5 comments about Lisp (3rd Edition).

1. Keeping with the Pragmatic Programmers goal of learning a new programming language a year I have decided to learn Lisp this year. Over the last few months I have purchased many books on the topic. While this book was not the first book on Lisp I purchased, if I had to pick one book for the purposes of just learning the language this would be it. However, once beyond just initial stages, especially if you are already a programer like myself, then this book becomes less important. Which is fine because I don't think the purpose of the book was written for more advanced developers.



2. Whether your interest is learning a LISP dialect (new or old) or just a general interest in artificial intelligence, you can start with this book. The exercises are concise, clear, and useful in real-world applications. After all these years, there is still not a better primer. A must have for anyone interested in LISP programming.



3. This is a very nice introduction to Common Lisp. It is not advanced at all, and I feel like several things are missing from the book. For example, the chapter that introduces macros does not teach you how to deal with variable capture and other macro-related issues; The condition system is not explained at all; and all chapters from the first part of the book seem to be a bit superficial.
   
   Anyway, it's a fairly nice book, particularly for people who are totally new to Lisp.
   
   The second part of the book is something like an introduction to AI in Lisp (but "AI as it was in the 80's" -- not that it's bad, but lots of things happened in AI since then).



4. I have been through Gentle Introduction by Touretsky, ANSI Common by Graham, and Practical Common LISP ....all pissed me off. This book is what I have been waiting for, a BEGINNER BOOK, I am on chapter 3 and many of the concepts I have learned before are sinking in with this book. Lisp is fun and easy. I am using linux and vi editor with set: ai lisp option once I open vi. I load my definitions by launching clisp -i myfile.txt. There is a typo on p39 where the second both-ends definition should have LAST not REST. This made me blink until I realized it is a typo. Just above both-ends is defined correctly. It is obvious AFTER you see it let me tell you... lol The only other thing that is bad is that the right page text has a nice 2 inch space away from the book binding so it is easy to read. The left page reversed this and put the 2 inches of space on the outside away from the binding, so the text is right up against the book binding. If this is reprinted they should fix that.....hard to read many practice problems on left page since the text on the left page curves so hard toward the book binding since this is a huge tome.
   AWESOME BOOK!! COMMON LISP NEEDED IT!!



5. I bought this book interested in AI applications; I already knew LISP when I read it and I find it one of the best books for introduction to LISP. The text and samples themselves teach you how to learn.

3 comments about XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)).

1. This is a handy little pocket book that covers the essentials of XSLT. It's far better than the stuff you will find on the W3C site, and it won't break your back like Michael Kay's excellent, but hefty, work. I have to ding it a little for lack of a complete reference on XPath. There is certainly information about the functions, but I would have like to have seen more depth on it. And the XPath appendix wasn't helpful. A language definition is definitely not what I was looking for there. Some common examples of XPath usage would be great.



2. XSLT is one of those technologies that takes awhile to get the hang of. Once you've learned the basics, you'll end up needing to refer back to reference material often. One way to make that process a bit quicker would be to have a copy of Even Lenz's XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference on hand...
   
   Contents: Data Model; The XPath Language; How XSLT Works; Elements; Functions; Extending XSLT; XPath 1.0 Grammar; XSLT Pattern Grammar; Index
   
   Looking at the back cover, the impression is such that you could use this book to get "up to speed quickly" on XSLT. Perhaps you could, but if this was your first and only exposure to XSLT and it works out that way, you're a far better IT professional than I am. The information is concise and correct, to be sure. But it's not going to walk you through the subject in a tutorial fashion. Conversely, if you understand the basics and need a quick visual reference on how to use a feature, say like , this book shines. You don't have to wade through a dozen pages of conversation to find out the format and syntax. Two pages total in this book, and you have all the details. And that's what an O'Reilly's Pocket Reference title is for...
   
   If you're working with XSLT already and need that "cheat sheet" material, I'd recommend this book. You'll get a lot of value from it. If you're looking to learn XSLT, you'll probably want to start with something more tutorial in nature first. Once you've got that down, head over here for ongoing reference...



3. This book represents an amazing feat of distilling all you really need
   to know about XSL into 170 pocket-sized pages. What's more amazing
   is that an experienced developer with little prior XML/XSL experience
   can actually learn enough from this little gem to write competent XSL.
   
