5 comments about Advanced Rails Recipes.

1. This is not only a phenomenal reference, but it is great for whetting your appetite when embarking into new Rails territory -- the book is full of ideas, that Rails devs of all levels can benefit from. Reading this book gave me an additional perspective on items I practice and those I am learning -- specifically enjoyed the parts on REST, CC payment processing, scalability, testing. Highly recommend.



2. This book is a must have resource for anyone developing Rails applications. Mike Clark, the Ruby community and the Pragmatic Programmers have once again delivered a set of recipies you'll find immediately usable. I'm already using four in an application I'm working on, all of which have helped me reduce code, increase readability and reduce maintenance.
   
   The book is thoughtfully organized with each recipie being both well written and concise.
   
   No matter what type of Rails application you are writing, or your level of experience, I think you'll find something in this book to make you say "Thats a great idea" and rush to the keyboard to try it out.



3. I just got my copy yesterday and am having trouble putting it down! This book reads better than a novel/story if you have even a remote interest in Ruby on Rails. Mike Clark has done an outstanding job of putting together really interesting recipes contributed by Ruby on Rails enthusiasts from all over the world and an equally good job of quality assurance. I really hope that he works on producing a sequel as soon as possible.



4. It's simple, really: If you're programming with Rails you should buy this book. Let's face it, one recipe that shows you how to do something is all that it takes for this book to pay for itself.
   
   Some of the recipes are meant to be looked at on an as-needed basis, e.g. searching using Solr, Sphinx, or Ferret, and sending email via Gmail. But most of the book can be simply read as a way to learn more about Rails, e.g. customizing error messages, testing with RSpec and Shoulda, and caching strategies and tools.



5. I went through this book cover-to-cover every few pages saying, 'Wow, I could have used/need that now!' If you're a RoR developer, you really should have this book on your shelf. I marked maybe 75% of the recipes as something I could use--worth it's weight in gold!

5 comments about ActionScript 3.0 Bible.

1. The Flash 8 Actionscript bible was an amazing reference, and covered just about every feature. This book is nothing like that. The examples are ok, but the whole way it is written and the index in particular feels kind of rushed. I need a good reference book!



2. It's surprising that nobody has published a simple language reference for ActionScript 3.0 yet; until that day comes, this book is my most often visited reference when programming Flash projects.
   
   Great job by the authors.
   
   My only complaint: The examples are good, but would be of much more use if they also included classpaths (e.g., the correct "import" statement) within them. As they are, I often find myself searching Adobe's online references for the correct package/class to import before trying them out.



3. In my opinion there are three things to look for in a Computer Language book. Exhaustive reference, truly illustrative examples and applicable conventions and design patterns.
   
   Unfortunately this book failed on all counts, so I rarely open it anymore.
   
   I also have "Essential Actionscript 3" and "Actionscript 3 Cookbook" in my library. I use these a lot more frequently.



4. Contradictory to most "Bibles" this book is not a thorough reference guide, meaning it does not break down every function or object with all of the property and methods. However, the examples are very clear and it's an excellent book to learn what you need and why you want it about Actionscript. I really enjoyed the simple explanations and for each topic I think just the right amount of information is presented without overloading you or leaving wondering what you're missing. Given that there is a wealth of detailed "reference" material at Adobe's site and built into Flex Builder, I think this book is an excellent complement to those materials. I recommend this book to anyone with a little programming experience looking to add ActionScript to their knowledgebase.



5. The Flash Actionscript 3 Bible appears, like many Bible books, to have just about everything you need to know about a given topic. This book on the other hand seems more like a introduction to Actionscript 3 and is not very exhaustive with the programming language. There are many instances where it gives a mention of a class or method, then tells you to just use the Adobe help to find out more about it.
   
   It gives a good overview of how Actionscript has changed since version 2, pointing out most of the differences. It gives a good foundation for learning the language as an object oriented language. When it starts breaking out and getting into the different classes, it falls short of being very informative. I generally had to end up on actionscript sites or on Adobe help understanding many of the classes do.
   
