5 comments about Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform, Third Edition.

1. This book is a good guide for someone who is looking for overall information on C# advanced topics and who wants to get advanced knowledge of C#.



2. A few people criticised simple examples that go with the book.
   Do your own examples for each chapter and that will teach you anything. Just reading the book and understanding it is not enough.
   
   I believe that a good programming book is the one that:
   1. presents it all
   2. presents it as simply as possible.
   This book does it all.



3. On the whole, I've been very happy with this book -- it covers a great deal of ground. But it doesn't really teach -- at best, it glosses.
   
   Of course, this might just be the nature of trying to cover such a vast technological landscape in a single book, but then again, I've read many a tech book of just this length, and come away with a much deeper understanding of things than I feel like I this one offers.
   
   The chapter on interfaces, events and delegates is a particularly frustrating one: the author writes extensively about each of these concepts, and provides working examples of each, in various flavors, but never explains *why* anyone might prefer to use one of these paradigms over, say, regular ol' vanilla method invocation. Sure, all these things work, but why might someone use one approach over another? Which one, or ones, are more preferable in practice? On the whole, these kinds of whys don't really get treated; we get the concepts, a few examples, and we move on, without much explanation beyond the how-tos.
   
   If you've picked up this particular book, you've probably got some experience under your belt. While it's a good book and I'm glad I have it (and would recommend it), if you're thinking of picking it up, be prepared to deal with a fair amount of frustration at what's missing.



4. This book should seriously exist in your shelf if you consider yourself a .NET programmer. The book explains the nitty-gritty of the C# language and consuming the .NET framework using C#. The chapter on delegates and events is thorough but I do have to admit that the chapter on Threading (Chapter 14) is somewhat lacking, but I'm guessing that Apress probably has a book for that (no points taken, Threading is another subject matter worthy of serious study). So why this book? If you really need to know what delegates are, if you need to know about generics or anonymous functions, this is the book to have. It makes a solid crash course for .NET 1.1 developers understandable while at the same time it lends itself to be a solid reference material.



5. I see that to-date 3 reviewers have awarded 1/5. Huh?
   
   I have a collection of at least 20 .NET related books. If I lost any of these I probably wouldn't replace them, with the exception of this book. I use the MSDN library mainly as a reference, but when I can't find what I'm looking for, amazingly, I always seem to find it in Andrew Troelsen's faithful book! Many thanks Andrew!

1 comments about Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

1. The TFS Guide is the collection of best practise from experts in the use of Team Foundation Server from both inside and outside of Microsoft. It is the ideal follow-on book from "Professional Team Foundation Server" for those people really wanting to know more about how to use TFS without trawling through the thousands of blog posts and forums discussions on the topic.
   
   The Patterns and Practises team at Microsoft have done a great job putting this book together in an open peer reviewed process and so you know that what you are reading is not just the opinions of one or two well placed individuals - but the combination of the knowledge about TFS in the wider community at this time.
   
   This is a printed copy of the TFS Guide which is available as an open source project on CodePlex. You can refer to the guidance for free electronically, on the TFSGuide CodePlex site. However, it is such a comprehensive and detailed guide that you may well want a printed reference. There are occasionas when you cannot beat a properly bound book with a table of contents, index etc.

5 comments about Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C# (Microsoft .NET Development Series).

1. I just finished reading this book, I'd say it's the best ASP.NET book! I highly recommend it!



2. Essential ASP.NET is 100% to-the-point containing very useful information with no fluff included. I particularly enjoyed the HTTP pipeline chapter. The entire book contains info that every ASP.NET developer should know.



3. Clearly this is the best ASP.NET book I have ever read.



4. This is a good book, easy to understand and covers a lot of material.



5. I enjoyed this book. It is definitely not for beginners - the high-level treatment suited my style very well. His initial exposition is especially clear and precise. Mr. Onion did not go into too great detail about aspects that I could look up on my own, choosing to focus more on theoretical details/implementation recommendations which are hard to figure out if you are a beginning ASP.NET programmer such as myself.
   
   The snag: He refers to original ASP programming all the time. Why? This is clearly horrible style. I don't know ASP, so I have to skip over the sections which he begins with "Traditional ASP only supported blah blah blah." Then, I become confused because he said something pertinent to the rest of his explanation, so I have to go back, think about Traditional ASP (which is a clear waste of time), figure out his point, and go on.
   
