5 comments about Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices (Alan Apt Series).

1. After reading this text, I feel it deserves the attention of other great texts such as Design patterns and Refactoring, even though much of it's content expounds upon the ideas of these two classics. It's my opinion that this text has two strong points: it explains the ideas and details of agile development very clearly, and it does an excellent job of explaining the most popular patterns originated by GOF, plus a few more. The authors style was very good, with most of the examples in Java. Being a C++ programmer, I would have liked to see more examples in that language, but this is not any fault of the author.



2. I bought this for my brother. Got for a good deal on Amazon. Very happy with the fast delivery by Amazon.



3. It's a great book. As a senior developer with more than 5 year's experieces of Object-Oriented Design, I think this is a valuable pragmatic book about how to do in a practical project.



4. Reader,
   
   This book addresses some of the key reasons software continues to fail. It firmly ends the discussion that was never relevant of 'Agile means you do not have to REALLY known OO design'.
   
   Indeed to be 'Agile' and not create iteratively 'crap', the only real way is via your mastery of OO Design. Long term systems that withstand change do not happen via accidential discovery with a lack of vision and core design at the core.
   
   You can work in software with a lot of gaps, but the content here defines what is mandatory for even moderate levels of interesting work.
   
   Do you agree in the following as a common value of `good' for software?
   
   FROM: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1050347.html
   
   Good design
   
   Well-designed applications offer software components that are more robust, more maintainable, and more reusable. Such applications should be able to adapt changing business needs without affecting design. For example, a banking application should be able to support new types of accounts without a change in the existing design.
   
   Three key points of good design are:
   
   Maintainability, which is the ease with which a software system or component can be modified to adapt to changing environments, improve performance, correct faults, or other attributes. Well-designed applications require fewer resources for maintenance and changes.
   
   Reusability, which is the degree to which a software module or components can be used in more than one computing program or software system. Reusability of software components helps ensure faster development of software applications.
   
   Robustness, which is the stability of software applications in extreme situations (e.g., maximum load conditions, erroneous user inputs). Robust applications have less downtime and can reduce maintenance costs.
   
   Bad design
   Nobody plans to create ill-designed applications. It often happens because of a lack of experience or because the app was designed quickly to meet an extremely tight deadline. Poorly designed applications usually have these problems in common:
   
   They're rigid. A design is rigid if it cannot be easily changed. For example, a single change to heavily interdependent, rigid software could begin a cascade of changes in dependent packages. When such a program grows in size, the designers or maintainers cannot predict the extent of that cascade of change, and the impact of the change cannot be estimated. This makes the cost of the change impossible to estimate.
   They're fragile. Poorly created programs have a tendency to break in many places when a single change is made. Simple changes to one part of the application can lead to failures in other parts that appear to be completely unrelated. Fixing those problems leads to even more issues, and the maintenance process begins to resemble a dog chasing its tail. Such fragility greatly decreases the credibility of the design and maintenance organization, which leaves users and managers unable to predict the future quality of the product.
   
   
   They're not reusable. A design is difficult to reuse when its desirable parts are highly dependent upon other details, which aren't desired. If the design is highly interdependent, other designers will also be daunted by the amount of work necessary to separate the desirable portion of the design from the parts that aren't reusable. In most such cases, the cost of the separation is deemed to be higher than the cost of redevelopment of the design.
   
   Still with me? Ok..
   
   
   .NET developers historically have lacked (as compared to other OFA (one framework only) developers) at the very, very least) acceptable OO Design skills. I mean even remotely `predictably' acceptable. Sure I worked with many teams who were exceptions but they were all from other (Java/Smalltalk) environments. Even C++ developers can slant to a master of C, deep internals, and Fragile Base Class disaster (grin). So Microsoft would have been nuts as they have always know this to put multiple-inheritance into C#. I digress... This is relevant to the book I swear....
   
   Uncle Bob Martin created a masterpiece here that is still just as (more?) relevant. It is utterly transformative for anyone who wants to be even remotely productive on a team of best-practice types.
   
   FYI this is the book used when I teach 'Core Object Oriented Design for the C# Developer' around the country.
   
   NOTE: Do not let the word 'Agile' fool you. This is a book about best practices in software design and development. Agile just assumes you already know this material, yet most I work with do not.
   
   He provides definitive coverage of the most critical reasons for failure if you skip then. For example, inheritance in OO is wrong for most cases used today in .NET.
   
