5 comments about Murach's VB.NET Database Programming with ADO.NET.

1. I took on the project of constructing a database application to track our customers since there was nothing out there off the shelf that would do exactly what we needed done. I had not programmed in 12 years and did not know a first thing about VB.NET or object-oriented programming. The book is so well structured that I managed to build a database application from the ground-up while learning to program all over again within 6 months - it would have taken shorter but the only times I could dedicate to the project was nights and weekends. And guess what; after I beta-tested the program and ironed out the bugs, the program never even crashed once! On average 15 concurrent users are on the program and enter about 200 transacions daily. This book helped make my project a success.



2. The seller responded promptly to this transaction and book was in excellent condition! Would use again and highly recommend to others....



3. this book is more of a guide to teach someone how to program, but when you are alone and stucked, you can't find any solution.



4. I'm basically a Java programmer and I already own Murachs's JSP which is a class in itself. I had to involve in a project at my company which is totally developed using VB.NET. I came here to amazon to look for some books on Vb.NET and ADO.NET and I knew Murach should have written a title on this. My guess didn't go wrong and I just bought this book 2 days ago. I was able to master the basics of ADO.NET(first 6 chapters) in just 2 days which is really unbeleivable. This book is really amazing. This is truly geared towards a beginner and also serves as a reference for experienced.
   Murach's idea of explaining the concept on the left hand side and examples for the explanation on the right hand side is really awesome. The topics are clearly illustrated with appropriate examples.
   I'm now truly a fan of Murach's pen!



5. This book provided me all the important information and techniques on how to develope relational databases. The authors really got to the guts on how real databases work. For instance, using two or more tables in a dataset, creating relations with these tables, using data binding controls where certain combo boxes are bound to a different table in the dataset. So, one can develope a user interface where certain textboxes and combo boxes are connected to other tables all on one form. I actually created my own mini database from this book. All the code worked like a champ. Keep in mind that one should download the application files from their website for each chapter. Once you run the programs for each chapter, you will understand the concepts the authors explain about the code. Make sure you have a minimal background on your standard VB.NET because the authors are not neccesarily going to hold your hand throughout the book, but they do come close.

5 comments about Programming Microsoft Composite UI Application Block and Smart Client Software Factory (Pro-Best Practices).

1. I found this book to be well worth the money.
   
   CAB on its own is a large topic, add SCSF and the amount of information is overwhelming. David's book is an attempt to distill and present enough information to shorten the learning curve, and enable someone to make an informed decision about what CAB can do for them. This book is not intended to replace the official Software Factory documentation, but it does provide a valuable piece of the overall puzzle.
   
   David's book clearly explains some of the history behind how CAB became what it is today and how real world experience is guiding CAB's evolution. There are examples which leverage David's experience with the product to supply valuable information available nowhere else.
   
   There is certainly a need for more detailed documentation and David shows in this book he has the knowledge and experience to write a volume 2 on CAB & SCSF Advanced Topics. And I for one hope he does so real soon.



2. David's book provides a necessary foundation for anyone wanting to become proficient with CAB programming. Unless you are already an experienced CAB developer or are looking for low level CAB framework details, this book will be of great benefit. A real asset in helping you understand the complexities of CAB, the SCSF and get you started toward successful CAB development.



3. If you are looking for a 3k page bible on SCSF and CAB, move along partner, because this ain't it.
   If, however, you have been wanting to work with SCSF but couldn't find a good starting point, this is your book. If you've heard the alluring call of SCSF's decoupled architecture and want to get your feet wet, this is your book. If you've done The Walkthrough and found that you still didn't understand what it really *meant*, this is your book. If you are developing in the SCSF but want to read about pitfalls, tips and tricks from someone who has already traveled that road, this is your book.
   This book begins top down by explaining the decoupled architecture and its benefits. It then dives down a level and explains how the WorkItems, Collections and Services work together to enable the decoupling. Finally it dives one more level and hits upon some key Services, Event Brokering, Action Catalog and some of the other "big" pieces of SCSF. At key points you get prudent advice about how real products are using SCSF features in deployed applications in the real world.
   
