2 comments about Introduction to Windows and Graphics Programming with Visual C++ .Net.

1. This year I decided to brush-up on my programming skills. I purchased a copy of visual C++ and a couple of books on C++ programing. After a few days of dealing with cat and dog objects I was bored. Then I came upon this book - with its fast pace and easy to understand examples my interest was regenerated. It takes you from "Hello World" to programming using windows with graphics in about 200 pages (a third of the way through the book) or in time, just a coupe of days!
   
   As an ex-engineer with some C experience I found the book doesn't over complicate the subject and enables you to get to results quickly. Obviously the book is missing some details, but you can use your other less interesting C++ books to fill those gaps.



2. This is a very interesting and informative book. I would recommend it for anyone interested in adding graphics to programs. I used it with Visual C++ 6 which made following the examples a little more difficult, but haf no problems creating the programs. My only complaint is that, in many places, the author expects the reader to just load and run the program examples from the included CD-ROM, rather than stepping through the program creation. I find this to be an ineffective way to learn. Overall it's well worth buying, though.

5 comments about C Interfaces and Implementations: Techniques for Creating Reusable Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series).

1. The contents and the theory is really interesting,but IMHO literate programming is Horrible and Confusing and with it you really suffer to follow and understand the code.Also the style is really Horrible,something like that of Microsoft,with all those useless macros used just for being lazy.If you compare the style of the code(the way to present it on the book and the code's style itself) used on this book and that used on the book "Linux Kernel Development" by Robert Love,you could find yourself busy deciding where to expose the latter on your own house to multiply the house's value and where to throw the first just to have no nightmares!(I know that they are 2 completely different books,but here I'm talking only about the style,not the contents)



2. When I migrated from C to Java, one of the clear advantages of the latter was the interface. Built into Java, this is crucial in letting you separate design from implementation. It is very nice to use in Java. Now along comes Hanson with this book. He explains that with care, you can have what amount to interfaces in C.
   
   His methods are by no means as simple as merely using interfaces in Java. Because there is no inherent programmatic construct for it in C. But he describes techniques that you can learn and discipline yourself to follow. The promised end effect is more modular C code.
   
   Note however that this book came out in 96, the same year that Java was released by Sun. At that time, C had a vastly greater base of code, and many more programmers. Yet it is unclear that this book has had much effect on helping C programmers use interfaces. The massive rise of Java implies that the book's efforts were not adequate.



3. I borrowed this book from the company library and now proudly own a copy of my own. Designing large modules of C code isn't a very easy task and the author does a commendable job at instilling a strong sense of OO design in C Code. This book stands at the top of my heap of programming/design books and I would consider it a must read for anyone serious about learning C and Software Design. Yes, do work through an introductory text on C before you get to this. And then dive into the fun ...



4. I felt there were too many specific examples. I was hoping for more theory about HOW to make your code reusable. It seemed he talked as much about writing an efficient algorithm as he did about reusability. I expected a bit more theory on what causes well-intentioned code to end up getting rewritten because it cannot be reused. I also did not really understand his pseudocode notations. I'm not faulting him on that, just making a statement.



5. I purchased this book through Amazon on October 16 2006 11:05 PDT. I finally killed the order this morning because they still can't seem to get it in stock.
   
   Don't get me wrong, this is a great book with many good examples. However, if you want it this century, go check your local computer bookstore because most online retailers are out of stock (including Addison-Wesley themselves).

2 comments about Modeling Maximum Trading Profits with C++: New Trading and Money Management Concepts (Wiley Trading).

1. I am a professional mathematician with a personal interest in mathematical finance and I know the author. I did not expect Dr. Salov to be writing a book but eventually I became one of the first readers. The book focuses on modeling and calculation of the potential profit - a new and fascinating market property. It also contains a gentle introduction explaining basic trading, financial and programming terms and helping better to understand the main topic. Therefore, the book should be interesting for all market participants: trading system developer, trader, theoretician working on finance or someone who wishes to learn the field of trading systems and quantitative finance.
   
