5 comments about Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0.

1. this book will help you to code more properly in actionscript,
   to get the maximum of this book you must know actionscript 3 and basic object-oriented programming.
   it is not an easy book, but if you will grasp all the concepts and implement them then you will be the perfect as3 programmer



2. Title: Object-Oriented Actionscript 3.0
   Authors: Peter Elst, Sas Jacobs, and Todd Yard
   Publisher: Friends of ED (July 23rd, 2007)
   ISBN: 1590598458
   [...]
   I figured this book would be next logical step in learning actionscript. I will state this book is not for those who are just beginning actionscript as the depth will make your head spin. If you are just beginning AS I suggest you pick up the Foundation Actionscript for Flash 8 by Friend of Ed or head over LearnFlash to check out their Introduction to Actionscript 3.0 videos. The thing that I looked forward to most about this book is the OOP discussions. As a developer, I am always looking for a better explanation of a very important aspect of development.
   The book is divided into five sections. The first section deals with OOP and Actionscript. It throws in a basic programming concepts and an introduction to Actionscript. Part two deals Flash OOP guidelines. It contains chapters dealing with best practices, planning, and project workflow. They decided to stick a Flex chapter in this section which seemed odd to me. Part three deals with the core OOP concepts such as encapsulation, classes, inheritance, Polymorphism, interfaces, and a section on design patterns. Part four deals with building and extending dynamic frameworks. They talk about manager classes, UI widgets, and OOP animation/effects. The final part deals with data integration. The authors provide details on exchanging data between components, communication with the browser, and various forms of server communication (XML and web Services. The book concludes with an example of a slideshow engine.
   The layout is very reminiscent of other books in this series. I wish they would have found a better way to make the code examples stand out from the other text a little better. It would have broken up the monotony. I think the book could have used more color.
   What I liked about the book
   I thought the authors did a great job of covering OOP concepts. Part three really provides a terrific explanation of the foundation and core fundamentals. I recommend reading part three if you need a refresher on the topic. If you don't get lost in the rhetoric then the case studies are excellent. The Slideshow engine in the final part really brings together the concepts discussed throughout the whole book. I enjoyed the coverage of Flex 2 and its capabilities.
   What I didn't like about the book
   I did not care for the way the code examples were presented at all. In most cases, it made the book hard to follow and many times I would have to reread the paragraph before the code just to make sense of what they were trying to relay to the reader. I think some of the chapters were very confusing and fuzzy on the topic at hand. I am sure the manager classes discussed in part four are integral part of AS 3.0, but I felt like I was running up hill in quicksand. There are several topics in the book that would have been clearer if they had their own chapter. This being said it would have helped me master the codes examples a bit better if the explanation was a bit clearer. The examples would be easier to follow if they built upon each other as well. I enjoyed the Flex coverage, but it would have been great to have more material relating to Flash.
   Conclusion
   I don't think this is a horrible book by any means and if were organized clearly it would be a must read. I am hoping they come out with a foundation book on AS 3.0 which will benefit beginners and intermediates as well. If you are well schooled in AS than I imagine you will find this book helpful if you are not then you will be left scratching your head. Personally, I think it time back track and pick up on some things that I must have missed.
   
   {[Jeff Smith]}



3. The intended audience is for readers who "...have some previous experience developing in Actionscript...", and that "Some familiarity with the Flash or Flex authoring environments...".
   SO - why do we get a whole chapter dedicated to a section on using Flex, but assumes that the reader already knows the Flash IDE?
   Furthermore, why is there a whole chapter on coding standards and practices?
   These are just two of the wastes of paper, therefore MY MONEY before getting down to the OOP concepts.
   If you do buy, watch out for the errata, and the publishers (Friends of Ed) have errors on their reporting page, which is, possibly, the reason there is no corrections sheet for this book
   
   Once we get to the OOP stage, there is a major dearth of answers to the question WHY? I'm a newcomer to true OOP, so this book is not a good way to delve into OOP.