   The book is pretty well written explaining and teaching the language. I just wish I could use it more as a reference book than a "getting started" type of book.

5 comments about Simply Rails 2.

1. This book is a great start, but you won't be able to write applications in Ruby on Rails by the end of it.
   
   Let me refine that: you will be able to write one Ruby on Rails application by the end of it. The book walks you through creating a program that works like Digg. The book explains well everything that you need to do to write this one program, and introduces you to the basics of RoR architecture and how RoR works. I followed the instructions and understood everything that was going on.
   
   However, once you have finished this book and written your Digg-like program, there is no guidance for where to go next. There isn't a chapter on "Further Resources" or "Where to go from here" or anything at all - you're just stuck with your little Digg-imitation. Not only that, but the book tends to introduce information in a rather haphazard order. From a pedagogy standpoint, the order in which information is presented makes a lot of sense. But it makes the book useless as a reference manual, or even as a model for how to do your own project.
   
   It's fine as a first step and as an introduction to Ruby on Rails, especially since at the moment it's the only thing in print about Rails 2.x. But you will have to read other books before you can be a competent RoR programmer.



2. THis is one of hte best beginner web app books i have ever seen (I've read books on rails, PHP , django, Zope, but not too much on .NET, ASP or java). The author takes the approach that he will introduce one coherent topic at a time thoroughly, with as little source code as possible, without digressions, exceptions or comparisons to other languages (perl, PHP, java). This he does admirably.
   
   If i had to comment on the books limitations, i would say that there are a lot of topics that are glossed over: CSS, regular expressions, security. e.g. page 175, "regexs are confusing". I would've said that regex's are important in rails: validations, generating URL slugs, etc, and there are a lot of good resources, and also verbose mode to make them more readable. The book is pretty well indexed but "regular expressions" doesn't appear in index. p 329, you're shown how to take user input and display back in view *without* sanitizing. This is absolutely something you do not want to show in a beginner rails book. There's no mention of XSS, SQL injection, other security issues in the book, as far as i can tell. Something analogous is on p 258, where plain text passwords are stored to database, along with text that says this is not a great practice. The text should say "If you try to put this code into production, you'll probably be fired".
   
   When you finish reading this carefully, you still won't know enough to look up issues in teh Rails Way book, which is where a aspiring Rails developer needs to be to find work. The book doesn't provide the next steps, e.g. never mentions the most often used rails plugins, ImageMagick, acts as solr/ferret, restful_auth, etc, doesn't mention any browser issues or DBMS issues. (Chap 10 covers acts_as_taggable on steroids pretty thoroughly)
   
   But for somebody who's never done web apps, this book would have a much high comprehension rate than most others (the Dummies rails book was good, but now outdated). So for target demographic, highly recommended.
   
   I would also say that the book's ruby overview is kind of inadequate (rails books either do a handholding ruby in 25 pages chapter, or a detailed view of metaprogramming, gotchas and edge/corner cases). I prefer the latter (as in Ediger "advanced Rails" and Rappin "Professional Rails", both superb books)



3. This book is useful for those who need to be taken by the hand, and taken step by step. After going thru the book, you have built a simple web site, but are not able to build your own. If you are brand new to Ruby on Rails, this may be your starter book, but will need to follow up with Agile Web Development with Rails.



4. I have read the forward and the first three chapters of this book. I am not all the way through it yet. However, thus far it has been the most enjoyable technical book I have yet read. I have learned several languages from books, and this book teaches you how to program in a fun way. The book is written more like the instruction manual for a video game than it is written like a programming textbook.
   As I wrote before, I am only three chapters in, but I am excited to keep going. The book makes Ruby feel like a fun and exciting language and I am looking forward to the next chapter.



5. Using this book for my class, find it is easy and detail for a beginner in RoR!

5 comments about Microsoft® SQL Server(TM) 2005 Reporting Services Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft)).