   It is interesting that the potential profit, as introduced by Robert Pardo, corresponds to a classical notion of a total variation of a function, the function being the time sequence of prices of a commodity. Computation of the potential profit in the presence of e.g. transaction costs becomes a sophisticated mathematical problem which Dr. Salov solves using the newly suggested r- and l-algorithms. In a systematic way, the author introduces s-function, s-matrix, polarity, s-intervals and proves their properties, producing an effective r- and l-algorithms.
   
   While Robert Pardo introduced potential profit as a new concept, Valerii Salov brings this concept to a substantially higher level. He considers the maximum profit as a market property, which must be combined with a sequence of trading actions - trading strategy. He systematically comes the way from simple market and trading systems performance measures to a powerful and automatic tool filtering the most critical price events. This becomes possible because he takes into account transaction costs such as commissions, slippage, and others. A motivation for each decision leading to the complete software, new algorithms, or money management is carefully explained.
   
   I highly recommend reading this book for anyone interested in development of trading systems and who wants to understand better the work of markets.



2. SUMMARY: A potentially useful concept taken to ridiculous extremes.
   
   The main theme is around the concept of *potential profit* offered by a particular market. When building automated trading strategies or evaluating human trader performance, the problem could be decomposed into a product of some intrinsic profit offered by the market and the percentage of that profit that is captured by a particular trader or strategy. This book spends most of its attention on the former factor and various derived performance metrics.
   
   *Potential profit* is defined by an idealized strategy that has *perfect foresight about all future prices over a given time interval*. In addition to the original concept apparently suggested by Robert Pardo, the book's definition is made more realistic by constraining such a strategy with non-zero transaction costs. Although this connection is not made by the author, the concept is related to those used in offline algorithms and competitive analysis (see, for example, Online Computation and Competitive Analysis): in essence, you want to quantify the amount of *regret* you experience comparing your performance to that of a perfect adversary or algorithm that is allowed to solve the offline version of the same problem (with all of the future data available at the outset).
   
   Three iterations of potential profit algorithms are introduced:
   
   1. "r-/l-algorithms": position size is constrained with a given maximum. The perfect strategy can be proven to be pure reversal -- except for initial and final transactions, the maximum profit is obtained by always switching positions between +max_size and -max_size at certain transaction points. Although the underlying problem could be solved using a generic optimizer, Salov introduces a concept of *s-intervals* that makes it easy to see how the global maximum can be computed with a simple linear algorithm. This algorithm offers conceptual elegance of solving its related problem exactly -- the later two are heuristic improvements for less constrained versions of the problem.
   
   2. "first P&L reserve algorithm": strategy remains a pure reversal strategy but position size is allowed to vary subject only to self-financing/account margin/buying power constraints. #2 can improve on #1 due to increases in account buying power after the initial entry/exit transactions.
   
   3. "second P&L reserve algorithm": same as #2 but the strategy is allowed to change existing positions in between the transaction points used by #1 and #2, i.e. the strategy is no longer pure reversal. Again, #3 can improve on #1 due to increases in account buying power during trading.
   
   Since both #2 and #3 consider how account equity grows over time subject to self-financing restrictions, connections to Kelly/Shannon
   maximum growth rate formulas arise naturally. In later chapters, all algorithms are used to derive performance metrics and to compare potential profits offered by various markets using real-life price data.
   