   A great book if you are already an experienced programmer with knowledge of .NET, web programming, etc.

3 comments about Domain-Specific Development with Visual Studio DSL Tools (Microsoft .NET Development Series).

1. There's no doubt that Microsoft has a steller team working on its DSL tools, and given their position on the DSL team, there's no better team of writers to elaborate both the underlying concepts as well as go in depth on the implementations of those technologies in the Visual Studio DSL Tools.
   
   The more developers and architects getting familiar with DSLs and modeling, the better, and this toolset and book are the best resource I know of for learning more about the domain and getting a very useful and concrete example of the concepts as well as a tool you can use to start building your own.
   
   Buy it. Learn it. Use it.



2. The books covers almost all of the capabilities for the DSL world, however in this approach to cover all themes, they present some important subjects in a very light way. The reader must have a previous and seriuos knowledge of DSL items and a lot of experience in Visual Studio 2005.
   However some chapters (2,3,4,8 and 9) are very very good :D



3. I am disappointed, because the writers are the top of Microsofts engine driving domain specific languages.
   The book tells what is possible using Visual Studio 2005 and the DSL tools. However it does a terrible job in explaining how and when to use the tools.
   It is not a handsone book, you can't take it and work through examples and it is not an reading/theoratical book either, you can't read it while one the train to work and hope to learn anything.
   Just like the book on software factories this book is elaborate and the writers are smart they are just not capable of making the information simple and interesting enough to stick into my head.

3 comments about Database Development for Dummies.

1. This is the first of the "dummies" books that I've used, and probably the last. The author introduces a lot of jargon and complicated models early on and then proceeds to use terms interchangably, leave models abstract that would have benefited from metaphors, and produces examples that he fails to adequately explain. When things become complicated, he demures, reminding the reader that this is, after all, only an introduction.

   Perhaps I would have put my inability to use this book up to my own inadequacy when it comes to things technical, but after reading Michael Hernandez's Database Design for Mere Mortals I realized that the dummies' book was needlessly technical and theoretical.




2. This book has a wealth of information. The author does a great job at passing his knowledge on to the reader. You'll learn even more than you expected.



3. This is a great book on database theory. It will give you a solid understanding that is needed to design database schema for whatever system you are designing.
   
   If you are looking for a more specific HOWTO type book so you can jump in immediately without learning the fundamentals, this isn't the book for you.

3 comments about Distributed Event-Based Systems.

1. Caveat: I have not finished reading yet, but since no one has posted yet, wanted to share my impressions so far.
   Springer has made a name for itself with books that appeal to both academics and professionals with a little academic edge. This book is no exception. It provides a very precise and thorough treatment of event-driven systems. If you are afraid of Greek letters this is probably not for you - Chapter 2 "Basics" uses temporal logic to define the precise semantics of event-based systems. On the other hand you gain in-depth insights into some of the design challenges and options when implementing your own event-driven system.



2. I think it is a good read. I had to refresh some math to better understand the presented material, but it was interesting. It is theoretical and far from practice, but was what I was looking for in the book so I am satisfifed. I enjoyed the objective view i which the material was presented.



3. I found this book an excellent read, with very good balance between theory and technical information -unlike what the previous reviewer thinks- (by technical information I m not implying source code, but rather systems design exploration). I ve gone though almost all of it and I was only a bit confused in a couple of parts (and when I contacted the authors they were very helpful to give me clarifications). The only reason I m not giving it 5 stars is because I am not an expert in the field

5 comments about Dreamweaver 8 Bible.

1. An encyclopedia of helpful information but, this will not be helpful to a novice trying to learn the program for the first time.
   For that get Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Visual Quickstart Guide (Negrino and Smith).



2. this is a good book to get a great background on DW8 and understand creating websites. If you don't have any background in HTML or webpages, the size of the book may overwhelm you but I found it very useful to get a comprehensive understanding of DW. It helped my to get concepts correct. The examples were broken on my CD but after a little playing around, I got them to work.



3. The areas I needed to refer to were in this book. The book has a lot of words that I feel could be omitted without hurting the content or conveying the information. I would give the book a 5 star rating if it has a lot less words.



4. I own the photoshop 7, Dreamweaver 8, Flash 8, and a few others from this series. It may be too in-depth for some novices, but if you really want to learn a lot about the product and are willing to take the time to read it, they do very well.
   
   The sample projects give some good hands-on experience, and a companion CD is always nice.