1. I am migrating our databases from Pervasive to MS SQL. We have a large amount of compiled (V7) Crystal Reports that will need to be updated and I was hoping to use the 2005 SQL Reporting Services instead.
   
   The major problem with this book is the very first script used to load the sample database fails. From this point on you might as well trash the book since none of the exercises will work. To run the first script the author gives you the complete file path for the command and the sample database. This path is 8 layers deep. The actual SQL query used to install the sample database has a completely different path, so the installation fails. Ok....I figured out the path problem and moved the files to where the SQL query wants them to be. I ran the installation script again and now I able to install the sample database. The next problem....the SQL query also configures the user logins to the database.....it fails!!!! I am new to SQL so I am now lost since I can not configure the user logins.
   
   I bought this book as a learning tool!! Now it sits collecting dust!!
   
   In reply to Dr. Ribeiro Silva's comments
   
   Point taken, but you missed the point completely.
   
   I will try to explain it another way. You need to learn how to drive a car. You buy a training package from Eddie's Driving School. It includes a training manual and a used car. The package is delivered by UPS. You stay up all night reading the manual and the next day you are ready to drive. You get in the car and turn the key....nothing happens. The car will not start! You re-read the driving manual and find nothing in it about troubleshooting why your car will not start!!
   
   This is the problem with this book. It is supposed to teach you how to create reports from a 2005 SQL server. It is not a training course on installing and troubleshooting a 2005 SQL database. The book provides a pre-configured 2005 SQL database and the installation scripts to install the database. When you run the installation script, the installation fails with numerous errors. In other words, the provided database "engine" is broken and will not run!! Since the database is not installed properly by the provided software you can not do any of the exercises.
   
   Since I need to learn this subject, I took the official Microsoft SQL Reporting class. I brought the book to my class and the instructor spent his entire lunch hour trying to follow the directions in the book to install the provided 2005 SQL database. He could not.



2. I agree with the other reviewer that had trouble installing the sample files: there's no excuse that Microsoft Press should have let this book out the door without some basic technical review. In order to successfully install the files, you must manually edit the attach_databases.sql file to map the @physname paths to the .mdf files stored in your My Documents folder rather than c:\rs2005sbs (which is never created by the installer). For the intended audience of this book, that's an unnecessary hastle that the use user should have to go through.



3. I am new to SQL Reporting Services. I found this book very helpful with its step-by-step approach. I would recommend it for beginners.



4. I purchased the book well over a year ago and placed it in my library for future reference. Now that I finally need it to dig into SSRS further, I'm truly disappointed. Besides the well documented script to load the databases not working, I've found plenty of instances where I found myself truly lost in the "Step by Step". I really had to go back time after time to see if I missed something. Low and behold, I didn't miss a thing. This was an extreme waste of valuable time away from projects. What the book is missing is a really good technical review. Long story short, placed this one on the shelf and ordered Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services 2005 by Brian Larson. Now I'm beginning to wonder about my SSAS Step by Step now. Then again, I'll just save my self valuable time and pick up another SSAS anyway. Hope this helps!



5. Microsoft® SQL Server(TM) 2005 Reporting Services Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft)) should be the best book in this topic. The reason that made me ranked this book at 4 stars is because this book missed just one sentence to tell their readers the exact folder to copy the source code to or how to modify the path in sql script.

5 comments about Java Power Tools.

1. To begin, I should note that I was a technical reviewer on this book. Ever since I reviewed it last year, I've been telling everyone who would listen that "Java Power Tools" was going to be one of the best books to be released in a while. If you are on a Java development project, you must have this book! I'm still amazed by the breadth and depth of the information in it. As it states in the back of the book, it's like having 30 reference books all in one. And, it's not like John simply gives a high-level overview of the tools. He goes into great detail such that you can take the examples and use on your own projects. The beauty is that he has weeded out all of the bad tools and given a concise set of tools to immediately help improve your team's productivity. What's more, they're all open source and you can download them immediately and try them out. He covers all of the major tool types in the development process including version control, build, CI, issue management, testing, code metrics, etc. "Java Power Tools" helps you automate your own development processes. If you'd rather be spending time creating software rather than trying to bend your process or tools to meet your needs, this is the book for you.



