No comments about Next Generation ABAP Development.

5 comments about Art of Computer Programming, Volume 3: Sorting and Searching (2nd Edition) (Art of Computer Programming Volume 3).

1. This book is bible of computer programming.

   It contains most detailed explanation of searching and sorting methods I ever found in a book. Contains all internal sorting and searching and external sorting and searching algorithms.

   The only drawback of the book is that all algorithms are written in MIX - some kind of assembler, and because of that they are hard to read.




2. A previous review said: "This is a book about the science of algorithms. Algorithm's are either right or wrong."
   
   Knuth uses the MIX programming language thoughout, and if you hope to learn programming by reading this book, you should look elsewhere. Someday we'll have 2^30 registers, and we will still be trying to make our programs work faster on this, as yet, uninvented architecture. But the fundamental concepts will remain the same, and people will still be reading Knuth to understand them.
   
   A good reference for serious computer science students. Others should look at O'Reilly. They have some really good books on visual basic.
   
   This is an encyclopedia of what is known about sorting and searching and what computers can do. It is nothing else.
   
   Graduate students in computer science (especially those in theory, algorithms and the occasional compiler fan) will benefit. Hackers will probably not benefit from this book.



3. I just bought the book I needed out of the set. I needed to build a database that did not use any commercial package (this gives full access and no royalties). This book saved my bacon. I almost did not buy it when all I saw in it was math. But I was desperate and it paid off. Turns out you could not explain it any other way. This book goes way beyond binary, and bubble sorts. I use it primarily for balanced trees. I may try some thing more exotic later. I can not tell you about the other volumes but this one will defiantly pay for it's self.



4. 
   Excellent reference.
   
   However, I didn't like the idea of using MIX assembly language. Book would have been more readable if examples were in plain english pseudocode (even better would be 'C'). At least second edition should have taken care of this aspect.
   
   I also suggest books from Cormen & Sedgewick on same subject.



5. First the basics: it's great, it provides wide-ranging and deep analysis, it shows many views and variants of each problem, and its bibliography is helpful, though not exhaustive. The historical notes, including sorts for drum storage, may seem quaint to modern readers. And sorting has been done, right? You just run a shell program or call a function, and tap into the best technology. Does it need to be done again?
   
   Yes, if you're on the edge of technology, it does need to be done again, and again, and again. That's because technology keeps expanding, and violating old assumptions as it does. Memories got big enough that the million-record sort is now a yawn, where it used to be a journal article. But, at the same time, processor clocks got 100-1000x ahead of memory speeds. All of a sudden, those drum-based algorithms are worth another look, because yesteryear's drum:memory ratios are a lot like today's memory:cache ratios of size and speed - and who doesn't want a 100x speedup? Parallel processing is moving from the supercomputing elite into laptops, causing more tremors in the ground rules. GPU and reconfigurable computing also open whole new realms of pitfalls as well as opportunities.
   
   Knuth points out that the analyses have beauty in themselves, for people with eyes to see it. His analyses also demonstrate techniques applicable way beyond the immediate discussion, too. Today, though, I have nasty problems in technologies that no one really knows how to handle very well. I have to go back and check all the assumptions again, since so many of them changed. If that's the kind of problem you have, too, then this is the place to start.
   
   //wiredweird

5 comments about JUnit in Action.

1. First things first --> Test Driven(First) Development (TDD) is a *beaten to death* buzz phrase in the IT industry today. There are various proponents and opponents to this agile concept. Let me tell you that this book is neither a proponent nor an opponent to TDD, it just teaches you plain vanila unit-testing and how it will make you develop quality solutions.
   