5. Dreamweaver 8 Bible is an extremely large text that discusses and illustrates all of the latest features of the Dreamweaver 8 web design program. While this book does cover the basics like start up menus, building static web pages, and the drop and drag aspects of this intuitive program which are suitable enough in detail for those new to web site design, this text contains a good deal of information that is more suited to the intermediate to advanced web designer. Such topics includes working with dynamic data, modifying graphics using Fireworks, inserting Flash and Shockwave elements, and enhancing website productivity. Sections include lots of tips, cautions, notes, and illustrations. The step by step instructions and the resulting illustrations in some of the more advanced topics are particularly useful, not only to explain the how tos of these features but also exposing the reader to the potentials uses of these aspects. Dreamweaver 8 Bible comes with a CD containing the trial Dreamweaver 8 program and interactive lessons.

2 comments about Pro Access 2007.

1. There is useful information here but the presentation and layout do not allow one to easily take advantage of it



2. I have been very much enjoying reading Martin WP Reid's new book "Pro Access 2007".
   
   
   
   In fact, for me, it is just what I need at this time.
   
   
   
   As an Access developer who has acquired a reasonable level of skill and knowledge of earlier versions of Access, I have nevertheless been feeling a little intimidated by the scale of the learning curve ahead, to come to terms with the new wave of changes in my industry. I bet I'm not the only one!
   
   
   
   Martin Reid is easy to read. He has a slightly informal, shoot from the hip sort of style. Very personable.
   
   
   
   He wades into all the key areas where Access developers have to take notice. The Ribbon UI, what's new in Access 2007, SQL Server 2005 Express, Windows SharePoint Services, to name a few.
   
   
   
   It's a relatively short book, less than 400 pages. It isn't an in-depth coverage of everything you would ever want to know. It's not that sort of book, nor does it pretend to be.
   
   
   
   On the other hand, it is not a trivial work. It is written for the professional developer, and the content relates accordingly.
   
   
   
   What comes through, is the author's passion for Access, and his understanding of Access's continued position at the cutting edge of database application development.
   
   
   
   Martin Reid's skill here, is in identifying some of the core concepts, demystifying them by explaining them in straight-forward language, and illustrating them by superb examples. All this at a comfortably manageable pace.
   
   
   
   So as you see, I like the book, I learned heaps from it so far, it got me over a hump, and I will no doubt be referring back to it again.

No comments about Problem Solving and Programming Concepts (8th Edition).

5 comments about Principles Of Software Engineering Management.

1. This book covers three main topics: evolutionary development, requirements management, and inspections. A good introduction to all three, but if you plan on trying evolutionary development, I also suggest reading the pertinent sections of Rapid Development by Steve McConnell.



2. Gilb covers only a small portion of "Software Engineering Management" in detail. Other important issues are either not addressed at all or receive only cursory treatment. Still, what it does go into depth about it usually well thought out and makes imminent sense. I'd say it's worth reading, but it may be a bit expensive for it's narrowness.



3. Firstly, don't let the title put you off -this book is relevant to a lot of people who wouldn't call themselves "sofware engineers" or "managers" - it's also highly relevant to systems analysts / designers & just about any sort of IT consultant, amongst others.

   What separates this from most other books on software development is that just about every page is obviously written by someone who has been there and done it (recently), not just talked about it. The main ideas of the book (evolutionary delivery, defining ojectives as either "functional" or "attributes" ) may not seem revolutionary, but apply it and it could revolutionise your project and maybe career. No IT book I've ever has ever affected my own work so profoundly.

   It's also well written and exceptionally well laid out. More please, Tom!




4. I found this book hard to read. I often had to force myself to read further, although the ideas and principles described are important and should be required knowledge of any software engineer and SE manager (which does not mean that they necessarily apply to all projects).

   The book contains endless redundancy and lots of hard to understand details of projects the author has worked on. One chapter even contains excerpts from other books and articles that confirm the author's views - as though the author feared he hadn't been convincing enough (that wasn't the problem).

   In summary, the book should have had half the length and that would have still covered the same content. It might be interesting to readers new to the principles of evolutionary delivery, measurable attribte objectives, and inspection.




5. This book covers two very important software engineering topics: the unambiguous specification of business goals and product specification and on evolutionary project management. It also covers the Fagan inspections process which is one of the most powerful techniques in software development. If you like this book, you should also consider the book "Competitive Engineering" by the same author.