3 comments about C# Class Design Handbook.

1. This is from [...]
   Chapter 1 is at [...]

   "C# is Microsoft's new object-oriented language, specifically designed to take full advantage of the .NET type system. At the heart of .NET programming in C# is the task of building classes. All C# code participates in the .NET type system, because all code is contained in classes and other types which participate in the class hierarchy of the .NET framework. This book is a guide to help you design these classes effectively, by looking at what control we have over our classes, and how C# turns our class definitions into executable code.

   "Ask anyone: designing effective classes that you don't have to revisit and revise over and over again is an art. This Handbook aims to give you a deep understanding of the implications of every decision you can make in designing a class, so you are better equipped to take full advantage of C#'s power to create classes that are robust, flexible and reusable.

   "This book assumes that you are already familiar with the syntax of C#. It assumes that you have already used it to write code and that you are familiar with your chosen development tools and know how to compile and run C# code. You should also be aware of .NET's basic object-oriented mechanisms. In this book, we'll lift the lid on the simple syntax and examine what it really does behind the scenes."




2. Any exprienced C# programmer may not regard this "C# Class Design Handbook" as the best design tool, but almost all will acknowledge that it has got a lot of positive qualities. These attributes include: good coverage of .NET Framework Class Libraries, detailed recipes, and design interoperability.
   Apart from being down-to-earth, with its method of defining terms and concepts, it has an illustrative teaching pattern, which included a collection of problems and solutions.
   Also, this book contains code recipes, which program developers could use to improve their understanding of the C#; and subsequently, their overall programming skills.
   In summary, this handbook is a multi-purpose manual, which programmers should value for its complementary outlook.



3. On the whole, I was extremely pleased with C# Class Design. It has great organization, perfect length, and superb topic coverage. It is focused, in-depth, and challenging. This is a must buy and a must read for all serious C# developers. In fact, if I could mandate that all of my teammates read this book, I would do it in a heartbeat. Even those using other .NET languages could benefit from this book because many of the principles are not C#-specific, though some features discussed may not be available in other languages, such as VB.NET.

   I would not, however, recommend this book to a beginning developer unless he or she has a good foundation in object-oriented design and other core software development principles. It is by no means a primer, but rather is targeted at the intermediate to advanced developer who wants to excel in designing robust, reusable, and extensible classes for the .NET framework. Nor is it for one who simply wants a set of instructions on how to build an application in C#; rather, it is for the developer who wants to build the best applications because he or she has the best understanding of the effects of class design in the .NET CLR.

   On a more granular level, the table of contents provides a sufficient look at what each chapter covers, and each chapter delivers on what the TOC promsies, and more in some cases. Chapter One takes an in-depth look at reference and value types and, augmented by Chapter Three's discussion of method parameters, arms the developer with the knowledge needed to make the right choices between the two by providing a solid understanding of how they are handled by the CLR. Chapter Five is another essential read, covering object lifecycle and a few design patterns.

   Most of the chapters offer practical advice on best practices in bulleted format to encapsulate some common-sense deductions from the data covered in the chapter. And there are a few gotchas that this book can help you avoid, such as how the compiler handles constants (you'll have to read it to find out).

   There are only two things I'd criticize about this book. First, even though some of the topics covered are complex, I tend to think that it could have been considerably more readable in places, particularly Chapter Seven that deals with inheritance and polymorphism. Of course, part of the problem is that those topics cannot properly be covered in so short a space--they deserve (and have) book-length treatment. The second detraction is that Chapter Eight, while providing useful information, is somewhat off-topic, treating namespaces, assemblies, and documentation, which are only peripherally related to effective class design and are covered in several other books as well as the MSDN documentation.

   In short, this book is definitely worth the {money} that it costs . It is not an easy read and should only be taken up by developers interested in knowing more than the minimum required to build an application. One of the things I love about this book is its focused approach and, consequently, its readable length of only 347 pages. Most books that are longer, that is most developer books, are full of too many code examples and too much re-coverage of topics that other books have already covered. This is a notable exception. I highly recommend it to intermediate to advanced developers.

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1. aight book, learned some good stuff, recommanded to newbies

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3 comments about Numerical Recipes in C & C++ Source Code CD-ROM with Windows, DOS, or Mac Single Screen License.

1. The numerical recipes books have always provided minimal but usable routines for most numerical applications. The C++ conversion supplies routines that have been barely changed from the C versions, but uses C++ to give you the minimum that C++ programmers demand: automatic memory management and freedom from scary macros and side effects . The authors also updated the code to support double precision floats and complex numbers where the C version does not. The implementation of vectors and matrices is so minimal that even matrix multiplication and addition are not supported. All manipulation is element by element. This may make the routines less readable but has one big advantage: you can plug any vector or matrix library into these routine in place of their built in ones and expect everything to work instantly.