   Unfortunately, in my view the author should have stopped at #1 and not gone on for 180 more pages. Granted, the overall approach of comparing your actual performance to that of some idealized benchmark strategy is extremely sound and useful. As a benchmark, a single simple idealized strategy is sufficient. But the author does not emphasize enough that the single biggest advantage the idealized strategy has is the perfect knowledge of future prices. Algorithm #1 already has this advantage built in and there seems to be little practical value in gleaning further incremental benefits by adding optimal account growth heuristics. (Optimizing position sizes can't be done in real-life without simultaneously controlling risk etc.) In fact, the last chapter has a cocoa contract example making 13000% returns in just 5 days! Similarly, in some examples algorithms #2 and #3 manage to grow exponentially into such large position sizes that they overflow a 32-bit integer -- it is surprising that the author does not see the ridiculousness of that and reluctantly suggests that the algorithms should be applied to "short time intervals" or "with high transaction costs".
   
   Other book shortcomings that seemed glaring to me:
   
   - only deterministic strategies are considered. Real-life strategies have to incorporate uncertainty modeling in their decisioning. Furthermore, deterministic-only strategies can't reach Nash equilibria for some problems.
   
   - only two commission cost models are considered: fixed per transaction and cost as a function of instrument price. Something like cost/share would invalidate much of the discussion.
   
   - because they have perfect price foresight all idealized algorithms unavoidably go wild on max'ing out position sizes. In real life, risk management constraints on open positions can kick in sooner than margin constraints, unless you are diversified across many positions (situation not considered in the book).
   
   - after observing how much the transaction costs can impact these idealized strategies, the author nonetheless goes on and makes very ballpark guesses about slippage etc -- it seems incongruent after all that energy spent on perfecting those strategies.

5 comments about Modern Multithreading : Implementing, Testing, and Debugging Multithreaded Java and C++/Pthreads/Win32 Programs.

1. I think it was a pretty decent writing but certain parts can be hard to follow and i thought a combination of code + graphics would make it an even better read



2. This book is simply excellent. I have already completed my bachelors degree in Computer Science, which means I only had a basic understanding of threading from my Distributed Computing class. So, I knew a whole bunch of thread jargon and slightly understood how threads are created and what the critical section problem is, as well as a basic understanding of how semaphores can solve the problem. Beyond that, the book has taught me what goes on behind the scenes of thread creation and why critical sections can be so complicated. The average Computer Science student is not interested in how it works behind the scenes, only how to make it work for their current needs. This book, while useful to a more adept coder, will not quickly and easily fulfill that requirement. It is definitely geared toward those that are really serious about multithreading and intend to test/use their threading knowledge over and over again. If that is you and you don't really understand threading too well, this book can take you from novice to expert in only a few months.
   
   I'd definitely recommend it to my co-workers!



3. this book is awesome and also very clear to understand, it help you fix very common mistakes with real life examples. all the code is focused on a common classes between C++/java, the only cons is this book don't use linux pthreads instead use win32 version of pthreads so be carefull because the examples on their website won't compile in linux without adjustment.



4. As a Java engineer, I cannot really recommend this book. While the authors are definitely knowledgeable about their subject, they do not do a good job in communicating their knowledge to a reader. The book reads like a doctoral thesis, poorly organized, not well laid out. Brian Goetz book on Concurrency is a much better book.



5. Even though title suggests it is 'modern multithreading', this book reiterates typical multithreading issues. However subjects addressed are not presented well enough and code snippets are not explained properly.

3 comments about Applied C: An Introduction and More.

1. This book is very wonderful for students in freshman. Very detail examples.. best Algorithms.. This is the most beautiful Book of Introduction of C. ...



2. i'm learning this book in Chinese edition,it's different from the books that written by Chinese authors.



3. I went to Univ of New Haven, home of both Alice Fischer and David Eggert, and I took the Intro to C Programming course. Consider that NOTHING in the book corresponds to anything in the class (which was also put together by Fischer), and we're off to a lousy start already.
   
