5 comments about Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) Environment (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series).

1. This book is a fantastic starting point in life. Some how our public schools over look teaching the fundamental skills presented in this book. We learn how to play with toys on simple computers and never really learn what we are doing.
   
   The real strength of this book is in the definitions. We get to see the purpose and flexibility of system calls and functions. Not just use them but understand them. UNIX functions as job control or signals are explained in detail. Let's take just one item "waitpid":
   
   The waitpid function provides three features that aren't provided by the wait function.
   
   You will have to red the book to find out what they are. However there are examples also. Now for people with real systems like AIX all you have to do is ad a "k" to the front of the call and you have the AIX kernel function call "kwaitpid"; voila you now have an understanding that can not be found clearly in a Red Book.
   
   It does help some to have a preunderstanding of the system do you can use the book to fill in the education holes missed when necessary.
   
   The index is worth its weight in gold as you can find functions headers and concepts all in alphabetical order. My favorite is the definitions.
   
   As much as I am a fan of the internet it also pays to carry the information in the form of a book. And all this book has to do is save a couple of hours and it has paid for its self.
   
   Mastering UNIX Shell Scripting



2. This book is literally saving me right now in an Introduction to Operating Systems class I'm taking. We have projects to complete in the UNIX envrionment and the fact that this book gives you every real code example you could possibly need for all levels of systems programming is GOLD. It's laid out in a very straightforward way, has tons of code examples, and is overall awesome. Highly recommend if you're just getting into systems programming on your own, or as a school reference book.



3. This is one of the best books I've ever read about UNIX and programming.
   
   With its unique style, it serves as both a reference and a tutorial, and at the same time, it provides amazing detail and insight, always making the reader understand what's happening "under-the-hood". Fantastic job, Steven Rago and Richard Stevens!
   
   The only problem I had with this book was with the source code. It doesn't compile under MacOS X 10.5 Leopard, which is a certified Unix 03 system. It is a only a one-line change in the includes, so it's no big deal.



4. I occasionally need to fix broken IPC code and figure out behavior differences
   of legacy code between Solaris, Linux, etc., code written years ago by somebody
   else in C.
   
   This book, (and Stevens' earlier books before this) has been immensely useful.
   The code samples alone are worth their weight in gold :-). Seriously, this book
   has saved me many days of hard work, several times over.
   
   A quick browse of the book is usually enough to find the details (what I would
   call 'arcane details', but I guess this is because I'm not an expert C/networking
   programmer), figure out the problem AND how to fix the problem.
   
   This book has been a 'project-saver'. I cannot recommend this text too highly.



5. Its a very extensive book that covers concepts and advanced features of UNIX. It covers UNIX implementation of different features as a user point of view and how to access diffent services of UNIX like OSs. If you want to learn UNIX /Linux based programming this book a must read & must have for reference. I highly recommend this book

5 comments about XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer).

1. You won't easily find any other book on XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0. The reason is very simple: Michael Kay is the expert on the subject, he has been publishing xslt references for almost a decade now. Currently he is the editor of the XSLT 2.0 specification at W3C. He is also involved the XQuery and the XML Schema Working Groups, also at W3C. He has developed the Saxon XSLT processor. This book (like its predecessors were and its future versions will be) is the definitive reference on XSLT.
   
   The third edition was in two separate books, one on XSLT 2.0 (XSLT 2.0 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)) and one on XPath 2.0 (XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)). If you are serious about XSLT 2.0, you also need the information on XPath 2.0, as it is a sub language of XSLT 2.0. So you would need both books at hand. The current book contains all of the material available in the two predecessors, and more.
   
   I could have survived on the two books, but tired of taking them from my office to my home and vice versa, I ordered the new edition and I am enjoying it very much. After using the new edition for a week or so I have come upon quite a few improvements, for instance the chapter on regular expressions contains more information and is better structured. Examples have been updated and as have been the appendices covering the processors. There is a new appendix on the Altova processor.
   
   I should also mention the quality of the paper, the binding and the price, they are much better than the two previous books together.
   
   As a reference, the book is complete. It contains a clear description of all the elements of the standards and lots of (tested) examples. There is also much material about the design backgrounds of both standards (and of others like XML Schema and XQuery).
   
   The book is extremely well written and a joy to read.
   
