No comments about LINQ Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)).

3 comments about C# 3.0 Pocket Reference: Instant Help for C# 3.0 Programmers (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)).

1. As C# is a complex language, there are lots of things that we, C# programmers, need to know when writing some code. With so many things to learn and so many features available, how can we remember all the syntax and all the details of everything in C#? The answer is: We can't. Everytime we forget something, we go look for help in the internet, don't we?
   
   So this book is pretty much of this: Why search the internet and waste a lot of your precious time visiting tons of websites that doesn't have the information that you need until you find a website that has something to help you, if you have a book that you can carry everywhere and search for all those things in a very quick way?
   
   Although this book explains most of the features to you, I don't recommend it for those who want to learn C#. This book is a great help for those who already know C# and want to have a reliable reference or even get a closer look at the new features in C# 3.0.
   
   If you don't know any of the new features in C# 3.0, or if you don't know C#, I recommend that you read a book that describe the features in a more detailed way, like C# 3.0 in a Nutshell.



2. I read a wonderful, but huge book by Andrew Troelsen and wanted a small reference book to carry around. This little book has such short, yet illuminating descriptions and examples of all the keywords and types I've looked up so far. A few standouts are the sections on Events and Generics.
   I've had this less than 24 hours and it has already paid for itself.
   Truly a superb effort by the Albahari brothers. I will definitely be ordering the Nutshell book by the same authors.



3. I agree with the positive comments of the other reviews but would recommend this book for learning C#. It is well structured for the purpose of learning the language and does not assume familiarity with it: it defines the necessary concepts.
   Even though programming is a very logical enterprise, programming books have a tradition of extreme verbosity, and so I hope this series continues to grow because it is almost the only place one can get the concision that allows for quick learning.

5 comments about Programming .NET Components, 2nd Edition.

1. Book goes through the entire process of building controls, nothing is untouched. It dwells however much too long on the 'standard' topics of installation, distribution, setting up etc and is rather lite on the the real stuff like building controls that look and feel like commercial controls. Would be a good book if it had 20% of the pages.



2. While going over component and control design, this book teaches the principles of the component-oriented design philosophy. The author doesn't pander and isn't overly verbose; getting to the point and explaining his meaning efficiently and succinctly. Definitely worth the read.



3. This book is incredibilly well written and has a very comprehensive way of explaining the ways of Component oriented programing. Explains its differences betweent COP and OOP. You can easily understand what the author has in mind, BUT, I found one big flaw on this book. Not that this flaw will make the book less comprehensive, but it will make it less fun.
   In all concepts it presents Examples, but not exercises. It explains the features and then give a short example to it. It doesn't stimulate the reader to actually build a code within a major context. You read, see the example and move on to the next topic. It is not fun to just stay around and read and read and read without actually working with the book. It is still a great book, but the approach to the reader could be better.



4. Without any second thought I will place this book among the best books on the subject ever published. I hope everybody will agree that there are only a few books that worth reading from the beginning to the end without skipping a page. To me this is one of those rare books.
   The author manages to reflect on broad architectural concepts and yet be extremely specific. He was able to present the most complicated aspects of component oriented programming and the C# language in a very simple, yet concise manner. Many complex issues that may turn off even experienced programmers are described in a way that not only are very well understood, but could easily be migrated into a working program. The author has found an absolutely perfect balance of presenting general architectural aspects of the subject he is discussing and real life implementation techniques.
   I truly believe that anybody who is dealing with such aspects (to name but a few) as serialization, asynchronous invocation, multithreading, reflection, events, delegates, deterministic finalization, etc., MUST read this book.
   By the way, this author has published another wonderful book on Windows Communication Foundation - "Programming WCF".



5. A Classic Book that begins it's journey, where all books end. The true difference between a casual programmer and a disciplined programmer is more prominent in his/her code when they start using advanced features of the framework. A true programmer knows his stuff in and out and knows how to leverage the features of the framework effectively in every line of code. And to get to that level of proficiency it takes reading and practicing the concepts on daily basis. And if at all, there is any book out there, that will help you, then it is this book. A definite YES. 5 Stars.

5 comments about iText in Action: Creating and Manipulating PDF.

