5 comments about Learn to Program (Pragmatic Programmers).

1. I picked up this book several times at the bookstore but never purchased it until... I read the first chapter. I had always flipped through the book and thought that all of it looked like greek to me, and that I would never be able to understand it.
   
   Once I started reading it, I enjoyed it, I understood it, and I learned the concepts.
   
   I got excited and I bought the ultimate reference to Ruby the "Pick Axe" guide, and I also bought Agile Web Development with Rails.
   
   If Learn to Program would have been bad or badly written I probably would have given up on ever learning to program.
   
   If you are a web developer you owe it to yourself to check out this book. I tried to learn PHP first, but with Ruby and this beginners book to program, I am actually learning it.
   
   It would be even better if it had an index and there was a website you could go to, where you could find help/answers to the extra end of chapter questions.
   
   This is a great place to start to learn how to program.



2. While looking for a book on entry level ruby programming I came across this. The reviews were good so I bought it. I was extremely disapointed however. First, the book is very small. There simply is not a lot of content here. I did like the type and text and layout.
   
   But the biggest problem and the one not mentioned anywhere is that this is not an entry level programming book. This is one step before that. It simply is "extremely" basic. What I mean by that is that is written for someone who probably has never even messed around with any programming language at all or has a lot of computer knowledge at all. It's like a junior high course to students who don't have a clue. This is great for some, but not mentioned anywhere and surely a disappointment and worthless to anyone who has even wrote a simple hello world program before.



3. I absolutely love this book! I have tried time and time again to get different books and take different classes to learn how to program. Everything from Unix courses to Java, C++, Scripting and many more that were just plain over my head! There are too many "beginner" books that just aren't Beginner enough! I stumbled upon this book in a book store--sat and read 4 pages and knew this would be the book to finally get me programming. I sit and read a chapter or two a day with my laptop and work my way through different exercises. The wonderful thing about Ruby is that it is so versatile. The book can explain the basics and with a little imagination you can come up with your own programs that are slightly different that the exercises given. (Basically each chapter gives building blocks to teach you, but there are more than one way to stack the building blocks and you can make different style buildings with those blocks.) For instance, one assignment was to make a program ask the name of the person typing at the keyboard, then it should repeat the name and say something like, "Oh, BLANK is such a nice name..."
   
   With the building blocks of the chapter, not only was I able to create a program that did just that, I created a program that said,
   "Hi, my name is X."
   "What's your name?"
   [your typed name]
   "Wow! [your typed name] is very pretty."
   "What is your middle name?"
   [your typed middle name]
   "And your last name?"
   [your typed last name]
   "I must say, [your first][your middle][your last name] is absolutely stunning!"
   "It was nice chatting with you [your entire name]."
   
   
   
   That's one thing I love about this book. It give you the building blocks, and without too much work (because it's so well written,) you build!



4. I bought this book a couple of summers ago. My son and I (he was 11 years of age at the time) worked through most of the exercises in the book together. I took a C programming class years ago. My son is good at math and has solid logic skills. I did a web-search for books focused on teaching kids to program - and I talked to a programmer friend who said that Ruby would be a good first language - so I bought this book. I've looked at some of the recent negative reviews - and while I do think there's room for improvement (such as an answer key) here's the differentiating element: my son and I got stuck on an exercise, so Matt wrote Chris Pine (the author) an email asking for help - a personalized answer was forthcoming the next day! Bottom line: Ruby is an entirely appropriate first language to learn, and this book is extremely applicable to the beginner with no programming background. Will you have to buy a second book to continue your learning after you complete this book? Sure. But isn't that usually the case? I don't know too many books that are appropriate for both beginner and expert - this book helps one do exactly what the title states: Learn to Program. Enjoy!



5. I picked up Learn to Program for two reasons:
   
   * I was curious about a book that could teach you to program. Where do you start? Also, I originally learned how to program (in Basic) from a book with no computer.
   * I wanted to learn Ruby and that's the programming language that Learn to Program uses.
   
   I was impressed with the book. Chris Pine starts out with the very basics - how to set up your computer with Ruby and how to create and run a program and takes you through a few basic programs, algorithms like sort and finally simple interactive games and file manipulation.
   
