5 comments about Complete Maya Programming: An Extensive Guide to MEL and C++ API (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics).

1. You can indeed learn more by pressing F1 on Maya itself. The C++ API part (the one I was interested in) is really short and the examples rather simple (you can read it all in few hours).
   
   The book is ok, but should be called "Very Basic Introduction to MEL and C++ API" and not "An extensive guide to MEL and C++ API" at all.



2. I was looking for a book that starts from basic stuff and easy to understand.
   this book is a big help



3. I search the information about programming in Maya for weeks. This book is essential for maya programming (MEL and C++ API) and I only find it about this theme.
   
   I recommend buy the volume II (Complete Maya Programming, Vol. II: An In-Depth Guide to 3D Fundamentals, Geometry, and Modeling ) and is great book too. If you going to buy this book, read after the second volume.
   
   Excuse my english.



4. The book gives you a good insight into Maya programming. The MEL part seems to be quite good, but the C++ part is organized by a couple of examples. Altough they are useful lots of things are missing. A short reference, I would say, 10-20 pages of the API would be perfect.



5. While this title may be one of the best maya programming books, it has
   many problems, formost of which is typos in the code sections. There are
   also other issues in the plug in section that causes them not to compile.
   A second edition with code corrections and text files on a dvd would
   be welcome.

5 comments about Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Real World).

1. Personally, I felt this book to be redundant and a wordy tale of how to organize files. I tried to read it but kept dozing off. For me, I just want the writer to get to the point. Anyone well versed in Adobe products will already know most of this information. And let's face it, we all just want to be creative and take pictures. Do we really need to know every--little--minute--detail on how a RAW file is constructed?
   
   For me, I could stand to hear the short version of RAW Files 101. I agree, a little knowledge is great. Also, would like to know how Bridge can be used to process them. But honestly, I was really hoping it would detail the differences of Canon's "Digital Photo Professional" to Adobe's conversion plug in. Nothing.
   
   I'm disappointed...



2. The text in the book is very good, I really like it. Unfortunately, pictures are not that great, you cannot see those small differences author tries to show you. I think print quality suffers. But I still strongly advise to get this book if you are in RAW and PhotoShop.



3. This book was a great help getting me started on processing my RAW images. It not only explaines the differences with Camera Raw and JPEG formats,, but also goes into depth on how to edit. It has many nice illustrations, and step by step instructions. Also talks about the different saving formats,,, I would highly recommend this book if you are new to RAW.



4. This book is an excellent primer on the fundamentals of Camera Raw, covering a wide array of topics in an effective manner, while also offering many places for you to explore further on your own. Although this book is now out-of-date, with Photoshop CS3 on the market as I write this, this book would still be of value to those who could not afford the current version for some reason.



5. I bought this book about 6 months ago and it has become a "bible" of sharpening for me. I shot with 6mp and 8mp (now 10mp) dSLRS and had previously used a single pass of UnSharp Mask or Smart Sharpen for sharpening. (all digital photos need sharpening -- *all* of them -- and in-camera sharpening is not desirable for many reasons)
   
   My photos never came out as sharp as others I had seen published and I kept asking myself, "what am I doing wrong?! Is it my equipment, my photo technique, ...?". Now I know that at least part of it was my *sharpening* technique. Also, I needed to learn that photos properly sharpened for output (printing) will likely *not* look good on the screen (esp at 100%), and how to better judge output sharpness when viewing on the screen. Hints: (1) don't get freaked by apparent sharpening ugliness when viewing at 100% or greater; (2) only view at even zoom factors like 25% and 50%; and (3) 50% is often a fair zoom to use when judging sharpening for output.
   
   The results I've seen from the sharpening techniques in this book range from "great" to "oh-my-god-this-is-*fabulous*". I'm finally producing photos that are as sharp as I had always hoped for, comparable to anything I've seen published.
   