   Won't you agree if i say that we see or hear a few of the following during our typical work day.
   1. JUnit, HttpUnit, DbUnit etc
   2. Mock/Stub testing strategy
   3. Repeatable tests, Continuous Integration
   4. Innovative Testing frameworks like EasyMock, TestNG, Cactus etc
   5. Designing and writing code for testability
   
   
   Often, when we try to find out what exactly they are and how they are used in real projects, we are left with uninspiring documentation(if there is one) or we are left with a plethora of frameworks that do overlapping tasks. Without knowing *what, when and why's* of unit testing, we thrash it at the end of the day.
   
   This book is an excellent resource in that it addresses the above questions and the questions that follow really well in a developer friendly manner.
   
   1. Why to unit-test code? What advantages do you get by doing so? --> Quality, Confidence, Merciless Refactoring
   2. What are the different types of tests that a software needs and how does unit testing fit into the overall picture? --> Unit, Integration, Functional and Acceptance tests
   3. What is JUnit and how it fits into the unit-testing phase of our development process? --> Makes unit-testing a breeze
   4. What tasks are not do-able with JUnit and how other frameworks and JUnit extensions address these issues? --> Cactus, EasyMock, HttpUnit, DbUnit etc
   5. What are the different testing strategies that are available and when to use them? --> Stub, Mock, In-Container
   6. What are the problems that you will encounter while unit testing and how to overcome them? --> Demotivation,
   7. What are the different reasons that you will find to not do unit testing? Why and how to overcome them? --> Time Pressure, Not Applicable in my scenaro etc
   8. How to test different types of artefacts? --> POJOs, Servlets, JSPs, Taglibs, Database Access, EJBs
   9. How unit testing can be made fun? --> Profiling, metrics
   10. All of these in a simple yet effective case study. --> Adminstration App.
   
   
   There are a few *nice to have's* that this book missed:
   
   1. Though it covers a lot of detail, i think the authors tried to cover too much ground in 350+ pages. Cactus was covered, but very superficially, particularly in the TestRunner area. I would expect greater detail in that area, because that is the most diffuclt part of cactus.
   
   2. It would have been better if the authors concentrated more on *what to test* after the initial *how to test* chapters. I mean, since the authors are expert in this arena, it would have been better if they identified a few patterns on what gets commonly tested and put it forward to us. That would have been very useful.
   
   
   Overall, this is a very well written book. The authors are not only technical experts, they are good writers as well. If you are even vaguely interested in trying out unit testing for your projects, you owe yourself to try this book and get enlightened.
   
   
   Any program feature without an automated test simply doesn't exist. -- Kent Beck



2. This book is a great intro to JUnit and quickly advances to intermediate level stuff (Cactus etc.). Lots of best practices are littered throughout the book and there's a good balance of code and discussion. A combination of this book with "Junit Recipes" by Rainsberger and "Java Development with Ant" by Hatcher will take you from newbie to JUnit guru in no time. Written in 2004 it's begun to get a little dated with JUnit 4.0 released (using annotations is quite a change) - however I'm sticking with JUnit 3.8 which this book is great for.



3. Before reading this book I seldom wrote unit tests and when I just did it to make the project manager happy. I didn't really grasp what unit test is all about. I suppose many programmers in the industry know that unit testing is important. But they don't write any unit tests as it is boring and the next deadline is very close any way.
   
   I started reading this book because a customer made me frustrated. He complained that stuff which worked in the last release doesn't work any more in the current release. This is of course a very unsatisfying situation. This stems from the fact that every software modification may lead to side effects. E.g. something which was OK before is now broken. Worst of all programmers don't know that something is not working any more. Programmers concentrate on what they are paid for and that is writing code. Most programmers are too optimistic as they assume that everything is working properly. And therefore they rarely test the same features again. How nice would it be to have "something" which tells the programmer that a feature is not working any more !
   
   Well this "something" is called "Unit Testing". This book makes a good introduction to unit testing. It explains why you need less time to fullfill your tasks when you write unit tests and why there are fewer bugs. It is shown how stub and mock classes are used to break dependencies to other classes and other systems. It is pointed out how unit tests simplifies refactoring and how this leads to better design.
   