4. As someone new to AS 3.0, coming from a designer background and previously using AS 2, I was looking for an explanation of ActionScript 3.0 and an introduction to OOP. I was hoping for simple to understand explanations using "big picture" generalities that then moved down into specifics and offered code to illustrate each point. This book is partially that, but unfortunately it is technically over my head at this point in my development. I will definitely revisit this book after I get more coding experience. That being said, it does an excellent job explaining differences between AS 1 through AS 3, as well as many other concepts. In general, the book's "readability" would be improved if some chapters were in a different order and short, simple projects were added along the way to better illustrate each new concept. I'm thinking specifically of the chapters on Planning, Patterns and Workflow. It isn't until the middle of the book that this begins to happen. I think the book bogs down in detail early on, for example, the chapter on Flex is written with the assumption readers are not only familiar with Flex, but prefer using it over coding directly in the Flash application. Simply stating Flex's advantages immediately and briefly would improve the rest of the chapter. Also, highlighting new blocks of code as they appear would make them stand out immediately. I found myself searching blocks of code to understand the point being made.



5. Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0 takes readers through the best OOP practices and techniques. Next to great code tips an tricks it teaches you how to organize your planning and workflow. Covering the principles of OOP that you need to know, and then given a guide to designing and implementing applications in ActionScript 3.0. Next, we step up a gear, showing you the Flex builder development environment and teaching about creating reusable, extensible component frameworks--manager classes, animation and effects classes, UI widgets, and more. lastly, we look at some more advanced topics such as communication between Flash and the browser and Web services. case studies are included that apply the knowledge presented, giving you real-world projects to learn from and adapt for use in your own work. It is also a useful guide that helps you with the transition from AS 2.0 to AS 3.0
   I recommend this book for any programmer who wants to get into AS3 with Flex or for a Flash developer who is looking to take their skill set to the next level

5 comments about Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer's Guide to SEO.

1. I've read through this book from first to last page in a hope of finding any valuable information and must say, that most of what the book suggests is of no value to any professional in field. It's begins with some general giberrish about SEO, which is of no real value and can be collected over the web within hour. Then follow some worn out URI rewriting recipes, which I would be ashamed of offering as an solution to any of my clients and call them "SEO". Then ending chapters again are some general giberish, not a dime better that what can be found on web for free.
   
   If the title read "Beginning SEO with PHP", that would be somehow acceptable and the content would be OK, but there is nothing "Professional" in this book.
   
   Firstly, going with PHP4 for your examples in 2007 is a little bit um... "anachronous".
   
   Secondly, eg. the "Custom markup language" the authors introduce in chapter 6 is something, I'd expect from schoolkids but not from somebody who does not hesitate to call his product professional. It's not only terribly half baked and a promissing maintenance nightmare, but it also takes up so much space in the book, that authors could be able to introduce some basic techniques of XML parsing in PHP and explain it's advantages over the ugliness they have provided the reades with. That section among other things gives me clear picture of the "professionality" of the book.
   
   Chapter 7 + 8 - again using PHP4 object model - c'mon, we are in 2007...
   
   Let's say that CH3..CH5 are "OK", the rest is something, that in my opinion does only fills space in the book and readers would be better off searching the approprite information on the internet, where the book points you anyway in the end.
   
   After reading "Professional SEO in PHP", I've for good understood what Joel Spolsky ment when he claimed that you can never learn a technology from a book in red cover with mughshots, however professional it claim to be, because there's no overall intelligence behind it, chapters repeat things and left things out, and in rush to get the book to the market, editing appears to be non-existent.



2. When I first started making web sites, I thought that a good title, a few META tags, and some relevant content would achieve a high ranking on a search engine. That era is long gone and has been replaced with buzzwords like PageRank and other arcane algorithms.
   
   This book has been extremely helpful at demystifying what a modern webmaster needs to do to obtain the best possible rankings. For me especially, the focus that this be used by an already-competent PHP developer was a strong selling point. It was also laden with many real-world examples that could be immediately used.
   
   The early chapters in the book really go into depth about the common problems in SEO and some simple things to do alongside many of the tools already available to the developer such as Google analytics and mod_rewrite. The latter part of the book delves into the more esoteric techniques that many only apply to a smaller portion of sites, but it is useful nonetheless.
   
   Even for someone with basic familiarity with SEO will find the explanations useful. The chapters on duplicate content and SEO-friendly JavaScript are great examples of helping people unfamiliar with SEO to avoid the most common pitfalls of site design.
   
   Overall, this is an excellent book for anyone who wants the Swiss army knife of SEO techniques.