1. In January 2006 I was assigned to build a system that would create lots of PDF reports, typically with hundreds of pages of tables, and with tables nested in other tables. I started with an an open-source tool called BIRT that is well-designed and powerful, but it didn't quite give me sufficient low-level control over some aspects of PDF creation. When I realized that BIRT wasn't going to work for me, I was behind schedule and in trouble. Then I discovered iText. (BIRT actually is built using iText jar files.) I found that iText gave me exactly what I needed: an easy-to-use yet powerful Java API for creating PDF files. The remainder of the project, using iText, went smoothly, and my boss was very happy with the results. But I sure wish that I'd had Bruno Lowagie's "iText in Action" book at the time! That would have shaved a few weeks off of the project and would have saved me from learning some things painfully, by trial and error. As the original developer of iText, Bruno Lowagie is uniquely qualified to write this book. He obviously put a huge amount of effort into it, reflecting his longstanding commitment to iText. He made every effort to explain things as clearly as possible, and to document the pitfalls as well as the attractive features. It is evidently a labor of love for him. The book is written to the high editorial standards of other Manning books, with clear organization, good typography and layout, and so on. I highly recommended iText itself, and also this book, to anyone who is using Java to work with PDF files.



2. I've always figured that there should be some way to create PDF files without the manual effort of any 3rd party software client. Now I find out there is a way, and it's rather exciting... iText In Action by Bruno Lowagie covers the iText open source software project. It's a very well done reference manual that can also serve as a tutorial for a decent Java developer.
   
   Contents:
   Part 1 - Introduction: iText - when and why; PDF engine jump-start; PDF - why and when
   Part 2 - Basic Building Blocks: Composing text elements; Inserting images; Constructing tables; Constructing columns
   Part 3 - PDF Text and Graphics: Choosing the right font; Using fonts; Constructing and painting paths; Adding color and text; Drawing to Java Graphics2D
   Part 4 - Interactive PDF: Browsing a PDF document; Automating PDF creation; Creating annotations and fields; Filling and signing AcroForms; iText in web applications; Under the hood
   Appendixes: Class diagrams; Creating barcodes; Open parameters; Signing a PDF with a smart card; Dealing with exceptions; Pdf/X, Pdf/A, and tagged PDF; Resources; index
   
   Lowagie starts off with a brief background of how iText came into being, along with a scenario of where the ability to programmatically create PDF files could dramatically change the way a college would run a department. Then after a short Hello World example that involves creating a simple document, he delves into all the different features and capabilities. The book at this point starts to change from tutorial to reference manual, but it's done in such a way that you could just keep working through the material in tutorial fashion with little effort (and good results). The example code in all the chapters are extensively annotated and explained, so you're not left to your own devices to try and figure out what the logic is trying to accomplish. In fact, I would say that the code annotation and commentary is some of the best I've seen in a book of this type. Great job...
   
   The main target audience for this book is the Java developer, as the iText project is Java-based. There are .NET ports for J# and C#, and knowing how close those languages are to Java, this book should work pretty well for those development efforts with a little bit of thought and modification. Other languages should be able to use the iText toolkit if they have some way to call Java code modules from within their programs. As a Notes/Domino developer, I should be able to utilize all of this package in any Java agents I write, and the LS2J feature of LotusScript might also work well. After reading this book, I know I have some things I need to try...
   
   If you have any sort of need involving the creation of PDF files from within your own system, iText is a great alternative to explore. And if that seems to be the way to go, I don't know of any better book to get than this one...



3. This is nice book, though most of the contents can be found online (I believe it is linked from the author's website). I have created some complex PDF files using iText following the examples on the book and online tutorials. This is the book from iText creator, surely it worth a 5 starts.



4. This is a great book for people developing or maintaining applications using iText. It covers every corner-case I've run into, typically offering various options on how to solve a problem. The writing is concise, with easily approachable chapters and examples.



5. This is a best book I have ever seen. It has every details about how to use the iText. It's very clear in every technical aspects. iText is also a great API for Java programmer. It's also really easy to learn. I love iText.
   
   I love this book. I strongly recommand this book.

5 comments about Accelerated C# 2008 (Accelerated).

1. It has been a good read so far but it is lot of pages and lot of information so not sure if it is really accelerated. I have enjoyed Essential c# more than this one in some aspects but this book nicely explains the new c# 3.0 features. Problem is it covers all the old c# stuff also which is not necessarily a problem for everyone and might be a good refresher for some. I would still highly recommend this.