   A reference manual AND quality tutorial in 1/20th the space (and dead
   trees) of most tech books these days. I've recommended this to several
   of my colleagues who had to get up to speed on XSL for a new project,
   and the reaction from them is the same as mine.... This was EXACTLY
   what I needed.

2 comments about Professional Windows PowerShell Programming: Snapins, Cmdlets, Hosts and Providers (Wrox Professional Guides).

1. I've been developing PowerShell cmdlets for the past year and half for the PowerShell Community Extensions project. I really wish I had this book when I started. It would have saved me a ton of time. Having everything documented in one place alone would have been a huge timesaver. The examples in the book are really good and should give any would-be developer of PowerShell cmdlets or providers a huge jumpstart. One minor quibble is that the formatting on some of the sample code output wraps making it harder to interpret the results. Other than that it is a fantastic compendium of the knowledge necessary to start knocking off some heavy duty cmdlets and providers.



2. This very well may be the only decent book regarding PowerShell programming beyond the ordinary PS scripts. If you want to create your own CmdLets, Providers, etc this is the only book I've found that gets you there.
   
   With that said, despite the authors' efforts the book feels more like a reference than a tutorial. The authors' expertise is so deep sometimes they forget to explain all the "obvious" things.
   
   For example, when the PSObject class gets presented to the reader the details are outstanding, as always, but there's very little effort devoted to explaining why this class is needed at all. I've seen other books do better in that matter.
   
   A different example: If you've created your own CmdLets, you already know you can derive from CmdLet or PSCmdLet, the latter being a subclass of the former with additional features but additional requirements. The book totally avoids this discussion (did I miss it?) and PSCmdLet gets used exclusively all over the chapter without telling the reader why.
   
   Don't get me wrong, this is a wonderful book and honestly, I may come back in a few weeks to update this review and give the book an additional star. But I'm the kind of guy that always needs the "Why" before the "How".

5 comments about C: The Complete Reference, 4th Ed..

1. I got this book as one of my first for programming a few years ago. I was able to compile some programs and have a basic idea of how the language worked. But it was really hard absorbing all of the information with just this book. It was the only thing I had to learn programming at first. When I took a class in high school for C, all of the information really came together. I knew everything we did in that class and then some. But the information gets a little dry. This book does what it is supposed to, though. If you spent enough time with it, you could very well learn how to program. But for me, I couldn't read it front to back like I had wanted to as a new programmer.
   
   I suggest buying a companion book or taking a class before buying a reference book. After you learn how to think like a programmer, thats when you buy a reference book. Learning a language without knowing how to apply it was getting me nowhere. Great book though; I'm just throwing out a warning for anyone that is considering getting into programming, and using this as your first book.



2. This is an excellent reference book for C programming. I have been programming in C for a year now and this book has proved to be a valuable addition to my collection of C texts. The book is not designed for persons who wish to start programming in C for the first time. However, even if you are a beginner in C this book will be a tremendous asset to you, especially as you become more advanced in the C language. The standard libraries are covered in detail and accompany lots of examples. Most of the concepts of the C language are explained clearly and are accompanied by suitable examples. There are some areas that are a bit vague but this is more than compensated for by examples. I recommend this book for anyone who wishes to program in the C language but note this book alone will not be enough. It is a 'must have' in your collection but to get a full understanding of some of the C concepts you will need to have more C literature.



3. This was my first purchase from amazon and I was totally impressed by the quality of the product and the service!



4. [Helpful? Not? Please vote.] :: Mr. Hayes is undoubtedly a competent C programmer. This book isn't intended for him, nor anyone else who patently needs no introduction to the basics. For example: If you know and understand and can recognize fundamental differences between compilers (perhaps you've written a compiler or two yourself?) ... you likely don't need this book. If you know and understand different program extensions or have a nuts-n-bolts understanding of portability issues ... you likely don't need this book. If you're porting code across platforms in the first place ... I digress. I just hated to see the first review of this book rate it so poorly by being so obviously slanted or geared to the competent and experienced programmer ... Similarly, "Green Eggs and Ham" isn't really a Comparative Literature text either.
   