   Since you're probably not planning to go to UNH, I'll stick to reviewing the book. In a nutshell, it's awful. Fischer & Co keep forgetting that this is supposed to be an INTRODUCTION to C, not an all-purpose compendium of all C knowledge. There's no rhyme or reason to the layout, and the self-test questions at the end of each chapter test you on topics that weren't even IN the preceding chapter. The writers make no attempt to explain just what the heck they're talking about, ever, and it also suffers from Lazy Example Syndrome, in that the examples given in the text are several orders of magnitude simpler than anything they ask you to do yourself. In short, the book makes no attempt to explain anything, ever.
   
   I need to reiterate what I started with: I took the class that this book was written for, and even in that setting, it was completely incomprehensible. I can't even imagine how useless this book would be on its own. Avoid it at all costs. If you see a copy laying on the sidewalk, don't pick it up. If your friend wants to give you his copy, find a new friend.

5 comments about Learning Microsoft Office 97.

1. I have been using these books for over 3 years in my computer classes at the high school and in the adult learning classes in the evening. It's easy to folow and offers mouse and keyboard methods with clear, easy to follow exercises. I have purchased over 50 books for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Windows 95 and Access classes. These books are hard to find in my area (syracuse, New York).



2. Bravo, bravo! This is the best self-taught or instructed book I have ever used! The explanations, examples and exercises are easy to understand and perform. I keep my book on the job and it occasionally disappears. Everyone that has borrowed it with or without my permission, tell me, it's really a great book. I have purchsed additional copies for my husband, daughter and friends. Thank you, ladies!



3. I bought this book based on the good reviews here. I'm looking at taking my expert MOUS exams and am looking for something geared to that. This book advertises it's Microsoft Certification, but it's not for someone who is already a proficient user. If you want to know how to use menus, wizards and hotkeys, this is your text. If you want to learn about cross-tab queries, macro coding and exporting to ASP, this is not your book.



4. This book helped me learn office 97 verly quickly. The CD that it comes with cuts down your typing time so you have more time to work with the program. It only took me about 1 and a half months to learn how to use every office program (Word, Excel, PPT, and Access). A great gift idea for anyone that needs help with word processing.



5. A very handy book, especially for people proficient in Word but not the rest of Office. If you fit this category, you will use it all the time. Nothing fancy, but it accurately and briefly describes using the Office applications on projects start to finish, as well as how to make corrrections and improvements after the fact. Good for people that need to get up and running with Excel and Access in a hurry. No wasted words. Spiral binding has been durable.

2 comments about Pro Visual C++ 2005 for C# Developers (Pro).

1. If you are a C# programmer interested in C++/CLI, look no further. I felt like the book was specially written for me :-)
   It is written in a very clear and pragmatic manner. I am glad that the author kept the book short so that you can read through all the main points and explore further on your own. Excellent book.



2. Swimming upstream is never easy.
   
   Learning C++ if your primary language is (and has always been) C# is exactly like swimming upstream: C# is, in a sense, a much simplified version of C++. So, you're going to have to learn how to do easy things a harder way.
   
   One (traditional) way of learning C++ is to grab a good book and kinda learn a new language. But it might take a while to figure out how to apply the programming knowledge you already have to the language which is new for you.
   
   This book makes the process of adjusting your existing C# knowledge to be able to do the same things in C++, far less painful and time-consuming.
   
   The book starts with a brief overview of the main differences between C# and C++/CLI (C++ 2005) syntax, and shows how to convert a simple (but not as simple as "Hello world"!..) console application from C# to C++. The subsequent chapters dig deeper into more advanced stuff you need to know about C++/CLI.
   
   By the way, the author is one of the world's leading experts in C++.
   I don't know if he has ever taught any classes, but the fact is, this book is unbelievably easy to read.
   
   Also, unlike many other books on programming, this book does NOT bore you to death by a 100-pages introduction and history of the language. A few pages of introduction... and you're already starting up your Visual Studio!
   
   I highly recommend this book.
   
   I only wish it was twice as big...

4 comments about Computing Concepts with C++ Essentials.