   To summarize: If you are already an SCSF god, there is nothing new here for you. If you are an SCSF neophyte, this book is a worthwhile read to shortcut the SCSF learning curve.



4. Many of us who are developing applications using CAB/SCSF could use a comprehensive "How To" book on this topic. Unfortunately, this book didn't sieze the opportunity to deliver such a book. There is *some* good information in the book, and the Introduction chapter nicely whets the appetite. Unfortunately, the rest of the book falls far short of providing the necessary guidance and examples to make it truly useful. There is certainly enough information in CAB/SCSF to fill a book with at least twice the content of this one. It makes me wonder whether the book was rushed to market or whether the author and editors just lacked the will and fortitude to write the type of book that this could have been.



5. Its not a bad book but its not exactly what I was looking for. Having said that there are not many books telling you what this does, so it becomes a must buy.

5 comments about Microsoft .NET Development for Microsoft Office (Office/Progmng/Net).

1. 5 stars considering the first reviewer only gave it 1. Andrew's book is great, it provides complete coverage of all of the different techniques to work with Office and .NET.
   
   All of the examples that I tried worked fine; granted I didn't do every single one.
   
   As for "real programming" examples... I don't know what you mean. Usually it's hard for an author to know what everyone needs, but I think Andrew's examples were good.
   
   Thanks for putting all of this information together in one place. Yes, I'm sure most of it can be found on MSDN or Google, but if $50 saves me a day or two of searching the I'll take it.
   
   John



2. Anybody who does Office development knows that it's not pretty - there are many technologies involved, and it takes time and efforts to make everything work together. This book is a first attempt to present an overview of .NET Office development, and it will save you hours and hours of putting pieces together by searching MSDN and newsgroups. I wish this book was written years ago.



3. I know a lot about programming -- and I am also keenly aware that there is even more that I don't know. I have developed in MS Access, Word and Excel for the last five years on all versions since 97. I have been teaching myself Visual Studio .NET and am currently attending a Java programming class.
   
   I was very disappointed in my purchase. I was looking forward to learning how to use the office developer tools in Visual Studio .NET. Unfortunately, this book is targeted at those that have already mastered Visual Studio.NET as opposed to those who know VBA and Office development and want to migrate to .NET.
   
   My evidence:
   1) The coding language selected by the author was C#. This choice, for good or ill, has the net effect of excluding VBA developers because of the vast difference in syntax. If you know C++ or Java you can make it through the examples, but these languages are not what VBA developers tend to know. In other words, this book doesn't allow VBA developers to leverage their existing knowledge.
   2) The book starts by discussing Interops and Assemblies. Again, for good or ill, one should probably be familiar with these concepts before delving into the code examples. Additionally, you MUST have more than a passing knowledge of threading to make full use of this book.
   3) A review of the index yields not a single topic regarding object oriented programming (OOP) concepts for those new to OOP making it much more of an advanced specialty book than a more broad reference and learning tool.
   
   The author clearly knows what he is taking about. Unfortuantely, those most in need of learning office tools in .NET will not be in a position to take advantage of his knowledge.



4. There is a ton of misleading and confusing information on the web regarding what technologies you can use to develop against specific versions of Office. This book gives you all the practical advice you need to hit the ground running with managed COM development in Office. From a thorough introduction of the technologies available and their pros and cons, to very specific examples that show workarounds to common problems such as using custom icons in a toolbar that you add programmatically, how to use a C++ shim to sign your .NET add-on and make sure that you won't run into security issues in strict corporate environments, etc. If you are starting out with managed COM development on the Office platform then this is the book you absolutely need. We bought this book to use on a team project and it was so good that I picked up a copy for personal use at home.
   