   Bruce Fraser starts at the beginning, explaining the need for sharpening, and proceeds to build a case for why a three-level sharpening process is so effective (Source Sharpening, Content/Creative Sharpening, and Output Sharpening). After you're convinced by his sound reasoning that this is a good idea, he details *how* to implement this 3-pass sharpening process. I codified the three passes into Photoshop Actions, which now take no more time for me to run than the single-pass sharpening I had previously done.
   
   I keep this book in my car or on my shelf, with dozens of post-it tags sticking out where I added my own indexing to all the good parts. I'm sure that this book will become ragged with use, over the years. It is without a doubt the most useful photography book I've bought in the last 10 years.

5 comments about Professional Visual Studio 2005.

1. Yes this book is riddled with typos and coding errors, but it's still a very well written and informative introduction to VB 2005.
   The chapters are really easy to read (not like normal textbooks), with solid examples and small end-of-chapter exercises to reinforce ideas.
   If it had been properly proofed, it would easily get 5 stars.



2. Try as hard as I can, I cannot find a purpose in this book other than for the authors to make some money. It barely touches on the options in VS2005 without any concrete direction or in-depth description of why to use the features. I have found that the VB2005 book I purchased at the same time as this ("Visual Basic 2005 : The Language") provided much better coverage than this book
   I would NOT reccommend this book to anyone. You would find a much more effective use of your money by buying the above book or a book on the targer language in VS2005 you are using



3. Too much of this book has no depth and is repeating what is written on the screen.



4. I received this book within a few days and the book was in great shape. Nice job.



5. I was expecting a more detailed book on VS 2005, but it wasn't. However some people might find this book useful.

5 comments about An Introduction to Programming with Mathematica, Third Edition.

1. This book is an excellent introduction to Mathematica. It is based on Mathematica 5.1 and hence bring the 2nd Ed. based on Mathematica 2.2 up to date to the most recent version of this software package. The book covers all aspects of programming functionalities available in Mathematica: procedural, functional, recursive, rule-based, and object-oriented. There are ample examples in science and mathematics as well as devising one's own software packages. The emphasis of the book is on the fundamental programming concepts. While there are examples of complete packages that solve specific problems more emphasis in this direction would even further strengthen the book.



2. Please note that the book does NOT cover Object Oriented programming as stated on this page in the description - in fact OO is not even in the index.



3. As a mathematical hobbyist, I love Mathematica(TM). Also, I love the Lisp programming language. This book, at last, opened my eyes. Now, after some years, I finally can say what "programming Mathematica" is. If you really need to learn to programming in Mathematica, this book is for you. A big thanks to the Authors.



4. This book is extremely useful to take a beginner through simple, well explained exercises. I can honestly say you will learn tremendous amounts about Mathematica.
   
   If I could only have one book and needed to program Mathematica, this would be it. Hands down. I can only believe this book was intended as a book for a course. I feel the book is paced to allow any student to read the pages and work the very well thought out exercises.
   
   
   If you are working on your own and learning Mathematica, do yourself a favor and buy this book. The only other book that I would get is the amazing reference "Mathematica Navigator". You won't learn how to program Mathematica from it. You will learn an amazing amount about how Mathematica works by reading it. If you don't believe me, check out it's thorough explanation of cubic splines. It's better than the Mathematica Help. It also comes with the complete book which can be installed in the Mathematica help system.
   
   There are other books which are good. Between these two books, you will an amazing arsenal to work with!
   
   Paul



5. This is by far and away the best basic book for learning how to program with Mathematica. I spent 2 hours a day using the book for one month and I'm now quite comfortable with the software. If you are new to Mathematica, do yourself a favor and read this book.

1 comments about Sams Teach Yourself Visual C# 2008 in 24 Hours: Complete Starter Kit (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours).

1. Foxall gives us a quick coverage of C#, well suited to a neophyte. The book seems equally divided between the explanations of graphics and non-graphics. The latter means traditional aspects of any programming language, as in the use of if-else, while and for loops. Here, you might as well be studying C in 1980. These are fundamental constructs that any language needs.
   