2. The book is enjoyable, extremely well organized and covers a wide range of open source tools needed for any successful software development life cycle. I would recommend Java Power Tools to anyone writing Java. My only complaint is the size of the book; but I think in order to cover 30 tools , and the breadth of material covered for each of these tools do make up for its weightiness.
   
   This book is written with a Java developer audience in mind. I should however say that Java is not actually the main focus of the book, and I believe this book would be of great interest to anyone concerned in writing better software.Readers should have a basic knowledge of Java and XML. You don't need to have any prior experience with any of the tools covered.
   
   Java Power Tools can be used as an introduction to various technologies and also as a complete and easy-to-use reference work. After having read and reviewed numerous book over the past 5 years, I think it safe to say I have not read another text that so well combines the best attributes of both.



3. We are moving to hibernate on my project, so I bought several books to help introduce me to the subject. I got Hibernate Quickly and Beginning Hibernate along with Java Persistence With Hibernate. I enjoyed Hibernate Quickly because it really does give you the 20% that constitutes 89% of your tasks. However, I still had questions and found this one.
   
   The author of this book has excellent examples and tutorials of what he is introducing you to. He builds the project as if it were really going to production. He explains not only the Hibernate, but the build files and what is being accomplished quite thoroughly. As you work through the logically ordered chapters, you are introduced to and apply new Hibernate concepts and put them to use in the example project you are building throughout.
   
   Chapters 10 through 14 are an added bonus and multiply the value of this book. The authors cover connecting to MySQL and how to integrate Hibernate plugin into Eclipse and use it. They also include chapters on Maven, Spring, and Stripes.
   
   The chapter on Maven is as informative and useful as I have found. Seeing how the definitive guide isn't available until about August, this is a great standby and introduction to Maven and the functionality it has. In this chapter, he also explains in some detail the projet management model (pom.xml).
   
   The chapter on Spring is excellent in that it gives high level details about dependency injection but more importantly, gives a clear overview and exercise in the Spring Framework ORM module and how it can abstract out much of the grind of Hibernate. I learned a lot about Spring and how to use it to interface to Hibernate.
   
   The last chapter on Stripes was mainly of interest since our project may use Stripes and there isn't a lot I could find on the subject. It too helped me understand Stripes and how to integrate it into and set it up in a project. It also gives clear examples of Stripes and how it plays with Hibernate.
   
   All in all, this book has been and will continue to be a valued addition to my library primarily because of my current development context. However, the material on Hibernate will be much referenced no matter what context I am in.



4. I was really surprized how much info is in this book, most of them is very useful for me and my team, with this book we can reach more automation in ours work ;-)



5. If you want to be efficients and productive as a Java programmer I highly recommend this book to you. It is not about the Java language, but how to use various tools to use deploy your time productively. It introduces you to tools such as maven, SVN, JUnit, etc. which are very useful. And it is a well written text, well organized.

5 comments about Mastering MATLAB 7.

1. I use this book everyday. It is easy to find what you need right away. Although, MatLab has demos that you can use to write programs or m-scripts, the book has features that are not in the demos that will make writing scripts much easier. It doesn't go into great detail with more difficult plots but allows for the those who just need 1-D, 2-D and simple 3-D plots to plot data points easily and fast. This is definitely the bible for first time users of MatLab.



2. I purchased this textbook for the matlab course taken in university. I always can find something interesting or useful inside of it, and knowledge inside of it was all written in details.



3. This book was presented at a much lower level than I expected. I would find it hard to "master matlab" using this book, but I suppose it is good for people with very little programming background. If you know how to program and simply want a book to quickly bring you up to speed look elsewhere - this book is a somewhat watered down and slow.



