3 comments about Zen of Code Optimization: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Software That Pushes PCs to the Limit.

1. Excellent book. He's starts off each chapter with a weird story. Very easy to understand and covers all aspects of optimization on all x86 processors up to pentium. He shows you programs in C then optimizes the hell out of them in later chapters.



2. You can still learn a lot on optimization but there is almost nothing on the Pentium generation. Covers mostly 16 bit assembly.
   Would be nice to have a book like that for 32 bit optimization.



3. It's rare that an author can take an esoteric topic like instruction cycle optimization and accomplish three key goals: explain the concepts with great clarity, make the book fun to read, and change the way the reader thinks about programming and optimization in general. Abrash has that rare combination of excellent communication skills, breadth and depth of technical knowledge, and a passion for helping you understand the hows, whys, and whens of code optimization. While some of the material seems a little dated now (covering Pentium I and prior CPUs), the concepts, methodologies, and ways of thinking about optimization still apply today.

5 comments about Ones and Zeros: Understanding Boolean Algebra, Digital Circuits, and the Logic of Sets (IEEE Press Understanding Science & Technology Series).

1. If you are looking for a complete understanding of boolean algebra, this book will definitely statisfy your needs. It provides several interesting examples with each chapter to keep your mind working. Great way to start out learning about boolean logic.



2. This is an rxcellent book for anyone interested in digital circuits and boolean algebra. It is very easy to understand, but does go into enough detail for the advanced to learn from it also. We can all improve our skills after reading this book. Also the price is right!



3. Incredible book for understanding boolean algebra. What I like about the book is the simple and clear language that the author uses and a lot of very helpful examples throughout the book to help understand the concept.



4. This is an extremely clear introduction to Boolean Algebra. It is very well written and edited. Plenty of exercises will answers to cement the concepts in your brain.
   
   The book covers number systems, logic gates, and some elementary set theory. They are all covered well. There is no coverage of flip-flops which I would have liked to have seen.
   
   I should note this is not an electronics book. There are no real circuits but there are plenty of logic diagrams. Read this book to understand the concepts then go on to an electronic book if you actually wanted to build any of this stuff.



5. I'm a Computer Engineering student and have read many books on the subject. Until I read this book, I was constantly struggling with complex Boolean equations. Fortunately, this book has helped me master the subject -with a lot of hard work. I highly recommend this book for any student in the Computer Engineering field.

5 comments about ATL Internals (The Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series).

1. If you are a COM C++ developer, this book is great and it answer a lot of your questions. However, it is not for COM beginners. If you are a beginner, definitly buy Essential COM (by Don Box).
   After reading Essential COM, you should own this book. It is excellent to learn ATL and as a reference too.



2. I first bought this book because it was the only one I could find that had a discussion of ICollectionOnSTLImpl that I could understand. I was already fairly familiar with ATL - at least how to use the wizards - but found that a lot of the documentation that was available was less than useful, especially the collections stuff.

   After successfully using Chapter 7 (Collections & Enumerations) for what I needed, I went back and read the whole book from front to back, and started really to understand what was happening under the covers - the whys and wherefores for all of the seemingly quirky little code chunks that I had seen peppered throughout my code, but not understood fully.

   This book has become an indispensible resource, that I keep close at hand. I can't really recommend it as a first book on COM or as an introduction to ATL, but this is not a criticism, because that's not its intended purpose. For in-depth coverage of the workings of ATL, though, I haven't come across a better book.




3. This is simply one book that you do not want to be without when designing and implementing a COM project. I purchased the book after I found myself in my first COM project and without any coworkers with any experience in this area. As a comment, I've also rummaged around the Internet and purchase ...books in the effort to come up to speed as quickly as I can. ATL Internals is the best source of data on ATL that I've found so far.

   ATL Internals not only discusses ATL but also does and excellent job discussing COM's theory of operation and how a Win32 OS supports COM.

   As a warning, however, ATL Internals isn't the only book that you need on a COM project because it is specialized on ATL (and on COM in general). While ATL is useful it is not the only thing that you will have to deal with on a COM project. You will probably need to work with IDL files and for that I can unequivocally recommend "Essential IDL" by Martin Gudgin.

   ATL Internals accomplishes several things well; I will try to describe the most valuable aspects of this book. One of the best properties of this book is that it is thorough. It covers ATL in depth.