3. This book was perfect. I came from no knowlage of seo to fully understanding it. I bought this and Search Engine Optimization an hour a day together, and as good as the other book was, this one blew it away. I had read this one first, and it seemed like everything was just an echo reading the other book, but this one has even more because it shows you the programming aspect.



4. Given the relative advanced topic of this book, I was surprised to find a section on how to get your "playground" up and running. They devote 4 pages to getting XAMPP up and running. However, once you are beyond that, the good stuff starts to unfold.



5. I've read a number of other resources on the subject of SEO, and this one is definitely the best I've encountered.
   
   No one aspect of SEO is particularly technically complicated, its more just a matter of being aware of all the areas in which you can help (or more likely, not hurt) yourself. This book does a very thorough job of covering all of these areas, and is clear and concise when it comes to describing specific tactics and the underlying mechanisms that make them effective.
   
   Also, as mentioned by another reviewer, this book can be a valuable resource to a non-programmer because of how clearly it explains all of the tactics it covers and how involved the case studies in it are.

5 comments about Dive Into Python.

1. Although this book is only a quick approach to python it makes the reader have a good background to continue learning python on itself.



2. nice examples to dive into and get a whole view of the language in very short time. but not recommended for newcomers in programming.



3. Pros:
   1) The book does what the title promises - dives head in.
   2) It introduces relatively wide range of topics in a readable manner.
   3) Uses reasonably sized code examples
   4) The writing is pretty clear and understandable
   5) Has practical tidbits occasionally comparing similar functionality against C, C++, Java and Perl. Nice.
   6) Provides links to further reading on a topic. Also very nice.
   
   Cons:
   1) Most topic discussions are a bit shallow and incomplete. For example it would be nice to present the reader with a comprehensive list of 'stuff' that may be done with a list, string, tuple, etc.
   2) While there is a chapter on optimization, Mark doesn't mention the python profiler. I could live with that but there is no mentioning of python debugger (pdb) and there is nothing in the book about logging, either. These should not be considered 'advanced topics' and left out as they are helpful tool in learning any language (my opinion).
   3) The book examples follow the 'Look at this cool yet obfuscated stuff I can do with Python - and oh, BTW, this is what it really means' methodology. While the follow-up discussions are reasonable, I would much more appreciate an explanation or at least mentioning of a concept before I get hit by a semi-cryptic line of code. On the other hand, the code is well annotated.
   4) Mark uses repetitive examples to illustrate a point. 'This is how to do something', followed by 'This is how to do it better', followed by 'This is how to do it really well'. While illustrative of potential pitfalls, bugs or code deficiencies, this kind of writing makes it impractical to use the book as a reference. Open the book at the wrong page and follow the less than perfect example. Not a good thing. And boring - if I wanted to see it done the wrong way I'd use perl ;-).
   5) Mark's statement that C++ virtual methods: 'confuse the hell out of me' (pg. 84) is rather amusing. I'd suggest to skip the amusement as it doesn't give a casual reader a whole lot of confidence in author's understanding of method overloading. Humor me some other ways.
   However, this book is about Python, not C++, so I don't hold it against the author :)
   
   In conclusion:
   Quite reasonable book for the money, gets you a pretty good jumpstart. Coming from C/C++ background, general programming concepts are not totally lost on me and there are enough practical differences between Python and C++ that this book was worth the read.
   
   The chapters on HTML, XML and SOAP were the primary reason I bought this book. Again, while not covered in depth, I got enough from them to get started with a small practical application.
   
   If you're serious about developing any kind of meaningful code this is a reasonable start but you'll need to dig deeper.
   
   I recently opted for buying Wesley Chun's Core Python Programming (2nd Edition) (Core Series) as it covers more topics in greater depth (it's the details that matter a lot) in quite comprehensive manner while still very understandable by a novice programmer.
   
   O'Reilley's Python Cookbook by Alex Martelli et. al is also a very good complementary reading exposing quite imaginative ways of using even some very basic capabilities of Python.