   The book does assume that you are a relatively experienced programmer. If you are interested in using Visual Studio Tools for Office instead of COM, then you should check out Eric Carter's Visual Studio Tools for Office instead but be aware that you can only target Office 2003+ using VSTO. You need to use COM, not VSTO, in order to target older versions of Office.



5. If you are attracted to this title thinking that this will help you how make the jump from coding in VB/VBA for MS Office apps to coding in VB.NET you are in for a rude surprise. This book is for programmers wanting to leverage their knowledge of C# to develop solutions for MS Office.
   
   The book is okay as far as it goes for C# sharp, I guess. But the failure in the book title and description to make clear what .NET language is being discussed is misleading.

No comments about Java for COBOL Programmers, Third Edition (Programming Series).

4 comments about Using UML: Software Engineering with Objects and Components (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Object Technology).

1. The book is written in an Question/Answer format (i.e., FAQ). Very different from the rest of the UML topics, narrative or reference styles provided in most UML books. Unfortunately, the price seems a little steep, until you consider that there are some valuable bits of information in this book that seem to be missing from most UML books. Mostly the "why?" of UML. That makes the book worth every penny. If you are deep into UML and want answers to some of the more obscure issues, this is a good book to read through.



2. This book touches on all the right subjects but does not go -in my opinion- deep into any. I like the sequence in which the information is organised and presented. It is nice to include case studies, but I am not sure about the completeness of the case studies or if, in fact, these can be implemented from the design provided. It is a novelty to provide discussion topics very often throughout the text, but it would have been better, if not essential, to discuss the issues in the text or direct us to some other resource where the discussions take place. All in all, there are other books that do the job better of introducing UML or discussing advanced issues, but this text is probably the best to be used on an undergraduate course. Its value to software engineers in the industry, though, is questionable.



3. I found this book very hard to read at times, and tedious at other times. If you can stick with it long enough, it starts to make sense, and there as a ton of very good information to be found. It is well written and logically organised, I just wish it were a bit more enjoyable to read.



4. If you have a general idea of SDLC, this is a perfect book for you. It doesn't bring you into detail but good enough to give you a general idea of all the static and dynamic diagrams. This is also a great book for students who do not want to dig too deep into a concept and not knowing how to apply them.

   EQ.

No comments about Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008: Includes Silverlight 2 and the ADO.NET Entity Framework (Pro).

No comments about Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications.

5 comments about UML Demystified.

1. I tried reading two other UML books before I found Paul's. After the first two I didn't even know what I had read. I almost gave up but work kind of made me keep trying. When I found Paul's book, everything started to make sense. Not only did I seem to be able to actually use the diagrams in useful ways but his book enhanced my understanding of object oriented programming, which was a bonus.
   
   I highly recommend this to anyone who has been baffled by UML in the past. It's the first time I have seen how really valuable the whole process is. Now I'm hooked. Also, his book keeps me awake and is well thumbed, the other books would make me nod off.



2. The authors easy going style makes this an easy read. Kimmel succeeds in turning a tedious and technical subject into a tolerable learning experience. If you're new to UML, this is the book to start with.



3. Bravo! Bravo! Prometheus has brought UML fire to the forsaken and dank world of UML neophytes. UML Inherently lends itself as an acutely idiomatic abstraction on the science of software engineering, and could be a rather knotty topic to elucidate. Paul has created a dazzling masterpiece for those of us who have been frazzled and bedazzled by attempts to understand the language to any practicable extent. His prose is sufficiently balanced with literary invites and his techno jargon is tamed enough to foster a pleasant reading experience. Now that I have exposed the relevance of this book to me, I will offer a few words on how it might benefit you.
   
