5 comments about VBA and Macros for Microsoft Excel (Business Solutions).

1. I found this book to be one of the best references for Excel VBA development. The book is easy to understand and follow. Contains a large amount of examples that can be easily understood. Addresses many critical aspects of excel VBA development. Not too much was spent on forms/GUI development so you will have to look elsewhere if you into that. Also addresses interfacing Excel to databases using ADO as well as API programming which is critical for superusers to extend the power of excel without the limitation of data storage. Overall, the authors have a superb job and I consider this book to be an essential of my Excel VBA library!



2. The book is useful. The worksheets downloaded from the Internet are also very clear.
   Sometimes you expect more explanations on statements which use new features not connected with the subject being reviewed.
   I think that I shall not need to purchase any other book on this subject.



3. I am very satisfied with the transaction. The shipment was on time and the product is in good quality



4. Bill Jelen is a brilliant self-promoter. His book is even more brilliant. His newsgroup, MrExcel Message Board Forum at www.mrexcel.com, is an invaluable resource.



5. If I could give 0 stars, I would.
   
   This book is poorly written and poorly edited...and I have the version "Reprinted with corrections." Flipping through it in the bookstore, it seemed promising - enough so that I actually bought it. After three chapters, however, I am ready to throw in the towel.
   
   This is a technical book. It's about programming. It contains examples of actual code. The examples have to be correct to have any credibility. Once you lose that, every line becomes suspect. Let me provide you just a few examples.
   
   On page 32, the colorindex for "yellow" is given as "6"; on page 33 it is "30".
   On page 41, "Selection is actually a property and not an object." When I reach page 50, "Selection" has become an object again.
   On page 62, in the third example within Table 3.1, the delimiting comma is inside the quotes.
   On 67, " Notice that that the offset..."
   Also on that page, the resizing example at the bottom is wrong. If I have a column and add two more to it, I end up with three. Maybe Mr. Excel is using a higher level of math when he says "Range("Produce").Resize(,2) and says "Remember, the number you resize by is the TOTAL number of rows and/or columns you want to include."
   
   What really rolled my eyes back in my head was on page 63, when I encountered .range(.range, range) with insufficient introduction. A relatively simple statement with a single range reference suddenly morphed into a triple range reference with an indecipherable comment about "an extra range at the beginning of the code line." This makes absolutely no sense, and coupled with the authoring or editing miscues mentioned earlier, it is not even possible to determine if this is a typo or simply a badly written passage.
   
   Whether I ultimately can gain any value from this book remains to be seen - assuming I am able to actually make sense of the content. For me, it was a total waste of the purchase price.

5 comments about Sams Teach Yourself Beginning Programming in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself).

1. I would recommend this book for beginers, It explains the basics of programming, and also starts you off in java , c or c++ , although you do need the compilers for c and c++.

   and also ultimatediscountbooksource@yahoo.com shipped it quickly and I had the book within a week.




2. Reads like an extended course description. Very few examples. Code examples are often incomplete so they cant be run. No real 'projects' to test any skills.

   Comes with Liberty Basic (shareware) (you can download this seperately and learn more from its own help/tutorials). For the most part, you dont even need a computer to read this book. The code examples are only excerpts so you have to study them from the text in the book anyway.

   What gets me more than anything is I found about 5 errors in code and text that are important! Things like mislabeled variables that would confuse anyone trying to learn. Although I guess finding the mistakes is a lesson in itself.

   OK, that was the bad part, but I didnt give it a score of 1 because it is easy to read (fast). It does mention a wide range of topics, and it comes with a useable version of Basic (but only limited shareware, also there is a later version online). For a real beginner, this is one way to start off slow. It is disappointing because it could have been much better with only a little more effort. A few larger examples, and a few more actual coding projects instead of just saying 'if you want to create a text box in your program, type the following line....',

   and then moving on to the next lesson.

   This review relates to the 2nd edition.




3. As many other people in this world want to do, I want to program video games in the future. The only problem was that I had no idea how to start or where to turn to for advice. I had tried to learn over the summer of this year on how to create video games, but the books that I had borrowed from my local library said that I needed to have an understanding of C/C++. And when I borrowed a C/C++ book, I didn't really read it. So I decided to give programming up... for a while at least.
   