   This is NOT free software - the license is relatively friendly to commercial software but not to open source software.

   While there are other libraries that seem to be much more friendly to open source development than the NR library, I still think the numerical recipes books and libraries are useful to people writing open source software. You can't use the library directly, but where else are you going to find examples of minimal implementations of numeric algorithms? The code is absolutely modular, so you do have some hope of being able to decipher it.

   Anyway even the NR routines are based on older routines so the authors admit in the license that comes with the book that they can't claim to own the algorithms they use.

   Basically the new version of the code has been improved to the point where there's no need to run screaming, and for quick and dirty math routines, that's good enough for my use anyway.




2. I just got my copy of the CD today. I was surprised to see that they had stripped off all the code comments provided in the books. All that is left is the terse library of routines with the single character variables we loved to use as a BASIC beginner.

   Buy this CD for the licence rights, but download the PDF chapters from the NR web site to get the commented code.




3. I've been using the book in C for several years and thought it was quite good, but the new C++ version is far and above better.

3 comments about Computing for Scientists: Principles of Programming with Fortran 90 and C++.

1. Intended for first or second year engineering or science students. It teaches programming at an introductory level. Yes, its a text book for one of those Programming 101 courses.

   However, what sets this textbook apart from others is that it employs two languages (i.e. Fortran and C++), instead of one, to teach the same old material. And this has some interesting charasteristics. The authors has presented the material in a comparative way so that the student has the chance to see, very clearly, the relative merits of each language. For example, when they introduce arrays you will see the ease of Fortran in dealing with them. On the other hand, when object oriented programming is presented, C++'s superiority becomes apparent for that purpose. By seeing two languages side by side, one can also discern the fundamentals from language specific rules.

   I'm familiar with Fortran and it has been a while since I took my first course in programming but this textbook has taught me quite a lot of things. If you know one of the languages, it might still make sense to buy it. You will appreciate your language better and will find what the other language does better. By the way, the book doesn't teach about mixed language programming.




2. In addition to being a chemist myself who uses programming technologies extensively, I also teach courses designed to introduce relevant software technologies to other chemists, such as programming and database skills.

   One of the problems that I faced was lack of a good introductory text on programming that would be relevant to an applied scientist. Most introductory programming books appear to be written for someone who intends to be a computer scientist, or even worse, rather than teaching language-independent skills, they try instead to teach you one programming language. As anyone knows who has ever browsed the computer section of their local bookstore or even here on Amazon, the number of books available on the topic of programming is enormous, to say the least.

   I was pleasantly surprised when I came across this book at a local electronics store. For the time being, I am going to refer to it as a good starting point for any scientist who wishes to enhance his/her programming skills.

   Barlow and Barnett cover many of the topics that I consider essential when learning any programming language, such as data types, operators, conditional statements, looping constructs, etc. Furthermore, he even covers important concepts like accessing memory (e.g. pointers in C++), state machines, abstraction, and object-oriented techniques. I was very happy to see the authors stress the importance of striving for ANSI compliant code.

   For a book that was published in 1998, I was very impressed to see a section on template programming with C++. Clearly, Barlow and Barnett are very good at recognizing emerging trends. Furthermore, they are equally adept at explaining difficult concepts in a lucid way. Towards the end of the book, the authors' physics slant is evident by the section on numerical analysis, but the treatment is great, since it exemplifies how programming can be used for solving computationally intensive tasks that have physical significance.

   Although this book on programming is geared towards scientists, it really would serve as a nice introduction to programming for any discipline. Although Fortran's popularity is very low outside of engineering, the juxtaposition of C++ with Fortran was a very nice touch, as it really allows one to look past language specific features in order to see generic programming concepts. Computer languages, like spoken languages, are such that, the first one is hardest to learn, but with each one you learn, the process of learning the next one becomes successively easier, and authors' use of two languages in one book really exemplifies this concept.

   This book does not aim to teach you either C++ or Fortran, although it does point out some real pitfalls (e.g. in C++, x = a[i] + i++) in each language. Instead, the authors gives you a great foundation, from which you will be able learn generic programming concepts, as well as evaluate programming languages, so that in the future, you should be able to select one that is appropriate for your task at hand. Finally, they authors give great examples of using programming technologies to solve problems of a scientific nature, and he is able to accomplish in less than 300 pages what most books fail to do in three to four times that amount.




3. What set this book apart from other books is that it puts side by side C++ and Fortran. Not only that, it does not waste (your) time and talks about the essentials of these two programming languages in a straightforward away. Things like how to input and output your data, arrays, logical expressions and even "arcane" sujects like pointers and objects are presented in a clear way.
   
   Note, though, that this is an introductory book that is aimed at those that are taking their first steps in C++ and/or Fortran programming. And for an introductory book it does a fine job.