   The following is a partial list of the material in ATL Internals:

   1) ATL Internals covers using the wizards and explains how to proceed beyond the point where the wizards quit.
   2) A though discussion of ATL facilities. For example: CComPtr (a COM smart pointer), CComBSTR (a class wrapped around the error-prone BSTR datatype) classes are covered in detail. The text conversion macros are completely covered here. In other books and on the internet I saw code examples that used them but will little explantion.
   3) Bug warnings, both your (potential) bugs and bugs within ATL. The authors point out the buggy parts of ATL and they invest the necessary effort to warn out about aspects of ATL that, if naively used, create bugs. Numerous pages are dedicated to showing both how to correctly use certain hazardous parts of ATL as well as examples of buggy code. Depreciated techniques are also described for completeness.
   4) Discussion and examples of various COM issues, including threading issues, connection points, the Service Control manager (SCM)and so on.
   5) Detailed discussion of the numerous macros that Microsoft uses to conceal substantial code, (e.g. BEGIN_OBJECT_MAP, COM_INTERFACE_ENTRY_IMPL, etc.)
   6) One of the appendixes shows a cross reference between ATL classes and header file names. This was a welcome convenience (yes I could have greped, but this is quicker)

   ATL Internals not only has great content but it is written in a very readable style. The typeset is easy to read and the diagrams are well done.




4. ATL internals is the final word on ATL. No other book is needed to master ATL.

   I have a good number of books on COM and ATL but getting the low down on ATL starts and ends in this book. The coverage in unbeleiveable. It will make you think you were part of the ATL implementation team.
   This book is not a short cut for learning COM programming.You should have a good understanding of how COM works and you also need to know your c++ well(emphasis on well. This book does not teach c++)
   However, considering the .NET revolution, ATL may not be of much use for much longer.But if for some reason you need to learn ATL, this book is the ATL University.




5. Very professional and prompt. The book arrived earlier than the estimated date and in perfect condition.

No comments about Concise Prelude to Programming (3rd Edition).

3 comments about Business Rules and Information Systems: Aligning IT with Business Goals (Unisys Series).

1. This book introduces the concept and mechanics of business rules, and is essential reading for anyone involved in eliciting and writing requirements, or developing specifications. I want to disclose that I am a staunch advocate of business rules, so take this into consideration as you read this review.

   This is one of two books on the subject. The other book, Business Rules Applied by Barbara von Halle, is more suitable for an experienced practitioner or someone responsible for implementing business rules as an enterprise methodology. This book, however, focuses on the basics and addresses topics, such as object orientation and development, that are not found in von Halle's book. Both books are valuable, but to different audiences.

   What I like most about this book is that it painstakingly describes how to define business rules, and how to clearly and unambiguously describe them. Moreover, the approach given in this book employs the object constraint language, which is a part of the unified modeling language (UML) version 1.1. As such it shows how to integrate business rules into use cases, and to develop artifacts that align to organizations that are using UML or the Rational Unified Process, as well as object-oriented frameworks in general.

   My favorite chapters were 3, which is about defining business rules (getting them right) and 5, which covers controlling business rule quality. To me these are the keys to understanding and using business rules, and both chapters were clear and filled with examples. I also liked the appendix, which covered logic - another essential knowledge factor for analysts who are involved in requirements and specifications.

   If you're new to business rules or are exploring them, start here. Even though the von Halle book is better suited to experienced practitioners, I would still recommend this book to members of that audience who are working in object-oriented environments or are using UML. If you are also using UML, do consider also reading Alistair Cockburn's excellent book titled Writing Effective Use Cases because that book is completely consistent with the material in this one.




2. Dear Amazon.com Reader,

   Information systems often fail because the IT analysts, architects and builders don't know how to talk to the non-IT business people. On top of that, a major stumbling block in the development and delivery of effective solutions can be found in problems associated with all aspects of integration. Fortunately, a solid and well-grounded Business Rules approach can offer significant advantages in overcoming these hurdles.

   Not many people may realize this, but Unisys was the proud inheritor of almost forty years of knowledge and experience in such key business critical areas as Business IT, OLTP, Mission Critical Systems, Decision Support (e.g. Data Warehousing, MAPPER etc.), Business Modelling (e.g. MAPPER/ESD - expert systems development and delivery - highly integrated Business Rules repository and rules engines) and most importantly major systems analysis, development, delivery, integration and management. Many of these assets were inherited from the hugely inventive Sperry Univac, other great ideas came from Burroughs.

   But most of all, the real assets of a smart company are its people - and it shows. Tony Morgan has written a book that meets a real need - i.e. it addresses the question "so what's the big deal with Business Rules" - and in passing, will inform, inspire and educate the reader in a way that only someone who knows what they are writing about can.