   About a month ago, that itch to create video games came back to me when I was grounded. So I went back to my library and looked for a programming book that fit my needs. During my search, I stumbled upon "Sams Teach Yourself Beginning Porgramming in 24 Hours". And so I decided to read the introduction if I met the books requirements. When I learned that I did, I borrowed the book and began to read the book.
   
   The book mainly covers a language called Liberty BASIC (which is probably is as easy a programming language as it gets). Right out of the gate, the book lets you program your first BASIC program, a rocket launch countdown. I was suprised how easy it was to program in Liberty Basic. To me, it felt like dumbed down English. When you are finished with the Liberty BASIC training (11 hours worth), you should have a good understanding of Liberty BASIC.
   
   The book also gives you a detailed introduction to Java, but the first two chapters are only text and no examples. Those two chapters do help with the basics of Java and C/C++ (C is Java's "mother" language). When you do get to the programming part of the Java in the book (four chapters of Java in the book), you use Forte for Java (it already gives you the main code for your project). Unfortunately, I found Forte a bit intimidating at first, but when I played around with Forte a bit and got an understanding, I went through the chapters with ease.
   
   The book also gives you a taste of other languages out there (Visual Basic, C/C++, HTML, Pascal, Javascript, and .NET) I say taste because it goes over the fundamentals of each of the languages entered there. You will find C/C++ easier to understand because of your work in Java.
   
   There were some problems with the book that I found. First, there were some coding errors that I found. I found the most errors in Chapter 10, "Having Fun with Liberty BASIC". Most of the code I found put down on BASIC and ran could not run. How can you have fun with the program if you cannot run the code? More like "Getting Frustrated with Liberty BASIC". Also in Chapter 11, there is a sample code that seems to be bugged but isn't. When you get to the code that seems bugged (I forget which sample it was in the chapter) just expand the width of the window to get the result you want.
   
   There were also many dry spells in the sample code for you to write down and practice. The ones that have little or no examples in them are Chapters 2-4, 12 & 13, and 16-24.
   
   In my opinion, I would reccommend this book to anyone who is considering to explore the world of programming (either regular programming or video game programming) or anyone who wants to program but doesn't know where to begin. This book will not mold you into a good programmer, but it will lay down the necessary building blocks to becoming a regular or video game programmer.
   
   I reccomend this book for video game programmers because it will give you a basic understanding of C/C++, the typical language of game programming (this information will be useful for other books that you have your sights on and if you get another C/C++ book, you will understand some of the subjects being talked about (arrays, literals, operators, basic C/C++ procedures, etc.)
   
   Now I just need some help on what to do next...



4. That's exactly what is written on the cover. It's a good book for the people who know noting about programming and want to enter in this exiting field. The book is well written and gives you good idea about computer programming and teach you to program in Liberty Basic Which not the best choice from my point of view but it's free.



5. Well, after dedicating a solid month, I can say I finally have figured it out. This is a great book with only some typos. The beginning is far too basic even for a pre-teen, but if you dont know this info, you shouldnt continue in the book.
   
   I'm happy to say I can write simple programs now, and even made one for next April Fools!

5 comments about Oracle JDeveloper 10g for Forms & PL/SQL Developers: A Guide to Web Development with Oracle ADF (Osborne Oracle Press Series).

1. This is an excelent book for begining web development, it explains you step by step how things work and "glue" together. The only reason for me to give it 4 stars is that, in the book it explains how to build part of an application (tuhra) and it tells you to look for the rest (of the app.) on the web site..... I looked for it but it is nowhere to be found... (they only have the parts of the app. that you develope while doing the books excercises).



2. Great



3. exellent Book
   
   Goods Tips for programming Oracle ADF
   
   greetings from Toluca, EdoMex, Mex.



4. Being a traditional pl/sql developer, I was drawn to the title of the book immediately. I know I need to eventually buckle down and learn Java, but what better way than by drawing parallels to pl/sql and Forms.
   
   I like the hands-on examples that has you build a fairly complete application from scratch. I say fairly complete because its only a 500 page book and it allows the reader to go out and research ways to improve it.
   