   This refactoring approach is what me made enthusiatic about unit testing. Let's assume your task is to extend a poorly designed, undocumented application. The programmer who created this application left the company. So you have nothing else than undocumented code. What you do about it ? Well you can start writing unit tests to figure what the application does and how it works. Once you have a unit test suite you start refactoring and documenting the application. Thanks to your unit test suit you can perform the refactoring without fearing to break something which worked before.
   
   Even though all examples are written in java the concepts and ideas layed out can be applied to other object oriented programming languages such as C++, VB.NET and C#.
   
   However, this book fails to mention that unit testing is not a replacement for proper requirements engineering. Even with unit testing you still need to find an agreement with your customer on the features he wants to order.
   
   Besides that, this book provides a good reading on a topic which will become even more important in the future. Let's hope that more programmers will read this book as this will improve software quality in this industry.



4. I read this book pretty much from cover to cover. I found it to be a nice introduction to the unit testing strategy now widely employed in software development projects. This book does put the testing procedures in perspective and it touches upon different types/levels of testing that need to performed to ensure that the code is as bug-free as possible. I really got interested in writing unit tests after writing this book. The concept of Test Driven Development made a lot of sense and I will certainly try to incorporate this strategy into future projects. Most of the time explanations are consice, clear and to the point. Several open source frameworks such as EasyMock and DynaMock are introduced briefly - although the level of detail is not as good as I would like it to be, it is nevertheless good to know where to look for frameworks (that someone already developed) you might need for your projects.
   
   The only downside to this book is that it is out of date. The JUNIT used in this book (3.8) is not the latest version available. I tested all of the code after downloading it from the web and I found that some of the samples did not work. In some cases, the software is dated. For example, in some chapters, the author uses Maven 1.0 instead of ANT as the build tool. However, for Maven to work, it needs to download several jar files from remote repository to the local repository on your machine. The very first time you run Maven, it is supposed to do this automatically for you before building your project; however, Maven 2.0 is out and the remote repository links with Maven 1.0 is broken which means that you need to download several jar files from google manually and put them in relevant folders - since there are several of them, I eventually gave up after doing a partial configuration. Note that the build files that use Maven 1.0 will not work with Maven 2.0 - you will need to do significant configuration changes in order to get this to work. I am new to Maven (although I am very experienced with ANT), so I did not bother with trying to get these code samples to work. The other thing I noticed is that some of the Cactus examples are not working in this book. In some cases, I had to do configuration changes and in others such as the chapter on unit testing the EJB, I was not yet able to figure out what went wrong. In any case, you can't simply expect to run the code and expect it to work especially in the later chapters!!! Be prepared to spend time to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
   
   All in all, it is a nice book on introduction to unit testing and I will certainly recommend it to newcomers to this arena. Also, note that the level of detail and treatment provided in this book is not sufficient for real world projects. I am planning on getting a more advanced book (JUnit Recipies) to complete the picture.



5. With the new Junit4, the book needs a new version.

5 comments about Computer Security Basics.

1. The problem all computer books have is that they are almost out of date before they reach the bookstore as things change so quickly and unfortunately this 10 year old book, although okay for the casual reader who may want an understanding of security generally, is a dinosaur concentrating on old technologies, orange book concepts and not even touching on modern problems like distributed denial of service, e-mail viruses etc. Very disappointing for an O'Reilly book. An update is long overdue.



2. This book is the long awaited second edition of a classic book in basic computer security. It is an introduction to the field, not a technical reference. If you need details on a particular aspect of computer security, you should refer to another more specialized book. Since Amazon does not show the table of contents, I review this book in reference to its table of contents:
   
   Part I, SECURITY FOR TODAY
   Chapter 1, Introduction
   Introduces computer security: what it is and why it's important. It summarizes the threats to computers and the information stored on them, and it introduces the different types of computer security. It notes that if you ignore computer security you could not only be a crime victim but an unwitting partner in crime.
   Chapter 2, Some Security History
   Describes how we got to where we are today. It summarizes key events in the history of computer security, discusses some of the government standards and programs involved with computer security, and introduces the concept of computer databases and the preservation of privacy.
   
