No comments about 10 Minute Guide to Novell Groupwise.

5 comments about Palm OS Programming Bible (With CD-ROM).

1. There is no listing or description of the Palm OS data types anywhere in this book.

   Without data types you have no way to declare variables. C has int, double, float, long, char, and so-on, but Palm has all of its own data types.

   Buy some other book on Palm programming, because you'll get nowhere with this one, without this essential information.




2. This book is one of the best palm references around. In addition to being packed with information, its realitivly easy to read, and after you have read it its easy to use as a reference. While there is not detailed information about each and every data type (struct) this information is readily avaliable in the SDK so its not really necessary to reproduce in the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Palm OS programming.



3. This book has it all! I have a number of Palm OS programming books on my shelf, and the full set of documentation on my desktop. When I need an answer, I always reach straight for Lonnon Foster's Palm OS Programming Bible. It's a great book and truly lives up to its name. Thanks Lonnon!



4. As with all of the "Bible" series, this book covers the topic well, except for one thing: how to get started. For example, the section on "Creating Your First Program" tells you what the final program should look like, but not how to enter it into the computer. There is also the tacit assumption that you are already familiar with C programming. If you are not already a programmer, expect a few frustrating evenings at your computer while you guess the method for actually putting in the code.



5. Although Palm OS does backward compatibility pretty well, the free toolchain used to compile and generate PRC files has changed some, so some of the step-by-step instructions don't work perfectly. The Gentoo distribution of Linux makes it easy to install all the needed tools to get going though.
   
   Getting it to work in Windows is something I never acheived, granted I was very young at the time. The toolchain requires Cygwin and knowledge of UNIX operation. So this works best if
   a) You know Make and GCC and are willing to set up Cygwin in Windows
   b) You know Make and GCC and are running a popular Linux distro or
   c) You have the proprietary IDE/development software (though I've never tried it)
   
   The book itself is very comprehensive and the code samples are actually compileable code. Anyone familiar with C shouldn't have a problem picking up the Palm OS API with this book.

No comments about The Best of SQLServerCentral.com Vol 4.

1 comments about Programming for the Series 60 Platform and Symbian OS (Symbian Press).

1. I expected this book to fill the gaps and give details beyond the Symbian/SDK documentation. This book does not do that at all. There is hardly anything in this book that you can't find else where. The book does not attempt to address "details" of a concept - it rather superficially "touches" a variety of subjects i.e. you can do this or that using Series 60 SDK, or here are the tyes of dialogs, queries etc. Although many of these discussions are accompanied by brief code snippets, those can also be found (in greater detail) in the Symbian/SDK documentation.

   It is not a reference book which I expected it to be - rather its a book that explains the Series 60 in some technical detail. It can be helpful to a beginner who is just trying to understand the Series 60 patform, but it fails to assist real developers with real programming issues. This book played minimal part in helping me write my first Series 60 application - I had to rely on the documentation.

   I'd give it 2.5 stars since its not completely worthless - but its not what it could/should be. Also you can tell that its been written by many different people as it lacks a consistent style, which I find irritating.

No comments about Operating Systems.

3 comments about Portable C and Unix System Programming (Prentice-Hall Signal Processing Series).

1. First off, the composite authors name is Lapin, not Laping.

   I used this book back around 1990 to develop a large software suite. The first 5 chapters are an excellent intro to portable C coding. We used the beginning chapters to design and develop our common platform headers, libraries and Make system. We did not take their examples unchanged, but used them as starting points for a our needs, which was a somewhat more comprehensive system. My team gives the book credit for helping us get us some of our 10x improvements. Still have not seen the likes of this book even today, in terms of the quality of data to use.

   The last half of the book is a summary of different API calls and /bin functions available on different Unixes of the day. Interesting now, from a historical perspective.




2. In addition to being everything the previous reviewer said it was, its true author is Eric S. Raymond, rather better known in the community now than he was then. ("Lapin" is French for "rabbit", as in Rabbit Software, the publishers.) So it should really be filed along with "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and "The New Hacker's Dictionary".