   One of my favorite parts of the book is a summary section that shows up after a large chunk of instructions called "What did you just do?" This sums up what the reader just performed - explaining in layman's terms what you actually just did.
   
   Although I'm sure you can get similar tutorials on OTN somewhere, having a book to flip back through is always nice.



5. this book is ok.
   just like all other oracle books, they just "talk too much"..
   to much junk and too little meat...
   almost feel like they are putting in too much filler to make it to a
   500-600 page book....
   if you get the class notes from oracle's classes...it's much more compact
   and to the point.
   Too bad there is not much other jdeveloper book out there.

No comments about Java: Introduction to Problem Solving and Programming (5th Edition).

No comments about Shader X6: Advanced Rendering (Shaderx).

5 comments about Programming ASP.NET, 3rd Edition (Programming).

1. [...]This edition has no VB.NET code and assumes knowledge of C#. All the examples are in that language.
   
   I bought it because of positive reviews and publishers description that stated the book had all examples in both languages,[...].
   
   It may be a fine book for those who know C#



2. This book is a C# book. The reviews here, along with Amazon's own review, are referring to one of the previous editions where VB.NET code samples were included.
   
   When deciding to buy this book, or not, be wary of the reviews that were posted before the publication date. I can see that this situation has already caused others some grief.



3. I am a big fan of Jesse Liberty books and rate him as one of the best and more experienced tech writers around, but this book is definitely not up to his excellent standard. To be more precise, the book starts out very well, with and introduction to the basic control of ASP.NET illustrated by many clear examples, and the only complaint I have about the first part of the book is that I would have loved to see the two chapters that he devote to webapp structure and configuration right at the start of the book. I think it would have given a clear picture of what one is doing with all those pages and controls and why things are the way they are. The second part of the book is where I was expecting to find more complete and advanced examples on how to build and configure a "real - life " web application, but here is where the book fails miserably. The chapters on ADO can be defined as confusing at best, and the remaining chapters are either a sequence of instructions fitter more to a "build a website visually for dummies" title, or missing crucial information. I have been also very annoyed by the organization of the example code. Every, and I say every example is in the format of a single website, and to make things worse these websites are not organized by chapter number but just by name.
   It really looks like the kind of book a smart and experienced tech author could write after studying the documentation throughly but having no real experience with the subject in practice. I think I understand why.. even I find myself more interested in the foundations of a technology on language structure and on general CS subjects than in the structure of the Nth API or Framwork, but still I don't go about writing books on them!
   So, a somewhat decent book, especially considering the low general quality standard of ASP books, but nothing to be enthusiastic about.



4. Just as any good large technical book should do, this gives a pretty good reference of all the basic controls and how to perform basic operations. This is also it's only fault, as it spends a lot of time on the simple controls, and not enough time on the more complex concepts.
   
   It's good for reference though, as it does contain a good amount of content to do most anything in ASP. This title is good for the beginner ASP as it covers simple to complex tasks fairly thoroughly. After you've absorbed most of this book, you might find yourself looking for more, and I've mostly found Google useful to add-in the pieces missing from this book. Overall I recommend this for any ASP guru who needs a refresher every now and then.



5. Good Content, 3rd Edition lacks Example Source Code on his website (Only 2nd Edition and new ASP.NET 3.5 is available).
   
   If you want to learn ASP.NET 2.0 using this book seriously you probably need to do lots of typing.
   
   Illustrations and pictures are not that straightforward, you need to imagine a lot before getting your hands dirty in VS 2005.

5 comments about Pro EJB 3: Java Persistence API (Pro).

1. This book is very well written. Everything is explained in a simple manner. It gives you a good understanding of JPA.



2. Anything that requires getting a bunch of jars on the server classpath was deemed unsuitable for automated deployments. I wonder how people manage automated deployments and configurations, especially in a multi-server clustered environment.



3. Pro EJB3 is a great book. Having been using it for over last 6 month on my recent project, I can definitely say that this book is invaluable.
   
   Have been worked on EJB 2.x for many years and on several projects with different application servers (Weblogic, JBoss, WebSphere), I understand the basics of EJB. So I want not only understand the basic how-to in EJB3 and JPA, but also want to understand the in depth explanations on transaction, persistence context and different behavior in the new system.
   