   Part II, COMPUTER SECURITY
   Chapter 3, Computer System Security and Access Controls
   Introduces computer system security and describes how it controls access to systems and data.
   Chapter 4, Viruses and Other Wildlife
   Explores viruses, worms, Trojans, and other types of malicious code. The financial effects of malicious programs are discussed first, including that of wasted time. Next it equates viruses and public health - in that once your computer is infected others can be too using your computer as a jumping off point. The history of viruses is also discussed, including the fact that today's viruses and worms are basically malware written by malicious individuals, not computer scientists exploring the limits of technology as was once the case. Remedies, and more importantly, prevention is discussed.
   Chapter 5, Establishing and Maintaining a Security Policy
   Describes the administrative procedures that improve security within an organization and the three general categories of administrative security. It also introduces business continuity and disaster recovery as part of security. It also introduces the large numbers of laws now on the books relating to computer security, many that carry heavy fines in case of violation. It also mentions that it is important to implement separation of duties so no one person carries the load of security-related tasks.
   Chapter 6, Web Attacks and Internet Vulnerabilities
   This chapter deals with the basics of the Internet and the Web, as well as several important Internet protocols that keep the Internet humming from behind the scenes. The chapter then discusses vulnerabilities of several of these services, as well as exploits that can be used to attack them. Finally, this chapter gives several suggestions of how users can defend against those who misuse the Internet to steal or annoy.
   
   Part III, COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY
   Chapter 7, Encryption
   This chapter explains what encryption is and how it protects data. The chapter discusses encryption definition and history. It also discusses DES (the Data Encryption Standard), as well as listing the acronyms of many other encryption algorithms. The chapter also defines message authentication, and lists several government cryptographic programs as well as mentioning cryptographic export restrictions.
   Chapter 8, Communications and Network Security
   Introduces network concepts and discusses some basic communications security issues. These issues include what makes communications secure, and the definition of modems, networks, and network security. Appropriate steps to keep your computer network safe from attack are outlined.
   
   Part IV, OTHER TYPES OF SECURITY
   Chapter 9, Physical Security and Biometrics
   Introduces physical security and describes different types of biometric devices. Physical security is largely a system of common sense precautions and photo IDs, where biometrics is a new science where an individual's retina patterns, iris patterns, voice patterns, signatures, and keystroke patterns are measured and identified.
   Chapter 10, Wireless Network Security
   Describes the workings of wireless networks and the security ramifications of this access medium. Shows that although wireless computing is very convenient, it opens up a whole new world to hackers. Proper antenna selection to keep radio signals confined to the appropriate area is discussed. Careful attention to network cabling--all wireless networks end up connecting to a wired network at some point--also help assure security for the wireless environment.
   
   In summary, this is a great little book for those just entering the field of computer security, as well as individual computer users who want to learn how to not be the weak link in either their professional or home network. It carefully defines terms and even has some good general advice on securing your computer and your network, but you should consult other books for details. I highly recommend it to the beginner who is interested in the field.



3. It still surprises me how many of my information technology colleagues still have no clue when it comes to computer security. This particular book is one I'd feel really good about when it comes to a recommendation to get them up to speed on the subject... Computer Security Basics (2nd Edition) by Rick Lehtinen, Deborah Russell, and G. T. Gangemi Sr.
   