4. This book should have been called "Wade Into the Shallow End of Python." Virtually every section is punctuated by a statement to the effect of "I don't really understand how this crazy stuff works, either, so here's some other books you can read instead of this one if you want to learn anything" and it's probably the best advice the author has to offer. Numerous features of the language are glanced over or even omitted entirely just so we can enjoy three chapters worth of pointless RSS feed parsing examples and repeated exposure to a textual rendering of the author's extensive collection of obscure techno music. Rudimentary features of regular expressions are also over-explained ad infinitum despite the fact that this book is meant to target developers with experience in other programming languages. If they really needed to pad the content that much then why not cover things like metaclasses or the new generator features or pretty much anything useful?
   
   It gets an extra star simply because it contains no painful-to-read Monty Python references which stopped being funny around 1985; something the official documentation cannot claim.



5. I have experience with Fortran, some C/C++, but mostly IDL, a commercial scripting language for scientific visualization. I'm interested in Python because its an open source scripting language.
   
   At the very least, skim the free online version before buying it. I got a copy from a friend and found it tough going. The first chapter 'dives' right into dictionaries and I didn't find it clear at all. Didn't make it past the first 2 or 3 chapters before looking for something else. The visual layout could also be better.

2 comments about Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 2007 (Mastering).

1. I am a certified expert on Word 2002, and had neglected to learn VBA at the time that I was studying for the test. I missed only one question about VBA, but felt bad that I didn't know it. Now that Office 2007 came out, I want to go back to learn VBA. This Mastering book is excellent! It begins with Macros, explains VBA in fantastic detail, and has a final chapter on XML, too.



2. I have been away from programming for about 10 years so I feel like a beginner in many respects. I had a need to automate the creation of some templates that I use frequently, but needed some help. This book was a good source for that help. I was able to find all the information that I needed, but it occasionally did require some searching. In a few cases, the information was not where I expected, but it was there. Like Microsoft's online help, each topic would benefit from a short example of the use of a particular command, but this might just be an indication of how much I have forgotten.

2 comments about XSLT, 2nd Edition.

1. Doug Tidwell knows his stuff, loves his stuff, and is eager to share his stuff with you. His stuff is xml, but his authoritative and well-written new book, XSLT, Second Edition, focuses on the eXtensible Stylesheet Language for Transformations.
   
   If you're reading this, you probably already know that transformations are the means by which xml files can be converted from one format to another and sliced, diced, sorted, ordered, linked, and/or combined with other xml files along the way. Or maybe you don't already know that but you've heard that XSLT is a mysterious force with the power to convert xml data into html or pdf or scalable vector graphic format or other formats. Either way, Tidwell's book will help you grasp and exploit the power of xml transformations.
   
   Previous exposure to xml concepts will save you time and help you to get the most out of the book, but don't worry if you're a newbie, because Tidwell provides a concise description of xml basics near the front of the book. And don't worry if you lack specialized tools for processing XSLT files: Tidwell thoughtfully provides download links and installation instructions for four popular XSLT processors (Xalan, Saxon, Microsoft XSLT Processor, and the Altova XSLT engine).
   
   Nearly 600 pages of the book are devoted to appendixes filled with reference materials (about which, more later), but don't be misled by that fact. Tidwell knows that reference materials are useless without orientation and understanding, and the first 300 pages of the book provide exactly that.
   
   Tidwell also knows that your time is valuable, and so he starts you off easy but FAST. In less than 45 pages, he covers the basics and walks you through a "Hello World" example. If you're new to XML or XSLT, the scales will fall from your eyes as you breeze through these pages.
   
   From there, Tidwell devotes the next 100 pages to the two main activities of transformation: 1) teasing precise bodies of data from source files and 2)generating output in the desired format. By the time you get that far, you realize that you're in very good hands. Tidwell builds your comfort level and your confidence as he goes along. He holds back the really gnarly stuff until last: branching and control elements, links and cross-references and, finally, sorting, grouping, and combining data.
   
   It's a very well organized approach, and the 300+ pages of orientation are exactly what you need in order to benefit from the reference materials in the appendixes.
   
   And what about those reference materials? More fantastic stuff: The XSLT reference covers all the elements defined in the XSLT specification; the XPath reference covers key aspects of the XPath specification; other appendixes cover XSLT, XPath, and XQuery functions, XML Schemas, regular expressions, XSLT formatting codes, and migration from XSLT 1.0 to 2.0. (But NOTE: Changes brought about by XSLT 2.0 are discussed throughout the book, not limited to a single appendix entry.)
   