   Liskov substitution principle
   Read this (covered in detail in this book):
   
   
   Kind Regards,
   Damon Wilder Carr
   http://blog.domaindotnet.com



5. This is an excellent introduction to the Agile Software Development concept for anyone who learns best from examples. Mr. Martin's book is essentially a collection of introductory concepts and principles he has spoken or written about elsewhere. Much of it may be available on the web with some searching but here it is organized logically into 3 major approaches to learning: concepts, principles, and case studies. In the first chapters Mr. Martin takes us on a high flyover of Agile Software concepts such as extreme programming and test-driven development practices. Next he takes us through Java and C++ examples to demonstrate programming with key principles in mind such as "The Single-Responsibility Principle" and "The Interface-Segregation Principle." Finally he sums up the concepts and principles by examples using several real world case studies.
   
   Mr. Martin is a master at this sort of approach to teaching software design. Those familiar with his work will immediately recognize his hand. Some (perhaps most) learn well from this approach and the organization of the book lends itself well to a classroom study or self-directed learning. This is an excellent introduction to an important and timely topic.

5 comments about Data Structures and Algorithms in Java.

1. It is worth to have waited for 10 days for the book
   It covered up to date java technology and provide additional informations about the implementations of algorithms in real life.
   I got many usefull java and algorithm theories from this book and I think it fits to people who want to learn java and the other who have java knowledge.



2. I strongly recommend this book as a textbook for learning how to program Data Structures in the Java Programming Language. It has very clear examples with full code, and very nice explanations that explanation an abstract subject. I learned Data Structures in C++ and this book made learning them in Java a piece of cake.



3. This book, as many have said, is used in numerous introductory courses in computer science. It was recently dropped by my college after it was disowned by the professors who chose it---we students threw so much scorn on the book no one wanted to admit they had anything to do with it.
   
   The book has a very idiosyncratic style. It likes to use some unnecessarily specific class and method names for its examples, and fails nearly every time when it attempts to justify certain proofs about big-O and algorithm runtimes. In fact, the authors seem to think it adequate to make a broad statement and then give a simple example.
   
   All in all, you're best finding webpages written by random professors than purchasing this morass.



4. This is for the fourth edition, which from other reviews doesn't suck as bad as the first two...
   
   It's an okay text book - but I pity anybody who doesn't have either experiance working with data structures in C or C++ OR who hasn't taken a Finite Math class specifically for CS.
   
   Only get it because you need it for a course, spend as little as possible and then dump it on eBay as quick as you can. Not worth keeping as a reference.



5. This was a mediocre text that is a rewrite of the same text in C++. As is common, the book reads like it was updated by search and replace.

5 comments about SOA Security.

1. This is an excellent book with a lot of detail. The first few chapters given a good background on SOA and Security issues and challenges around Services.



2. This book is titled wrong. This books claims coverage on building SOA security, it does not dig into the security features of SOA. Particularly there is no discussion on strategies for securing BPM workflows, SOA governance,identity mgmt via SSO and federation etc and how to ensure security at all integration tiers. This book only offers security examples using Apache Axis beyond that YOU WILL BE BORED.



3. If you are really serious about building security to your SOA stack of applications, then this book would offer only a hello world to security. All you find is a full-blownup security chapter for XML Web services beyond that nothing more. More importantly this book is completely disorganized...all I saw is the basic XML Web services security using out-of-box Axis examples. To the most disappointment, there is no chapter to show how to put-to-gether all these APIs in a real world SOA (as they claim in the title). Why should I read the book if it is repeating the API examples from Axis. This book is nothing but a theoretical junk with no proof. After browsing all the pages, I don't find anything which show how to build a SOA security architecture. The word security is abused and does'nt make sense for this title.



4. Security is indespensable for web services, but difficult to understand and use. There are too many standatds relevant to security, W3C standards and OASIS. I think to understand whole structure need much time. It seems architecture or principle is required to consistent understanding. This book is good to grasp security standard structure. It is regrettable that this book seems written before 2007, the rush of new standards. I hope this book is maintained to the latest standards. Nonetheless it is good for readers to understand security standards structure.