   With a desire for more than an a cursory excursion into the study of UML, you might ask yourself these questions: how can this enhance my career? or how can I employ this newfound knowledge? Well, it will prepare you to overshadow the initial daunting feeling you might experience on your first encounter with a UML CASE tool; this type of software engineering tool could enable you to become very productive in a respectable time span, but this feat is achieved only after you have had a profound understanding of the robust and industry-proven design methodology that is inherent in UML--this book will bolster your confidence for that mission.
   
   Again, Bravo!



4. UML is not exactly an easy subject to understand and I don't think this book can "demystify" UML for any beginner.
   My biggest complain about this book is that it could be less verbose and more clear.
   But it's definitely worth reading.



5. Recomemnded as
   
   - The only read, for people wanting to have an understanding of what UML really is. For example, managers who need to grasp the benefit of UML and assess the difficulty of it's use.
   - The first read, for people wanting to actually use and implement UML.

5 comments about Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Internet-Based Systems.

1. This is good book. If you test web apps, you should buy it.

   Hung Nguyen and I are co-authors of another book and good friends. I am not an unbiased reviewer. On the other hand, I wouldn't write this review if I didn't believe every word of it.

   Hung's book breaks new ground. It will be useful today, and I believe it will have lasting value and influence.

   Once you get beyond the superficial (not unimportant, but much less difficult) issues of usability testing that dominate so many discussions of web testing, you run into the really tough problems of web application testing. Hung Nguyen's book is about those harder problems.

   The web-based application runs on a wider range of platforms than any other type of program in history. It doesn't even have control over its presentation layer (the user supplies the browser and the multimedia plugins, and these applications might change any time). What will the application look like on the changed browser? The application probably also relies on third party databases (which can change any time), third party network connections (which can change any time), third party security systems and other access control (which can change any time), etc., etc. Almost anything in this system can change any time. How do you deal with a system that has so many unknowns?

   Hung's view is that web application testers must learn more about the technical details of the systems and understand how external variables can interact (and fail) with the application under test.

   To help testers learn about the interaction (and testing) of applications with other system components, he wrote the field's first book on grey box testing.

   This book has substantial value for what it teaches us about testing on the web. Beyond that, it teaches about thinking clearly and thoroughly when your application interacts in complex ways with other systems. I think his approach will have lasting value and lasting influence long after many of the detailed issues that he describes have been resolved and replaced with new ones.

   Along with the original approach, Hung gives a powerful real-world example. He is the president of a company that publishes a web-based bug tracking system. To illustrate the types of tests that you can run and the types of bugs you can find, he opened his records and described real tests, real bugs, and real testing problems. It's a rare treat to see a discussion of testing experience by someone who knows testing, who also intimately knows the software under test, and who isn't constrained in what he can say by a nondisclosure contract.




2. Grey box testing is based on a general understanding of a system's architecture and components. This understanding drives test strategy and identifies opportunities to test components in isolation.

   The shade of grey can vary from white box testing (full review of source code) to black box testing (no review of source code). You choose what level of information to gather depending on your budget, capabilities and judgment.

   This book provides the first detailed approach to grey box testing, focussing on web-based application architectures. These architectures are based on a heavy use of components: application servers, web servers, load balancers, databases and the like. This book describes these components, suggests how they can fail and what you can do to anticipate, trigger, or detect such failures.

   This approach is supported by the author's extensive experience testing web-based (and other) applications as president of a software testing company. It is augmented by plenty of good advice on how to communicate test results clearly.




3. I have been in web testing for 3.5 years and this was the first book I found on the subject. My only complaint is that it took so long to come out, but I won't hold that against Nguyen or Wiley. It is a superb introduction to the complexities of web testing, which despite the protests of standalone application testers, is much more difficult and technical than traditional application testing. Not only does the tester need to know the basics of application testing, he or she has to know about the complex technology behind the site or application, and Nguyen's book is unbeatable. I've recommended that everyone on my team read it, since they are all new to the art of web testing. I read it cover to cover and it didn't really cover anything I had not learned in 3.5 years of experience, but had it been published when I started, I would have been able to ramp up so much faster. I also recommend that application developers read it in order to understand the role of a tester and to develop professional respect for a much-maligned profession.