   Contents:
   Part 1 - Security for Today: Introduction; Some Security History
   Part 2 - Computer Security: Computer System Security and Access Controls; Viruses and Other Wildlife; Establishing and Maintaining a Security Policy; Web Attacks and Internet Vulnerabilities
   Part 3 - Communications Security: Encryption; Communications and Network Security
   Part 4 - Other Types of Security: Physical Security and Biometrics; Wireless Network Security
   Part 5 - Appendixes: OSI Model; TEMPEST; The Orange Book, FIPS PUBS, and the Common Criteria
   Index
   
   While not a technical "how to" manual, this book does a great job in dealing with technical issues and concepts. Pretty much all the significant issues surrounding computer and technology security these days is covered in sufficient detail to allow for a functional understanding of the topics. For instance, the chapter on viruses would allow even the most clueless techie to grasp the problems. The authors distinguish between viruses, worms, trojan horses, bombs, and other various nasty surprises. The history is valuable to understand how we got into this condition, and by the end of the chapter you'll know what you need to do to start to combat the problem. From there, you can dive into the more technical details of any one of the areas that pertain to your particular situation.
   
   For a subject that could be painfully dry without much effort, Lehtinen et al. do an admirable job in keeping the reader engaged and involved. If you're trying to educate someone who hasn't kept up with the topic of computer security, this would be a very good starting point...



4. It's a good book for starters. Covers security concepts pretty well even for it's age being published in 1991 I believe. There's a lot of history and references. The author definately did her research. Other than being a starting point there are a lot of other good books out there to fill in the blanks and pickup where Computer Security Basics leaves off. Plus, you can read this book in a week or less.



5. This is a truly great introductory security book. It does a very good job in explaining the basics for those that might be new to the topic of security, and manages to do so without the gross oversimplifications that are all to common in books aimed at the uninitiated. While this is definitely more of an introductory text, I was very happy to see good coverage of topics such as encryption and biometrics, and even an appendix covering TEMPEST. A truly great book for learning security concepts. I'm going to look into switching the present text for this one in one of the introductory security courses that I teach.

3 comments about S is for Sunshine: A Florida Alphabet.

1. S is for Sunshine is not an ordinary alphabet book. It's a unique alphabet book of the Sunshine State...Florida. What makes it unique are not the beautiful, pastel-colored illustrations by Michael Glenn Monroe, but the combination of narrative and expository passages for each letter of the alphabet. The simple, rhyming lines depict a particular characteristic of Florida, for example, A is for alligator. Along the sides of the page is a well-written descriptive passage explaining about the alligator and its habitat. The rhymes and illustrations are especially appealing to the younger child, however, the accompanying passages provide a rich history and facts about Florida for the intermediate reader. What a wonderful book for children!



2. This is my new favorite alphabet book to read to my 3 year old daughter. We both love looking at all of the pictures of the places we have been to and the items and animals as the relate to the state of Florida. Each page features a letter, a rhyme even small children can follow, and a beautiful picture. There are also sidebars where more in depth information on the pictures is provided for more advanced readers. Our favorites are N for Nasa, S for St Augustine, and of course W for Walt Disney World. I foud the sidebar information okay in content. The letter U is for underwater Aquarium and I thought that maybe some info on the state aquarium in Tampa would have been nice if it was provided but it was not. On the other hand the page for the letter Z for Zebra Longwing butterfly mentioned Butterfly World an attraction that is located just down the street from us. I think the book would have benefited from some more in depth informnation on places you could specifically visit. That said I think the author did an amazing job of matching letters with Florida concepts. X is always a tricky one. I would recommend this book to any child who wants to learn more about the state of Florida and especially to children learning the alphabet who live in Florida. This book is a wonderful way to learn about our state.



3. I bought this for my grandchildren, and really enjoyed reading it myself. Each page is in two parts -- the inside 2/3 of each page has words unique to Florida with beautiful illustrations for each letter of the alphabet, written in larger print and in language children can understand. The outside 1/3 of each page has smaller print and goes into detail about the words and pictures, expanding knowledge for curious children and adults. I highly recommend this book!

5 comments about Microsoft Office Excel 2003 QuickSteps (Quicksteps).