5. The main goal of this book (as stated in introduction section) is to give a reader good background knowledge on security in order to facilitate the implementation of security in SOA-based systems. This book is not for security experts, it is more for people who have to deal with security without having previous experience. It helps to answer the questions like how to secure collaborating Web services, what are the common practices.
   Nevertheless, the book does not cover all the topics, however, mostly the basic ones. I found this book helpful to understand the fundamental instruments used in SOA security and continued with my own more specific and advanced solutions.

5 comments about The Object-Oriented Thought Process (3rd Edition) (Developer's Library).

1. This is an excellent book. Its perfect for anybody looking for a book to get a little further insight into how object oriented concepts are used. I have read a few reference books that describe object oriented concepts such as classes, interfaces, objects, ect. And although they explain the concepts and how to code them they do not go to far in regards to the underlining meaning of the concepts and how they all fit together or how to use them. This is what the books about.



2. I am a relative newcomer to object-oriented programming (OOP), though I am an experienced programmer in non-OOP languages (Fortran 90, IDL). I've had several people try to explain to me what OOP is and isn't, but thier explanations never made sense. I picked this book up and read it and everything clicked the first time through. The author does a great job of explaining OOP and why it is important.
   
   I highly recommend reading this book cover-to-cover BEFORE learning an OOP language. And, although the examples all use Java code and I was learning Ruby, I found that it didn't matter. So, don't think you have to know or be learning Java to get something from this book.



3. This book is the OOP concepts starting point with clear definitions of oop terms and practices. Just don't try to get into oop without getting the idea first.



4. Many books on programming include chapters on OOP, this book is different.
   It's not a programming book - but a book on thinking in OO and in my opinion, does a great job of it. There's some code (generally java) used to illustrate concepts - although the subtext on the cover mentions Java and .NET - neither are needed to understand the book.
   The book starts with the big picture and then drills down into specifics. I'm not always a fan of a spiral approach but in this case it really works. I especially enjoyed the Case Study in Chapter 6 where blackjack classes are created. It's a good exercise to go through creating your own classes and comparing them with those the author comes up with. As the author points out there are some strong opinions out there on the use of inheritance vs composition. I was happy to see that the author illustrates the use of both stating that they are both valid OO techniques.
   I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a more conceptual understanding of OOP than what is generally found in books on programming languages. I would be happy to find more books by this author, I found his writing style very clear.



5. This book is wonderful for someone is is thinking about OO. I code in PHP and have struggled through different coding books on how to implement OO in my designs. Those books showed me how, but never showed me the why. This is the first book that I've found that takes a step back and looks at OO for an abstract view that lets you better appreciate the practical view. For those starting in OO design, this book should be prerequisite reading before any specific lines of code are written. I would highly recommend this book. For the first time, I can say, "I get it."

4 comments about Oracle Database 11g PL/SQL Programming (Oracle Press).

1. Michael McLaughlin has delivered the most comprehensive book on PL/SQL on the market. No matter where you are, novice or master, you will find this book helpful. The book is loaded with practical, working examples and detailed descriptions that will help you from getting lost. Even the most complex topics are covered thoroughly and comprehensively in a way that makes them feel simple. Even if you are not on 11g yet, you need to buy this book. It's not only a great reference, but an interesting and captivating read that will give you ideas and understanding which will help in any project.
   
   Most of all, this book reveals the power of PL/SQL as a viable and fully-featured programming language. It covers complex subjects such as Object Oriented Programming and utilizing Large Objects (LOBS) with striking detail. It also contains a primer on using PHP and Java with PL/SQL! You'll also find a revealing discussion on using Functions, Procedures, and Packages that enhance understanding in a way that no other book does. Other books teach you the "how", this book covers the "what" and the "why" so that you not only can write the code, but you understand everything that it is doing.
   
   I would highly recommend this book to anyone that uses PL/SQL no matter your current skill level. There's great content for everyone.



2. This is one of the best technical books I have read. It makes PL/SQL easy to learn for the beginners and it is so detailed that very experienced users will find it extremely useful. It covers the usage of PL/SQL with many different types of applications such as JAVA, XML, PHP, etc. I have recommended very few language books in my time, because, I have found them to be written with the writer's logic as to how the writer thinks the code would be better executed. However this is the first book that I have seen that is written logically based on how the language would be better used to efficiently interact with the database. In short, I give this book my highest recommendation. I would like to congratulate Michael on writing such a great book.



