4 comments about Beginning C# Web Applications with Visual Studio .NET.

1. As a technical reviewer of this book I found it to have a good mix of technical content and explaination which is ideal for helping developers to get started with ASP.NET.

   The book explores various areas of key functionality within ASP.NET and supports it with a sample application. I'd recommend this book to anyone who hasn't had any experience with ASP.NET before and who want to get some understanding before undertaking a project.




2. Being new to .Net and redirecting my career into software development, I've found Daniel's book to be one of most well written and insightful books on C# and Visual Studio.net. He moves quickly into the nuts and bolts of the .Net classes and provides innovative code that go beyond the obvious. You are given multiple methods of handling logic in the same code-behind. The authors cleared much confusion I had about server controls, data binding and ADO.Net. Readers will appreciate the applications development approach in the book which goes beyond theory and shows you how to apply your skills in solving real-world problems. I recommend you write the code yourself line by line and read the book cover to cover. He leads you step by step. You will discover the finer points of VS.net, not to mention the many properties of the .Net classes with Intellisense. I also like the SQL data interaction because this is so important with our customers. I highly recommend it!



3. Before reading this book I had developed a few simple web applications, but I was ready for a more in depth approach utilizing all of the excellent features provided by .NET. This book covers a lot of the basic topics that will allow you to write code efficiently and quickly. Of course since there are a wide range of topics, one finds that some of them fail to go into great detail, but this is not even an issue as the author gives you enough information and examples to be able to figure it out for yourself, or at least to give you a solid foundation for solving the problem. The only downside is that, as far as I know, the code examples do not exist on Wrox's website. Perhaps I couldn't find them? It's not really a big issue because most of the code is easy to follow. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants beginning/intermediate information regarding State Management, Data Binding, ADO, UI/Web Controls, Basic Security and more.



4. As a beginner to Web Applications, i found this book extremely easy to understand. The book covers all the topics necessary to get going to develop a complete basic web application. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants information regarding State Management, Data Binding, ADO, UI/Web Controls, Basic Security etc. Also, this book would be very useful to anyone who has little or no experience with ASP.NET before and who want to get their basics right before plunging on to a project. Great book!!

3 comments about Crash Course in C (Programming series).

1. Like the title suggests, the book is fast paced. It quickly goes through basic principles and then gets into heavier data structures. Inadequate time is spent on the harder material, and there are no exercises anywhere. It is not possible to gain a working knowledge of C from this book.



2. I've used this book in preparing a three day "crash course" in C. I found the reference material invaluable when creating my presentation. The easy access to information and the clear, concise descriptions were just what I needed when preparing slides. I would recommend this book to any moderately experienced C programmer who has to teach C to others. I have also encountered one of my peers who used this book to learn C and he found it extremely helpful in learning C from the ground up.



3. This book is a great book to learn C or simply reviewing C. Paul Perry and Stephen Potts do a great job of presenting C in a concise easy-to-read book. I wonder if Paul Perry is related to Greg Perry???
   
   Since I'm an occasional programmer, I needed a book to review C without wading through a 600-page text. So, for a review of C, this book is excellent, even though the book was published in the mid-1990s. Yes, a few things have changed. But, most of it's relevant. But it's only 240 pages!
   
   So many books are big 1000 page door stops that are great for initially learning C. This book, "Crash Course in C" not only makes a great review guide, it also makes a handy quick-reference. So, if you've been programming in Java or Visual Basic and need to get back into C without boring yourself to death, then get this books!

3 comments about Practical Computer Vision Using C.

1. For those of you looking to enter the wild and wacky world of image processing, this book is all you need! It starts at a very basic and understandable level and leads you gently into an the area of computer imaging and image processing by matrix manipulation. Although this book is written, as its title suggests, for C programming, it gives a good basis for image processing in any language. The code examples are extremely useful if you are using C but you will soon find yourself confident enough to write your own. This is a definite must for all you budding image processors. Enjoy!



2. This is a beginners book for grey and bi-level image processing. This book is kept in a simple language, and is mathematically not too demanding either. However, it covers a lot of printed source code which is not supplied on a cd or floppy.

   Most mathematical equations are given in blocks of C-code, so that the reader first has to figure out what the relevant mathematical equation might be. This book demands only some basic understanding of C, and as the author righly says (p.124): "Although the philosophy in this book is to present code that is as clear and simple as possible, rather than presenting the niftiest algorithms and most highly optimized coding technique, it should be pointed out that there are faster ways to scan through all of the pixels of an image".




3. This is a beginners book for grey and bi-level image processing. This book is kept in a simple language, and is mathematically not too demanding either. However, it covers a lot of printed source code which is not supplied on a cd or floppy.