   What is perhaps more distinctive of C# are the graphic components, widgets. Foxall shows how to quickly write short programs that can make a few widgets and lay them out in a window for the user to interact with. En route, he teaches about event driven programming, where if you use graphics, the user can interact with the program in many ways. Hence the structuring of code to handle this is quite different from programs lacking a GUI. The use of widgets also lends itself well to you understanding object oriented coding.

5 comments about Data Structures and Algorithms in C++.

1. Although I have bought this book for its C++ emphasis for DSA, I have found it very good at teaching DSA itself. It has very clear explanations, well chosen examples, and depth enough coverage with along clear and easy to understand code illustrations in C++. The book teaches the topics in an incremental manner by making connections among different related DS and algorithms, which are helpful in understanding the theory.
   
   Its layout for teaching a topic consists of three parts: 1) Introducing the data structure or algorithms with an informal language. It relates it with other similar ones, and explains the differences. 2) It shows C++ implementation (it does not have C++ codes for all DS and A's; however, I think what it has is enough for such a book) and explanations, even some alternative implementations. 3) It has complexity analysis for the algorithm, and any drawbacks. Drozdek has concluded the each chapter with an case study and provides full implementation in C++.
   
   I have extensively studied Cormen's book of "Introduction to Algorithms", which I really like, however, this book is much better at teaching the fundamentals of the DSA topics and has better figures although Cormen's book is more in-depth and has more topics covered, and more academic. If you are looking at more implementation of the DSA with some in-depth theory, Drozdek's book is more useful. If you need more academic study on DSA, Cormen's book would be more helpful (in fact, I suggest both of them).
   
   Another thing I like in this book is its chapter for Memory Management. Although this is an OS topic, it covers it since many DSA requires dynamic memory allocations, and I think it is good at teaching the basics of data structures and algorithms used in memory management.
   
   In short, I strongly suggest this book to programmers who wants to understand DSA and CS students, and also the ones want to have a reference book. I think C++ codes are extra for those who are programming in C++.



2. On my bookshelf right now I have 13 books on DS&A using C++. Every time I am in need of a new type of data structure or algorithm, and quickly scan through each of them to determine which seem to have the most relevant information, and also which have useable source-code. Drozdek's book is almost always the book I end up selecting to learn a new topic.
   
   Without a doubt, Drozdek's DS&A book is the most complete and well-written of its kind. It includes a chapter of graphs, which many books surprisingly omit. Also, as of the 3rd edition, it includes a chapter on string matching. As far as I know, this is the *only* C++ DS&A book to dive into this subject.
   
   Surprisingly (because of such a broad-scoped book), the material presented in the string matching chapter is modern and incredibly useful. I found the coverage of suffix tries to be excellent. According to Professor Drozdek (via email correspondence), this chapter is actually a compressed version of what was to be an entire C++ book on string matching. Apparently no publisher would touch such a 'specialized' book. How short-sighted of them!
   
   I work in a research-intensive company focused on developing cutting-edge algorithms to solve difficult modern problems. We do the majority of our coding in C++, which is what originally attracted me to Drozdek's book. Since then, I have referred several colleagues to this book, all of which now use it regularly and are loving it.
   
   My only complaint about this book is that it doesn't discuss primality or random-number generation at all. So many algorithms rely heavily on one or both of these, so I find it strange that this book (and most others) completely ignore them.
   
   As for the reviewer who negatively commented "worst written educational book I have ever read", this person obviously bought Drozdek's book expecting to learn C++ and not DS&A. If you're looking to learn C++, I recommend "C++ Primer Plus (5th Edition)" by Stephen Prata (ISBN: 0672326973). Despite its awkward title and oft-maligned publisher, it really is an excellent book for learning C++ (and also as a reference for an experienced programmer).
   