1. I manage a medium-sized network and support a large number of fairly savvy users. That is, most users know how to do their specific tasks very well and are willing to learn new things. But they are not willing to sit down with a book full of dense text. This is where the "Quick Steps" books come in handy. I keep a number of these books on hand and when a user requests assistance, I give them one of the books with the appropriate page bookmarked. Steps are outlined in full color with lots of pictures and pointers and tips. Additional information is set off in side boxes so users can learn more if they choose. What I have found is that once a user completes a task successfully, they get fairly excited about the experience and browse the book to learn more. The books really stimulate users to experiment with things they would not normally bother to learn. And that is where this book excels. It is a "browser." Users don't feel like they need to start at the beginning and read through to the end. I get lots of grumbles when I ask for the book back so I can pass it on to others.
   
   This book is also great for new users. I tell them to spend a few hours working through the steps, which are easy to follow and can be done at a fairly fast pace. Most users think the full color layout is fun to work through. The down-side is that like any book, space is limited, especially with the fully-illustrated format, so you're obviously not going to find everything in these books, but I do feel they contain a good balance of material and are appropriate for corporate libraries.
   
   Marty (the concept author for the Quick Steps series) and I are fellow writers and that is how I learned about these books. I must say that they have helped my users enormously and relieved my support task. Hey, it's the 21st century. Anyone working in an office should know how to work with operating systems and common applications. Most people can do that if they have easily accessible references and refresher material like these books. Thanks to Marty for developing the "Quick Steps" concept and to McGraw-Hill for publishing this series.



2. I am an infrequent Excel user, so I needed a good reference book that is well indexed. That's exactly what I got with Excel 2003 QuickSteps. It's easy to find what I need when I want it. It's very well illustrated and contains a lot of great tips. The author does an excellent job of explaining the material.



3. I'm a soon-to-be-graduating Psychology student at the University of Washington and I am writing this review from the perspective of some one using excel in Social Sciences.
   
   I found this book extremely suited to my needs...each step was very clear and precise and it was easy to find the chapter or section that was most applicable to what I was working on.
   
   It covered all of the functions of Excel that I have used in my classes thus far. Although my intro. classes had a very brief introduction to the functions I needed, as I progressed into higher level classes and used more and more Excel I found that I needed additional specific instructions for my work. This book was very helpful in that way, and saved me the bother of forever emailing questions to my professor, as I had done before I received the book.
   
   I actually used Excel the most to analyze the significance of data from an experiment that I had designed and to graph the results. This required quite a few steps and it was helpful to have a guide to look at as I went as opposed to trying to guess what came after the basic skills I had previously learned.
   
   I also lent this book to a friend who works in American Ethnic Studies and used Excel to organize and make tables of data for her thesis. The American Ethnic Studies major has no background in science, so was in the position of having absolutely zero knowledge of Excel. However, with this book alone, she was able to complete the Excel portion of there thesis without any additional help.
   
   From a student's point of view, this is a great resource if your field involves any use of Excel.



4. I don't use Excel all the time. But when I do I don't have time to troubleshoot problems.
   
   This hands-on, user friendly book has helped me conquer Excel. The text is readable and well organized. The visuals are clean and fully support the instructions.
   
   I found that you can start from the beginning and teach yourself EXCEL with simple step by step instructions or you can flip straight to your topic of interest and further build your skills. This is a great tool for all levels of expertise.



5. This particular series of instructional books (meaning the "QuickSteps" series) has always been one of my favorites -- they're concisely written in short paragraphs with decent descriptive pictures to help anyone learn just about any type of software application.
   
   While I found this book to be fairly complete, I'd still only recommend it as a desk-side reference manual to use along with Microsoft tutorials themselves. While it is a cleverly written book that is not as cumbersome to use as other reference books on the market, it does not address all of the finer points of Excel.
   
   All in all, it's a great reference book, and let's face it, sometimes it's just easier to review a chapter a few times to digest material rather than stare at a computer screen until you become cross-eyed.
   