   Most mathematical equations are given in blocks of C-code, so that the reader first has to figure out what the relevant mathematical equation might be. This book demands only some basic understanding of C, and as the author righly says (p.124): "Although the philosophy in this book is to present code that is as clear and simple as possible, rather than presenting the niftiest algorithms and most highly optimized coding technique, it should be pointed out that there are faster ways to scan through all of the pixels of an image".

No comments about Essentials of C++: A Lab Course Through Arrays.

No comments about Windows Animation Programming With C++.

5 comments about Rescued By C++ 3E.

1. When I was learning C++, I stumbled around with the "learn c++ in 21 days"-type books and then a friend recommended this one to me.

   It really is excellent. However, I do recommend learning C before you learn C++....

   It goes over the features of C++ well, with plenty of examples.

   Although, I kind of wish it had programming exercises along with it...




2. For those of us who know all too well that buying the wrong books can be costly monetarily and also of precious shelf space, not to mention a deterant towards learning due to improper instruction. This book recieves my highest acclaims and is worthy of purchase. I knew nothing of C++ programming and in just studying the first 50 pages, I began writing simple programs to increase my retention. I highly recommend that the reader purchase a complimentary book like, Ivor Horton's, "Beginning Visual C++ 6" and Microsoft's, "Visual C++ 6.0 standard edition" compiler. With these proper tools, consider yourself equiped and ready to handle C++! Enjoy!



3. The book covered everything I needed for my data structures class -- structures, arrays, classes, even some basic polymorphism.

   Wish it covered more windows API programming ...

   It was great for my Unix/Linux environment.




4. The book promises you can complete each of its 30+ lessons in 10 to 15 minute sessions ...

   I may be a slow typist -- I think I probably spent 30 minutes with most lessons -- but then, I experimented some.

   Book is very easy to follow. I had not programmed before ... didn't own a compiler (there is one on the CD -- so I have still never bought one ...)

   I was did great with the basics. I am still working through the inheritance and polymorphism (which I didn't know was a word ... which may add to my lesson time). I will get there -- I start with the code on the CD-ROM -- normally experiment enough to make things stop working -- but the book normally gets me back on track.

   Wish this guy had a book on Visual Basic.




5. This is an excellent C++ book to learn from (which I did many years ago) but most recently a quick 2 hours refresher using this book allowed me to succeed in a job interview including technical test when I hadn't used C++ for many years.

2 comments about Problem Solving in C++ Including Breadth and Laboratories.

1. This book is an average introduction to the C programming language. While it is not terrible, there are certainly far better books available. I would recommend "The Art and Science of C" by Prof. Eric Roberts, as well as his follow-up, "Programming Abstractions in C." These books truly teach you efficient and effective program design, as well as discussing a variety of topics in a non-condescending yet easy-to-read manner.



2. I've taught a college level "Fundamentals of Programming" course twice using this book. Each chapter has two parts. The first part is a not particularly well written description of the language or a topic such as binary numbers. The second part, the "Breadth" part, contains, historical, philosophical, or other material to expand the subject or to be the focus of discussions.

   I would have much preferred using the Sams "Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days" for the language part and using the web to supply the material covered in the "Breadth" sections. The 21 Day book covers each language topic more thoroughly and in a more traditional order than Shiftlet's book.

   We jokingly refer to the book as "Causing Problems in C++." Although I thought that Shiftlet's introduction of functions early on in the book was a good step, the organization of the book causes problems.

   Two examples will suffice. The book uses the #include statement to include a local file, but this statement isn't explained until two chapters later. The first example of classes is unnecessarily complex and contains a method which yields an invalid result for the year 2000. The author planned it this way but the student won't find that out until many chapters later when the student has to rewrite that method to produce the correct result.

   Looking for a good textbook? Keep looking.

5 comments about Java(TM) Essentials for C and C++ Programmers.

1. A very good and easy to read book on Java. It is fun to read and to follow through. One can easily digest it in a few days and take a great advantage of previous C/C++ experience. It is lucid and clear and has a very good structure. What I missed was a section on JDBC and AWT 1.1, but for what it covers, it is more than worth the money. One of the best introductory Java books in the market.




2. This book should have been titled "Java Essentials for C and C++ Bashing". The author starts in the introduction with "...think of this book as a superconducting supercollider [which] takes C/C++, positions it in a bubble chamber, and then hurls Java at it....".

   I expected to see an insightful guide showing the similarities between C++ and Java - so as to instruct the C++ programmer's intuition to make Java obvious and natural.