1. I am currently in Engineering at the University of Waterloo, and forced to take a C++ course. I was nervous at first, but the cover of this book helped me a little. The cover is kind of cheasy, but the cover holds the best written programming book I have ever read. The ideas are simplified and analogies used wisely. The questions were even good enough for the teacher to give on the assignments! If you are learning C++, or want to refresh then this book is a MUST!



2. A novice C++ programmer was forced to use this book to learn C++ (some silly course requirement). As an experienced developer and C++ user I was frequently asked for help with the programs in this book. I was aghast at the ridiculous premise of the book - try to make C++ look like Java! The author uses his own classes to make C++ programs look like an easier OO language. Of course, this bit of information is not passed on to the reader. So the unfortunate victim painstaking types out the program into the compiler (in this case VC++ 5.0) and of course nothing works (the fact that he uses the latest ANSI standard which is unsupported by all but the latest compilers does not help!). The book keeps the reader in the dark about the fact that there was a world before ANSI.

   What a waste of a good many trees. I'm sure the book is useful to more advanced programmers, but my friend picked up Stephen Prata's book and finally began to understand the language.

   Do yourself a favor and drop this book immediately, if you happen to pick it up.




3. This is not the book to buy if you wish to learn C++. If Dave in Ohio read the preface, the author clearly states that "the purpose of the book is to teach computing concepts, not C++, which is just a tool toward that end." We are using this book in my Intro to Programming class and it has proved to be both well-written and useful.



4. This is a very academic book. So beware.

   We used it in our C++ course which followed along with fine. The teacher kept the pace going by doing his own created examples and lab assignments and towards the end the pace heated up a bit as we went on to OOP, which in the book is a bit weak, so you had to basically take full-on notes.

   What the book does is basically set out the structures in C++ over a series of long explanations. I'd say it waffles on a lot but that's the nature of a lot of academic books regardless of subject.

   It's better explained as a good read from cover to cover but not as a stop and go source of reference. If your angle is more "teach yourself" go for one of the wrox or o'reilly titles.

   If you're completely new to programming there are easier languages to learn first. C++ is a bit of a sledgehammer because it is hardcore.

3 comments about C++ Standard Library Practical Tips (Programming Series).

1. The C++ Standard Library is a series of routines that comes with the official version of the language. They are well written, carefully defined routines that accomplish many tasks that turn out to be common to many programs. The routines in the library are efficient enough that they are probably better than the average programmer can write. They are reasonably convenient and safe. Unfortunately, clarity, consistency, and ease of use were not part of the design goals.
   
   The library can be divided into classifications:
   
   The Standard Template Library:
   Algorithms Iterators
   Containers
   Numerics
   
   The C++ Standard Library:
   Language Support
   C Library
   Input/Output
   Locales
   Strings
   Utilities
   Diagnostics.
   
   This book is a guide to the hundred routines in the library. There is some general overall information about each class of library routine, then there is a two to four page description of each routine. The routines will make it easier and faster to write good programs.



2. Both beginning and advanced programmers receive a standard collection of tips on using C++'s Standard Library feature and its Standard Template Library in common programming routines with the powerful book by Greg Reese C++ Standard Library Practical Tips. A CD-ROM accompanies a reference offering over a hundred solutions for programs from handling different values to getting a C-style array from a vector and finding medians and modes. Tips on algorithms, containers, numerical processing and more hold plenty of examples and usage insights. A recommended, standard pick for any working regularly in C++.



3. This volume is definitely worth a read or two, if you want to open your eyes to a variety of applications of STL containers and algorithms. For people already into the practice and way of using STL on a regular basis, it gives you reinforcement and validation that you did good and right in your previous work. Even if you are good already, you may still learn a trick or two here and there through the pages. One of the things I wasn't aware is that a member function must be a const one (calling it won't change the state of the object) if used with a binder (bind1st or bind2nd).
   