3. Cowan's only half-right. The "E" in "J.E. Lapin" is for "Eric" (as in "Eric Raymond"). The "J" is for "Jon" (as in
   "Jon Tulk"). The book was actually a team effort undertaken by several software engineers working at Rabbit Software in the 80s.

5 comments about Professional Visual C++ 5 Activex/Com Control Programming (Professional).

1. The book starts well. The scene is set nicely in the first two chapters and the authors promise you the earth. Then they seem to loose the plot. Not only do they get bogged down with too much detail and not enough overview, but lots of little mistakes seem to creep into the text. It's a pity but it seems that the book was never passed by an editor. For instance, in Chapter 4 on page 136 the authors promise to 'have a lot more to say about threading models at the end of this chapter (see the section named COM Threading Models)'. The only problem being there simply isn't a section named COM Threading Models in this or any other chapter! Furthermore, one might pardon one broken promise in one page but to do it twice is unforgiveable! Later in the same page, the authors refer to the same imaginary section!!

   But such mistakes and omissions are not confined to this chapter. The authors simply leave the reader bewildered and disappointed. I don't recommend it.




2. I'm a very experienced developer who's been programming since most of you were still in public school. Technical books are generally not a challenge for me but this one certainly was. Not because of the complexity of the subject, but because of the overwhelming amount of irrelevant information. Showing countless screen shots of behind-the-scenes code generated by the various Microsoft tools used to create COM objects is a collosal waste of time. 99% of the readers will never need to know any of this nor should they. Their explanation of this code, besides a waste of time, is also limp and extremely incomplete. Countless details are missing even when it's highly relevant (for example, the basic syntax of IDL files is nowhere to be found). Coupled will countless snapshots of COM API calls which look as if they've been copied straight from the compiler documentation, and huge bloated examples that spend more time dealing with non-COM related issues than anything practical (and which can take weeks to wade through), this book is a prime example of an experienced developer but a neophyte author (whose programming skills, based on some of the examples I saw, also need sharpening regardless of his knowledge of COM).



3. After reading Inside Com, I read this book and found it easy to understand and full of useful programs and tips of how to generate files from IDL. One of the best books in market.



4. If you seek a book that provides real solutions to programming challenges, skip this one. If you're looking for ways to impress your friends by baffling them with useless detail and confusing presentation, by all means buy it! Basically, you get the generic plagiarization of COM overview, and then a rambling, incoherant dissertation on the benefits of micro-analyzing binary code dumps while investigating everything of irrelevance. These guys are the type that want to rewrite the world's entire software base in assembler.

   There are some good treatments here, but I'm interested in applying knowledge to solutions, not bit-busting everything down to the Nth degree to prove I'm an MSEE. Soaking up 465 pages of digression to wind up with one control is not my idea of producing results. HTML references, historical treatises of intranets, treatment of security issues, sales pitches, obtuse examples ineffectually explained, and missing imperatives conspire to make this book one of the great paperweights of its time.




5. I am an entry level developer and I am trying to grasp this COM/DCOM stuff. This book was recommended but it just doesn't help. The book starts off with what looks like a nice easy intro to COM and DCOM then jumps to a hole lotta hoopla, what is going on? The code examples are difficult to follow and do not make sense unless you know what you are doing. They jump from topic to topic and mainly confuse the reader. I do not recommend this book unless you have a good understanding of ActiveX and COM already. And if you are not experienced with Visual C++, don't even bother.

3 comments about Programming Java 2 Micro Edition for Symbian OS: A developer's guide to MIDP 2.0 (Symbian Press).

1. This book is more like a standards specification. The author goes on and on in circles without getting to the heart of the matter quickly. For example the first example, is discussed after 50 pages of boring presentation. And yet, the example is not a simple smooth starting point. No, it's a simple game !
   I really and truly regret the money I wasted on this book.