   This book is for new-ish programmers. I think it's specifically for undergrads who don't want to memorize the minutia of every single string function in C. Plain, vanilla C-code is all about syntax, order of operation and algorithms of the native functions. Most students understand how to solve labs on paper, but can't translate it to the infernal foreign language that is C-code. C is no mystery, and it's about exactness and handling every single possible input. It's also about reserved words, declaring and using data types and structures, and basically completing lab assignments, for the first 3 years or so. After that, C, C++, JAVA, whatever ... you know programming, and can find out what you need to complete any program in any language once you have the basics well in hand. Having taught at the University level, I find Schildt to be very good at making Sophomores out of Freshmen, and Juniors out of Sophomores. Beyond that, it's only a once-in-a-while grab to look up some small thing or another ...
   
   I used this book for undergrad and grad CS studies. It is THE preeminent reference for plain, vanilla C-language coding. It has data types, quirky ways compliers and loaders treat certain operations, and lots of "details" that you just can't and probably shouldn't remember unless you use them every day. This is the encyclopedia of C-language details, in a reference format; something lacking from K&R's books, which can have you searching and reading on a topic for some time, only to find an answer of limited utility. I do LOVE K&R's book(s), but it took a couple of years before I was fluent enough to really absorb their prose, which is no doubt, a more advanced treatment of what you can do with C. This "Schildt manual", as we called it in school, is more about HOW to do something, once you know WHAT you want to do ... This will not solve algorithm problems for you, per se, but if you're looking for the string operation that will make what your algorithm calls for easiest, they're all in here, explained with syntax and order of operations in plain English. I would hate to think what my undergrad years would have been like without this book. Worth the $$ at twice the price. (of course, people have found intermittent instances where this book was no help, or even outright wrong ... welcome to computer science and math ... ain't it grand?!?!? ... "Hilbert, meet Godel" :-)
   
   After an MS in CS, multiple applications and system level programming projects, several years in industry, and having taught introductory C-programming for 7 semesters, if I could have ONE and only ONE reference book on the C-language, this would be it. The "class time" instruction is available on any online C-coding tutorial ... the unforgiving nature of code/logic makes "correctness" imperative. Correctness is in the details. The details are in Schildt's C Reference, and they're easy to find ... thus, you can finish your lab, take a shower and make it to the party with all your friends, instead of sitting in the lab, sweating whether to use strtok() or strstr(), while your youth and "fun years in college" are ever more fleeting. Believe me, you have better things to do than try to solve a second year lab assignment using Kernighan & Ritchie ... ( K&R = "the authors", so reverently mentioned in several prior reviews, JIC that isn't common knowledge). Their books, and afrementioned reviews of this book, though correct in probably every way, are sort of like Microsoft Help Topic answers (Seebach's page contains rants from other would-be authors who seem to wish that they'd not only had the idea to write this book before Schildt, but also employed their many computer-geek buddies to help them edit it better as well. Neither happened.). To put K&R's work, as relates to the beginner, into the MS Help Page perspective:
   
   [ A helicopter was lost in the fog near SeaTac airport, radar was down, and they were flying blind. Suddenly, from the mist, appeared a large building. As people gathered by the windows to gaze at the helicopter, the passengers scrawled a sign for the onlookers, "Help! Where are we?". A few disappeared into the cubicle farm and returned with a sign reading, "You're in a helicopter!" The pilot promptly turned the chopper around, and said that's Microsoft headquarters, SeaTac is this way. "How can you know that?" they inquired. He replied, "I know it was Microsoft b/c that was a technically correct, but totally useless answer." ] That was the feeling I got early on while reading K&R. They now occupy a place of high importance in my library, but I could've held off on that purchase for some time ... just my opinion. Use Schildt until you get your parchment, then go off and organize a maverick and superior disposition of your own, like Schildt's detractors. The problems with the book are piddling compared to what it has to offer, and are unlikely to be an issue for it's intended audience.



5. First of all, it shoud be said that the C language is so widely used it's a shame that good and updated books no longer appears on the market. This book is an exception. To my knowledge, it's the only book that covers the latest additions from the last ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard.
   This book covers (in addition to the traditional C89 standard):
   1) restrict pointers.
   2) the inline reserved word.
   3) The new _Bool and bool types.
   4) The new _Complex and _Imaginary reserved words.
   5) The new "long long" integers for 64 bit integer arithmetic.
   6) Variable lenght arrays.
   7) Type qualifiers in array definitions.
   8) Single line comments.
   9) Mixed code / declaration style.
   10) Variable arguments to macros.
   11) The _Pragma operator.
   12) Variable declaration inside for() cycles.
   13) The new compound literals.
   14) Flexible arrays inside struct members.
   15) Delegate initializers.
   16) Various additions and differences from the past standard.
   
