a go for yourself.

The book is informed by extremely attractive and colorful images that very clearly illustrate the specific tools and techniques available to Renderman users, and these are fully supported by code snippets (within the text and on the companion website) that make the Renderman structure fully transparent for beginners - just as the title promises!

This is no small accomplishment as the power of Renderman - as exampled in the Pixar and many other movies made with it - arises from the extremely fine degree of control over visual phenomena that it makes accessible to users. First time exposure to the range and precision of these controls can be daunting even for experienced 3d users, but the author's explanations of the RIB and SLIM shader language scripts that drive Renderman are all you need to begin experiments of your own, and to take advantage of more specialized/advanced titles like Advanced Renderman by Apodaca and Gritz.

Renderman is great for photorealistic rendering, but it also excels for non-photorealistic techniques like 'tooning and beyond, and one exceptionally interesting part of the book (again well-supported by the website) provides plenty of illustrations and code for exotic techniques that emulate all sorts of effects from impressionist paintings to woodblock illustrations, and more.

For anyone into 3d, Renderman for Beginners makes clear that rendering packages are not just the back end of a modeling process, but are absolutely central to the practical and artistic effects that define the amazing potential of today's 3d/CG work. To understand the conceptual framework of a high-quality renderer is also to understand, and to be thrilled and amazed by the remarkable workings of our own visual engagement with the world. And, after many years of working in this field, Saty Raghavachary, the author, is obviously still very much under the spell of this excitement. Whether you read Renderman for Beginners as a practical introduction to a prospective career, say as a Technical Director in CG, or whether you read it just for a general understanding of how our contemporary visual culture is evolving, this book will satisfy you fully. Thanks, Saty.

I have all RenderMan books on the market.
This one is impressed me!
The authors explain step by step and that make readers understand RenderMan more.

Same as other reviews, lacking of CD is the shame.
However, overall still be very good to me.
And if you consider the price is very worth for money.
That's why I think this book should be given 5 stars.
Hopefully, There will be more good RenderMan books available soon.

Tee

The RenderMan Shading Language Guide is an excellent resource. It contains numerous examples of shader code, to help get you started with writing your own shaders. I was happy to see the robust section on illumination models, with some sl code provided for most of them. I found the section that had common functions (like gamma() and remap()) very helpful, and appreciated the disscussion on more sophisticated components of the shading language (like subsurface scattering and global illumination). In addition, for the user who is new to the process of writing and compiling shaders, a number of pages are devoted to explaining how to achieve these goals. All in all, I would highly recommend this book to any user who wants to learn how to write his/her own RenderMan shaders.

I have read many technical manuals relating to the 3D Animation and Visual Effects industries, and I can honestly say that this is easily one of the best available.

Given the limited library of Renderman books, I'd call this an absolute must have for any Lighting/Rendering/Shader TD, or any artist or technical director involved in the look development and shot finaling pipelines.

Even if you haven't yet worked within a Renderman pipeline, this is the perfect publication to introduce you to, and bring you up to speed in, the Renderman Shading Language (RSL).

I've found that the majority of technical manuals suffer from a number of common flaws:

1. The information is presented chaotically, and with minimal use of examples or descriptions, resulting in a publication that would readable only by those that already know everything it has to teach.

2. The information is presented so laboriously that what should take a paragraph instead takes up three chapters.

The Renderman Shading Language Guide is perfectly paced for beginners and intermediate users alike, and indeed when I showed the book to a couple of highly experienced Renderman TDs, they were surprised by the sheer volume of information and ordered copies for themselves.

Everything is presented in short blocks with an easily readable description, examples, shortcuts and conclusions. There is no unecessarily complicated geek speek, and neither is the reader treated like a 4 year old.

Even though I barely remember my high school math, and in the most flattering estimation I'd be considered a competent beginner when it comes to the math involved in RSL, I found the examples relatively easy to follow for the most part. And in those parts where the math went well over my head, I found the simple descriptions and concise, well explained instructions to be all I needed to quickly understand the topic.

From cover to cover this book is crammed full of useful information. There is no wastage of space in these pages. It seems that every conceivable question is answered - every possible topic covered from introduction to an advanced level of understanding and a practical and immmediately useful conclusion.

And at the price? This book is a steal.

One very minor complaint I would make is in regards to the occasional typographical error. An equation or two is printed with "?" in place of "*" or another symbol, and there are a few spelling and grammatical errors. But as I said, it is a minor complaint.

Also, I would have liked to have seen more complete shader examples demonstrated in a step-by-step process, as while this book is overflowing with informative mini-tutorials, it all seems a little incongruous. It would have been good to see a few more examples where the information was brought together in real-world ways to create some amazing completed shaders. Perhaps in a sequel? ;)

All in all, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, from an industry Lead Lighting TD.

9.5/10

This book presents a well organized approach to shader writing. It is focused on practical advice and application that a beginner can use in the industry. An example would be the chapter on setting up the development environment,things like which were not the focus of Advanced Renderman. The technical content has been diluted to expand the readership-I think antialiasing is covered better in Advanced Renderman. In this book that chapter comes at the end. Note also that this is a shading book, so don't expect topics like procedural geometry creation or hair or fur DSOs or level of detail, though there is a one paragraph reference to deep shadow maps on page 239.

The book also does a good job in covering raytracing and global illumination, an area that has seen changes in PRMan since Advanced Renderman was written. How to use shadow maps is covered well too.

One issue is that the code is not included, I hope I find it on the website. Typing in hundreds of Halton sequence shader number samples does not sound very appealing.
Giving it a 5 overall because of its practical, industry focused advice. Technical content wise it would rate a 4.

I caught wind that this book was coming out well before it actually came out and could hardly contain my excitement. I had it ordered before it was even off the press.

Let's face it, trying to learn Renderman online is like trying to ride a bike with a flat tire. You can go, but not very fast or very far. I own several other renderman books but found them to be a bit out of date and lacking in areas. Since leaving school and entering into the industry I had actually been considering writing a Renderman book myself. I am glad to say that now I don't have to!

I have been enjoying my copy of the book since december of last year. I admit that I was thrown off by all the refrences to the accompanying cd, as well as a few typos throughout. I was overjoyed however to find the website today! This is the book that I have needed for a long time. It is well worth what you pay for it.