   The book explain all these topics very well. I had brought other book (hibernate in action with JPA pdf version), but found that book was too focused on hibernate (even I was a fan of the previous edition of hibernate in action book). This book is well focused on JPA,and I really likes JPA APIs.
   
   The book author is really nice and accessible. I have emailed Mike questions and he consistently replied promptly.
   
   This book worth the money !!!
   
   Chester



4. This is the best book out there that explains in detail how JPA works with some good examples. I found the book to be well structured and easy to read.
   
   I would recommend this book for anybody who is looking to work with JPA.



5. This book is a joy to read. Object relational mapping is explained in a very simple manner. What I like about this book is that it explains a certain concept and then immediately talk about the specific use-cases when that concept/design may not be the best choice. The authors then give excellent suggestions and alternatives.
   
   Very good reading material, simple examples used to explain complicated concepts. Writing style of the authors is also very engaging.
   
   A very good buy.

5 comments about AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition.

1. It seems like key pieces of information have been left out of this book, which is very atypical for any of the Definitive Guide series from O'Reilly, and of O'Reilly books in general. I picked up this book because it was the most recently published on the topic, and I'm still confused even after reading it. The first three chapters were on very basic subjects such as why you would want to use Applescript in general, where you would want to use it, and basic concepts. Next, part two is all about the syntax of Applescript, piece by piece. This is all very nice, and it probably is complete and correct, but it is like handing someone a maintenance manual on a washing machine who has never seen one before. Now that I know how to fix a broken one, what do I do with the actual machine itself? Part 3, "Applescript in Action", at first looked promising, but actually it just tells you how to fine tune your applications and shows some advanced features without ever really showing you specific problems that Applescript could solve and then solving them using the language. This is probably a good reference for someone who already is an experienced Applescript programmer, but I didn't find it helpful. I've ordered "Beginning Applescript" by Kochan to try to get some more remedial help on the subject. Hopefully, between these two books I can really learn Applescript, rather than just dabbling in it, which is what I've been doing for some time.



2. Matt Neuburg's AppleScript book is an excellent overview of AppleScript. Alas, it is limited, as all such books are, by AppleScript's peculiar nature.
   
   The problem is that AppleScript is primarily useful when it interacts with scriptable Applications; this means that many important commands one may think of as belonging to AppleScript belong to Applications instead [2]. If you working to extend an existing script, and decide to research a command in the excellent book index Matt built himself [1], you'll often be frustrated. The command, you see, belongs to the Application, not to AppleScript.
   
   On the other hand, there's a good chance Matt used in the command in one or more examples. In the absence of a companion book entitled "AppleScript for Applications" [3] you'd like to find those examples. Alas, that's where you want a full text search engine.
   
   The good news is, there are two. The even better news is that O'Reilly could make their engine much more visible and useful, with advantages for everyone.
   
   Consider the case of the 'Duplicate' command, which is supported by iTunes (among others) and the Finder (in slightly different ways, no doubt). When I tried Amazon's "search within the book" I discovered several illuminating references. Similarly, O'Reilly allows one to search within the book as a promotion for its Safari eBook library.
   
   The Safari search works well, but they don't want to give away too much for free. You can only read a snippet of information in the search results. A snippet that doesn't, currently, include the page or section number. If you click further you get to the 'buy safari' screen, but you also get to see the section number. Now, you can return to the book and read the information.
   
   O'Reilly could make all of us (and themselves) happy by keeping Safari just as closed as it is today, but merely adding a section reference to the search results they freely expose already.
   
   Here's the win-win for O'Reilly, Matt, Amazon and us:
   
   1. Include the section reference in the initial search results screen.
   2. Promote the search facility in every published O'Reilly book and explain how to use it on the O'Reilly book page.
   3. If need be, request readers register to obtain this service. O'Reilly doesn't do spam, but they can suggest email subscriptions, RSS feeds, etc during the registration process.
   
   Let us count the wins:
   
   1. Matt's book is suddenly a better book. Readers get more value from it. They use it more. They like it and O'Reilly more.
   