4. This book is very good if you are a not familiar with matlab. From the beginning it gives you the possibility to understand matlab world with many practical examples. However if you are looking for a detailed description of specific arguments i.e, polynomial interpolation, p.d.e., neural networks, then it's better to give a look to other books.



5. This is a huge and comprehensive book about MATLAB but definitely not for beginners. It can also be used as a reference. It covers everything you need to know about MATLAB - even classes and object-oriented programming. However, if you are just beginning to learn MATLAB, you may want to check the book "MATLAB for Beginners: A Gentle Approach".

5 comments about Web Development and Design Foundations with XHTML (4th Edition).

1. WASTE OF TIME
   This book is a complete waste of time and it will sap your joy. You will learn far more with almost any other book. It is poorly written, the editing is non-existent, the educational constructs are poorly formed, the B.S. content is over the top, and the typos are serious enough to sabotage your web pages. In fact, the educational tone seems designed to sabotage your understanding of what you already know. Most of the details in the book are common sense and yet presented as ultra-orthodox truths from antiquity, as when the author refers to 10 years ago as "the last century."
   
   LACK OF INFORMATION
   The presentation of information is difficult to follow because the pages are clouded with stylistic jargon ripped-off from other publishing companies which have maintained a fine reputation for educational success because they know how to educate. To see successful authoring, go to any book store and see how many books there are in the following series: DUMMIES, IDIOTS, VISUAL, MADE SIMPLE, VISUAL QUICKSTART, or MICROSOFT PRESS. These series are designed to educate, empower, and inform. This book is designed to obfuscate.
   
   STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE
   For instance, take a look at the cover of this text book (as posted here on Amazon) and you will see a paint roller. This is the author's special icon to let you know you are still reading the same book. Section after section you see a paint roller, to open a section and to close a section. Apparently Web Design is colorful. Other icons, such as FAQ's are just "cute" but useless, because they are not FAQ's but just page decorations. Font decoration is random, extra spacing is random, and highlighting is random.
   
   SUGGESTIONS
   What the book needs is a table of contents that is useful, and a glossary so the book can be used as you read it. The index is skimpy (the most important part of the book) and each preview section and review section is non-usable. If you read as much as I do, I know that you have a method for learning, and for most people that method involves: Preview, Skim, Read, Review, and then use the book as a reference. This book does not have previews (more like hopeful affirmations) does not have reviews (except to tell you you're done with the chapter, ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT encourage skimming (the pages are meaningless jumbles of jargon) and the reading sections, when available, are short, and punctuated by meaningless faux-FAQs, comprehension-testers, points to ponder, and other monotony breakers, instead of real information. There is no way to review later because the book withheld active, authentic learning in the first place. You cannot even save this book as a reference because the tables are incomplete and incoherent, and the appendixes are poorly organized.
   
   SUCCESSFUL OPTIONS
   If you are required to use this book as a text-book for a class, just drop the class. You are smarter than that. Google the words "web design" and you will get all of this information for free! You don't need THIS book, just get a good book. The problem is, if your instructor requires THIS book then you will spend all of your time doing examples and not learning XHTML and CSS.
   
   YOU CAN DO IT!
   If you don't have other time-demands in your life then this book can walk you step-by-step through some ideas about web programming, but it will treat you like a Junior High School student. If you ARE a Junior High School student then you are WAY TOO SMART for this book. This is a text-book written for Junior College students who want to get a job, and their school is designed to make it hard to graduate. This book will not prepare them for a job. It only weeds out the students who don't have the guts to finish the course. If you want to be weeded out you won't make it as a programmer. If you want to be a programmer you won't put up with this book. If you really want to learn for fun, then get one of the other books listed above. Don't even buy this one for $.01 plus shipping. There's nothing in it worth looking at.
   
   EDUCATION
   My Bio and Bias: I am a doctor who teaches medical school, I have been programming computers for over 35 years, I am a life-long learner, I am a professional teacher, and my students would not put up with this book, nor would they put up with me if I required this book. My students, my peers, my friends, and most importantly, you...do not deserve this kind of condescension.



