No comments about Valgrind 3.3 - Advanced Debugging and Profiling for GNU/Linux applications.

5 comments about Practical Subversion, Second Edition (Expert's Voice in Open Source).

1. The second edition of Practical Subversion has been updated, but not substantially changed. The new edition has somewhat higher production quality and editing. The reference material on the various svn subcommands has been updated to be more current. This is very important because the first edition was badly out-of-date in this area.
   
   The book has many good features, such as the "Best Practices" chapter, the comparison of Subversion against other version control systems. and the API documentation. These sections have been cleaned up and, in a few cases, extended to provide a real benefit to the reader.
   
   Unfortunately, I don't think the book went far enough with the practical "guide" content. More information about how to use version control and the special features of Subversion in particular would have been a better use of space than repeating the reference material that can be had freely on-line.
   
   Like the first edition, this book tries to be both a solid reference and a practical guide. Unfortunately, the authors do not separate these two missions in the book. This leads to a kind of split personality, where the practical advice is interrupted by reference material and vice versa. I found this to be a bit distracting, and think it prevents this from being a great book.
   
   That being said, this is a good book that covers Subversion quite well. I have recommended it to people already on the strength of the "Best Practices" chapter alone. If you are using Subversion, the practical usage information in this book should help you make better use of the tool.If you are considering using Subversion, the comparison of Subversion against other tools is a very important resource.
   
   Although I think the structure of the book could be improved, I still don't mind recommending the book.



2. The version control system known as Subversion is quickly taking over the title of open source leader from the old standby, CVS. If you already have some background knowledge in version control systems and you want to start using Subversion, the book Practical Subversion (Second Edition) by Daniel Berlin and Garrett Rooney would be a good way to transition yourself over...
   
   Contents:
   Introducing Subversion; A Crash Course in Subversion; Repository Administration; Migrating from Other Version Control Systems; Advanced Apache Integration; Best Practices; Integrating Subversion with Other Tools; Using the Subversion APIs; Subversion Command Glossary; Subversion Compared to Other Version Control Systems; Index
   
   Unlike some books that cover version control systems (either generally or one in particular), this one doesn't try and take you from ground zero to expert. While there is some background material, the overall tone is one that assumes you are functionally literate on the subject and are particularly interested in Subversion. While that might limit the potential audience a bit, it makes it much more focused and valuable for those who want to bypass entry level material. The chapters cover both administrative and user-based functions, but tend to be a bit more heavy on the setup and administration end. For something that could be a rather dry subject, the authors do a good job in keeping things moving forward and interesting. I also found the chapter on version control system comparison to be valuable. All systems are *not* the same, and there are some underlying structural differences that will have a significant impact on what does and doesn't convert over, should you choose to switch systems.
   
   All in all, a good book on Subversion, and one that will get you started in the right direction.



3. _Practical Subversion_ seems to have a theme that distinguishes it
   from "the" Subversion book at [...]
   integration. Looking over the table of contents, i see that 5 out of
   the 8 chapters focus on integration of one kind or another.
   
   After the requisite chapter on installation, the book moves quickly
   through "A Crash Course in Subversion" and "Repository Administration"
   and then on to the good stuff. These first three chapters are
   thorough and adequate, but are basically the same as such chapters in
   other books about Subversion. It's almost a shame such chapters have
   to be included, as they're only useful during a short period at the
   start of the book's life on your shelf.
   
   _Practical Subversion_ really starts to shine in the chapter on
   migration from other systems; it even documents the dump file format!
   It goes on to document Apache integration; repository browsers;
   integration with the shell, Emacs, and Ant; and closes with an
   excellent introduction to the Subversion APIs.
   
   Overall, this is a great book for using Subversion in practice. It
   lives up to its title.
   
   --Eric Gillespie



4. The "practical" in the title must refer to sysadmins, developers, tool integrators, and the like. If you are just someone that wants to become very proficient *using* svn, you, as I have, will find this book most *impractical*. The "crash course" chapter only begins to meet a user's needs, but it stops way short. The book then goes on to treat in detail a host of topics that as a user I could not care less about. Usually, I wind up having google for what I need -- I am currently looking for a better user's svn book.



5. I like this book. It does a good job describing the how to use subversion and many of the industry standard ways subversion is implemented. There are lots of easy to follow examples and good hints of which direction to take when there is an implementation "fork in the road" (i.e. BDB vs FSFS).
   
   The book also does a great job showing you the difference between other version control systems... mostly CVS.
   