2. The book is appropriately titled as it includes the fundamentals for novices and a fair amount of advanced material to satisfy the intermediate developer. Don't expect to see too many pages devoted to any one topic as this book covers everything from basic C# syntax to Lambda Expressions. For a language book, it was refreshing to see some mention of best practices for once. Just about all of the chapters are sprinkled with advice and tips relating to real-world scenarios.
   
   The book is very readable (which is extremely important to me) and the author did a great job presenting his thoughts in a coherent manner (which is very difficult to do). Again, if you are looking for a detailed reference on the new features in C# 3.0 such as Lambda Expressions or LINQ, you may want to find another book. This book covers those topics, but I believe the primary goal of this book was to give novice and intermediate developers a quick refresher on all of the language features from versions 1.0 - 3.0.



3. I bought this book last Wednesday and figured it would be a decent enough overview of the new language features. I don't want to downplay the job he does covering new langauge features becuase that coverage is superb, but the job he does covering C# fundamentals is so well done that it eclipses everything else.
   
   So it's a great book for beginners? Well, probably not. I think beginners would benefit by it but it's not a beginners book by any mean. What I do mean is that he does a really in depth job of covering just about every aspect of C# so that he can show the benefits of the new features as well. I've read over 100 books on .NET in the 7 years I've been working with it and frequently the Go to guy when it comes to exception handling for instance. So I really wasn't expecting to learn anything new here. But stylistically, the points he raises in showing how one could elegantly handle a Transaction rollback scenario is just really brilliant. And that same brilliance is exemplified throughout the book.
   
   To that end, the examples in this book are it's real strength. As someone who's written a few books myself, I know how tempting it can be to come up with really simple and overused examples b/c basics aren't much fun to write about. Trey however totally resisted that temptation and I for the life of me can't see a single area that looks like he just 'wanted to get it done'. Everything is seemingly well thought out and written in a way that can clearly make his point clear. He also harkens back to C++ and the fact he has a ton of C++ experience shows through everywhere. It has a feel to it reminiscent of my senior computer science textbooks but without the stuffiness and without coming off as academic. On the contrary, it's the whole aire of advance business scenarios that makes it so cool
   
   Now on to the new language features. I've read several books on LINQ and Lambda expressions. And while they are all great, his explanation of Lambda exprssions and the walk down Functional Programming memory lane is priceless. Had I read this book early on, the nuances of Lambda expressions would have been a lot easier to understand. His coverage of LINQ is in depth as well but he manages to really keep on track and show the business aspects of LINQ without every going down the path of sounding like a 'cool new feature cheerleader'.
   
   I'll admit I have a pretty strong like of Apress books and have a pretty high expectation with their stuff. When I read Faison's Event-Based Programming : Taking Events to the Limit - I found it to be one of the most compelling and well done books I had read in ages. Internally, I thought it would be a longgg time before I came across a book anywhere near that good. Well, all I can really say is that Trey Nash proved me quite wrong. He exceeded any expectation I had by tenfold and got a lot out of this book - not just in C# terms but across the board.



4. This is a pretty good book. This author is obviously a strong C++ programmer or was for many years, so his approach to the writing about
   C# is very C++ bias which I think is very refreshing and pretty neat, to compare the OLD way and the NEW way. Dont get me wrong I am not implying
   C++ is dead, I think is still by far the strongest most powerfull language ever, i am just saying C# is more practical, more FOR NOW, for the 21th Century..............
   I like many 1990s programmers started in C, C++ so C# is like back to the good old days. C was one of my favorite language for many years..I did some java but I feel C# has gone beyond it by far.



5. Overall, this is a decent book. But, simply because the author didn't properly define his audience, I have to mark it down a notch. From the 1st sentence of the "About This Book" section in the Introduction (on page xxvi), the author states:
   
   "I assume that you already have a working knowledge of some object-oriented programming language, such as C++, Java, or Visual Basic .NET."
   
   So, I assumed that since I'd already learned C, C++, and Java, but just dabble in programming, I could use this book instead of plowing through another 1200 page book that starts out with a chapter on sequential statements, a chapter on conditional statements, a chapter on iterative statements, etc.. But, that was a faulty assumption. Instead, this book is REALLY designed for programmers who've done some fairly advanced work in other object-oriented languages UNDER THE WINDOWS .NET FRAMEWORK. For instance, at the start of Chapter 1 (page 1, paragraph 1, line 1), it says:
   
   "Since this is a book for experienced object-oriented developers, I assume that you already have some familiarity with the .NET runtime."
   