   2. O'Reilly gets ongoing visits from its customers.
   
   3. O'Reilly gets free, regular, promotion of Safari services.
   
   4. Amazon sells more books.
   
   5. O'Reilly does not reduce the value of Safari, they enhance it by introducing users to it without giving it away.
   
   It's a win-win for everyone. I just hope someone at O'Reilly can see the profit in it for them.
   
   john
   
   [1] In my real life I'm a knowledge representation/informatics geek. I have a lot of respect for the unrecognized intellectual labor that goes into producing a truly excellent index. In this case Matt did the work himself!
   
   [2] Many applications may use the same string to refer to somewhat similar functions with slightly different syntax and semantics. This "ontologic dilemma" is a kind of uncontrolled overloading, and it makes AppleScript very challenging to use.
   
   [3] If Matt decides to sell an "AppleScript for Applications" as a Tidbits eBook I'll pay for mine in advance!



3. No, don't start with "AppleScript: The Definitive Guide." Although I was highly motivated, diligent, and intelligent (if I may say so), Neuburg's exigent, articulate, and idiosyncratic "guide" defeated me, and I had to buy and work all the exercises in another book (Kochan's "Beginning Applescript") to obtain the background needed to appreciate this one.
   The highly praised chapter in the first edition about conquering FrameMaker has been moved to an Appendix in the 2nd Edition, but since Neuberg sends the reader there on page 75, it is still useful and timely. It would have been more useful had he chosen a scriptable application that is on every Macintosh, or one, at least, that is shipped with Tiger, so that readers could follow his adventure rather than simply read about it. The worst that would have happened is that a newer modification of the application might have come out, in which case, as with FrameMaker, the reader could read about, but not experience, the process.
   'Introductory' books in the liberal arts ("The Discarded Image" by C.S. Lewis comes to mind) are larded with quotations in Greek, Latin, French, and German, not to mention others. In exactly the same spirit, Neuburg shifts shamelessly from AppleScript to Perl, especially, but also to Unix, Objective-C, Python, and JavaScript, not to mention others. If you can't follow such examples -- he tells you that is all right -- you get the point that AppleScript is compatible with these and more, and he has the chutzpah to mention his own JavaScript book if that is your deficiency.
   The effectiveness of good programming books diminishes as you move away from the computer. Programming is learnt at the keyboard, not in the lecture hall. That said, this book has an astonishing amount to offer to someone perusing it in an easy chair and mulling things over, rather than trying a succession of incorrect guesses at the keyboard. Kochan's book taught me, quickly and easily, how to move a Finder window around the screen, but when I decided that the window I wanted to move was the one holding the AppleScript program, Kochan left me without a clue. The "Oh, yeah" that finally got it moving occurred to me over a sausage biscuit in a fast food place with Neuburg's book in front of me. He didn't tell me what to do, but his dictionary exposition got me to where I could figure it out for myself.
   As other reviewers have pointed out, Neuburg's emphases are upon the obscure, the contradictory, and the difficult. To explain these, he has not bothered with the obvious, the consistent, and the easy. They do not interest him, and he pays us the high (too high) compliment of implying that the obvious, the easy, and the consistent need not be explained at all.
   If you wish to learn AppleScript and must learn it on your own, begin with a book (Kochan's, for example) that will make you reasonably competent in a hurry (three months, in my case). Then, when you have discovered that AppleScript is not as easy as you thought, you are ready for Neuburg to confirm your worst suspicions about its intricacies, devastate your casual assumptions about obvious solutions, and give you pride in beginning to learn AppleScript.
   If you buy this book, you must read it several times, or you will not learn much of what it has to say.



4. We wouldn't know something, especially certain technology very well until we know its limitations (or exceptions).
   
   The extensive explorations in this book chart out the boundaries of AppleScript.
   
   If one needs to consult "dictionaries" to acquire AppleScript vocabulary, this book is definitely the grammar book for speaking the language correct-ly.



5. This is an exhaustive reference manual for AppleScript, a scripting language included with all Macintoshes. It is not a tutorial, but if you have some programming experience of any kind you will be able to use this manual to construct AppleScripts. The book was published in January 2006 and is up-to-date through Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4). It includes a little coverage of Automator. There is some description of other helpful tools such as Script Debugger, a third-party replacement for Apple's Script Editor that provides a lot of additional capability.
   