   The book is aimed at developers and should not be used as a first introduction to XML transformation technology (unless you are an experienced programmer). If you need an introduction to XSLT (in its context) check out one of the other Wrox books like Beginning XML, 4th Edition (Programmer to Programmer) or Professional XML (Programmer to Programmer). One could also try Beginning XSLT 2.0: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional), it has good reviews. In any case if you are seriously interested (even as a newbie) don't buy anything from before 2004, it will not include the 2.0 functionalities. If you buy something published after 2004 check that they really updated the book and not only the title.



2. This is an excellent update. The writing has improved. And as a reference,
   I am glad the previous 2 volumes are now compiled into this single volume.
   Also, I appreciate the hard cover to help reduce wear and tear. And I appreciate the thinner paper to keep the thickness/weight down.



3. Everyone working seriously with XSLT will want this book. The fourth edition is newly updated and improved. Not only has it been corrected to reflect the design of the current XSLT and XPath specifications (which were not final when the 3rd edition went to press), but also it has been redesigned for usability, with much better indexes and navigation apparatus. No more casting about to find things (although you may still not resist a few post-it notes here and there). XSLT and XPath are now in one volume (a big plus); the lighter pages and hard cover make the book serviceable as a reference text in regular use. It sits open and will wear well (provided you use it for its intended purpose and not as a coaster for your drink, which will be tempting since the book will be there open on your desk).
   
   But the book's strengths are unchanged. Complete and comprehensive, coherent, realistic, clear, with worked examples. No one knows this technology better than the author, who has served on the XSL Working Group and edited the XSLT 2.0 Recommendation. Long-time observers will also confirm that he is also one of the best in the business at explaining things.
   
   The only thing less than positive to say about this book is that beginners may find it intimidating. Don't. Just supplement it with a treatment aimed at you such as XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) or anything by Jeni Tennison, and keep the Programmer's Reference ready for the summary comprehensive view, or when you need to go deep.
   
   I have seen many decrepit copies of earlier editions of this book used by industry professionals. This one looks to be good for a long time to come.



4. This is the definitive work on XSLT & XPath, in a new format that will stand the test of time. The 4th edition contains new background material about the development and history of XSLT & XPath.
   
   Some web content for the downloads was not present on the book download site, but this was addressed quickly when pointed out, by the author.
   
   My only wish is that Michael Kay would write a book on XQuery now...



5. Absolutely essential source of information for those who are serious about using XSLT in general and 2.0 in particular.
   Viktor Melekhine

5 comments about Advanced Mac OS X Programming (2nd Edition of Core Mac OS X & Unix Programming).

1. Although this book is well written in concept, the editing of the final product is awful. There are a great deal of grammatical errors which seemed to me a basic word-processor would have caught.
   
   The book should be titled, more correctly, "Unix Programming for OS X." Unix system programmers will find almost nothing new in this book (gcc, gdb, file-systems, signals, libraries, etc. - although, the Objective-C examples can be helpful in understanding how to implement things in new ways, and also the chapter on Subversion was a nice introduction for me.)
   
   If you are just learning how to program on a Unix platform, I'd recommend this book unequivocally. I paid full price for mine ($70), without taking a hard enough look at the contents and found myself with an expensive, redundant book on my shelf.



2. If you're a Mac OS X developer and want to get serious about it, this book is mandatory. It is always on my desk right by the computer, and really is that perfect reference. Nothing really compares to this book, the previous Aaron Hillegass book is rather basic but is more of an introduction. I have a BS degree in CS and even though a lot of this has been covered, the rest of it is done in graduate school. So if you're looking for that little bit extra, give it a shot.



3. This book fills in most gaps you might encounter while learning about the low-level BSD/Mach aspect of Mac OS X and Darwin. Mach and BSD iokit is described in detail, and there are tons of useful code examples all over the book. This book even explains ipc and pipes very well, and isn't the size of the bible, like other books. It gets to the point as soon as you get past the TOC.



4. If you are a Programmer not in College, this is a nice book. As I read it, I learned several new things but then when I took Operating Systems Programming, I realized that we went over everything in the book, more in depth, and then some. If you aren't a Computer Science Major and you want to really program on the Mac, buy this book. However, if you are going to College, save your money. Let your professor teach it to you.