2. I highly recommend this book to newbie web designers/developers! The book introduces XHTML and CSS, web standards, web accessibility and web design best practices. The book's website at webdevfoundations.net contains related links, additional/new information, and chapter updates. The author did a great job starting me out with a basic foundation in web design concepts and skills I'm continuing to use!



3. Great book! It was easy to learn to design web pages with XHTML and CSS with all the hand-on examples and practice exercises in this book. This college textbook presents XHTML, CSS and web accessibility techniques, explores web design best practices, and even includes web promotion techniques for web designers! The companion website has links to useful websites and updates to the chapter. I highly recommend this book for web design or web development courses.



4. This is an excellent textbook for a beginning web design course. The hands-on exercises encourage active learning. The Student Files provide solutions to these so that students can self-assess their progress. There are four case studies that continue throughout the book that provide opportunities for students to apply their newly-learned concepts and skills. What really sold me on this textbook is the way it integrates XHTML, CSS, AND accessibility!



5. The Felke-Morris is a good starting point for wanting to know how to develop/design web pages. I would recommend it for people wanting to learn how to start designing web pages.

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.

5 comments about JavaScript Demystified.

1. I recently attended a JavaScript course where the instruct have a difficult time explaining JavaScript in clear Englishing. I'm not a programmer, so I needed someone to explain this in simple English. This book make JavaScript clear enough so that I passed the course.



2. I you ever wondered how the professional web page developers dress up their web pages, then take a look at this book. Every trick that I've seen on commercial web pages are revealed in this book. I easily copied code from the book into my web pages and made mine work like a pro web page. Good book.



3. This is a great book to start with for those who want to learn JavaScript. It has excellent discussion of the basics of the language with plenty of examples to follow along with. Most of the example scripts are small and basic in nature. But, they can still make useful additions to any website that might need image rollovers, cookies or pop-up windows. In the later chapters there are a few larger and slightly more complicated scripts like an image slide show. The book also has thorough coverage of basic programming concepts like variables, arrays, loops and such. Therefore, any prior programming or scripting knowledge is not an absolute requirement. All the code in this book worked smoothly with errors found only in the HTML code. The minor, and somewhat strange, errors in the HTML code really didn't create any problems. The multiple choice final exam did provide a descent review of the material at the end of the book. However, I would have preferred answers with a little explanation rather than just the correct letter.
   
   The only issue I had with this book is the final chapters. I did expect a little more exposure to advanced scripts and concepts. There were only a few examples and most were scripts from dynamicdrive.com with little or no discussion of new concepts. Much of the final two chapters were just descriptions with URL's of sophisticated scripts that can be downloaded from Dynamic Drive. This was a bit disappointing since most designers/developers probably know how to find and install scripts from the many code libraries on the web.
   
   Overall, JavaScript Demystified is a great book for a true beginner with no prior experience with scripting or programming. This is not the best book for those who just want to copy scripts or who are expecting advanced topics. This is a book for those who want to actually learn JavaScript. I definitely would look forward to a new book by the same author in the same format that covers advanced JavaScript.



4. I felt that this book was very good for beginners as well as a good reference for those that have a strong background in html and JavaScript.



5. Clear and concise, done with not one wit of 'speaking down' to you, and the explanations are straightforward. The material is introduced a piece at a time, and with reasonable review questions that are surprisingly thorough.
   I would suggest it to anyone who wants a good reference to JavaScript as well. Buy it you won't be disappointed.

5 comments about GWT in Practice.

1. My first thought upon reading the first few chapeters of this book was "Where was this thing when I started to use GWT a few months ago?" The authors have done an excellent job really showing how to use the Google Web Toolkit. My eternal fear when I read these books is that there won't be any content outside of what the product already ships with. Not so in this case at all.
   