   If you are looking to learn how to program or how to teach your kid to program, Learn to Program is a good starting point.

5 comments about Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications (3rd Edition) (The Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series).

1. A favorite re-readable book for OO Analysis and Design
   
   The author drives home the inherent complexity of software design and the need for OO analysis and design to alleviate that complexity. Current developers using an object-oriented approach and developers new to OO design and analysis can benefit from this book.



2. [A review of the 3rd EDITION, 2007.]
   
   Booch et al teach Object Oriented analysis at a level separate from and independent of any particular OO language like Java, C++ or C#. The length of the discourse means that if you are uncertain as to how to make your classes, there is ample material here to draw advice from.
   
   The early chapters focus on issues like notation. Necessary. But the meat of the text may be when the discussion moves onto the idea of levels of abstraction. Other developers might disagree, but this section seemed crucial to me. It talks about how to focus on behaviour, not representation or implementation. Then, it suggests how to progressively use different levels of abstraction to refine the design. En route, this should yield fruitful objects and systems of subobjects within an object.
   
   An entire section, of 5 chapters, is devoted to examples of applications. Worth perusing to make concrete the ideas brought forth earlier in the book. Frankly, the book could have been considerably shortened, by reducing or even eliminating this section. But the authors chose correctly to furnish copiously fleshed out examples, as good pedagogy.
   
   The text is also useful in giving a working acquaintance with UML. You might not necessarily know everything in UML by the end of the book. But you will be familiar with its main elements and its utility for describing relationships between coupled objects. Use case diagrams are also heavily invoked. Something else common to much OO design.



3. College-level holdings strong in references for object-oriented programmers must have the 3rd updated edition of Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications. It provides software engineers both in the field and at the advanced student level with a key reference to the industry, using numerous examples to illustrate foundation concepts, explain methods, and demonstrate successful applications across fields. New to this edition is a detailed introduction to UML 2.0, a focus on modeling with five chapters emphasizing different phases, advice on allocating team resources, and much more. Quite simply, a 'most have' for any serious collection.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. I have read few software engineering books that have been perfect. Some of this book is not perfect. The wisdom in the text, in the white space and beyond, is priceless. It is important to consider that Robert Martin, whose books on the theory and art of object oriented software development, amongst other subjects, are immense. Robert worked with Booch, and his greatness stands on the shoulders of Booch. You may not get everything from a first read of this book, and thats the beauty - it distills so many ideas in some many ways, that every time you read it, you get to share in the vision and deeper ideas behind the concepts.
   
   This will always have a space on my shelf.



5. This book's reputation as one of the bibles of OOAD is probably deserved because (to someone relatively new to it) the essentials seem to be thoroughly covered. It just seems too much like wading through muck to find them.
   
   The problem begins at the very beginning; on the first pages of the preface. In describing changes between publication of the second edition and this third edition, the author lists "robots are cruising on the surface of Mars" and "Personal hovercraft are available." Tongue-in-cheek?
   
   Unfortunately, no, unless it's firmly planted there. As the book continues, the reader all too often wants to start skimming as paragraph after paragraph, sometimes page after page, of non-essential prattle clouds the essentials. For journeyman designers and developers, sections on the topology of old-fashioned procedural languages, on the importance of documentation, task planning, release planning (twice!) and more may be frustrating drags on learning the essentials of thinking through a good design and taking it to the doorstep of implementation.
   
   A highly-simplified greenhouse application is used for examples throughout the first part of the book, leaving too many more-common scenarios unexplored and occasionally trapping skimmers who have not captured every concept in the design of that application along the way.
   
   Late chapters illustrate some concepts with (finally!) other applications including an all-important (for many of us) web application as well as applications for satellite tracking, data aquisition for a weather station, artificial intelligence, and a control system for traffic management. Interesting, but again wordy and by the time you get there you're exhausted!
   
   I did learn from this book, but I'm still looking for The Book that efficiently teaches OOAD, and I've read four or five already. So far I've learned more from a couple of implementation-level books: Martin Fowler's superb book Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, and his UML Distilled. These have been very instructive in part because Fowler's style is lean and very clear, un-clouded by distracting non-essentials. I've just ordered Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development by Craig Larman. Fingers are crossed, maybe that will be The Book.