5. Don't expect to learn to code from this book, but once you know how this book will help you solve any problems that you run across.
   I don't think that I'll ever read it cover-to-cover, but I know that it will always be in my library.

5 comments about sed & awk (2nd Edition).

1. I have looked in this book again and again in an attempt to find out "how do I do xxx with awk or sed?" I just need a quick and dirty script to do something. The way the book is written prevents getting such answers. It is TERRIBLE as a resource for solutions to real problems. Presumably you can "learn sed and awk" from it, but what I want are answers, and this book gets in the way of that. It has literally never helped me solve a problem -- I always end up finding what I want with google somehow. Example: my latest experience was trying to write a script to simply go through a long shell script, and for each line, if it started with "if", "case" or "done", I wanted to prepend "echo line#" (echo the line number) to the line, so it would echo the line number when the script ran. If it had a certain other string in it, I wanted to replace that string with another, and if none, then just preserve the line. Should be pretty simple as a programmer, but I could not get the answer out of this book. It does not mention the FNS variable which allows you to echo the line number, for one thing. Sigh, I could go on... I'm in the minority, but I've made my point. I'm still looking for a good sed/awk reference.



2. I had to do some text processing and I wanted to learn sed & awk so I picked this book that is, to my knowledge, the only book completely dedicated to these tools. The chapter on 'advanced' sed programming is very scary because when using 'advanced' sed features, the syntax is cryptic. It is nice to know that these features are there but I want to stay away from them and perhaps use awk or perl for the tasks that would require those 'advanced' features. Still, when you stick with the 'basic' and 'intermediate' sed features, you can do cool things easily in shell scripts.
   
   Overall, the book was not thrilling to read but it does a good job to teach you these text processing tools.



3. In a nutshell, if you don't have this book, you are probably not a serious programmer or system administrator.
   
   Both sed and awk have been around for ages, and they are part of the fundamental toolkit of any Unix/Linux professional. Furthermore, there are versions available both for native Windows and for Linux-like environments under Windows (cygwin, MKS, mingw.)
   
   If you are a Perl hacker, you probably use Perl for a lot of the tasks that would otherwise be performed with one of these tools. Nevertheless, they are worth your time.



4. This book is a timeless classic, the information on sed is invaluable to anyone who regularly works with text files or streams (after all sed is short for stream editor). Not only is it very informative it's also a fun and easy read... You'll be seeing uses for sed almost every day once you learn how powerful it can be!
   
   
   The last 1/2 or so is on awk and although it's also very well written and informative it's not quite as useful if you're already experienced with a high level language with excellent text processing facilities like Python or Perl. However, it's work reading even if you keep thinking "I could do this in _____" because sometimes awk really is the right answer.



5. If you want understand all the sed advanced commands, this book is for you !
   
   I recommend using perl instead sed or awk

5 comments about JavaScript: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition.

1. After all the great reviews I thought this book was going to be outstanding, so maybe that's why I was kind of let down. To be honest, I have not finished the book yet. At chapter 8 (which is where I think maybe he's starting to get into the meat of things) I was just so bored with the examples my enthusiasm for learning Javascript was starting to diminish. I want a little more variety than learning how to make EVERYTHING create a popup window. After reading several other more engaging programming books in the dummies and headfirst series, I think maybe I should've gone to them for my Javascript needs as well.



2. I bought this book because even though I have knowledge about programming, I had no concept about JavaScript and needed to learn it. It gave me and introduction to JavaScript, but it also gave me a full recap about functions, constructors, etc. what they are, what they do, which I did not need. So if you are a programmer, I do NOT recommend this book. Instead buy "Simply JavaScript". If you are a newbie and don't know much about programming in general, I definitely recommend this book.



3. Concise descriptions of what happens inside the scripts. The author adresses JS matters without assuming previous knowledge on this subject, but he clearly makes you progress by invoking some math background (i.e. to explain functions ) and also involving the reader in logical deductions to make you think. Some hints of humour and lightweight prose are present along the book, without leaning too much towards the "for dummies" series. As an absolute beginner, it's more than enough.



4. This book was required reading material for a course I'm taking. That being said, the book is good for anyone who's a novice. The chapters are easy to read and provide a decent review section at their conclusion so you can quiz yourself if you like. If you already know the basics of JavaScript -- look elsewhere.