4. This book is about web testing in general, not just performance testing, and is a must have for the professional testing engineer. Chapters 7 and 8, on performance and scalability give a very good introduction to the subject, and include a great sample performance testing plan.

   Michael Czeiszperger
   Web Performance, Inc. Stress Testing Software
   http://www.webperformanceinc.com




5. When industry leaders such as Cem Kaner and Bret Pettichord extol the virtues of this book you can be assured that it is great - everything they and other reviewers have said is on target. Moreover, you'd be hard-pressed to walk into the testing area in any company and not see a copy of this book on someone's desk.

   That said, instead of this book you should get the second edition, which is a major rewrite, and also expanded in scope to include testing mobile systems. This edition is titled, "Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems" ISBN 0471201006, and is everything others have said about this first edition - and more!

   Even with a better second edition, this book deserves the five stars I gave it because of the influence it has had on the testing profession. Moreoever, this first edition is not out-of-date, and is still a great book if you don't need information about testing mobile web systems at this time (although it's a safe bet you will in the future).

3 comments about A First Course in Computational Physics and Object-Oriented Programming with C++.

1. This book can serve several audiences. It teaches both computational physics and the use of C++ in writing object oriented code. Clearly, if you are already know one of these topics, but not the other, then the book is a natural fit. You can concentrate on what is essentially half the book.
   
   The more challenging task is if you are unfamiliar with both. Well, it is reasonable to assume that you know some physics, say at the first year undergraduate level. And perhaps you have done some programming, in a procedural language like Fortran or Basic.
   
   The amount of abstractions, or rather the level of difficulty in this, is less than in a typical physics text that is explaining Maxwell's Equations or Einstein's Special Relativity. The physics in the book revolves around trying to compute certain numbers in an efficient manner.
   
   While from a programming standpoint, computational physics examples are given as an important use case, to help the student grasp the OO concepts.



2. This book was developed during many years of teaching scientific programming to engineers and scientists in both electrical engineering and physics courses. About 1/3 of the text is accessible to beginning programmers even at a high-school level, while the last part of the book can serve as a second-term undergraduate scientific programming course or as a reference text. While the title indicates that a major focus of the text is computational physics, the book contains problems and examples from numerous scientific and engineering disciplines and can be employed across a wide variety of course offerings.
   
   Because of the practical difficulties faced by beginning students, a first course in scientific programming generally requires very significant personal intervention by the instructor or laboratory assistant. This book effectively removes this issue by providing a common base of free Windows software on CD-ROM that is meticulously documented in the text (the software is also available for Linux). The reader is introduced to programming through numerous assignments containing real-world technical problems. The assignments at first contain nearly the entire program to be developed; as the book develops, however, fewer code sections are provided. This method allows the user to absorb proper program structure while avoiding frustrating and confusing stylistic traps. A solution manual is made available to instructors through Cambridge University Press (see their website for errata) while the CD-ROM also contains copies of all programs presented in the text.
   
   This book presents a compact but completely unified picture of modern programming practice as it applies to scientific programming. The fundamental, underlying principles of the C++ language and scientific programming are stressed in order to simplify retention of complex C++ syntax and of the mathematical and physical content. More involved topics in numerical analysis, scientific programming methods and C++ are presented in an intuitive and easily-understood manner. Examples of the subjects covered are: software engineering principles (UML), numerical analysis, scientific graphics programming, the Standard Template Library (STL), Monte-Carlo methods including the Metropolis and multicanonical techniques, partial differential equation solvers, calling Fortran from C++, C++ program optimization.



3. This is a very good book, the codes are clear and
   written from a computational point of view. It is easy
   to set up the software. I agree with the authors self
   remraks except that he should wirte up some harder examples
   in the end. But still, the best.