   And, on page 231:
   
   "I'm assuming that you're already familiar with the nongeneric collection types and collection interfaces available in .NET 1.1--specifically, those defined in the System.Collections and System.Collections.Specialized namespaces."
   
   So, if you're not very familiar with .NET, you'll have problems with the book. Also, the author tends to slip out of even that "advanced .NET programmer" audience in another way: he sometimes writes to programmers who've used previous versions of C#. For instance, when he introduces Delegates in chapter 10, he never really ties them to the C/C++ model of function pointers or Java's inner classes. The closest he comes is saying they implement a callback function.
   
   The author also assumes knowledge of various design patterns from the "Gang of Four's" Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series) book (and a few other sources, too). Here are the patterns he references and the pages where he makes those references:
   
   - Abstract Factory: p 451
   - Bridge: p 262
   - Collection: p 36
   - Disposable: pp 3, 19, 106, 187, 189, 374, 376, 377
   - Expert: pp 172, 193
   - IOU: pp 320, 354, 355, 362
   - Monitor: p 337
   - Non-Virtual interface (NVI): pp 117, 143, 144, 236, 238, 365, 366
   - Observer: p 265
   - Singleton: pp 74, 143 285, 377, 381
   - Strategy: pp 122, 266, 276, 291
   - Template Method: p 366
   - Visitor: pp 424, 437
   
   There are also some smaller things that are a bit irritating. First of all, his code formatting is inconsistent. His use of braces ({}) changes constantly. Sometimes he'll start a block with the first "{" immediately following a keyword on the same line. At other times, he'll put it at the start of the next line. Sometimes, he uses both in the same hunk of code. Ditto for his positioning of instance variables (fields in C# terminology). Sometimes he'll have them at the top of the class. Other times, he'll have them at the bottom. Sometimes, both. And, least importantly, he uses too many forward references (especially referring to Chapter 13).
   
   Overall, if you happen to be an advanced programmer who programs in an object-oriented .NET environment for a living and you want to pick up the latest version of C#, this is a very good book. It certainly won't bore you with trivial stuff, and the way the author presents things will be very helpful. But, if you're just a dabbler with limited experience, the book will probably be confusing. As such, I can only rate it an OK 3 stars out of 5. In future printings, if the author merely revises the stated audience to reflect the actuality, and standardizes the formatting of the code, this book would easily be a 4 star book.

4 comments about C# 3.0 Cookbook.

1. Are you an experienced C# or .NET developer or just a novice user? If you are, then this book is for you. Authors Jay Hilyard and Stephen Teilhet, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that is designed for users of all levels, and provides solutions to problems that developers face every day as well as some that may come along less frequently.
   
   Hilyard and Teilhet, begin by covering Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and its usage with objects, ADO.NET, and XML. Next, the authors cover both String and Char data types. Then, they discuss recipes dealing with both class and structure data types. The authors also focus on the generics capacity in C#, which allows you to have code operate uniformly on values of different types. They continue by examining recipes that make use of collections. Next, the authors show you how to use two features of C# to solve very different programming problems. Then, they focus on the best ways to implement exception handling in your application. The authors also present recipes that use data types that fall under the System. They continue by showing you how delegates, events, and lambda expressions can be used in your applications. Next, the authors cover a useful set of classes that are employed to run regular expressions against strings. Then, they deal with file system interactions in four distinct ways. The authors also show you ways to use built-in assembly inspection system provided by the .NET Framework to determine what types, interfaces, and methods are implemented within an assembly and how to access them in a late-bound fashion. They continue by covering how to access a web site and its content as well as programmatically determining web site configuration. Next, the authors explore some of the uses for XML and how to program against it using LINQ to XML, the XmlReader/XmlWriter, and Xml-Document. Then, they explore the connectivity options provided by the .NET Framework and how to programmatically access network resources. The authors also explore areas such as controlling access to types, encryption and decryption, securely storing data, and using programmatic and declarative security. They continue by addressing the subject of using multiple threads of execution in a .NET program; issues such as how to implement threading in your application; protecting resources from and allowing safe concurrent access; storing per-thread data; and, how to use the synchronization primitives in .NET to write thread-safe code. Next, the authors discuss recipes for those random sorts of operations that developers run into over and over again, such as determining locations of system resources, sending e-mail, and working with services. Finally, the authors focus on the numeric and enumeration types and recipes on using enumerations that consist of bit flags.
   