   I did some work in AppleScript about ten years ago to automate a nightly build process. AppleScript was the right tool for the job, but getting it to work was a lot of aggravation and I didn't look at AppleScript again. Recently I was asked to prepare some AppleScript demos for my local computer user group, and I got this book as a reference. AppleScript is still as aggravating as ever, but I was able to answer all my questions and complete the demos by using this book and its wonderful index.
   
   AppleScript has evolved a lot in the past ten years, in particular by adding a number of object-oriented ideas and by increasing its interoperability with other programming systems (for example, Python, JavaScript, Perl, Ruby, Carbon and Cocoa based applications). Neuburg does a good job of explaining all these features, and he is particularly good on strategy issues. AppleScript can be used by itself but hardly ever is; you should always be thinking of combining it with existing applications and systems to solve your problem.
   
   The major challenge in AppleScript was and remains figuring out the data types and operations supported by a particular application. Neuburg is honest about this, and recommends extensive experimentation and test scripts to figure out how the applications work.
   
   Is AppleScript worth knowing? Neuburg doesn't really make a strong case for this, although his Chapter 1 is a good try. He works through an impressive example in Appendix A, including all the roadblocks and wrong turns. But the example is to clean up a book manuscript prepared in FrameMaker to meet the publisher's standards before turning it in. I think this is a good job for AppleScript, but how many people would need to do this job? I think AppleScript is still a niche language, but if you work in that niche this is an excellent reference.

5 comments about Learning JavaScript (Learning).

1. I am an experienced software engineer who has worked in many languages and is trying to get up to speed with JavaScript(JS). I am a novice when it comes to JS but I have used it in a commercial environment before.
   
   I have returned this book since the number of errors in the examples and question sections are far too many. These sections are the important part of the book that one learns from. I got halfway through Chapter 3 and gave up since almost half of all the examples are incorrect. For example an alert("some string") call was listed with three different strings in the example, a reference to it in the text and the expected outcome.
   
   Also for anyone who is not a developer or has little knowledge of common terms in development this book is NOT for you. Shelly assumes you know what a strongly/loosely typed language is and other such concepts.



2. I've been learning JavaScript off and on, with some success, for three months. In doing so, I've skimmed about a half-dozen books and tried the following three, so far, "graded" below:
   
   Learning JavaScript (Powers B-)
   VQS JavaScript and Ajax (Negrino & Smith C+)
   O'Reilly JavaScript Pocket Reference (Flanagan B)
   
   Very good first draft. Powers either over-powered her editor (my guess) or perhaps they couldn't find an editor technically aware enough for this particular task. Hence, it's full of typos, "meant to says," and interesting logic puzzles to teach something that an outsider would have told her she needs to define clearly first with a simple example. Despite this, Powers clearly knows her stuff, has a love for the subject matter and goes farther than many other authors to convey concepts and vocabulary to teach and mentally structure the material. Like most JavaScript authors she rarely lowers herself to actually explain how web-page items and forms pass JavaScript function calls and data to JavaScript in the first place (so what's the point?). Despite the ill-considered examples of the concepts she's trying to convey, she has a good instinct for keeping the writing succinct and she won't waste your time. If you don't understand something, it'll be clear which part you need to restudy. Topics are well indicated by well-chosen headers. Despite the hurried editing, and occasionally self-centered style, this book has the gift of being up-to-date and conscious of changes in the field. This book won't be enough by itself and you'll have to hunt the web heavily to find complete examples showing how the web-page talks to the JavaScript she's writing about. It's still the best JavaScript book I've found to date. With a well-considered rewrite this could be a great book.
   
   Oh, yeah ... she really wants you to know she prefers a Mac over a PC.



3. Really hard reading, goes all over subject matter in first chapters, assumes reader has already read much better book on subject. If you are new to JavaScript skip this book. It will make you hate Learning JavaScript which I suggest the title be changed to, "Learning to Hate JavaScript". I will watch out for author and never buy a book by her again.