5 comments about Systems Analysis and Design with UML Version 2.0: An Object-Oriented Approach.

1. Item recived as presented



2. The UML writing style of this book is very easy to follow, and a great way to gradually introduce the whole concept of object-oriented analysis and design methodologies to the readers, especially the beginners. The authors did a great job illustrating the entire system development life cycle with a coherent and realistic example using the latest UML notations, practical methodologies, and various analytical artifacts. The only criticism I have is that sometimes the description of a particular topic spans over multiple pages without sub-leveling or sub-topics or highlights, making it very difficult for user to go back and perhaps mine certain important concepts embedded in the discussion. Perhaps more generalization relationship and diagrams can be helpful. Overall, it is a very good source of reference for object-oriented design in layman's term. I will strongly recommend it to my colleagues.



3. This book is just majorly confusing and really for the major eggheads. I'm using it because I have to for class but I'd rather go to another approach for learning this stuff. I'm using Learn to Program with C# by Smiley and it discusses some of the topics, from the early stages in the reading, as to the phases of development and because of that it helped me to understand this better. However, this stuff is really hard to grasp without the egghead mentality.



4. After reading a couple of 'classic' system analysis texts I felt I needed to read about system analysis and UML. This title had some good reviews so I purchased a copy.
   
   This book did cover both system analysis and UML, but I felt that it did not cover either well. I had a hard time engaging with the content and linking it with my existing knowledge of UML and systems analysis.
   
   If you are interested in UML and systems analysis I would recommend reading "Modern Structured Analysis" (Yourdon Press Computing Series) by Edward Yourdon, and finding a good UML 2 text (I'm lookging for one now).
   
   For the price, I was expecting a much better book.



5. The book is serivicable...professor loved certain sections but hated others. There is no perfect textbook on this topic.

2 comments about An Introduction to Programming Using Alice.

1. For non-programmers who want to learn an object oriented language, Alice is a nice choice. At least as a pedagogic vehicle. As far as I know, there are no actual [or few] actual jobs for Alice programmers. But at the primary or secondary school level, Alice gets the main concepts common to many commercial OO languages across to students.
   
   Herbert introduces these concepts at a deliberately slow pace. Suitable for most of the targeted audience. The screen captures of the user interface are quite pretty, and help to hold the reader's attention. As compared with learning C++, say, where there is no intrinsic GUI. Plus, the mapping of conceptual objects to graphical objects in Alice is its main attraction. Very intuitive.



2. Not only did I save money from buying from Amazon, it also arrived in time for my first class. Excellenct service.

No comments about MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-502): Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 Windows® Presentation Foundation.

5 comments about TCP/IP Sockets in C#: Practical Guide for Programmers (The Practical Guides).

1. Did you ever just want a book get to the point and tell you what you need to know? This is that book. If your new to winsock, this book will get you rolling quickly.



2. I think this book is very good because es simple, explain clearly and go directly to the matter.
   
   Juan Ramon Divison



3. This book is a good intermediate to somewhat advanced book on TCP and UDP protocols using Sockets in .Net - all examples of-course as the title suggests are in C#. It does show some interesting examples and was able to get me started using Sockets in .Net - however it didn't go as far as I had hoped. But if you're needing something to show you how to start using Sockets it is a very good book.



4. This book gets very high ratings on both amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. I've given it a slightly lower rating than some, although still four stars, and will explain why...
   
   The subtitle on the cover of the book is "Practical Guide for Programmers" which suggests it is going to be good even for experienced developers. It is only when you read the preface (page X) that you find that the book is aimed "primarily at students", and even then is "intended as a supplement, to be used with a traditional textbook", which seems a bit of a contradiction when it then says that "we have tried to make the book reasonably self-contained".
   
   Anyway, what are the good points of this book? Well, it does mention most of the bits that a developer using sockets will want to consider. It has everything from blocking sockets, through non-blocking sockets and the select model, through to overlapped I/O. It also mentions threading, the use of thread pools, broadcast and multicast. All good stuff. Even includes example code for each.
   