   Depending on your needs, you might look into supplementing Drozdek's book with Robert Sedgewick's books 'Algorithms in C++'. His books do not go as deep as Drozdek does, but he provides an enormous number of fully implemented algorithms that don't exist in any other C++ DS&A book. Be sure to get the 3rd edition; it is much improved over the 2nd.
   
   Here's a complete TOC of Drozdek's book (3rd edition):
   Table of Contents
   1. Object-Oriented Programming Using C++
   2. Complexity Analysis
   3. Linked Lists
   4. Stacks and Queues
   5. Recursion
   6. Binary Trees
   7. Multiway Trees
   8. Graphs
   9. Sorting
   10. Hashing
   11. Data Compression
   12. Memory Management
   13. String Matching
   Appendices
   A: Computing BIG-O
   B: Algorithms in the Standard Template Library
   C: NP-Completeness



3. I bought this book due to the other reviews and targeting the string matching chapter. But when it arrived, I was able to directly apply tree other topics in my current work (skip list, recursion parser and expression tree). It saved me a lot of research, so I'm very happy with it.



4. I saw a different picture when i order it but got a totally different book from what I expected, but it was only $6.95 so i just kept it.



5. Mr. Drozdek must be creating false accounts and giving himself good reviews; that is the only way to explain this book's high rating. This is without a single doubt the worst text I've ever had to use. If you are a professor or someone looking for self-study, pass this one by! If you are a student taking a class with this as a required text, have a good secondary text handy. D.S. Malik has a decent C++ DS text that I used as my real 'study' text for my DS course. Again, STAY AWAY from this book at all costs!!!!!!!

5 comments about Programming Microsoft Windows with C# (Microsoft).

1. This book was a huge disappointment. It seems that Mr. Petzold thinks that GUI is all that Windows programmer should know about. Well, surely this is all you will learn from this book - almost 1300 pages on how to draw shapes and display various kinds of buttons.
   
   On the other hand, people who really code GUIs for living might find this book very interesting as it contains a LOT of information on this topic.
   
   I give it 3 stars for being comprehensive on one topic (GUI?). Took two away for the misleading title.



2. Avoids using the .NET environment, wich is a bit silly.
   But that way you learn and understand more about C#, you have to do it all by yourself(if you wish). Everything you ever wanted to know about text and grafics with forms and C# is in there.



3. I was a Microsoft Visual C++ programmer for more then 5 years. I am currently writting a program that involves heavy graphics in C# and needed a book to learn from quickly and provide extensive details on graphics (drawing to the form; not simply placing buttons and code on it). I went to Borders and looked at it, then ordered it. It is a very good investment if you are doing heavy drawing to the form. As for the people who do not like C# or this book, all I can say is, you do not understand C# as well as you think you do, it is a great program; as for the book, you need to be able to take the pieces of code and then put all of the pieces together (a concept called learning) and stop expecting others to provide every detail of a problem.



4. The last reviewers described all, so I decided not going too deep in my review. At this time I didnt had finished this one yet but for what I already saw its a classic C# for sure. The book price is also very good and if you are thinking in getting knowledge of C# on Windows you will not get this book content in other book so easy, this one you must have in your shelf. Very good book from the Master Petzold.



5. Mr Petzold covers a lot of ground here. The most fun thing is that you can use the very same concepts in VB.NET or J# with no loss in the material. Sometimes I found the book a little bit long winded in its explanations, but in the end you always know that Petzold will deliver. The book seems oriented toward beginners, but experts can benefit too.

5 comments about Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition) (Prentice Hall Software Series).

