No comments about Dos and Windows Protected Mode: Programming with DOS Extenders in C (The Andrew Schulman Programming Series).

4 comments about Wireless Game Development in C/C++ with BREW (Wordware Game Developer's Library).

1. I just got this book, having pre-ordered it awhile ago. As a BREW games developer, I am finding Mr. Barbagello's explanation of some of the finer points of BREW very useful. I've already had a few "Doh! So *that's* how that works!" moments, and I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in coding applications for BREW. BREW has a definite learning curve to it, but this book could make that much easier. You should have a good grounding in C/C++ before diving in, though, so be warned. The book has an extra section on how to construct BMPs in memory for use in BREW, which sounds easy enough, but if you know anything about BREW, isn't. Overall, a wonderful book I wish I'd had when I was learning BREW.



2. It's amazing that so little has been written on BREW, but with this book the above author is at the forefront of the upcoming tidal wave announcing and providing us an insightful and indepth how to manual on how to develop and publish BREW applications.



3. This book (Wireless game development in c/c++ with brew) was pretty good. It is the best info I can find on the subject. There were only two books that I found about brew the other being Qualcomm Brew platform by Ray Rischpater, but If you are going to become a brew developer it might be in your best interest to drop the 80$ and get both books.
   
   This one was the best out of the two I did get.
   
   Also, even though the book has the words 'game development' in the title, it is a great book for non game dev people. My applications have nothing to do with games.



4. This book is a great gift for BREW developers, Out of two books available for the Qualcomm's BREW this one has definitely more advantages, Even it doesn't matter that you are a Game Developer or not this will help you if you want to a become a BREW developer.
   Amarjeet Singh
   Bangalore India

4 comments about Beginning Mfc Com Programming (Beginning).

1. I found the material in this book to be a bit difficult to follow. Although the author has more than a firm grasp of the topic, he conveys the ideas wthout remorse. If you dont already have a firm grasp on the C++ language and MFC, this book will serve quite nicely as a paperweight.



2. It always make me laugh when I read a review of a book by someone who has done no research to the type of knowledge you must have before reading the book. If you don't know C++ or MFC very well then this book is not for you yet, and if you look at the back of the book you can see it show this to be true. But if you do have a firm grasp of C++ and MFC but lack the understanding of MFC COM then this book can help get you coding MFC COM in no time at all. A fine list of books for further reading in appendix F.



3. This book makes COM easy to understand



4. I thought this book would be great because it talked about COM programming using MFC. Most COM books use SDK code, which is something I wasn't interested in. However, the minute I opened this book, I realized that Mr. Templeman must have wanted to be a college professor. There is way too much detail here, however that wouldn't be a bad thing if it was somewhat organized. Unfortunately, it wasn't and I was deeply disappointed in this book.

1 comments about C Programming in the Berkeley Unix Environment.

1. This has been one of those books that I constantly refer to. Not only is it good for learning some of the unique C things that apply to Unix, but you can also learn how to get around in Unix. This is the book I learned C from, and it's still one of the first ones I go to when I need to refresh my brain about something.

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.

2 comments about Introduction to Engineering Programming: In C, Matlab and Java.

1. I loved the part where the little dog got run over by the truck and little billy ran after him



2. This book is very well put together. The material is presented in, at times, a jovial manner(hard to do with an instructional computer text). It's easy to understand and the authors have an incredible grasp on the subject matter.

5 comments about C++ Footprint and Performance Optimization (Sams Professional).