   IMHO, the set of books in the "C++ In Depth" series, edited by Bjarne Stroustrup and published by Addison-Wesley, belong to the first tier, high quality, and highly intellectual. A number of others in the "Professional Computing" series under the aegis of Brian Kernighan, such those by Scott Meyers, belong to the 1st tier, too. There are surely others as well.
   
   One characteristic of the 1st tier works is that they don't spell out all the gory details; they stop short, rightfully, at elaborating on too practical side of things. That is where books such as this particular one come in to fill the void. In terms of quality and content of writing, they may be (and in many cases, in fact) not as rigorous as those in the 1st tier, but they help you see things about which beans are spilled. BTW, an example of 1st tier books about STL in particular is certainly Josuttis' "The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference."

5 comments about C++: The Complete Reference.

1. This is a very handy book to have as a companion when programming. Schildt does an excellent job explaining in detail OOP and its concept as well as the STL. However, one must be fluent in C++ code (syntactically and semantically), the examples can easily confuse the beginner. It's a very handy college reference, it sat next to me through my second semester of C++ programming.



2. I love this book. Unlike most books that teach only the basics of c++ this goesmuch farther in depth and not only that it tells you new stuff about thestuff you already know. Also It gives you an explantions on why things work they do in c++. I've browsed through several c++ books and this book I found to be the best. It clearly live up to its title



3. This book is very comprehensive and it has helped me in select topic areas, but I find it to be incomplete or inadequately explained in some topic areas.
   
   This book takes a syntactically functional overview of C++ and not an object-oriented overview. Thus, it is very hard to find topics on major concepts within the book as they are presented in pieces throughout the book. I had a difficult time finding for example topics relating to "const". Some material was sparsely covered in the "C Subset of C++" part, but one couldn't see how this relates to classes, e.g. const member functions and data. I did eventually find the const member function, which by the way was not indexed, in the chapter "Namespaces, Conversion Functions, and Other Advanced Topics" (page 609). I could never find information about using const variables in classes and how to properly initialize them, which is done through a member initialization list. I had to get this information from another book.

   This book is a decent reference, but it is hard to find out to accomplish major OOD concepts. For those never exposed to programming, this might be a good reference book. But for those that know OOD concepts, and need to know how to implement a particular concept, they'll need to sleuth through the book to piece together tokens of information, and even still might not see the whole picture.




4. This is an outstanding C++ reference and is very readable - I read the entire book over the period of just a week. It is also an outstanding C language reference and teaches C as the subset of C++ that it is. This book isn't a textbook, however, and lacks exercises but illustrates the C++ language with good examples throughout. Highly recommended as a reference if not a tutorial. After studying the C++ language almost daily for over a year now I have come to the conclusion that most likely a programmer isn't going to draw his C++ knowledge from just one book - atleast,in my case, I have had to read several books to get it right. I offer this to the reviews/criticisms of a single book falling short in some respect.



5. While this book does touch on many of the features of C++, it doesn't discuss them in enough detail to make them useful.
   
   Motivation is particularly lacking: even when the book explains a given feature, it doesn't provide much guidance (if any) on why the feature exists or how it's useful. For example, friend classes are mentioned, but the description of why you might want to use such a thing is completely absent. There's just a statement that, "Friend classes are seldom used. They are supported to allow certain special case situations to be handled." That explanation is a poor substitute for a brief statement about why they're seldom used (data encapsulation violation) and when it might be appropriate to use them.
   
   The section on wide character functions is similarly lacking. The book describes what they are and how to manipulate them, but it is completely silent on why wide characters exist and the implications of using an ASCII character array (very poor internationalization). This is almost unforgivable in the era of global software.
   
   The section on the STL is hard to read and skimpy on detail. The templates chapter is likewise thin; after reading through it, I was still unable to do anything useful with templates. The section just left too many questions unanswered.
   
   That said, I refer quite often to the sections on operator overloading and exception handling. For me, those are the shining stars in this book (although, again, motivation for using them is lacking).