   My only gripe with this and other Apress books is that they usually include a section on IDE integration.. This is a good idea but they usually only cover Eclipse and not Netbeans... this book is even more annoying in that it includes Visual Studio(!!!) and not Netbeans... Granted, Subversion integrates pretty easy with Netbeans but geez.. Include the 1/2 a page so all major IDEs are covered.
   
   Done with my rant. Beyond that, I really like this book. I feel this will get you going with Subversion. In a few days of reading, I had enough information to properly setup my own server.

No comments about Getting Results from Software Development Teams.

5 comments about Mathematics and Physics for Programmers (Game Development Series).

1. Kodicek tackles a persistent problem in computing. Many game programmers have either forgotten what physics and maths they learnt, or they never learnt much of it to being with. In programming, you can go a long ways without calculus. Essentially, you are dealing with discrete maths.
   
   But as games have become more sophisticated, they attempt to emulate reality more accurately. In order to attract users who can key off their existing physical intuition. So the gaming industry needs programmers to be trained in the physics and maths. Of course, as the book shows, the physics barely ventures beyond first year undergraduate level dynamics, and the affiliated maths.
   
   So to a physicist or mathematician, this book is not interesting. But for the rest of you, the pseudocode methods should be understandable. And you can translate them into whatever language you work in.
   
   The CD is strictly optional. A good enough programmer can dispense with it.



2. A friend pointed me to this book and I couldn't be more pleased. This is a great overall look at basic math concepts used in games. I'm always forgetting approaches and Kodicek explains things extremely well.



3. 
   
   I have almost all the books on game math and physics.
   and besides andre la mothe's book this book comes across as a really friendly approach to learning the math.I've had to look at dry math books to cover many things other's leave out which has been thankfully included in this book.
   The psuedo code makes things sit in perspective as well.
   thank you for doing such a good job.
   
   i was hoping the book went a little more indepth with InverseKinematics as it mearly glossed over it.
   
   b



4. The the bigger mathematics coverage is on the beginning chapters; in the last ones its very shallow, there is little explanations on the programmings details.



5. I originally purchased this book as reference material for building a 3D physics engine. And while this book certainly had material relevant for doing so, I probably would have appreciated a little more detail on the subject. That's not to say that this isn't a useful book, it certainly is... But it covers a vast range of topics, from 2D (and some 3D) physics to AI path finding.
   
   Overall, while it is an excellent reference, it was not the one-stop source I was hoping it to be, and wound up having to reference other online articles to supplement what I found here.
   
   Still worth buying, and I'm sure it will see a lot of use in the future.

1 comments about The Animator's Motion Capture Guide: Organizing, Managing, Editing (Charles River Media Game Development).

1. This book will be very useful for everyone who going to work with mocap technology. I use it for teaching my students in Moscow University of Culture and Arts. Students like this book too, because this book is very intelligible!

No comments about Ajax: The Complete Reference (Complete Reference Series).

4 comments about Programming Microsoft® Robotics Studio.

1. This book is a good start but I can't wait for the next edition (if there is one). The author attempted too much coverage for the limited number of pages (a little over 200). I have completed all of the Microsoft Tutorials for MSRS and this book is a refreshing change. The author begins with coverage of SERVICES and does not include any illustrations. Microsoft Tutorials and Powerpoint presentations have several great illustrations on SERVICES. Also, the coverage of SERVICES is completed in an orderly manner but not in the same order used in the coding chapters (chapters 5 and later). There are the expected typos, as you expect in a new book. A couple can cause frustration until you figure out what happened.
   
   I will say that MSRS books are very much needed. While MSRS is not a huge software product, it contains several new concepts for many programmers. I have a background in C, C++, C#, and VB. MSRS is best when using C#.
   
   In summary:
   1. I would have liked to have had a thicker book (like the one coming out in June from other authors.
   2. The author of this book made the decision to only do superficial coverage of MSRS subjects such as Simulation and VPL which I believe will be used quite a bit in academic enviorments and more everywhere in the future. The VPL feature of C# code generation is important and deserved move attention.
   3. The author's style of writing is great and very readable. I wish her well and look forward to a 2nd edition.



2. I bought the book because I thought the MSRS tutorials weren't descriptive enough. I was looking for a organized and detailed guide to start using MSRS. This book turned to be useless, it's continuously referencing the tutorials and it does not provide any addiditional information. It uses profusely links to explain things... the author did not realize the the book was going to be printed on paper, so readers could not open those links and would not go to their PCs to hardcode the links in the browser...
   
   There is lack of illustrations and diagrams.
   