2. Haven't read the whole book since I already knew MIDP 1.0, and the only reason I bought this one was that at the time I bought it was the only book I could find on MIDP 2.0. This rating will only be based on the more advanced stuff (APIs in MIDP 2.0). The author spend a lot of time talking about you can do with MIDP 2.0 and how to code some different applications which I think is covered pretty well. However, the applications I have looked at does not work. There are even classes that are missing, as well as other errors in the examples. I don't think anyone learning java wants to deal with this. "Teach yourself java with J2ME in 21 days" is a very good book if you know a little bit of programming, but are new to j2me.



3. Fives stars is a rating I've only given to Endless Summer. This book is an extensive volume on J2ME MIDP 2 and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in MIDP 2 development. Less than a fifth of the book focuses exclusively on Symbian but the detailed contextual API info adds significant value over some other books I've reviewed on J2ME that don't cover optional packages or simply 'mention' less-used packages without explaining how they are used. It would only be perfect if it were a bit more thorough covering more packages in greater detail- but that's what Sun's specs are for anyway. Enjoy.

4 comments about The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0.

1. Anyone dealing with XML or java soon runs into Unicode because this is the standard for representing characters in electronic form in those computer languages. Java, for instance, was designed from its inception to use Unicode. Earlier computer languages like C and C++ can have routines added to handle these, while C# uses XML and hence Unicode.

   But chances are, when you deal with Unicode, you only deal with a subset. Often only a small subset at that, unless you are using Chinese/Japanese. Typically you work with ascii and the codes for your spoken language if that is not a Western European language. Very few of us deal with much more than this.

   Which illustrates the appeal of the book. The Big Picture. ALL of Unicode. The breadth is stunning. It shows the written form of every major spoken language and many minor ones. Has the pictograms for Chinese [of course]. But also the symbols for Khmer, Canadian Aboriginal, Tamil, Syraic, et cetera, et cetera. Thumbing through this, you may encounter languages that you did not even know existed. It is one thing to say that we live in a multilingual world. But it is another to actually see it expressed comprehensively at the most basic level.

   There are two audiences for this book. The first is any computer person who has to deal with issues of internationalisation.

   But another audience is every Department of Languages or Cultural Anthropology in a university. If this describes your background, then you should know that you do not need facility in computing to appreciate the significance of this book. You can use it as a standard reference, akin to the Oxford English Dictionary vis-a-vis the English language. Look, ignore the computer stuff in the text. Yes, you can do this. The book groups related languages into common chapters. The explanatory text is lucid and the graphics for the languages lets you easily cross compare. Of course, at a higher level of meaning like sentences, you will need specialised texts in those languages. But to understand a language, you need to start at its letters or pictograms.

   Think of this book as an index into all the languages of man.




2. This book is one that every programmer should have access to. Packed with all of information concerning the latest standards, with explanations, this is the reference that I use whenever I need data regarding Unicode mappings. I recommend it to all of my students and have asked all libraries where I have influence to add it to their collection.
   There is also a CD included with the book. It contains a database of the current and all past versions of the Unicode mappings, a series of Unicode technical reports and an installable version of the Unibook Character Browser, a small utility for viewing character charts and properties. Invaluable if you prefer electronic versions of the data.



3. One reason for the wide acceptance of the Unicode standard is that the Unicode consortium has made it so freely available. There's no point in my discussing in detail what is in this volume when you can peruse PDF files of the entire work on the Unicode website (minus only chapter division graphics).

   Browse through the book just like you would in a bookstore or library. Print out parts of it or all of it for free if you want. Well, it is free if you don't count the cost of paper (about 1500 sheets or twice that for simplex printing), cost of a binder (or maybe two binders) and the time you would have to spend punching the holes.

   If you are mainly or only interested in particular sections of the standard then printing only those sections may be a reasonable thing to do.

   On the other hand the price is *very* reasonable for an 8½" × 11" hardbound book with 1,462 pages. If it's the sort of book you know you want for browsing and for reference then it is likely you will want it in this nicely bound copy.

   Like the previously published versions of the Unicode standard, this book is a beautiful book that is useful to those who don't need or want to get into the technical details of character properties and rules for bi-directional display and other necessary rules for displaying the characters. But for the actual use of many characters you will have to consult other lists outside the Unicode book or files, e.g. dictionaries and grammars of various languages or explanations of symbols used in various fields of mathematics.