3. I've been using PL/SQL for a few years, but not often and not well. I wanted a book that would serve as both a reference book and as a cover-to-cover read from which I could absorb all the niceties.
   
   This isn't that book. As a reference book, I think it's okay, but as a read it was pretty bad. The book has a lot of cut-and-pasting, with paragraphs lifted from one chapter and dropped in another (albeit relevant) chapter, or similar information repeated redundantly. For example, CHAR, NCHAR, VARCHAR2 and NVARCHAR2 are awfully similar data types, but instead of combining them into a single section and describing what they have in common and how they differed, the same long paragraph was repeated, tweaking a few words. That might be okay for a pure reference book (hence two stars rather than one), but it sure makes for a dull read, and it just makes the book heavier.
   
   I returned the book before finishing it (and wouldn't that be cheating?), but searching the text there were some things that seemed missing. My current project will involve a SELECT-FOR-UPDATE cursor loop, and I couldn't find a description of it.



4. You can't go wrong with this book! It is truly comprehensive. I highly recommend it.

5 comments about Applied Software Project Management.

1. This book covers concisely all the modern aspects os software project management, without the complexity found in more formal PM sources like the PMBOK. Moreover, the job of translating the broad and general concepts covered in the PMBOK to practical day-to-day scenarios is the major benefit from buying it. It won't, however, cover an specific issue like estimation to the level that enables you to be an estimator (this subject, for instance, is only 17 pages long), but will provide you the guidelines and references to additional material to do so.



2. Applied Software Project Management
   Reviewed by Steven D. Sewell, PMP
   Project Management Institute, Tampa Bay Chapter
   
   Having been peripherally involved as a software release project team member in the past, I knew enough to get my piece of the puzzle delivered. The information in this book allows me to broaden my perspective and actually comprehend the picture I see on the puzzle box cover. The book is written in a straight ahead manner. If you are one who like examples of what is being discussed, then this book is for you. The use of clear definitions makes each topic understandable and the analogies make them memorable. Tables and scripts are used throughout to exemplify each tool and technique. Most useful in practice are the sections that aid in the diagnosing of problems that can be encountered. This book definitely hits its goal of delivering a practical guide into the hands of a software project manager. The only improvement would be to have "handbook" or "guide" placed somewhere on the cover.



3. This is a nice book, everything about it is so neat and nice. I am glad I purchased this book from Amazon.



4. I bumped into this book by way of "Head First PMP", also written by Stellman and Greene. Because I liked the PMP resource so much, I thought I should give this book a chance and I was not disappointed. Packed with useful information, case studies and examples, this book is a resource any technical project manager will want to have in their collection.
   One bonus I did not count on was the companion website which includes downloadable templates, PPT slides and other electronic assets.
   
   Highly recommended!



5. This book gets five stars, because from the first time I picked it up, it helped solve a problem I had at work with a highly annoying colleague who constantly went over my head to report to higher management anytime she even suspected I or a member of my team might be doing something wrong or not the way she would do it. Resorting to outright lies and spreading office gossip was not below her. Asking her to stop, being nice to her or being angry with her did no good. By following some of the advice in this book I was able to start to turn things around within a single day.
   
   That is the really great thing about this book, it provides practical advice from experience project managers not only about tools and methodology of managing projects that work, but also the pitfalls of office politics and how to successfully deal with them.
   
   The methods and tools presented in this book are very good, and are what the authors have found works in their projects. You might find that some of this is not applicable to you if you work in an organisation that already has an established methodology, or if the client insists things are done a certain way. It certainly presents some new ideas and tools to try that might improve your current proccess.
   
   Another great thing about this book is its simplicity. There are many techniques for everything from project estimation to software testing, some of which require a high level of expertise. The techniques presented here are ones that are simple and easy to implement.
   
   It is always good to learn from other peoples success, and this book gives you an insight into how its authors successfully manage their own projects that is valuable to every project manager.

5 comments about Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design (2nd Edition) (Software Patterns Series).

1. IMHO, if you ever wanted to understand Design Patterns and most of the basic OO concepts way much better than you do now, then this is the book. It is well written, easy to read, and the authors convey the information very well. They even stick to the same real-world examples throughout the book while explaining the various concepts and patterns. This book treats the GoF Design Patterns book like the catalog that it should be with lots of references into it.
   