   Sometimes I thought that the writer had never used MSRS... and simply,she cut and pasted sentences from the internet to come up with a book...



3. This book is not very helpful for someone trying to learn MRDS. You would be better off sticking to the tutorials on the MS website. There is very little detail about how to actually get started writing robotics software. The best I can say about it is it references other interesting projects. I wonder if this author is actually a MRDS developer because if she was she would have gone into much more detail about the nuts and bolts of MRDS.



4. This book, much like Professional Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (Wrox Programmer to Programmer), gives good examples, but only for what is explained. If you are interested in doing something like converting hardware robotics applications to simulations, then this is NOT the book for you. Also, to do the examples, you would require to have the robots, and each chapter makes use of a different robot.
   
   If you are only interested in the hardware and not the simulation, then this book is excellent. However simulations (one of the KEY features in MSRS-MRDS) is sorely missed. Especially in conversion between hardware and simulation projects.

5 comments about Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript in 24 Hours (4th Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself).

1. my main problem is that some examples arent explained. and he sort of rushes through basic stuff, the book itself is not well organized. some stuff I had to reread, and some stuff I just gave up on. So I would recommend a more basic book and then tackling this one, If you wanna buy it, get it at a discount, dont pay full price like me.



2. I like to know more detail than this book provided and by trying to keep it 'light', they weren't giving me enough information to really understand the core of what was being done. I found myself struggling through the chapters trying to keep up with the concepts and ultimately gave up.



3. I think a lot of us can agree that there just aren't a lot of great quality Javascript instruction books out there. Somebody make one! However, I will say that after reading this book I feel that I have a solid enough footing in the language to branch out into more complex examples. The key to learning any programming language is not simply to read these guidebooks, but to create some independent projects that reinforce what you have just learned. To get the most out of this book make sure you actually do each of the exercises at the end of each hour. The problem with this is, of course, that not all of the answers for the exercises are provided on the web site. (As a matter of fact the web site does not seem to have been updated in quite some time.) I do recommend posing questions in the website's forum, which is quite active.
   
   TIP: If you are new to programming, don't begin your education with this book; start with an HTML/CSS primer to get you going, preferably one which gives you a taste of Javascript. Then start looking at Javascript. Having had a year-long Java course in the past, and prior knowledge of basic HTML, I'll say that this book does presume a certain level of knowledge. If I were entirely unfamiliar with syntax and terms (which the author whizzes through very quickly and often with poor explanation), then I am certain I would have been very lost about halfway through the book. The section on arrays could do with some major modification, for example. And the CSS and AJAX snippets just weren't given enough contextual treatment. All in all, if you have some basic knowledge and are looking for a guide that will give you the fundamentals, this is a satisfactory enough book.



4. This is not a bad book. It's really a well written book, but it does require some prior knowledge from the user. It would help if a user has some basic knowledge of Java. Some rudimentary knowledge of Java will help to understand the JavaScript object model and methods like toString(), etc.
   
   Compare to what I consider to be the main competitor for this type of book, the O'Reilly JavaScript book, this book is superior for beginners. It explains the document object, math object, etc. simply and clearly. It gives nice examples that you can either type in as an automaton, or that you can elaborate and experiment on. Either way, the explanations are great -- assuming you have a rudimentary knowledge of Java.
   
   I own and have used extensively over 20 of the O'Reilly books, so it's obvious I like them. The O'Reilly JavaScript book is not bad, it's just not the best to learn from. My suggestion is to learn the basics from this book, and then go to the O'Reilly JavaScript: The Definitive guide book.
   
   Can you really learn JavaScript in 24 hours? If you follow the book word for word, page by page, and type in the examples exactly as stated, then you can finish in 24 hours. If you like to experiment and try different variations of the examples (what I do), then it can take longer. Either way the book is a nice introduction to JavaScript. At least, now I know what the document model can do !!!



5. The Sam's PHP books made them my preferred publisher of tech books, this book didn't live up to my expectations. If you are somewhat competent this book will frustrate you. It doesn't provide much detail on the fundamental concepts. The last third of the book goes further and is devoted to examples that have "cook book" value but not a lot of educational value.
   
   It's not a bad book by any means. I think it may even be a great book, for the right reader. The right reader I think is someone who: knows just a bit about html, what javascript is in vague terms, and wants to get something up and working quickly. If have a basic knowledge of javascript already and are looking to strengthen your foundation this may not be the best book for you.

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Software Engineering.