   Where the book falls down is that having skimmed over all of those topics it (a) doesn't provide adequate information about how to choose the model (synch vs. asynch, blocking vs. non-blocking, 1 thread vs. fixed number (> 1) of threads vs. thread pool, etc) to use for a particular project, and (b) falls short of being self-contained, doing the blah-blah is beyond the scope of this book thing.
   
   I have seen many projects developed using the wrong model, resulting in poor performance, lack of responsiveness, inability to shutdown cleanly etc. I'm pretty sure that the authors of the book will have seen projects like that too. Books about using sockets really need to advise on this area.
   
   It is understandable that a book of this size and price will say that some things are outside the scope of the book, but not something as basic as socket options (p52 refers the reader to the MSDN). Again, socket options are an area where well-meaning developers or support staff set values that are little better than guesses, and which sometimes cause adverse effects. If there's going to be a second edition of this book, please include advice on such matters.
   
   So, all in all, good for students or people new to sockets, but not quite great. It tells you the basic techniques, but not how to use them to best advantage. Having said that, I prefer this book to C# Network Programming which rambles, uses language that is ambiguous in places, and contains a significant error (if being very generous, it could be very lazy English causing an unintended meaning) on the very page I opened it on.
   
   It's probably best for people who already know sockets really well, but who are switching from one language to another (e.g. C++ or Java to C#). Those people probably know what model and options to use, just need to see how to do it in C# - something the book does do well.



5. I have a technical book collection that rivals most libraries and this has to be one of the best programming books I've ever purchased. I'm very new to Sockets programming but I am familiar with C#. Therefore, all I needed was a way of familiarizing myself with the fundamentals of sockets programming, not a full-on long-winded lecture of everything-C#. The structure of this book is amazing. It starts each section by providing a brief description of the classes and concepts the authors are about to present. It then presents sample code illustrating the topic followed by an analysis of the code at key points by line number. It then follows up with a detailed summary of each class used in the sample along with its methods, constructors, and properties. Each example gets progressivly more complex which keeps the reader from being overwhelmed with the complexity of the subject matter too quickly.
   
   Quick, concise, and very well written, these authors did a fantastic job!

5 comments about VB and VBA in a Nutshell: The Languages.

1. I have only just started to learn about VB and VBA and as an absolute beginner, I found so far at any rate, this book very easy to absorb and understand. It also gioves a good depth of what VB and VBA is all about. My work has taken me away from home (and frm my computer) for many weeks but the book always goes with me and I am very pleased to have purchased it. I would suggest it is very good for anyone else wishing to consider buying it for the knowledge and style of how the author imparts that knowledge.



2. Well, although there are still many zealous VB 6.0 coders out there, we all know the former language has been superseded by VB.NET, which is basically completely unrelated whatsoever to VB 6.0.
   
   With that being said, I don't plan on becoming a VB coder anyhow, and don't do a lot of programming Web applications anyway. However, there is A LOT that can be accomplished in the Visual Basic language and I find learning VB as a really nice leisure time in between classes, learning hardcore material, or just wanting to enter new territory.
   
   For anyone else who reviews this, please recognize what this book is (and perhaps what it is not): this is a "NUTSHELL" title -- It is not meant to be a defintive tutorial. In fact, the author blatantly states in the preface that the people who will get the most out of this book are those who already have knowledge of VB and are looking for something to refresh their memories or use as a desktop reference.
   
   Now the latter phrase, desktop reference, is exactly what this book is. While the book can be divided into an 'explanation' section and a 'reference' section, the explanations are NOT complete, and are really just broad overviews of the particular subjects a section covers.
   
   I know: I mentioned that I wasn't a VB coder (although I'm not a novice either), and yes, I purchased this book knowing this. I don't recommend this approach for everyone, but this works for me. I've learned a lot from this reference, and I'm able to implement a lot of what I've read. The reference section is excellent. So yes, I've used this as a "bootleg textbook".
   
   Other than the fact that good books on VB 6.0 are a little hard to come by nowadays (everything's VB.NET), this is a good start for someone who doesn't want their hands held the whole way and are okay with starting off "in the middle of nowhere" and trekking through unknown territory. One of O'Reilly's best.



3. It's hard to believe that this book was originally published in 1998. I can't think of any VB programmer I've met that did not have one of these on their desk. This book is meant to be used like a dictionary for VB and VBA. The format is brilliant and the concepts in it are as valid today as they were in 1998.