   All in all, I'd probably give this book a 4.5, but since that's not an option, I'll have to stick with 4 stars.

No comments about Foundations of Qt® Development (Expert's Voice in Open Source).

5 comments about Sams Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes (Sams Teach Yourself).

1. Everything looked to be clearly and simply explained. I've come to use it as a quick reference if I need to jog my memory. This book provides a solid foundation you can build on.



2. Yes, you're not going to become an expert on CSS with this book. But this was my first time working with stylesheets and I was able to get up to speed very quickly - I went through the book in 1 hour WITH running and editing the code (which can be downloaded from SAMS website) to make sure I understood all the examples (disclaimer: I have a PhD in Engineering with 2 minors and I'm proficient in many programming languages). The examples will seem repetitive only if you're not in front of the computer trying the code - else it's nice to see the progression of each section of the chapter and actually see the changes on the screen and it only takes a few mins to go through them. It's cheap and short and sweet. Five stars. I'm now buying a more advanced book on the topic (The Meyer's CSS Definitive guide) just as I'd planned.
   
   Basically -
   Advanced and intermediate users: look elsewhere, nothing for you here
   Beginners who want to learn CSS before going to bed: yes yes yes (make sure you download the code from the website first)



3. A useful book for who wants to begin to develop a styled sheet HTML page from scratch. Non so teaching but more friendly.



4. No plain English explanation of the reasoning behind the code. Assumes you'll understand what he means by "adjacent sibling selectors" and "document tree". I gleaned some knowledge by copying the examples and trial and error, but it was frustrating and tedious. If you're a programmer you might be able to decipher this book, but if you're a newbie you'll get a clearer introduction, with relevant details, from a book like "HeadFirst HTML" by Elisabeth and Eric Freeman.



5. I work with Web sites every day and will need a reference now and again to get my work done. This book is handy and fits nicely in my pack and acts as my main reference for CSS. The examples are clear and build from the previous chapters. It also has an accompanying Web site that shows you what the CSS script will look like when implemented. I believe this is a good starter book and the price is just right.

5 comments about Crystal Reports 8.5: The Complete Reference.

1. As you become more and more proficient, this book is more and more frustrating. There are so many things just touched on and not explained or not in the book at all!



2. I purchased this book as a reference. Fortunately, I had a separate training course for learning the Crystal application. And I now teach the product.

   It's a good reference. I truly haven't had a question yet regarding basic or advanced procedures in the application that I couldn't find. But I would not recommend it for learning the application. It is dense.

   I'm also disappointed that it is not very different from the CR 8.0 manual published by Crystal Decisions. The layout and procession of the book are virtually the same! It could have included more tutorials, too.

   One thing that I would love for any CR reference/manual to include is a list and description of all the formulas in the system. To my knowledge, this does not exist anywhere, even in Crystal's own documentation.

   PURCHASING RECOMMENDATION
   If you need a solid reference and didn't purchase manuals with Crystal, this will work. If you need to learn the product, get something else.




3. I develop financial reporting applications for various companies using VB and VBA. Recently I have completed a financial reporting system completely within Access 2000 making extensive uses of Access's report objects.

   Although the Access report object does its job well, it lacks a lot of power features, i.e., limited grouping capabilities, formula in text boxes is limited to a simply expression unless you make a call to UFD, then you would loss your object encapsulation, etc, The Data Report object is VB6 is still some what of a joke, but let not open this can of worms. Thus, I have chosen Crystals reports for my developing needs.

   I find George Peck's Complete Reference series very helpful. The book has 800 pages to teach me every nuance of Crystal. This book does not teach me anything about VB coding nor does it contain a reference to the object model within the RDC or any of the other object models in Crystal. I didn't buy this book to learn how to code. The author noted in page 659 specifically that the book is not meant to teach you Visual Basic.