   Even if you're a Jedi Master of XSLT, you'll be glad to have this book on your shelf for ready reference to the appendixes. If you rate yourself at an intermediate level of mastery, the chapters on advanced XSLT concepts will carry you to the next level. And if you're just beginning, you'll recognize Tidwell as a true friend in the transformation business. He will get you going in no time. The book is well organized, well written, and extremely well focused on its stated subject.



2. Perhaps.
   
   With XSLT 2nd Edition, this behemoth of a book tops out at over 950+ page, 600 of them a reference on XSLT itself. The 9 chapters earlier do plenty to discuss what XSLT is, how it's used, and how to use it.
   
   If you need to use XSLT at your job or just want to learn more about it, you have come to the right place, just don't expect a quick read, this one will take a while to get through but it's worth the journey.
   
   ***** RECOMMENDED

5 comments about Art of Computer Programming, The, Volumes 1-3 Boxed Set (2nd Edition) (The Art of Computer Programming Series).

1. This was a requested gift for my son. He is quite pleased with the series. He says the books are concise and informative. A definite recommendation!



2. Knuth talks about the applications into informatics of the theory number.
   This book , written several years ago, is today the best about those facts. I have studied recently the random numbers and I have read the algebric theory of this book . It's interesting as a solutions of algebric equation must verify statistic conditions for effective randomness.



3. There are already a lot of wise words written about the contents of these books. Although it may seem a trivial point in comparison to the contents, I was disappointed that the paper envelope around the volumes where not folded correctly, that is, the texts are not in the middle. A jewel like these books should not be present on a bookshelf in such a sloppy condition.



4. All religions have their own definitive Principles Book. For developer's this is THE one. It has history. It has values. It has predections. It is up to you, to absorb the essence.



5. The Art of Programming, by Donald Knuth, is a comprehensive, multi-volume work discussing various programming algorithms and their analysis. The work was voted by American Scientist as one of the twelve best scientific monographs of the twentieth century. The author famously offered a reward of two dollars and fifty cents for anyone who found and reported an error in the text. The work features exercises of multiple difficulty levels, from basic warm up exercises to ongoing research problems, allowing the reader to work up his skill and familiarity with the material.

4 comments about Programming Applications for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

1. Anyone who develops on Outlook should buy this book -- even if you don't have Outlook 2007. The beginning chapters review best practices and underlying architecture that every Outlook developer should understand, regardless of which version of Outlook you're using. Plus, you'll see all the great new stuff in 2007 which you'll want, so you can convince your stakeholders to upgrade. Later chapters drill into the technical details with surprising depth so you can find out what you need with only minimal trips to MSDN. Code samples are generous, albeit limited to only managed code... but that's understandable given the obvious advantages to using it for rapid application development.
   
   The difference between this book and previous attempts to document the Outlook development experience is like night and day. Kudos to Randy and Ryan for understanding what we face and doing an admirable job at enlightening us.



2. This book provides a good basic understanding of the process for programming Office Outlook 2007 plug-ins. It has a good spread of information about all the underlying office/outlook types and objects, although only briefly touches on their use. Demo's of using these objects are provided, covering typical basic tasks, but more advanced functionality is not really shown, though alluded to. The book makes extensive use (for C# programming) of a Shim Wizard which provides the interlinking functionality between the managed code and the COM interfaces. Unfortunately this wizard has been extensively modified since the book was published, and some of the instructions provided are out of date, resulting in the plug-in not functioning correctly. As very little information is provided with the book (and with the Wizard) working through these issues takes some time. The book's website does not include any errata to indicate the correct use of the modified wizard, though the site does contain links to the latest version of the wizard. Other than that the book is well worth it.



3. I found this book quite helpful since I am familiar with C# yet new to Programming with Outlook. My current assignment is to use VS 2008/C# to integrate with Outlook 2003 and 2007, I could apply some of the examples to my needs. Since I need to use VS 2008, then some of the steps are different and stick with events that would work for both Outlook versions, however, I have managed to figure them out.



4. If you're writing add-ins for Outlook, then this book is essential. The small cost of the book will save you days of trying to work out the best most appropriate ways to do things with the new object model.
   Programming Outlook 2007? Writing an add-in? Want to speed up the development time? This is the book for you...