   and, most importantly, it always underline when a concept apply to C99 only, when it apply to C89 and when it is usable in both standards. It also underline when something get in contrast with the C++ programming language. The difference between the two standards will be always clear.
   And, to my opinion, this is a *very good thing*.
   What matters the most is: this book will teach you C. It's not an advanced book nor a beginner book. It's intermediate. So, if you're looking for an updated book about the C programming language and you have programmed something before, get this book now and leave complaints to others. If you're searching for a pedantic syntax/semantic analysis for the C language, just buy the specifications. The last section of the book is fantastic to gain confidence with the language. While not C related, it teaches you how to solve common problems by using C in practice:
   a) Search and sorting.
   b) Queues, stacks, linked lists and trees.
   c) Sparse arrays with hash tables.
   d) Syntax analysis and expression evaluation.
   e) Some techniques used in artificial intelligence.
   
   An additional section covers the implementation of a small C subset interpreter!!!
   
   This book is not intended to be the most complete and advanced C book of the planet, but reading it surely it will contribute to your C knowledge and technical skills with it. Buy it without hesitation as a first book for this language. And don't skip more advanced books like "Expert C Programming" by Peter Van Der Linden, "C Traps and Pitfalls" by Andrew Koenig and "Memory as a Programming Concept" by Frantisek Franek.

5 comments about Professional CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wrox Professional Guides).

1. I loved this CSS book. By the time that I finished with chapter 2, I successfully, applied the information to my website. This book, Professional CSS, was a much needed reference guide to helping me spruce up my website.



2. Another reviewer wrote:
   
   2. Poor reproduction of graphics. In some cases, it's difficult to see what the authors are trying to represent. Several errors in Chapter 3 ("Blogger: Rollovers and Design Improvements") make the examples very confusing. The book's editing left much to be desired--I found quite a few errors throughout the boo
   
   I agree completely and WHY WEREN'T THE GRAPHICS INCLUDED IN THE COD E DOWNLOAD? That should have taken no additional effort and made everything a lot clearer!
   
   I buy lot's of WROX books, so let's keep after them when they shortchange us like this.



3. This is not a reference book nor a how to book. It describes web sites & how those sites tackled their display problems. If you have to buy 3 css books, I'd recommend this order:
   
   1. OReilly - CSS The Definitive Guide by Eric Meyer (great reference)
   2. Any good CSS cookbook
   
   And, if you really need a 3rd book after the 2 above... consider this book along with any of the several others out there.
   
   PS: I am not a fan of MS either, but if I'm paying good money for a book, I don't want to be continually reminded by the authors of how poor of a product ms puts out. The poor quality of MS Web technologies is well known.



4. I had learned CSS back in 98, when everything was new, and most of what CSS was MEANT to do just didn't work yet. Move forward 9 years and guess what? It still doesn't! However, this book helped me to expand my CSS understanding and do a lot more cool stuff than I used to be able to do. This is an industry that is ever changing and it pays to keep learning.



5. This book is a little out of date because it does not cover Internet Explorer 7.0. However, it does teach you all the CSS techniques that have been used for the past few years and points you to many resources for more information. I only read this book to review the best practices for using CSS and XHTML.

5 comments about Concurrent Programming in Java(TM): Design Principles and Pattern (2nd Edition) (The Java Series).

1. This book is great but don't read it as your first introduction to Java threads.
   
   This book is not about Java threads per se, but more about design patterns and good object oriented programming practices as applied to concurrent programming (hence the title). Doug Lea is a university professor and this book has a very academic style, including a ton of references to an impressive array of concurrency and object oriented research. While this makes the material somewhat dense, it is very thorough and thankfully supplemented by actual code snippets (Doug Lea also makes significant contributions to the Java SDK and writes great code).
   
   Especially notable are the sections on semaphores and locking in general. Users of util.concurrent (which directly supplements this book), and even the new Java 5.0 concurrency utilities (which were written by Lea and company), will get tremendous value out of these chapters as the locking strategies form the backbone of the higher level classes found in those packages.
   
   For beginners, read "Java Thread Programming" by Paul Hyde, and then try this book.



2. This is the best book I have ever read on threading, and certainly applies well to other languages naturally (especially languages with a modern and mature thread library like Mono/.NET). Unlike other reviewers here, I encourage so-called "beginners" to read this book. He has plenty of examples so you will not get lost, and this *is* the right way to do things, so start with this one.