1. This was the text for an OS course that I took for my Masters. We had to implement 11 significant OS features for Minix (e.g. floppy disk cache, VGA driver, interprocess communication server,...) -- bugs were unacceptable (i.e. fail), as OSs must work. This class was 4 times more work that an other class I took for my Masters but I learned so much. I was already a very experienced Unix programmer when I took this, so I found it facinating to finally see what was under the hood (Minix/Unix is surprisingly small an compact -- very elegant). Tanenbaum is a real authority on the subject of operating systems and has a very engaging style. Probably the best computer science text book that I have read (I read this cover to cover, not just scanning but really reading). There is room for improvement though: the format could benefit from being updated, I had to use a lot of high-lighter. Clearer separation and indexing of key theories and sections would help. The OS basics are still relevant today (and could perhaps benefit from some expansion/clarification). I believe Tanenbaum has brought out new books since that go into some more contemporary / more advance areas.



2. While this book is good explaining theory and demonstrating it in the author's operating system, MINIX, MINIX is an insanely small OS. Now there's nothing wrong with that by default, just keep in mind that any OS you were to write in industry, etc would be way more complex.
   
   Also, beware, of the 1000+ pages, at least a quarter of that is a print out, line by line, of the MINIX 3 source code. (Approximately 30,000 lines...)
   
   Bottom line: Good for basic theory and understanding, but you would need to know much more to write a friendly OS.



3. This book is written by Tanenbaum, the main guy behind Minix, which is what Linux was based on. It provides good overviews for basic OS concepts like memory management, file systems, processes, etc. The concepts in this book book are intimately tied to examples of the Minix OS, which is a good thing.
   
   To those who would rather see examples from Linux: Minix is a compact and modular OS, which is why it's a good choice for examples. The book contains the entire source code at the back for easy reference. Yes, the OS is that small. That's a good thing when you're trying to figure out how virtual memory works or what have you. You'd be lost trying to learn this stuff from Linux. Above everything else, the code is ***well-commented*** compared to Linux, a major plus. You won't find any "/* major hack */" comments, either. ;) Minix leaves out all the crap that Microsoft and Linux throw into the kernel that make it unstable in the first place. Learn about the bells and whistles later when you can do the basics.
   
   I encountered two instances where the book wasn't updated to reflect changes in the OS, which were annoying to deal with. Also, I found a spelling or punctuation error about every ten pages, which was annoying for such a pricey book. Overall, however, the book is extremely usable and understandable. It's easy to pick up concepts from this text.



4. There is a whiff of "what-might-have-been" about this book, using the benefit of hindsight. Minix is thoroughly described as a small and impressively documented operating system. It is small enough that if you took the time, you could understand every nook and cranny. From a pedagogic standpoint, it is of great help in nailing down abstract design concepts. Amazingly, the kernel spans only 4000 lines. Nothing at all, compared to linux or other operating systems.
   
   Tanenbaum criticises those, for a lack of modularity. With millions of lines of code put into one monolithic build running in kernel mode. But you might seriously wonder about this, especially where linux is concerned. In general, it is stable. Yes, with bugs that are inevitable with large code bases. But bugs that are severe enough to crash the OS are rare. Certainly rarer than Microsoft Windows. Anyhow, the book demonstrates the use of a microkernel. While linux uses a monolithic kernel.
   
   But the "what-might-have-been" arises from how linux was inspired by minix. The marketplace has overwhelmingly preferred linux to minix. Industry giants like IBM and HP have now standardised on linux. No major company has done this for minix. It suggests a major design flaw in minix. Not a flaw in terms of not working. But a flaw at a higher level. Perhaps in extensibility or licensing. Tanenbaum must surely wonder that had he taken a different route with minix, it would have become what is linux today. Linus Torvalds is now far better known than him, and there is an entire industry of startups built using linux. Minix is something obscure, even amongst many computer programmers.



5. I like the microkernel approach to implement a UNIX-like OS. It is simple and elegant although it does sacrifice a little performance. However, the book is not particularly well-written. It lacked clarity in its explanation of both theory and implementation.

5 comments about Programming Firefox: Building Rich Internet Applications with XUL (Programming).

1. This is another book in which the author (or the publisher) couldn't be bothered to format its code samples. This would be so easy to do and I am sick of seeing this twisted, unreadable mess in my programming books.
   