   Overall, this book gets me up to speed quickly and it's a good reference source for my future needs. Personally, I don't find the crystal help files very helpful.




4. After reading positive reviews of this title, I decided to purchase the complete reference and was extremely disappointed. The most common problem with crystal books (or any other software application manual-excel, access, etc.) is that the author try's to appeal to all crystal report's users. There are generally three types of software user's out their, 1. database administrator/computer programmers who want reference manuals with excellent indexes. 2. Basic users who can get by with your classic "for dummies" title. 3. User's who don't understand VBA or SQL but want to be able to create reasonably advanced adhoc reports.
   This title is to basic for the database administrator who would have to read 4 pages of babble to find the specific piece of information they need. There are no practice assignments for the beginner/intermediate report writer to do just that "practice". And when you do find a title that contains tutorials/assignments they are often to basic and lack real relevance in the business world. With the number of access, excel, crystal, etc. titles on the market you would think that there would be enough room to specifically appeal to the different types of software user's out their.



5. I frequently use these reviews to select books of all types. I consider myself a power user able to learn rapidly from good texts. This book has not been very helpful for my work in Crystal Reports.
   
   I need to be able to program Crystal Reports to perform a variety of complex reporting on databases that are completely denormalized. Thus, the ability to parse strings and execute stored procedures is critical.
   
   This book completely fails to provide the information about built-in commands that I need. For instance, no information about string commands is present. No discussion of the use of arrays in Crystal Reports is provided.
   
   I was deeply disappointed with this book.

5 comments about Programming the Perl DBI.

1. It's hard to imagine an entire book about this. It's not bad, for what it is though. If you have any database knowledge and read the appropriate sections already in Programming Perl or the Perl Cookbook, I don't imagine you'll get too much use from this.



2. This book has been a valuable reference of mine for several years for web database programming projects. I bought the book soon after it was released and continue to use it - sometimes on a daily basis depending upon the project I am currently developing. I realized from the beginning that much of the material in this book came from the online documentation and have still found the book to be useful enough to stay on my A-list of reference materials. Applications like CGIScripter need to utilize up to half a dozen different databases so I have found the reference section on each database be the section I often turn to first. I have not found this info available anywhere in the online documentation. When you program and debug on multiple computers with multiple windows open simultaneously, having a reference book is often more manageable than opening another window on the computer. And for those times when I am struggling with an especially troublesome programming issue, I have found it very helpful to sit in my easy chair with a reference book like the Perl DBI book in order to research the problem. The only reason I am not giving the book 5 stars is that it hasn't been updated in a few years so it doesn't include info on some of the new DBI supported databases like SQLite.



3. The database-oriented view of programming has become increasingly popular, and it is of great importance for all serious programmers to understand how to use their favorite language to manipulate the database systems. With the variety of database systems out there, it can be a real challenge to learn what there is to know. For the Perl programmer, however, there is this book on the matter, and it will probably be all you'll need to get started working with database programming in no time. Other reviewers have stated that this is a regurgitation of the docs. This is partially true. But the docs are very bland, and this book presents the information in a much more informative, and easy to read manner. With it, you can begin programming the DBI within a week (a day if you already know SQL and skip the chapter on the Berkley DB system). Recommended for anyone interested in learning how to use Databases with Perl. If you already know the DBI, the book wont be of much help, maybe as a reference, but I'd only pick it up if you don't know it, or are still inexperienced at it.



4. This is a (the definitive) book on Perl DBI. I swapped book-for-book with a former co-worker for this. I keep it in the office for the newbies.
   
   If you're already a pro at PERL, you should be able to get by with just the CPAN documentation. However, if your employer is footing the bill, get it. :-)
   
   However if you're new to PERL and need to use DBI, get it.
   
   Very nice tips and tricks you can pick up, even a few for the pros.



5. If you are serious about using Perl to interface with any database, then this is the only book will will ever need. Amazon was the only place I could find a copy, since the book is currently out-of-print.