3. This is a kind of book you'll need to start developing concurrent systems in Java. It shows details of what should be done to safely handle patterns for concurrent programs.
   I beleive this book is a must for every developer who want to start learning concurrency design priciples for Java.



4. Sure he knows his stuff but doesn't have a clue on how to write. This is appallingly poorly written. It is one of the most ridiculously disorganized collections of academic 'verbage' (verbiage subsumes garbage) I have ever read. It's almost useless as a reference: its very non-linear (say non-deterministic almost) in concept elucidation (perhaps he's taken the notion of multithreading too much to heart and tried multi-threaded writing???). It's useless as a book to learn from- since learning by example is not just a way to learn, but the only way to learn (Einstein) and this book largely disavows examples.
   
   What it needs is another edition with a ghost writer. Seriously it's not good. Try Paul Hyde for a good intro to threads.
   
   While those at guru-ish level may love this book, those of us for whom threads represent a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves, would probably want to throw this book in frustration of the author's inability to structure a coherent sentence with a clear point. This meanders on like great uncle herb's war stories and is equally will sapping.
   
   Avoid if you can or check it out when you reach guru-ness. It's a good cure for insomnia though.



5. The book contains a lot of concurrent and parallel programming theories, but the organization of the contents is not well formed, such that the reading and understanding of the book are hard. The examples giving in the book are not very helpful either.
   
   Overall, the book seems to target for academic researchers rather than developers. Highly recommend "Java Concurrency In Practice" which is much more practical and easier understood by Brian Goetz

5 comments about PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition) (Developer's Library).

1. I order this book and been waiting and waiting. The date came for the book to arrvie and no book. So, a few days went on and still no book. I call the 1 800 number to see whats the problem and they change the date. So now i have to wait another 2-3 weeks for this book. We will see what happens when 2-3 week comes...



2. This book is great for teaching you how to use PHP and MySQL. The one thing I don't like are the examples; they contain formatting that really belongs in a CSS file. The effect is to make the examples hard to read because they are full of extraneous code, particularly in the case of table elements because inline styles don't cascade to their cells...
   
   Given the excellence of this book, I feel this is a huge oversight. The examples should contain only code related to content, not formatting. In the next edition, please remove the inline styles, move them to a stylesheet, and show us how to use php to dynamically create stylesheets!



3. Everything about this book is wonderful, it also includes an electronic version of the whole book in PDF format so you don't have to carry it with you if you don't want to. This book is definitely a very understandable book and it uses real-life examples of how to do certain projects. Excellent buy!



4. I cracked open this book knowing only basic HTML. About halfway through it, I was a website developer. By the end of the book, I was a website professional with highly sought after skills.
   
   This book is not only written well, but is written in a manner that kept my short-spanned attention all the way through with plenty of momentum. Possibly the only computer book I have ever read all the way through.



5. I find this book very easy to understand and follow. The code is well explained except in some cases. For example the Page Class in Listing 6.1 uses the function htmlentities() but this function was not defined anywhere so it is left up to the reader to guess its implementation. I find this very frustrating. Also in the section on regular expressions on page 126 it is said "Note that when a dot is used at the beginning or en of a character class, it loses its special wildcard meaning and becomes just a literal dot". But just below this sentence we find that the dot is escaped with a backslash when validating the email so a very frustrating contradiction. Also in the listing 19.1 when it gets the stock quote using a regular expression. This stock quote is retrieved from the second element of the array $quote as $quote[1]. Why not the first element of this array as $quote[0]? I'm confused here!. I haven't finished the book yet but I found these errors very frustrating. That's why I give this book 4 stars and not 5. I'll keep reading and hopefully I won't find more inconsistencies and contradictions.

3 comments about VBScript Pocket Reference.

1. I like the O'Reilly pocket reference series. They don't take up a lot of desk real estate, and you can generally find what you need to know in a hurry.

   From the perspective of a programmer who hasn't touched basic since he had a Sinclair Spectrum, I found this book got me up to speed reasonbly quickly. However I suspect it will attract a fairly small audience - a non programmer would find it too terse to be a good learning book, and an experienced VB programmer would probably be better off with a book specific to the environment they're using (eg, ASP) because this book does not cover any enviroment specific objects, and VBScript has no enviroment specific functions. It does however cover the filesystem objects and the dictionary object, which is handy.