   The authors cover the GWT basics, to be sure, but more importantly, they demonstrate a way to really use GWT. They hit upon one of my thoughts when first trying to get my head around GWT: GWT is not a framework; it is a platform at best. They recognize this and help you work with the power and around the limitations of GWT.
   The authors demonstrate common patterns and practices in the "language" of GWT. It was extremely satisfying to finally, with the help of this book, be able to articulate and execute all the patterns that I've been using in other systems, (e.g. MVC, PropertyListeners, etc.)
   
   The authors also demonstrate how to use GWT in a variety of environments and build system. These concepts were useful, but I found myself skimming over pages at a time to get back to the "good stuff." (This was my primary knock in not giving it five stars.)
   
   All in all, I highly recommend and I'll be ensuring that my team each learn the concepts presented.



2. I have only read the first two chapters of this book thus far (I will update this review when I have finished the book), but based upon what I have read this is an excellent book. I have been playing with GWT for a couple of weeks and, as another reviewer has stated, I wish that I had read this book earlier. I have one other GWT book that I purchased on Amazon, and it was very disappointing.
   
   The authors of GWT In Practice are clearly seasoned Java programmers, and even in the second chapter they have introduced patterns that are appropriate for GWT solutions. They explain how GWT meshes with the MVC pattern, as well as other relevant patterns. Also, even in the first example, they introduce user-defined classes that extend widgets ... a very promising example of their direction through the rest of the book.
   
   One caveat: I am not certain that this book would be easy to comprehend for someone who is a beginner. But I think this is generally true for GWT itself, and that anyone who wants to use GWT should have some training in Java.
   
   One gripe: This is an unfair gripe, because there is no way that the authors could have achieved what I would have liked to see, specifically, a book based upon the 1.5 version of GWT (the book is based upon the 1.4 version). I haven't used GWT 1.4, but I get the impression that there are enough changes in 1.5 to make the information significant. But I'll get over it, if the book is as good as the first two chapters promise!
   
   I don't often say this as fervently, but here's my recommendation: buy this book if you are learning GWT (and probably even if you already know GWT)! :)



3. For starters: I am one of the pilot developers in my company (a large Fortune 100 Financial Institution) doing GWT development. We are about to release our first product to the business. So I've spent the last 18 months or so learning and beating my way through GWT. In the process, I've bought all the GWT books that are out there. Straight to the point: this is the best one out there. Period. Cooper & Collins have produced an excellent book on User Interface development for the next generation....and you get an outstanding understanding of basic and advanced principles in GWT. Plenty of good stuff for the beginner as well as someone who claims to be fairly advanced. GWT in Action by Rob Hanson used to be my favorite...it still has a soft spot for being the first real GWT book, and a great reference book. Collins & Cooper have managed have the same energy that David Geary has in GWT Solutions (which is lofty praise if you've ever seen David speak about GWT!). I really like Dewsbury's GWT Applications, but GWT in Practice is actually better. There are 3 other GWT books (can't remember their names because they're at home), the 2 black and yellow ones and the flower book...I really like GWT in Action better. I've used gwittir, which is a binding framework from Cooper & Collins, so when I saw that they had written a book, I was psyched. In this day and age when book sales gotta be tough because of all the info on the internet, I was glad to see a book that I didn't think was just a rehashing of what's out there online. Good stuff guys...crank out a new version when GWT 1.5 is fully baked and I'll buy it!



4. As a beginner to GWT, I was interested in a book that provided examples and also explained components. This books does exactly both. The examples vary from very simple to complex. They really made it easy for me to understand how to actually us this in practice, no pun intended. I definitely agree with other reviewers that a background in Java will definitely be necessary to easily follow. Overall, this is one of the better technology books I have read.



5. GWT in practice covers the Google Web Toolkit at a level few books on this subject matter go into. The book is well written and also approachable for someone who is new to GWT. I particularly found useful the chapter on deployment which also covers deployment using Maven with the GWT-Maven plug-in, and the chapter on CI which covered Hudson. IMHO it is worth buying the book for these chapters alone as this information is hard to find anywhere else.