5. This book is great for beginning javascript programmers who have a clue how to program. It is definitely not great for someone to learn the skill of computer programming. Additionally the excersices are not very challenging(I've only gotten up to the chapter on arrays, but the other chapter excersices leave little room for creativity).
   
   The good thing about this book is that it is a great way to learn the syntax of javascript. It does not have a lot of information and it has about three excersices per chapter(of what I have read so far. Overall it is worth the price though.

1 comments about Students Solutions Manual for Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives, Sixth Edition.

1. It is quite handy. You can find all the Hull's book solutions in one place

5 comments about VI Editor Pocket Reference.

1. This is the first time I've given any book five stars. That's because this is the best pocket quick reference of VI you're going to find. The information is presented as concisely as it can be and still remain accessible. Other, terser (and, yes, less expensive) quick reference cards for VI are too cryptic to be useful, in my opinion.

   If you don't already know VI, try an on-line tutorial (there are plenty) or buy the more complete "Learning VI" book from O'Reilly to get you started. After you've acquired the basics, periodically refer to the Pocket Reference to add yet another "I didn't know VI did that" command to your toolkit.




2. This is a handy little book to have around if you use the "vi" text editor and haven't mastered all the commands. Or if you use a different text editor regularly, but find yourself in a place that has only vi. I have about 5 of the O'Reilly Pocket reference books and find them handy reminders for languages, etc. This book is not intended to "teach" a person how to use vi. It is what it says, a "reference" to jog your memory or possibly find how to cut and paste text or one of the numerous functions systems folks wind up doing at times. I do prefer a different editor but vi is ubiquitous.



3. Great Vi book for Unix Beginners. It gives great examples to use the command being inquired.



4. This book has a major deficiency as a reference: you can't easily find a specific topic. The book has no index and the table of contents is too high-level to help you find a particular topic (for example, "vi Commands" as a table of contents entry isn't really going to help you locate a particular command).
   
   The level of detail that is presented varies widely throughout the book. For example, Chapter 4 gives multi-sentence descriptions of the substitute command and regular expressions. Chapter 1 lists each command line option with a brief one-sentence description. Chapter 7 lists the vi options with no descriptions (the name of the option is often not self-explanatory--what does "magic" or "beautify" do?). If something is worth listing in this book, at least give it a brief description.
   
   A quibble is with the four chapters on vi clones. It would have been nice if the author briefly described each of the clones and pointed out their strengths and weaknesses. These four chapters occupy over half of the book, so adding an extra overview paragraph to each chapter would not have significantly added to the bulk of the book.
   
   On the positive side, I found the lists of command line options and vi commands useful.
   
   Instead of buying this book, I would recommend searching for the various vi quick reference guides available on the Web for free. Some might argue that I'm expecting too much from a "pocket reference" and that it is intended for experienced users. My view is that the book could have been so much more useful. As it is, I do not feel the cost of the book is justified by its content.



5. If you use the vi editor often, you won't need this book. If, however, you're like me and use it once in a while to make changes in Linux system files, it can come in handy when you can't remember a command or two.
   
   Also, the cover is darn cute! :-)
   
   So basically this is a quick reference to the vi editor, with additional chapters covering all the other text-based editors that are based on vi (like vim, for instance).

5 comments about Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals.

1. I'll start with the bad aspects of the book first. It is very repetitious at times. It also tends to overanalyze some aspects of gaming and game design. That being said. I have no other ill comments about this book.
   
   It provides a very solid design theory as well as a breadth of material to help explain its point. It also provides a lot of information on alternate sources and areas to find more information. I also find that it does complete its goal in wanting to establish a set of uniform terminology as well as some help methods and procedures to follow through in successfully designing games.



2. While I feel there are some fundamental flaws in their premises, this is still an excellent book about designing games. The issues it brings up and the approaches to thinking about them in a systematic manner are important contributions to the field of game design. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in game design - even if you disagree with the authors the book gets you thinking.



3. So, this book was written by MIT faculty in an attempt to legitimize games. Their way of legitimizing games was by being as long-winded as is humanly possible.
   
   Needless to say, this book was not very interesting in the least.



4. Rules of Play has 150 pages of great material spread over 670 pages of text. The definition of meaningful play, the case studies and the troubleshooting tips are very useful. Unfortunately, the book tries to be both a design manual and a textbook. The result is a lot of material which any given reader doesn't need. Trimmed down and split into separate books, this work would get five stars.