   Language and writing systems are messy and inconsistant and handling them systematically and coherently cannot be made easy. Accordingly the rules and explanations in this standard are by necessity often long and involved and couched in technical language. It can't be avoided that, for example, one must sometimes distinguish carefully between _characters_, _glyphs_, _graphemes_, _grapheme clusters_, _ligatures_ and _digraphs_ and whether one character is a _canonical equivalent_ of another character or sequence of characters or a _compatibility equivalent_ of another character or sequence of characters or just similar to another character or sequence of characters.

   The Unicode character set is still a work in progress. Version 4.0 may not even approach the half-way mark in encoding every character that has been used in normal text records by human beings for which a meaning is known. No-one has ever tried to produce a list of characters on this scale before. No-one yet knows how many distinct characters there are.

   But 4.0 covers 96,382 characters from *almost* every script currently used for modern languages and from some ancient scripts as well including Ugaritic cuneiform, Cretan Linear B and the ancient Cypriot syllabary. (Sumerian/Akkadian cuneiform is being worked on and Egyptian hieroglyphics will eventually follow.)

   Included are a plethora of technical symbol characters including mathematical characters, chess pieces, die faces, characters needed for modern western music notation, characters needed for Byzantine music notation, ornamental dingbats and so much more. All of it is now at the fingertips of every computer user -- that is if fonts that contain the characters are installed.

   Finding fonts that display some of these characters is still a problem. :-(

   But it would be a worse problem if these characters weren't assigned to a common character set. The past practice of numerous special fonts for various symbols and scripts which disagreed with one another on how the characters were encoded produced a horrible mess.

   Large as it is, with 40% more pages than version 3.0, the book doesn't contain the whole standard. Increasingly as the standard has expanded tabular material has been dropped from the printed volumes and replaced with references to data files available on the website or on the CD that comes with the book.

   The end of section 3.2 specifies six files found as Annexes on the website and on the CD which "are essential parts of version 4.0" including an explanation of the bidirectional algorithm which appeared in the printed text for earlier releases. And there are many mentions in the printed standard of other files available on the CD or website. A binder containing printouts of this material is necessary if you want a truly complete hardcopy of the entire 4.0 standard.

   Unfortunately the 4.0 HTML files are carelessly laid down on the CD with external links pointing to files on the Unicode website and not to the corresponding files on the CD. Graphics are sometimes missing though the only file I think this matters with is StandardizedVariants.html which has a number of variant character images. (The data in this short file should have been in the book).

   If you work online you probably won't notice anything wrong but you also are likely not to notice that after clicking on a link you are viewing a file from the Unicode website instead of a file on the CD. That may matter in the future if you need to reference a 4.0 file and don't observe that the file you are actually looking at is from the website and is a "latest version" file that has been updated beyond 4.0. If you are working offline you can avoid this, but it is annoying to have to manually search for the file by name because the link fails.

   Also, although the Readme.txt file on the CD mentions "mapping tables" and files with "the extension .UNI", these useful conversion tables which were included on the CD's with previous releases are missing on the 4.0 CD. But they are available on the website.

   This is a minor caveat. I suspect most people will use the website in any case rather than the CD.




4. The Unicode character set is among the most widely used and least known of the international software standards. Java programmers have used it every day for a decade or so, but barely one in ten appear to know anything about it.

   The content of ISO standard 10646 (successor to 8-bit ISO 646), goes way beyond just a charcter set. It contains information critical to the correctness of any program that steps outside the English-language world, i.e. every program on the Internet, and many others sooner or later. This is the basis for correct handling of numerals (there's a lot more than 0 to 9), letters, and text. It's also the explanation for some program behaviors that might otherwise baffle a programmer, or at least a programmer with the wit to be baffled.

   More than just crucial, the content of this standard is plain fun. Its snippets of information from every major world language give wonderful insight into how people express themselves. It drives home the delighful diversity of human language and experience. It's also a near-bottomless source of stump-your-friends trivia.