   This most excellent book is laid out with respect to the types of problems you will solve as you progress through your life as a C# programmer. In other words, each recipe contained in this book is designed to help you quickly understand the problem, learn how to solve it, and find out any potential trade-offs or ramifications to help you solve your problems quickly, efficiently, and with minimal effort.



2. This book covers all the needs for those who want to learn a little bit more of C#.
   
   I'm very pleased the way the author examplifies using design patterns, 3.5 features and explaining all the time the pros and cons of the code given.
   
   As bottom note I should recommend this for all you who wants to gather a little more experience in c#.
   
   Greets from Brazil, Diego.



3. This book is perpetually on my desk, whenever I cannot easily figure out how to do something, I check this book before going to MSDN, etc. Critical member of my bookshelf.



4. This is a good intro book that eliminates the need for some of the first books I bought on C#. When compared to other "cookbooks", however, this book is incredibly weak (see: XSLT Cookbook, SQL Cookbook). If you have used C# for more than 6 months, you will know how to iterate over an array, to use String.IsNullOrEmpty, get the index of a value within a string, and use a generic arraylist. These are just some of the junior "recipes" you'll see in this book. The "recipes" just exercise the fundamentals (i.e. how to boil water) rather than how the fundamentals work together to solve complex problems in elegant ways. The easier the concept, the more information. There isn't really any analysis or best-practice justification present. I'd like to see some performance analysis of generics or at least some depth on partial methods. Nothing to see here for mid-level developers. Not written or organized poorly, just simple. If it were titled "Intro to C# by example", I'd give it a higher score.

2 comments about Beginning Microsoft Visual C# 2008 (Wrox Beginning Guides).

1. It is a good book for beginner. But Don't expect much from it, It may not go into greater details and will leave you at mercy of MSDN.



2. This is a super book for those of us who have never programmed, or who started programming using another language like Visual Basic. It has helpful articles, and lots of hints if one gets stuck. It's easy to read, and lacks the boreing quality of many text books.

5 comments about Programming C#: Building .NET Applications with C#.

1. Very easy to read, covers all the relevant topics. Advanced readers can skip the first half of the book.



2. I just finished this book and feel like the experience was a first class introduction. Liberty's style is to explain how things work and what they're intended for and how to think about them, and also provide some very clean examples, which is perfect for me. The extreme opposite style is to provide mostly step-by-step examples with little explanation, which I think gets you started quickly but leaves you not understanding what you're doing and unable to move beyond the examples. But giving some examples is a must. He handles this balance perfectly, I think.
   The examples start to follow a pattern I liked - there'd be a class or several classes that exemplify whatever point he's focussed on, and then a "tester" class containing Main() that exercises them and displays results.
   Liberty works through all the language basics and also spends the right small amounts of time discussing niche interests like the intermediate language, Web applications, using Visual Studio to manipulate forms, compiling from the command line. I feel well rounded after this intro. He works with Console applications while teaching the basic features of the language per se, then he first gets into Windows applications at the very middle of the book. Amusingly, for his first Windows application example the student adds the single statement "ApplicationExit();" to a button click event generated by VS, but for his second application the user's code is 9 printed pages in the book. I do think I followed this big leap, tho.
   I wondered about getting his book Learning C# instead, and after browsing it I think it would have been somewhat easier for me, but I think I managed fine with this book and got further. For me, ideal might have been another 50 pages introducing things the way Learning C# did, added around the beginning of this book, but between the two choices I think this was probably the better.
   I'm a scientist who also programs a bit. My programming experience is heavy on some very different languages like Forth and Assembly, and a couple tiny projects in Quick C for DOS, but no experience writing Windows applications or using OOP, no C++ or Java. This past week I wrote a Windows program with a simple interface and an object that does a useful technical task and "deployed" it to two engineers down the hall, who liked it. Reading this book and leafing around in a couple of others, and one conversation at a noisy toddler's birthday party about runtime object instantiation, were my only guides.