   Nested code is not indented, braces commonly do not line up, and barely any care was taken to indicate scope at all. It is also littered with useless comments that do not indicate the purpose of the code it should be describing, but rather to mark that the end of a block of code has been reached. Having a try-block followed by the comment " // try" is nowhere near as useful to me as if the code would have been readable in the first place.
   
   The book is fairly respectable as a reference, however, and does make a nice complement to Essential XUL Programming, which is a little old but still quite serviceable.
   
   Overall I would not purchase this book again. Combining the above mentioned text with the xulplanet web site is quite enough. My summary of this book is that it has the potential to be useful, but is generally very irritating to read.



2. Back in 2005, I've read "Rapid Application Development with Mozilla" by Nigel McFarlane - pretty big and comprehensive (I think) book about Mozilla platform. I'm not a web developer but I always try to keep up with the latest developments in the industry, so I was looking for a book which covers Firefox peculiarities. That was my primary motivation for buying "Programming Firefox" by Kenneth C. Feldt.
   
   The book itself was a bit disappointment: it was not as comprehensive as I expected it to be (honestly, I thought it would be both comprehensive and slim - probably I was just asking for too much). The author employ "learning by doing" approach - in the first half of the book he develops a XUL application and explains things required to build it. Although this approach works really well for the magazines where you are limited in space, when you read a book you expect more general discussion which is applied to the specific subject only at the very latest step. If you are trying to explain everything using only one (or very few) program(s) as a test base you will necessarily limit the discussion to topics relevant to that problem - which is again okay for the magazine but not for the textbook. The most notable omissions from the book in this sense are: whole XPCOM framework (several interfaces and the way to create the components via XPConnect are mentioned briefly but it does not go any further solving problems relevant for the example application); keys, keysets and commands (nothing was said about it), Mozilla-specific CSS attributes (-moz-appearance is mentioned briefly), complicated layouts (deck, stack and the friends). I would also prefer to see brief introduction to JavaScript.
   
   A strong part of the book is that it's not limited to XUL/XBL - SVG, XForms and canvas tag are also mentioned. Unfortunately (and again), only XForms are covered throughly - when it comes to SVG you see small subset of features required to build bar diagram.
   
   As mentioned in the previous review, code is formatted badly (and actually I can object some of the techniques employed therein) - but I don't think its a big drawback of the book. The worse thing is that there is too much code - not only snippets, but the whole programs. They take up precious place ans are hard to read from the paper anyway.
   
   In the conclusion, it's not a brilliant book on the subject. Given the absence of the modern books on XUL programming and its relatively small size in terms of pages, I recommend you buy it if you want to get a taste of Firefox development, but if you need an old-school textbook, better opt for "Rapid development..." or whatever. I'm giving it four-stars anyway - there is no point for being too strict to the author and the publisher who are willing to promote good under-documented technology.



3. Well well... I bought this book a month ago to develop a Firefox extension for work. I must say it's a terrible book. There's no pedagogy, and the content is VERY incomplete.
   It deals mostly with XUL widget programming. it will teach you how to set the developer environment, how to interfere with the user, how to deploy THAT'S IT. poor examples, bad coding practices... I spent 60 box for this useless book...



4. Kenneth C. Feldt's PROGRAMMING FIREFOX is recommended for advanced computer libraries catering to programmers: it blends a tutorial and a programmer's reference under one cover, covering XUL's interface and capabilities and including a review of Firefox technology, applications management, and more. Any designer working on standards-based Internet projects needs PROGRAMMING FIREFOX: it covers all the basics and encourages a more in-depth understanding of Firefox's potential.



5. I wanted to learn how to build a small Firefox
   extension. It looks like this book will help.
   It seems to be technically accurate and thorough.
   On a sentance by sentance basis it's also reasonably
   well-written. But as a whole it doesn't come together
   well enough to get a high mark. I didn't return it.
   That's the best I can say.

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.