   I admit, I'll never use every fact in this incredible assembly. I use a lot of the information, though, and I use it as the point of entry into every discussion of internationalization and localization of software.

5 comments about Unicode: A Primer.

1. This book is a very good introduction to the Unicode standards. Indeed, it goes lot further than just being an introduction. It contains a wealth of detail and a lot of very useful references. If you want to find out about Unicode and see how it will affect your work, this is the book to get.

   If you are going to be getting stuck in to some serious Unicode based development work, you will need the official standards for some of the fine detail but you should also have a copy of this book as well. In that case, I'd expect that you would refer to this book a lot more than the standard.

   After a short preliminary section that talks about the need for a standard and the standardisation process the meat of the book deals in "Part II" with the detail of Unicode and, in "Part III" with some practical uses.

   The author explains things like the various UTF encodings for Unicode in a clear and readable style. He also provides a very useful set of cameos of the support for Unicode in various operating systems, programming languages and applications.

   There then follow a substantial set of appendices charting the Unicode codings, the character sets used and so on.

   I do have one criticism of the book. Despite the appendices, there is still a lot of material in the text itself that really should also be in the appendices. I'm thinking of things such as charts of mappings and details about the standardisation process. This is a minor complaint though and the reader will easily be able to step around these sections while progressing through the book.




2. I'm sad that I can't give this book 5 stars because the quality is there. I would have liked additional examples of programming for Unicode. Java is easy because Unicode is its native character set. But I work in C++, C, SQL, Perl and shell scripts too. A few pages dedicated to each of these (and perhaps some other languages in common use) would be of great help. Some of the issues I'd like to see addressed are:

   1) The preferred data type(s) for representing Unicode characters in each language.

   2) Library functions to avoid and alternatives to each.

   3) Reading and writing common encodings (UTF-8 and UCS-16 are the big ones).

   4) Conversion between Unicode and other character sets.

   The addition of this material in future edition would make this one of the most essential books on the shelf of anyone developing software for the international market. As it stands, it is still a fine book. If you are a programmer doing internationalization, it is worth owning.




3. Character encoding is not for the faint hearted. Unicode promises to end all that.

   If you are interested in fundamentals of Unicode, you'll be dissapointed with "Unicode:A Primer" . For instance, do you know how exactly your vi editor is able to display that russian character by talking to the xterm ? My expectation in reading this book was to get an idea of what in the world are UCS-2, ISO-8859, ISO-10646, Unicode, UTF-8, etc...and what is the basic difference between them . So, I was actually interested in the author talking about these encoding standards in a low-level detailed manner.

   The material in the first five chapters , which form the introduction to Unicode, appears jumbled and quiet hopelessly out of sequence. If one is used to reading in a widely accepted manner of first defining things and then discussing them, one would be dissapointed. It is only in Chapter 4, for instance, that the author defines UTF-7, UTF-16 etc - whereas these "terms" are frequently used in the preceding sections.

   But, if you don't care about the basics and would like to get into the details right away - there are parts of this book you'll find useful. Not completely satisfactory maybe, but at least useful. For instance, you get to explore the difference between the various standards - all in one book. And that's good. There are chapters on programming language, OS and XML/HTML which would be useful for programmers. For example, the book talks about how Perl, Java, C++, etc. (with some code too!) and databases support Unicode - how Windows 98 does not. So, if you are working on encoding and know what you want, you may actually find it here.

   But, contrary to what the title claims, this book doesn't do a great job being a primer. The back of the book states the Reader Level to be : Intermediate to Advanced. And that's fair.




4. If you are a computer professional and have to deal with web pages in various languages, you will need to know what Unicode is about.

   This book is a good first look at Unicode. While it does not go into nitty-gritty details, it gives a good overview of what it is about. Now I am no longer in complete darkness, thanks to this book.

   After this book, I will proceed to the official Unicode 3.0 hardcover reference.




5. This book is not really current, nor is it particularly well written. Unicode Demystified is bigger and more expensive, but it's more up to date, very well written and is an amazingly easy read.