1. The book is well written but there is not enough facts. Not enough meat for your money.
   The chapter on compilers and profilers is very weak. It talks about the Gnu C++ compiler and mentions MS Visual C++ in short. The Intel compiler is not mentioned even though it is probably the most optimizing compiler for Intel and AMD processors. VTune code analyzer and profiler is the best tool available for measuring code performance and reveil processor stalls. It is not mentioned.
   Performance of different datatypes is handled in 1/3 page and it concludes that integer computations are faster than floating point computations and should be used where ever possible ! "So, to judge whether to replace floats and doubles with integers, an implementer must determine how often the different arithmetic functions are likely to be used" !!. In my world integer and floating point numbers are two entirely different things.
   The chapter about sorting algorithms contains nothing else than any other book on the subject. The O notation is the only thing regarding algorithm performance. The entire chapter looks like something that is thrown in to give the book a little thickness.
   There is no information on modern processors. Data caching and optimizations on it is explained in one page. No such thing as level 1, level 2 caches or cache line splits are mentioned.
   Who cares about printf and putc performance these days.
   The book contains little that could not be found out doing a little timing on a few basic codesnippets by yourself. A lot of easy going language is used - walking carefully around substance without touching it.
   The book can serve as a ligth introduction on code performance for beginning SW developers - nothing else.



2. I kept looking at the heading of a section and going "yah this will be good" but when I read it, it said nothing that was not common knowledge of first year university.



3. Bascially this book does a good job of showing you what's going on behind the scenes when your compiler turns your source-code into a program. And what can go wrong, read: end up being wildly inefficient. The cool thing is, the book not only shows you how to optimize your programmes but also explains exactly when and why certain solutions can enhance your software's performance. I feel I have really gained much needed insight, which makes it possible for me to work out my own solutions to problems concerning stack frames, multitasking, data processing, parsing and so on. And helps me in finding those bugs that seem invisible because they have crept deep into the architecture.



4. This book does a good job of showing how compilers generates applications from your source code. It does explain the pitfalls, the traps and commons mistakes in c++ but only gives the most obvious ones. It is a good entry book for novices but for the others their are better manual out there.



5. Other reviews mentioned that this is not a book for advanced people. That's true. It was very helpful to me, however. I did some C++ and application development in high school, but put it away and didn't think about it much. Now when it came time to perform a computationally-intensive simulation, I found myself with pretty vague knowledge of C++, and how it actually works. This book was exactly at the right level for me. It's a bridge between beginner and intermediate/advanced. Lots of good practical knowledge. Professional yet comprehensible writing style.

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.

1 comments about Introduction to Berkeley UNIX and ANSI C, An.

1. This is a very good book for intro. in programming. There are lots of very examples and explainations of different terms.

   Buy it and you'll enjoy it.

   San Francisco State University also uses this book to teach Computer Science intro.

5 comments about A First Book of C++, From Here to There, Third Edition.

1. C++ is the most difficult programming language to learn, yet Bronson does an excellent job in introducing topics painlessly. This book progresses in a very smooth fashion from topic to topic, and if the reader works all exercises at the end of each section, the concepts will be firmly grasped. Be careful, though, because this book does have quite a few typos, but they are easy to spot since the understanding of the material makes them obvious. The only drawback can be that not all the exercises have answers in the back of the book. Other than that, I would highly recommend this book to someone that wants to understand C++ and get a general knowledge of it, bearing in mind that this book will not make you an expert.



2. I would of never bought this book but it was for a class. Mainly focuses on C and then gets into C++. However my class never made it to the C++ portion where the author introduces OOP and classes. According to my professor, this is a two semester book. However, I learned quite a bit from this book and I already was familar with C and C++. I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn C and C++. However this book is not going to be very helpful for Visual C++ topics but still a good overall starting book on C/C++.



3. This book is very clear, well-organized, and easy to read. The author does an excellent job of explaining programming concepts instead of relying on diagrams to let us know what he's talking about. The sample code is easy to follow. Best of all, the exercises are carefully chosen so that they each represent a unique challenge. You will not get bored or lost in this book. My one complaint is that it doesn't say much about the String class or how to deal with string input (e.g. the common problem of the user entering more characters than you have room for).



4. After struggling with another C++ text I was lucky enough to come across this one. It's very easy to understand provided you didn't fail middle school English and have a decent knowledge of math.
   
   Bronson has saved "average Joes" like myself from pain in programming by making an easy-to-understand volume of C++. Even though it is unlikely I'll ever write another program in any language after taking two programing classes, I do have this laying around just in case.



5. Received book promptly and in great condition. Wish i knew which edition it was before buying but info is same as newer editions.