5 comments about Mastering Oracle SQL, 2nd Edition.

1. Half of this 450 page book surveys basic SQL, and the other half is on features Oracle added to SQL in versions 9i and especially 10g. I bought the book because I believed the title, and the reviews here that said it was an excellent reference. But, to quote one of its authors, "This book is NOT a reference manual, and it is NOT an administrator's guide". It's an overview of SQL only. It is not an introduction; nor can it be used, reference book-fashion, all by itself.
   
   So for my purposes, I was quite disappointed. But the book has some utility, in its explanations of what can be done with Oracle SQL. Especially in the explanations of analytic functions, regular expressions, and XML. It's like a series of magazine articles, with discussion and examples.
   
   The book has some weaknesses:
   
   * The index is very skimpy and incomplete. This is what you'd expect actually, in a book that isn't ever meant to be referred back to.
   
   * The focus on SQL is diluted and inconsistent. For example, there is an explanation on how to set up partitioning. Another section compares Oracle's implementation of regular expressions to Perl's . Sometimes background and comparisons are present, sometimes they're not.
   
   * There isn't much explanation of *why* you'd want to do some of the *whats* that can be done. Yes, it's possible to build classes and objects into a database, but why do it in SQL instead of Java? (Of course the *hows* would be quite inadequate, if this were a how-to book).
   
   * There is too much explanation of how things used to be done in 8i. That version was five years old back when this edition was published. 8i shouldn't take up more than a paragraph or three in a book that purports to cover 9i and 10g.
   
   In summary, if you don't read trade magazines, and you don't care to spend your time on Oracle websites and forums, and you know you won't have access to 11g anytime soon, you may find this book a decent (altho somewhat pricey) way to broaden your horizons of what you can do with Oracle SQL.



2. I'm no SDE, but I had a need to learn enough SQL to enable me to hit my company's Data Warehouse tables directly and employ some complex joins. This was the book recommended to me, and it did the trick. I sat down and began reading it and was quickly writing increasingly complex queries. I found the explanations easy to follow, and the format intuitive. The only fault I found is that there is a lack of more complex join examples, as when there are more than one field being joined on or more than two tables being joined.



3. The goal of the authors is to explain how to write good readable SQL queries in Oracle 10g. The book starts with how to construct SELECT statements to group, filter and format result sets for dates, reports and data analysis. Then it proceeds to cover Oracle-specific queries and functions for hierarchies (data in tree structures), object-oriented types, XML documents, regular expressions and models (spreadsheet-like objects). Where relevant, there are notes about the differences between SQL for Oracle 10, Oracle 9 and the ANSI standard.
   
   As expected from the title, the chapters using declarative programming (i.e. SQL queries) for relational data, hierarchical data and reports are the most comprehensive. Chapters on interfacing Oracle SQL with other technologies such as scripting (Oracle's PL/SQL), object-oriented types, XML and regular expressions, or on optimization, are brief but sufficient to get you started, especially if you have a existing background in those technologies.
   
   This is the 2nd edition, so it's not surprising that the scope of the book is well-defined and that the writing is easy to read and polished. The example data and queries are just complex enough to demonstrate the issues without obscuring the main points. Minor annoyance about Chapter 15, "SQL Best Practices", which does not explain how to use the query analyzer and bind variables.
   
   I was already familiar with basic Oracle SQL but didn't really understand the language; this book blew away many of the fuzzy concepts in my mind and provided me the framework to tackle more complex problems.
   
   Kam-Hung Soh, 21 May 2007.
   [...]



4. The book does a nice job of dissecting the syntax of SELECT statements and their various components, but in my opinion would fall short for most practical users. The examples are closer to what you might find in one of those "SQL for Smarties" books than what a normal developer writing applications that interface with Oracle databases might be looking to master. For example, there isn't in depth coverage of flow-of-control mechanisms and only a few pages in the first chapter covering DML operations.



5. It's the only Oracle book I seem to need. Great explanations. Includes new Oracle features. One of the best descriptions on inner, outer, left, right joins. Saved my tail a couple of times. It includes just the right amount of information.

5 comments about Ruby Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)).

1. i found ruby cookbook is a good read for learning ruby, provides good thorough explanations of the topics, and gives great examples as well. if you want a good dummies book to get you going, this is not the book for you. if you want an encyclopedic reference 1000 pages long, look elsewhere. but this is a great happy medium.