3. I wish I had purchased one of the other C# books. I am an experienced programmer and bought this book to learn C#. My main disappointment was that the first third of the book, which covers the language, is mostly made up of repeated large printouts of code. The author will explain a small change to the code, and then re-display the entire program - even if it takes up several pages. Instead of thorough explanations of the concepts you are left with reams of repeated code.
   I also found the general language of the book to have a patronizing tone, have become frustrated with it and am shopping for a new one.



4. A very good buy, this book goes into just enough detail to stay interesting. The only reason that I won't give it 5 stars is because I don't really like C#/.Net.



5. 
   A natural first step for me when looking for a book is to see what O'Reilly has available. This book was the first hit in my search results. And that hit was a homerun. Jesse Liberty has written a rare Dot Net book, a book that does not waste precious text (read time) editorializing on the wonders of Dot Net or prediciting the extinction of all things not MS. The organization of material is natural and intuitive and Liberty's writing style encourages the reader to keep turning pages without resorting to corny jokes to do so.
   Sections are handily decorated with comments pointing out areas where C# diverges from the legacy of its C++ and Java heritage. I've read more books than I care to mention that would have doubled their value had they included such annotations.Example code is relevant and well thought out; and it's available for download. Between this book and the near-infinite resources online, I don't think I'll need another C# book in my library.
   This was a great book and I'd recommend it to anybody.

5 comments about Pro C# with .NET 3.0, Special Edition (Pro).

1. Many of us IT professionals by these thick books for use as reference, without intending to work our way from cover to cover. As I read this book, it became clear I needed to read the entire volume. It is well-written, and stays on track and focused. I have learned many useful things that I will be able to use in my daily tasks.



2. I have 4 books about .Net framework 2.0 and I even have a book about Windows Workflow Foundation, so I bought this book "judged by the cover" and title "Pro C# with .NET 3.0"
   The truth is that only 17 percent of the book (194 pages of 1151) is concerning 3.0.
   That's not good enough.
   The reason for the 3 stars, is that the book is a very well written 2.0 book, but buy it only for that, and wait for the framework 3.5 books, with an greater insight the new technologies, to come.



3. Clear and well presented book. Easy to read and seemingly covers most aspects. Experienced programmer but starting first C#.NET project and certainly best book I have purchased on this subject



4. Andrew Troelsen is an excellent author and knows how to explain things. The book covers in a detailed way the phylosophy of .net and the C# programming language. This is it's strength.
   On the other hand, I do think that the later chapters are misguided. We have a chapter about .net remoting, another one on Windows forms, and then a short introduction to the .NET 3.0 stuff like WPF, WF and WCF. Well, I bought the book for the 3.0 material. Why didn't they call the book:
   
   "Pro C# 3.0 with short intro to .NET 3.0"?
   
   Best regards,



5. This book allowed to literally give away 3 rows of programming books. Apress always does a good job on their publications. This book is really all an experienced C# programmer needs in his library (aside from a good ASP.net) book for web design techniques

5 comments about Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# (Robert C. Martin Series).

1. First, this book is well written and presents information in a constructive manner. It is well thought out, and is not just another C#/OOP/XP book.
   
   Now for the bad news. One unnecessary oversight is the use of casts and "object" in some examples. Any author writing any C# book since 2005 must know that these idioms should no longer be encouraged. It is unacceptable for a book published in February 2007 to possess this flaw.
   
   Generics, used in moderation, result in cleaner code that is also type-safe, and usually performs better due to the absence of boxing/unboxing. The authors should consider posting alternative examples that favor Generic types and collections on their errata web page. If you purchase this book, you would be well-advised to review the examples with a bias against the use of casts and the word "object".
   
   To be entirely frank, I don't see how other reviewers can justify a five star rating.



2. Simply the best treatment of object oriented design, patterns and practices I have ever read. Extremely well organized and easy to read. Should be in every software engineer's library.



3. I have purchased and read alot of books on software design and development over the years and I cannot think of a single one of them that I would rate higher than this one.



4. Very readable, entertaining, useful. One of the few books that has been easy to follow and enjoyable to read. Very good general coverage.



5. Agile practices and design patterns written in a clear, concise way. Granted there are a handful of mistakes throughout the book, and the occasional awkward reference to a pattern that won't be covered for another 5 chapters, but they're easy to spot.
   
   The information is presented just right - a little background info, succinct descriptions, and simplified code examples. Outstanding.