   I saw an author who learned C++ without making the paradigm shift to objects - in the author's own words "C++ enables you to define and create objects, but that's as far as the language and its libraries go". The author literally sees C++ as no more than C with Classes - from the introduction "The early chapters show you the paradigm shifts you'll make when programming in Java rather than in C and C++". Had the author read Stroustrup's book "The Design and Evolution of C++", this book on Java might have turned out better.

   Instead of using C++ as an aid by showing the similarities to Java, the author seeks to maximize the differences. For example, instead of comparing Java object variables to the similar concept of C++ reference variables, the author compares them to C++ pointer variables. In the "Hello, World!" example, Java's main() is declared to be superior to that of C/C++. In another example, Java code that is supposedly equivalent to some C++ code is actually enhanced in order to show Java's "ease of development" for subsequently integrating a graphics interface. There is also a "my libraries are better than your libraries" game - in one example the author says "The major difference is, of course, that C++ does not define a base class called Object in the C++ libraries".

   To the book's credit, it does spend some time on Java's Graphics and Web capabilities, as do most of the newer Java books. Even so, the author points out what he sees as assumed deficiencies in C and C++ (at he beginning of chapter 6 [Text-Based Applications] the author says "Chapters 7 [Graphical Applications] and 8 [Applets on the Web] are based on graphical user interfaces, so they don't have C or C++ examples that correspond directly").

   I cannot say that this author is a Java evangelist since that would imply that he had a good understanding of how Java really compares to other object oriented languages. Instead, he will have to be relegated to the Java bigot heap.

   Whatever else this book is, it is not "...for C and C++ Programmers" - I have to recommend a NO BUY for this book.




3. I picked the book out of dozens on the shelf based on its title. It *may* be a good book on Java (I don't know, since I don't know Java yet). But it certainly is not a book for C++ programmer. In the first two hours of reading it, I picked at least a dozen cases when the author didn't bother to find the C++ concept corresponding to the Java concept he introduced. The unimportant differences are exaggerated beyond reason. The subtle but important differences or similarities are apparently not known to the author.



4. I read through about 3/4 of the book before turning to the Deitel text instead. I found the Boone book to have several errors, and I thought the examples did not illustrate the points well. I thought that I could leverage my C++ experience best with this book, and I probably did get a fast superficial understanding in the first few chapters, but I am not sure it is a worthwhile purchase.



5. A long time ago I was a long time C/C++ programmer. I was looking for a book that could take me from C -> C++ -> Java. Mr. Boone's book does a very good job of accomplishing this.

   I found the book an easy read and the examples very reader friendly. He spends a lot of time and detail explaining the migration of code syntax, in straight forward examples and helps the reader move into OOP concepts. The book could easily be subtitled "Transitioning to OOP for old C guys".

   Sticking with the platform-independent nature of the JAVA language, Mr. Boone tries to be non-platform specific, yet in doing so somehow comes across as anti-Microsoft, which I'm finding out is quite popular in books on JAVA. Bottom line, since I own a copy of Microsoft's Visual J++, I found some of the examples hard to get working. This was a bit fustrating, but learned a lot more about VJ++ in the process. I got a sense that if I had a SUN computer, the examples would work flawlessly.

   Once Mr. Boone gets through the easy examples, "Hello World", goes inta, goes outa, classes, etc., he kind of blows through several applications and implimentations, some of which could be useful. By then, I was ready for a book that went deeper in to the lanugage.

   Although I found the book to be tailor made for the likes of me, I do not think it is an obvious choice for beginning or advancing one's understanding of the language. For me, it accomplished exactly what the title states.

2 comments about Bitmapped Graphics Programming in C++.

1. In theory this is a good book. It gives better than average explanations of the various graphic formats. However, the source code modules are antiquated (dated) and quite inter-dependent as well as X86 platform dependent. Many of the dependency modules are indeed, assembly modules. This renders the book all but useless for the programmer who needs a quick, plug in type solution



2. Although at this late date the book is quite dated, the material is well presented and well written. The presentation of graphics formats is very good.

2 comments about C++ Primer Plus.

1. This a great book for those who have no programming experiance. It teaches the basics of OOP and C++, as well as good programming style. Questions with answers and programming exercises make this a great book for teaching or self-directed study. However, since it assumes no programming knowledge, it can be tedious for those who already know C. If you already know C another book would be a better idea.



2. This book is the reason I decided to become a computer scientist. The deepness of information provided, the great examples, and particularly useful exercises were instrumental in getting past my fear of "coding". I still use the book from time to time to read over basic c++ concepts that I may have forgotten. It's the best beginner book out there!