2. Great stuff. I suggest this book for a first look at Ruby over and above Programming Ruby and Agile Web Development. If you're already a coder, this book will put Ruby in context of essential problems that you typically solve in whatever language you're called to use in your day-to-day work. This is this book's strength. It's not the deepest look at Ruby, and it's not a replacement for The Ruby Way or Programming Ruby, but it might get you into the groove faster by leveraging common programming tasks and their representations in Ruby code.



3. As with most O'Reilly cookbooks, Ruby Cookbook has two main avenues of exploration: the core of the language, and an introduction to some of the more important libraries, presented as the solutions to a series of themed tasks and problems the working programmer might face.
   
   Coverage of the likes of XML, databases, networking, web services is all present as you'd expect, but I always enjoy the exploration of the core language the most, especially as it applies to strings, arrays and hashes, where the idioms and 'zen' of programming in a language are normally revealed. Ruby Cookbook excels in this area, but it also provides a very solid grounding in Ruby's object system, namespaces/modules and blocks. The basics of Ruby's metaprogramming and reflective abilities are also well enumerated, although the recipe-like structure of the book doesn't quite communicate the 'magic' behaviour that pervasive Ruby metaprogramming (exemplified by Rails, of course) conjures.
   
   If you've read Perl Cookbook, rest assured that the Ruby version is easily as good, although as you might expect, in the latter half of the book there's less emphasis in Ruby Cookbook on low level networking and sysadmin work and more on higher level libraries. That said, the chapter on Rails felt a bit superfluous.
   
   This book is well-written and thorough, and would be a great second Ruby book (The Pickaxe being the obvious example for a first book). It has some interesting things to say about performance for some of the techniques it describes, although given how many different Ruby runtimes there are and how quickly they're progressing, it's difficult to say how relevant these will stay. Some of the examples are even quite amusing. Unless you were hoping for some truly in-depth metaprogramming detail, you'd be hard pressed to find anything wrong with Ruby Cookbook, except for the fact that it's competing with established Ruby must-read The Ruby Way, which covers very similar ground, in a very similar style. You don't need both books, and I preferred The Ruby Way. Nonetheless, this stands on its own as a great Ruby book.



4. Not a simple cookbook (o'reilly is cool). A lot of usefull informations and several lines about the differences with some other languages (python, java)
   
   Is not a "must" but it is a good resource for many of us.



5. Yes you can read online material but it's just not as good. The book really has some great content.

5 comments about Digital Image Processing Using MATLAB(R).

1. This book educates the reader in image processing and MATLAB. While I am experienced in both, I found the book to be an extrememly useful reference book for projects involving image compression and image representation. The book offered practical descriptions and useful code for computing the fast wavelet transform. It was especially useful in describing how the edges should treated. This is a big issue that other textbooks gloss over. I had never seen it described in a textbook, and it was described so well.
   
   The color image processing chapter is excellent, and the image processing chapter is pretty good. Lots of explanation and code.
   
   While the book stands alone, it can also be seen as a useful companion book to the more theoretical "Digital Imaging Processing" by Gonzalez and Woods (2nd edition). This is a different book even though it has close to the same name.



2. I bought this book for two reasons (a) I needed an overview of IP and (b) I wanted to examine different pattern analysis algorithms with a practical twist. On both counts, as an non-IP researcher, I was very satisfied. The book is very well laid out, so well in fact that it would put to shame many of its rivals. It served my needs. I can't comment on whether it will meet the needs of a broader community. I would certainly recommend it based on my experience.



3. Great text for learning image processing and using it with MATLAB. Hopefully the instructor also uses its mathematical insight as well.



4. This book has been really helpful to write my own tools for image analysis, such as leaf area index estimations from digital images and microscopy imaging analysis.
   
   I think that for people involved in image processing and analyisis, this book is a must.



5. This is a superb book-- I found it useful for both instruction as a reference on the syntax and form of doing things in Matlab with images and also as an in-depth text on the subject of image processing. Illustrated with easily followed examples and explicit description of the math involved in image processing operations, it provides a handy edge of explanation beyond what is available in the Matlab help files. This book is almost always signed out with a lineup at our university library, and is useful across many disciplines.