5. The authors of this book work directly with the school I attend (Parsons the New School for Design), and I am speaking from experience when I say that these people are authorities on the topics of "play" and game design. This books serves as a resource not just for game design, but in many other fields as well. I have used this book while studying anything that relates to interactivity, education and learning, and sociology. The idea of "play" is an innate characteristic of human beings, and Salen and Zimmerman do a great job of relating this idea in an extremely rich way. If you do anything related to games, play, or game design, this book needs to reside on your shelf.

3 comments about Professional iPhone and iPod touch Programming: Building Applications for Mobile Safari (Wrox Professional Guides).

1. This book contains quite some materials from the book you can also find them in Apple's documentations. It also has quite some details on Joe Hewitt's iUI framework. But generally speaking, it lacks more detailed explanation (on CSS, AJAX, JavaScript). Here's the dilema: if you are an experienced CSS and JavaScript developer, you will find it lacking the depth. It barely scratches the surface of what real AJAX-powered iPhone applications can do. If you are somewhat a newbie developer, you will need more explanation on the subject. Unfortunately, this book falls in-between the above 2 scenarios.
   
   After all, this is the first and only book on iPhone programming, it's a nice start for anyone that's interested.



2. It's just a basic web app which are a combile of AJAX and CSS. Not much new.



3. I've never owned a Mac (until now) and never done any development for that platform. While this book doesn't intend to cover the recently released iPhone SDK (it was published before the SDK's release), it does provide excellent coverage of web-based development for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). It leverages a free, open-source library to take much of the grunt work out of it, but also provides detailed code samples and examples and enough information so you could probably do it without the library should you desire. If you're interested in making your site look and feel like an iPhone app, this book will get you there. You should understand HTML, CSS and, preferably, a modicum of Javascript to get the most out of the book.

5 comments about iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual.

1. Simple and darn articulate. Im not a tech person in any sense of the way, Mr Pogue has outdone himself. He indeed has made understanding imovie very simple. Highly recommended if you are just starting out or if you wish to brush up on the latest version of Imovie



2. I have to admit that I was skeptical when I saw that this was a textbook for an introductory filmmaking class but it's an awesome book. It strikes just the right tone and is basically a short course in filming, editing and distributing (dvd, web, email) movies. Well done.



3. I recently purchased a Mac and edited my first film - a short documentary - on iMovie.
   
   I had never used iMovie before and a good friend recommended this book and I couldn't have been more pleased. I haven't encountered a problem yet that this book hasn't addressed.
   
   Well-written, simple and practical.
   
   A great resource. Worth your time and money.



4. This book is a thoroughly attentive-to-detail manual that is true to it's name/concept: The manual that *should* have come in the box! It clearly walks you through every step, big and small as well as including sections on how to improve your filming, editing, and a concise Quicktime how-to.
   
   I recommend reading the entire book before starting an iMovie/iDVD project but if you just can't wait (I couldn't-- I read as I went), I recommend reading Appendix B (pg. 461) which is "Troubleshooting" early on . It includes *many* crucial tips from being sure to format your external HD to Mac OS Extended (if saving on an ext. HD) to switching the factory-setting 12-bit audio on your digital video camera to 16-bit to common 'glitches' while importing, working with or exporting footage.
   
   The other great benefit of this book is it explains the various little 'tricks' for more complicated tasks or for things that are hinky and need a little fiddling to work. One ex.: You use the new iMovie 6 themes w/in iMovie (Pass Through, especially, is slick/professional-looking!) and are trying to use a *trimmed* clip w/in the theme. iMovie doesn't understand starting it where you trimmed because it keeps the trimmed portion of the clip hidden but still there so the undesirable portion of your clip is shown in the intro theme instead. This book explains in detail how to save it to Quicktime and re-import the new *permanently* trimmed clip to use w/ no problems in your themed intro!
   
   This book also spells out the key differences in iMovie 6 vs. previous versions. I HIGHLY recommend this book if you are looking to edit home movie footage (or other) using iMovie (& iDVD) and don't have your own personal Mac Genius in your household. :-)



5. Having Missing Manuals 3 to 5 It is again most difficult to find what's new in Apples Version 6 amongst all the older information contained in the previously published "Manuals". If one was purchasing it for the first time it does a reasonable job.