   The central theme of the book is the application of Business Rules to the task of aligning IT with business goals, a task that is talked about by many, yet achieved by few. Tony Morgan maintains the readers attention by not only giving a clear and uncluttered description, with focused examples, of what Business Rules are all about, but also uses references to other aspects of IT and business - which I found immensely enjoyable.

   All in all, I found this book about as enjoyable as having an interestingly pleasant discussion about Business Rules, Business and IT in general over a couple of beers in the local bar. So, I personally would recommend this book to anyone who wants a very good introduction to Business Rules and their role in "Aligning IT with Business Goals".

   Best regards,

   Martyn R Jones
   




3. If you are a Business Analyst and you've just been told your next project will use a Business Rules engine, you are no doubt wondering "how do I capture and document these Business Rules things"?
   This book is a great help for that - it explains where business rules sit relative to business process models and use cases (narratives), what they are and what types there are, and then outlines a method on how to go about capturing and documenting them.
   I am using the book for this purpose and its a good starting point; note that I am modifying some of the practices and documentation formats to suit the context of the project I'm working on. The author has no problem with this and in fact cheerfully suggests when it may be needed.
   There are also details about maintaining business rules over the lifetime of a system and some technical stuff (now looking to be somewhat dated).
   The extra bit of knowledge I would add (from the BA Book of Knowledge) is that if your project doesn't use a separate business rules engine or component, then don't bother capturing them separately but just do what you have done before and put the business rules in the relevant Use Case documentation.
   Note to the Technical Folk: this isn't the book for you as it's really for business analysts and managerial types and has very little implementation details (see the DROOLS open source project for an example of these details) If you do want to read it, borrow or interloan it via your local library.

3 comments about Introduction to Logic Design.

1. This text book was the required text book for my Digital Techniques I class. I'm simply posting this remark so other students will not be as unfortunate as I was in wasting money on this book. I tried using the book at the beginning of the semester, but after 2 weeks I gave up on using it. I haven't opened it since. I felt that there was no since of coherency in the text. I felt the examples were rather poor. There's not even a glossary to look up terms, and the index is not helpful. I don't know enough about digital design to give very constructive criticism on this text. But I know that as a student, I found this book to be very bad. There are many other text books out there that do a much better job of introducing the topics of an introductory digital design class. Use one of those. Not this one.

   Computer Engineering Undergraduate




2. or nobody would buy it. If you're just looking to self educate yourself on digital logic, this is not the book for you. And teachers should stop forcing this on their students. It's not written in an easy to understand manner. The "solved problems" are basically "here's the problem, here's the answer." With how the answer was reached left as an exercise for the reader. The only reason it's survivable is because it's logic. Unbeknownst by reading the book you discover there are simple patterns.

   If you absolutly must use this book because some teacher assigned it, use it in conjunction with LogicWorks. By doing the assignments in LogicWorks you get rid of the theory and can fiddle around until you figure out how it works in practice.




3. As a student, I often found this book to be helpful in my studies. The examples are a bit sketchy, but they force you to think to apply them to the material. The chapters are a bit confusing, but you shouldn't be using this book for an introduction to this course. Overall, this book is good for the intermediate or advanced digital logic technician.

5 comments about Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach.

1. I am not a computer scientist by profession but have worked in the systems and networking area for some years now and always had an interest in software engineering. The book opens up a whole new perspective for a hobbyist programmer who is self taught. I will never look at software the same and have changed my way of thinking when it comes to developing programs. This will be a reference book on my bookshelf for a long time.



2. After 20 years designing embedded systems (with no OS), I faced several thoughts in how to implement a serious and flexible way to deal with small, medium and big size softwares.I'm sure the one of most important disconery I got is the use of FSM/FSA.It makes your sw clear and visible, without tricks wich only the author can undesrstand them.This book covers this subject with very simple and direct approaching, making clear that there are not a MAGIC and COLLORED way to develop a safe and robust software, unless you focus and udesrstand the behavior of you are controlling, wich is tottaly feasible and confortable if you apply FSM to accomplish it.The desmystification of ilusions based on new ideas wich are not new ideas, leads the programmer to see software as it is: a not easy task wich must be done by programmers and not hobbyists.Of course', I'm not talking about to control bips and leds. Very good book...very good and experienced writers...excelent for "embedded guys", like me...wich develop Ethernet TCPIP stack , GPRS TCPIP stacks, applications tasks based systems, only using the good and powerfull C language



3. The subject of this book is probably one of the most written about in software industry.
   
   The first three chapters is authors' view on just about every thing in software development including a brief rundown of programming languages (with healthy dose of authors' anecdote), and (somewhat biased) a view of development methodologies including Agile.
   