4. this comes in very handy if you are developing with vb/vba on a daily basis. much quicker than using the mostly confusing and badly organized MSDN online references...



5. If you have an understanding of VB and need a good reference book, this is it. It will save a lot of the time & frustration experienced when searching with MSDN.

4 comments about The Book of Qt 4: The Art of Building Qt Applications.

1. I recently had to translate a C++ application from the now defunct Borland C++ class libraries to QT4, so I had some on-the-job training with QT and was very impressed by the elegance and depth of Trolltech's design. But I needed a general book to round out my knowledge, and this book filled the gaps well. It's well-written and clear.
   
   Also hats off to NoStarch press. It's a beautifully designed book, which makes reading a good book even more of a pleasure.



2. I've just started to look at this book. It appears to have the information I need about QT4.



3. 
   The Book of Qt4 is an excellent recommendation for any interested in using QT to build GUI applications, and for advanced computer libraries catering to programmers and designers. Chapters cover all the tools for creating dialogues, data visualization techniques, handling databases and events, and more, offering tips on developing user-friendly applications and providing black and white screen shot examples throughout. It's an excellent guide for any QT programmer, and for collections catering to them.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. This book is a fairly standard tutorial on building user interfaces. It covers the basics, and should be sufficient to get most C++ programmers up to speed. However, there are quite a few points in the book where the author hand-waves his way through a process. This can make following the tutorials somewhat confusing and gets in the way of the general understanding of the process. In addition, either because of platform differences or poor testing, some of the examples do not work properly. For example, in the cuteedit2 example in Chapter 4, the buttons for the discard changes dialog have their meaning reversed. On the surface it is hard to tell if this is a bug in the book or in the OS X implementation of QT 4. Finally, many key ideas a mentioned almost in passing (like the use of the tr() function to aid in translations), making it imperative to carefully read every word.
   
   This text pales in comparison to the Hillegass text on Cocoa programming, which could be considered the gold standard of UI programming tutorials. In general, you will be able to get yourself started on Qt programming with this text. However, the lack of quality control will make the experience a little less pleasing than it otherwise could have been.

5 comments about Introduction to Java Programming-Comprehensive Version (6th Edition) (GOAL Series).

1. This is an excellent text. It goes into great detail for an "introduction". The excercises at the end of the chapters are very well designed using everything you've learned up to that point and re-writing old excercises more efficiently using the new topics learned. His website also has alot of additional information. Head First Java is a good overview, while this text digs down to the details. Very good author and very good text. Highly recommended. One note though, this is a very long text with alot of information so if you plan of reading the entire book and doing all the excercises you will need to invest a large amount of time to do so. But if you do invest the time you will have a very good grasp of the Java language. I usually always say that there's never a "one-book catchall", but this comes pretty close. I feel that by reading this book, doing all the excercises, and making sure that you fully understand the topics, you can adequately program Java in a work environment.



2. I highly recommend the Deitel Java: How to Program book instead.
   
   Liang over and over again introduces terms that he has never defined. He does not tell you why code is the way it is. He is terse, and there is just no true explanation.
   
   The layout of the text is also in black and green, and that's it. His code is hard to follow compared to the Deitel book.
   
   I'm truly shocked at how people seem to like this book. It's unintelligible in my view. I dread reading it and actually read the Deitel book instead.



3. I bought this book motivated by the good reviews that i saw on amazon. I was very pleased not only with the wealth of information(Fundamentals, OOP, MVC, JDBC, JSP/Servlets, JavaBeans, Swing/Advanced Swing, Collections etc ), but also from the presantation which is consice and very easy to follow. This was the text that did it for me. I struggled with other texts and the presentation was always missing something to say the least. Thanks to this book i was able to move to the world of J2EE and my biggest problem was dealing with application servers than with the java language itself.
   My current position demands some C# .Net development and once again i am struggling with horrible incomplete Books that neglect to provide the hole code assuming previous knowledge.
   I thought that may be Liang has written something about C# (Unfortunatelly not), but i was sad to see that there is
   some critism which i consider unfair -not so much for the author but -for those who are trying to learn java.
   I dont Know how to strech this more but listen: There is no better intro
   book in programming. May be an experienced teacher has objections about the right positioning of the chapters but believe it or not after reading the first 7 chapters you are able to skip to any chapter you want(At the beginning of the book there is a flow chart that helps you guide your study according to your needs). Also dont forget that it is a programming book which tries to teach tough theoritical ideas in a practical way and dont fool yourself that there is a
   way for doing this without your ability to understand.
   Finally i saw that someone suggests a well-Known book instead of Liangs. I already own that book and its really confusing . A ton of information mixing together without making a specific point. If you dont beleive me just check the review for the book.