   I randomly decided to bring it along on my recent business trip. I found the book engaging and have studied (not just scanned) almost half of it now. I found it to answer so many questions I had about OO all these years. It provides a strong foundation into thinking about design, OO, and patterns. I highly recommend it. The book's subtitle states, "A new perspective on OO design" and I totally agree with the authors. So far I have covered the Adaptor, Façade, Bridge, and Strategy patterns. They are highly useful and very powerful patterns that allow for easy communication among the designers, the implementers, and the unit testers.
   
   For experienced software engineers, you may find this just a concise repackaging of what you already know and have learned. But you too may still find some new golden nuggets here and there within these pages. Plus, I believe you may find this new perspective enlightening as to why you use design patterns not just how or the pattern as a cookie cutter.
   
   To address all the other prior reviews (especially those with low ratings), this book is in fact a new perspective. If you miss that point then this book will look like just another rehash of the topic of design patterns. But if you really study it and look for and understand this new perspective, you will find it very useful. The authors are trying to have you see design patterns as much more than just a common diagram. It is a better way to conceive of designs and communicate them, with much more understanding behind them. Design patterns are like any other tool; you may understand what a hammer and nail is for, but you may not know all the proper techniques in using a hammer and nail, and therefore your final product will be reasonable but not the best. This book goes a long way to achieving the best.



2. This book gives an excellent insight into using some of the patters described in the classic book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series). It explains the reasons why particular patterns are useful and how they can be implemented to solve real-world problems.



3. It's a textbook.
   I needed it for a class.
   Your mileage may vary.



4. This books is the best introduction to object oriented design. I've been working as a programmer for several years now but I was never confident with my knowledge of object oriented design. This book shows you the way with commonality variability analysis and the author augments traditional inheritance based object oriented design with design patterns by using aggregation instead of inheritance. He shows how the design patterns can lead to better object oriented design.



5. I have seen developer who knows quite a number of design patterns, but still produce terrible design, because they don't know when and where to apply.
   
   If you want to increase your number on design patterns, this is the wrong book for you. If you want to learn the design principles behind most of the design patterns, such as open-closed principle, single responsibility principle and favor aggregation over inheritance principle, this is a must-read.

No comments about Beginning C# 2008 Databases: From Novice to Professional (Beginning from Novice to Professional).

5 comments about Visual Basic 6 for Dummies (for Windows).

1. When I was trying to make the upgrade from Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 6.0, this was the first book that I bought. This book is very easy to read and there are ample examples to illustrate each principle that the author is trying to teach you. I combined this books with the 4 "Learn to Program Visual Basic" books by John Smiley to give me a solid foundation in Visual Basic 6.0. The cartoons in this book will reduce down the stress of trying to learn something new.

   Now that I am moving into .Net technology, I really appreciate how good this book was for people who have little or no experience with Visual Basic. This should be your first Visual Basic 6 book. By the way, Visual Basic 6 and the legacy source code that goes with it will be around for years to come.




2. I used this book, and found it very helpful to begin writing vb code. The only drawback is that it is of course covers only the basic stuff with very little background info. If you want to get started in VB, I would suggest this book to anyone.



3. I bought this book and quickly discovered that Visual Book 6 is no longer the latest tool for VB programming. Microsoft has introduced Visual Basic 2005--which you can download free from Microsoft.
   
   Consequently, any book on VB6 is really a waste of your time. You would just end up converting your VB6 code to MS VB 2005. Why waste time learning old commands? Go right to the latest.
   
   If you want a great book on MS VB 2005 try Michael Halvorson Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Step by Step.



4. I generally like Dummies books, but this one is a little weak. The book covers a lot of topics but is really short on examples. I went through 90% of it and still didn't feel like I could actually write a meaningfull program. I purchased "Microsoft Visiual Basic 6.0 Professional step by step" by Michael Halvorson and found it to be MUCH better. I'm about 50% of the way through it and have learned a lot more.



5. Having been to school for this subject but never quite understood the workings of this program, this book has been an eye-opener

2 comments about Lua 5.1 Reference Manual.

1. This is just a printed version of the website reference manual. Do not expect to learn Lua from this book. It is good for what it is.



2. This is a short succinct reference manual written in a clear and concise manner. It tells you everything you really need to know and not much more. There are short examples of syntax to help explain the concepts. If you need to simply write programs in LUA, then this is your choice. If you need to go deeper (e.g. embed LUA in your own application) then I recommend you get "Programming in LUA".