1. Learning a subject from a Schaum's outline is generally a difficult endeavor. With the emphasis on solved problems and very little explanatory text, there is not a great deal of depth to the coverage. I have used many of them over the years as a source of problems. Sometimes these problems were a supplement to self-study using other more detailed works and other times I have used them as inspiration for classroom examples and test questions.
   I used this outline as a source of ideas for topics to cover in my software engineering class in the Spring semester of 2004. What I found most helpful about the problems is that they are concise. By examining a solved problem, I can see at a glance what the problem needs to cover and possible ways to organize the presentation. I did not take problems directly from the book, if the topic is to be covered as an example in class, then it is necessary to include more explanation. For example, I spent some time on Metrics for Object-Oriented Design (MOOD) in the class and the section in this book was very helpful. However, understanding the elements of MOOD requires detailed knowledge of object-oriented concepts such as encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism.
   While necessarily brief, the coverage in the book is thorough. Nearly all of the areas considered core to the study of software engineering are mentioned. With plenty of charts and graphs to illustrate them, this book is a solid, albeit limited educational tool.



2. This is a good basic outline of Software Engineering. It accurately covers many areas, but not in depth. This is what I expected from this outline and it delivered. It will get you started in the right direction.



3. I purchased this as a required book for a graduate course I took (CS 5704 at Virginia Tech). It is an excellent roadmap for a broad scope of software engineering topics. But you should expect to treat it as a directory of topics from which you must branch out for more in-depth treatment and experience of the topics.
   
   The book is generally well written. Is is very readable and clear, though I do have some complaints. Many topics presuppose other knowledge referenced nowhere else in the book. For example, Chapter 5 on Software Metrics includes a short section on Statistics, which refer to Spearman correlations and Pearson correlations, with no clue as to what they are.
   
   One area in particular, Software Project Management, is 16 pages in its entirety. I have been a software development manager since 1988 and it is almost criminal to lead anyone to believe that what they need to know about this topic in 16 pages. The material there is quite good, and I learned something new myself, but the brevity could be quite misleading to a naive student.
   
   Many chapters in this book are deserving of having one (or more) college courses dedicated to the subject. Software Design alone, a single chapter here, takes years to master the concepts described.
   
   However, this book is marketed as an outline, and a very good outline it is.



4. Acostumbrado a otros libros de textos, llenos de ejemplos de cómo no funcionan las cosas, o al contrario de ejemplos que confirman las bondades de las teorías expuestas, éste se reduce a la esencia mínima.
   
   Se describe el concepto y se ponen ejemplos (sencillos en la mayor parte de los casos), nada más y nada menos. Cierto que muchas veces el tópico es ciertamente complicado de entender o la literatura es muy amplia, pero si en lo único que estás interesado es en conocer la idea básica tras el concepto, este libro es el adecuado. Mayoritariamente, con aplicar básicamente lo que aquí se describe uno tiene más que sifuciente para abordar la mayoría de los proyectos de seguimiento de software. Todavía no he visto ninguna organización (y ya he estado en varias y con proyectos de gran envergadura) que incluya métricas de seguimiento, como las básicas que aquí se describen (control estadístico) o incluso un simple análisis PostMortem del proyecto.
   
   Quedan para otros libros más detallados, pero también menos asequibles, el entender el "por qué" de lo que en este se cuenta.
   
   Carlos Ortega
   2006-01-30



5. This Schaum's outline does a great job of outlining the vast majority of topics you must study in order to call yourself a software engineer versus a programmer. As other reviewers have pointed out, it is not a comprehensive textbook on the subject but makes a great "big picture" supplement. This is particularly valuable to students since college software engineering classes are often poorly structured and taught. When I took software engineering at Virginia Tech the professor actually believed that learning software engineering involved memorizing every UNIX command and all of its options. Thus guidance in this discipline is at a premium.
   
   This book's format is to mention all of the major subtopics of software engineering, provide a paragraph or two in description, and then provide some examples as well as exercises for the student. No particular programming language is used since this is not a book about programming, rather it is about the tools and metrics used to organize, manage, measure, and test programming projects. Everything from project management to metrics to object-oriented design techniques is at least mentioned.
   
   Although there is no formal bibliography given, throughout the book there are references to the work of authors and experts in the field who have written more extensive works on particular aspects of software engineering such as Glenford Myers who authored the classic "The Art of Software Testing", Watts Humphrey author of "Introduction to the Personal Software Process", and Tom DeMarco who penned "Controlling Software Projects". I highly recommend this outline to students of software engineering and also to professionals who might need a quick reference for certain aspects of the field that they may have forgotten.

No comments about Applied Software Measurement.