4. Beginning with the first example, the book is filled with errors (function `hello()' is called without being defined in example 1-1). Some (not all) are enumerated on the book's errata page. Since the first half of the book discusses syntax, a CS background can allow a reader to read around the errors. The second half discusses BOM, DOM, and Ajax making it's impossible to spot the errors without being a JavaScript expert, which makes the book worthless.
   
   The last third of the book is written as a first person narrative. The book should be about JavaScript, not the author.
   
   Bad writing takes place everyday. How a book like this made it past the editors at a reputable publisher like O'Reilly makes one wonder about their process.
   
   Avoid this book.



5. One does not read this book; one is tortured by it.
   
   There are two major complaints I have with this book. The first is the number of errors in the text. (If you read another review of this book and it does not cite the problem with errors very early in the review, then you must be reading a review from Ms. Powers's fiance, sister-in-law, best friend, or cousin.) I have never seen anything close to this level of ineptitude in any other book I have ever read, programming-related or not. Just to tip-toe through this cow pasture:
   - By my quick count, there are eighty-three errors listed on the book's errata web page. (It took me about two hours simply to go through the book and write in all of the corrections from the errata page.)
   - Ms. Powers occasionally manages more than one error per page.
   - Not only do the errors occur often, the arise early. There are errors in each of the book's first three Examples, with Example 1-3 alone mangaging to contain two errors.
   - Beginning with Chapter 2, Ms. Powers concludes each chapter with a number of exercise questions - the answers to which are provided at the end of the book. Of the five Chapter 2 answers (i.e., the first five questions and answers in the book) there are errors in three.
   - Page 11 is missing, well, two pages! The errata file contains ten paragraphs of text that is missing!
   - Any number of errors are "simple" typos: the text uses a hyphen when there should be an underscore, variable names are misspelled, errant characters are enclosed, words are duplicated - that kind of thing. While this is sloppy and wholly unprofessional, one could argue that in The Grand Scheme of Things such errors are minor. However, a number of errors are more egregious. For example [all CAPS are mine]....
   -On page 94 the book talks about how "the shift RETURNS the first element." Oops! The text should talk about how "the shift REMOVES the first element."
   -On page 101 a sentence which begins "If a condition IS met...". Darn. It should read "If a condition ISN'T met..." (Details, details...)
   -On page 127 a phrase "cascade means that the LOWEST..." should be (Anyone? Anyone? Class?...) "cascade means the HIGHEST..."
   
   All in all, this is just shameful stuff. If you have a quasi-morbid sense of curiosity you might want to check out the Acknowledgments section which concludes Ms. Powers's Preface. There she thanks her editor, three "tech and content reviewers", a production editor, and a copy editor. I say "quasi-morbid sense of curiosity" because, presumably, all six individuals have since been, as the British like to say, "sacked."
   
   All that said, let us gingerly put aside, for a moment, the stupefying number of errors in this book. How does it fare otherwise? (Or, to cite a quip I just love, "Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?")
   
   Well, I come now to my second major complaint. Errors and typos aside, the book is just terribly written. The organization is dreadful and her grammar is rotten. In fact, the only thing I see Ms. Powers having done well is to compiled the epitome of how NOT to write a book on programming. The two essentials of a good book on programming are that the author:
   1) Organizes the material in a logical, coherent manner. A GOOD author introduces essential concepts at the very beginning, and then steadily builds upon and expands upon what the reader has just learned.
   2) Takes absolutely every pain to minimize 'jumping ahead' on topics.
   Ms. Powers, however, repeatedly drags the reader into complex asides before bailing out by saying "but we will cover that topic later." She does this from the get-go, and it is maddening. Here are some examples from Chapter 1 ALONE...
   - In a section about cross-browser incompatibility (p.4), Ms. Powers states most of these incompatibilities "are based on differences in the underlying Document Object Model (DOM) exposed by the browser...". She then goes on for a couple of sentences about why this is so. I, for one, knew next to nothing about the Document Object Model, and I bought the book, in part, because I saw that it contained a discussion of the DOM. Ms. Powers's in-depth discussion of the Document Object Model, however, occurs in Chapters 9 and 10! She should either have made these chapters, perhaps, numbers 1 and 2, or she should should avoid mentioning the DOM until the subject is covered.
   - In the section, beginning on p. 7, in which she introduces use of the