4. This book has an extremely dry writing style and often does not explain things well to a beginner. Additionally, the book is very "fat" and heavy especially when carrying it around or to class.



5. Got this book for an object oriented programming class. I have had very little programming experience, but the book has helped greatly in both learning Java and learning some of the fundamentals of coding.

5 comments about Java Swing, Second Edition.

1. Man, has Swing grown; no wonder it took 5 authors to write this book! Anyway, they do a good job describing a very complex subject. The text is definitely more of a reference than a tutorial, but if that's what you're looking for then definitely check out this book...
   *IF* you have another source for layout managers. Other reviewers have pointed this out as well. In my opinion, this topic deserves its own chapter because every time you put a component in a container you have to be aware of its layout manager. And when a dialog box gets complicated, as they are wont to do, you have layout managers dealing with each other ad infinitum - and that is precisely when you really need to understand how they work so you can make sense of what is going on when you resize something.



2. I can't recall a tech book so thoroughly unreadable! Maybe if I was more well versed in Swing this might make a little more sense, but seriously....it's great that these folks know all the inheritance lines and can spit them out in eight words or less, but seriously...imagine this as a classroom lecture..anybody awake? anybody still here? well, this class inherits from that or this implemements that interface, and if you look closely, you'll see how this references what we said 47 pages ago (or better yet, what we're gonna say 36 pages down the road!)...all well and good...but we're trying to write real programs and solve real problems....c'mon guys, we're not experts here, else we wouldn't be buying the book!! how about a litle real world usage...I don't have to time to check out the API docs to try and figure out what these guys are yakking about...a major disappointment.



3. This is for people who have a working knowledge of Swing and who want a comprehensive reference on their desks. I am preparing for the java Developer exam and thought this would help me get up to speed with Swing. But this is an over kill. Trying to learn Swing with this book is like trying to open a can of Coke with a bulldozer. It would have been more helpful if the Title was something like 'Swing Reference'. If you want to learn some Swing to get some work done very quickly stay away. If you are in the Guru class then go for it. 4 stars because it is indeed a well written reference (Juding from Chapter 1 and 3 and some skimming) But not 5 stars because the Title is misleading



4. This extremely hefty book on Swing has just about everything in it. However, it is intended to be a reference on Swing, not a tutorial. The problem with the Java Swing API is that it is so large and unwieldy itself that it is difficult to write a complete and useful reference that does not reflect that fact. If you need a good tutorial on Java Swing, you might want to look at the Core Java books by Cornell and read the chapters that apply to Swing. Cornell manages to carve out the basics of writing a Swing application very clearly without getting wrapped around the axle in details you do not need if you are a beginner. Then, come back to this book when you need to write an application to get the details you need. Since everything in Swing is a JavaBean, much of each component's behavior is controlled by a set of properties that are manipulated by accessor methods. Thus, this book has a table for each class that presents the class properties, the data type for each property, the accessor methods, and the default values. In addition, the book has plenty of demonstration code that shows how to use just about all of the various Swing components. The book even has chapters dedicated to changing the look and feel of components and also repainting issues, which loom large in Swing. You can download all of the book's code from the book's website at O'Reilly and Associates. I highly recommend this book to anyone who already knows the bare basics of writing applications with Swing and needs a useful reference. There is no better one out there in publication of which I am aware.



5. This book does a very good job of consolidating all of the information regarding Swing that can be found on the internet and putting it into one book. Just be sure to note that it is HUGE.
   
   It contains many interesting code examples and pictures. It takes every JObject (such as JLabel, JFrame, JTable) and compares what they would look like among different look and feels.
   
   I highly reccomend it for any Java desktop programmer.