   Every now and then I get frustrated with the book when I can't find a function that I want, but then I usually discover that the function doesn't exist in VBScript, which is really such a trivial language that a pocket reference can cover it more or less completely.




2. It you want to learn VBScript go elsewhere. However, if you just want a quick reference that you can take anywhere this is the only book for you. It is remarkably concise and very well written. Its perfect for the VBScritp programmer that needs a little help from time to time looking up a hard to remember command and its syntax.



3. The reference material seems accurate but I have found more detail in the free help file that comes with VBS 5.6. Return values and types and the actual values of the builtin constants, which I didn't find in the book.
   
   I apparently overlooked the note that this book was based on VBS 5.5 when I ordered it. I have several pocket references and this is the first that fell short of my needs.

5 comments about JavaServer Faces in Action (In Action series).

1. I am totally amazed from what a great technology JSF is. I have worked for so many years with Struts - JSF beats it definitely. And this book is quite good at teaching it. I would give it 5 stars for the content if there were no typos. There are swarms of them. I am currently on page 212 and I see them at least every 3 pages. What's bad about these typos is that they are all in important areas - not just misspelt words but messed up names of classes and objects. I am getting tired from them.
   
   But again, the content of the book is great.



2. The book is nice in overall but the examples should be better.
   Core JSF is better and I recommend that one over this.



3. I purchased this book based on my previously great experience with Manning Press books. I've found other books by this publisher to be easy to read and easy to comprehend. They usually give you just enough background information and then details on different aspects of the subject matter. This book just goes on and on and on about background information and implementation details that are of little use to anyone after they configure their first application. It takes too long to get to the meat of writing JSF applications. And once you get to where the meat is supposed to be, most of that has to be downloaded as a 300 page PDF from their web site. Not very useful at all.
   
   If you are looking for good JSF information, I now use the Core book for information and the O'Reilly book for a quick API reference. If you want examples of great Manning Press books, please check out their "Spring In Action" and "JSTL In Action" books. Both are fantastic reads and full of great information.
   
   Sadly, this particular book left a lot to be desired both as an instructional text or as an API reference.



4. This book does not compare to "Core Java Server Faces" first edition by Geary and Horstman. The book provides fery few and not very useful code examples. The content is not very organized. Also, it does not address more advanced topics such as displaying very large result sets.



5. I agree with some of the reviewers that this book has too many typo errors. Some of the errors are so obvious that they make me wonder whether the book has been proof read before it goes into printing. There are also obvious discrepancies between the code listing and the accompanying explanation. For example, in a few examples, the code listed one thing and the accompanying text just after it refers to something that is not found in the code listing or contradicts the code listing.
   
   The upside about these typos errors is it kept me alert when I come across something that doesn't make sense. It also helped me in my understanding of JSF as I identify and correct the errors.
   
   Nevertheless, it could have been a much better book if it has been professionally proof read and edited.

2 comments about Writing Secure Code for Windows Vista (Pro - Step By Step Developer).

1. Initially I didn't liked Windows Vista. A resource hog, some incompatibilities... But I had to use it at work so I installed it and worked with it for two months. After that, I really like the security features it has, but I felt like missing more details about specific topics... So I decided to buy this book.
   
   Writing Secure Code for Windows Vista comes as a, mostly C++ oriented (although contains some C# examples), "how to use all new features" book. Very well structured, with lots of code examples, best practices, direct to the topic, and one thing I liked a lot: very sincere. If something is working bad, the authors state it clearly (for example, the Windows Firewall API, which has bugs), and they even provide workarounds to avoid them.
   
   Down to the content, the book covers a lot of topics: New safer C functions, banned APIs, new APIs, UAC, token manipulation, integrity levels, code signing, virtualization, buffer overrun defenses, IPv6, Secure Socket extensions, Windows Firewall (Vista version, of course), IE7 security mechanisms & defenses (very interesting), Windows services development best practices, protected mode API and DEP, and the new CNG (Cryptography API: Next Generation).
   
   Even if you don't usually develop with C++ I highly recommend this book. With it you will learn a lot about all the new security features of Vista. You just need some basic knowledge of standard Windows security features and some C++/API programming.



2. It contains to the point but thorough information of how to write code that breaks as rarely as possible and when it does break exposes as little as possible to an attacker. At the same time the language is clear and enjoyable.