   The rests are introduction to FSM, discussions about Moore and Mealy machines, design considerations and case studies. Finally in Chap 10 is about the StateWorks, the software they're selling (By purchasing this book you're entitled to a copy of their light version of StateWorks software. I didn't evaluate the software)
   
   The book takes pragmatic approach to design and analysis of state machine. There are a lot of practical advises, considerations that could only have come from many years of experience applying the principle in practice. On the other hand, I don't think the first three chapters serve any purpose to the entirety of the book. Thus I'm giving a four star.



4. This book is excellent for making the reader understand how a complete software application can be easily controlled using state machines, simplifying the architecture. The writing can be hard to follow sometimes and the authors make claims about areas they are not expert in that are clearly false but when it comes to state machines and developing applications using them, they clearly know what they are talking about. Just skip the non-state machine parts of the book.



5. I completely agree with the review by John Nash, these authors are experts in state machines and they have some very good info and shared experience regarding modeling problems using FSM. However, the authors are extremely opinionated and biased, they frequently trash any method that doesn't 100% comply with their own thinking even if the method is almost exactly the same as theirs save a few small details.
   
   The first few chapters of the book are an overview of the programming landscape in general, and it is clear that the authors know a great deal about some subjects and have good insight to share. On other subjects however it is very obvious that they have not really delved into what they are talking about yet they make broad generalizations, often negative unless it is a technology employed by their product, StateWorks.
   Also, they present StateWorks as a panacea for all software ails, not just embedded development or control systems, while it is plainly obvious that this is not the case.
   
   This book has 17 chapters, only 3 of them (7-9) and a few of the appendices are worth reading for the general reader. If you are intending to use StateWorks then a few more of the chapters would be useful.

5 comments about SQL Server 2005 Practical Troubleshooting: The Database Engine (SQL Server Series).

1. This book contains articles and code examples that are very handy, especially to those of us who are transitioning from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005. I am a fairly new DBA and have much to learn, but this book opened the door to some more advanced topics (index statistics and execution plans for example) and described the differences between how SQL 2K and SQL 2005 handle the same issues. Highly recommended.



2. SQLAuthority.com Book Review :
   SQL Server 2005 Practical Troubleshooting: The Database Engine (SQL Server Series) (Paperback)
   by Ken Henderson
   
   Short Review :
   Database Administrators can use this book on a daily basis in SQL Server 2005 troubleshooting and problem solving. Answers to SQL issues can be swiftly located using the index of this book.This book covers the topics and subjects which any other books, blogs or websites (including MSDN, BOL) do not cover. This book provides DBAs with solutions which can be used by user in highly dynamic environments to resolve common and specialized problems. This book tells user what to do when something goes wrong with SQL Server 2005. This book is an edge case, but is something that can make the difference between a SQL Server application meeting customer needs and it going down in flames. This book is a good place to begin troubleshooting expedition.
   
   Detail Review :
   This book will not teach you basic T-SQL from basic and it is not easy and interesting training text book. This book is more like guide to save the troubled time. This book must be read by all the DBA before hand to know what kind of bad (worst!) situation can arise and how this book can be used to prevent the situation or fix it if it has already happened. The authors obviously knows the product very well from inside out, many of the authors are working for Microsoft or MVP. The authors communicate the the topic very well, many places there is lots of code dump, however that is appropriately justified looking at the content covered in the book and direction of the topic taken in the book. The Authors unveils the secretes of SQL Server 2005 internals. We can easily understand how the SQL Server 2005 is working, which helps when something goes wrong.
   
   This book contains many interesting topics. Regular readers of my blog knows that my favorite subject is data corruption and recovery and server crashes and other critical failures. I enjoy writing and researching SQL Server errors and their resolution. It is extremely important to know the common errors and their solution. This book covers errors in depth and in detail. This book tries to cover many subjects in 480 pages, which makes sometime book little heavy to read.
   
   The book covers complex subject very easily and in simple words. For example,
   "Last Known Good - When was the last time DBCC CHECKDB reported no errors for this database? SQL Server 2005 saves in the database information about the last time a DBCC CHECKDB was run without errors on the database."
   "Run DBCC FREEPROCCACHE. This clears the procedure cache of any cached plans that are not currently in use."
   "No matter how accurate the planning or estimate is, you might still run out of space in production. The best practice here is to set up the SQLDiag service to constantly monitor the production system and take action before you run out of space."
   
   This book comes up with CD which contains some useful software (SQL Nexus; TraceBuster, DataDemon) and sample code of the book. I have yet to try the software myself.
   
   Rating : 4 and 1/2 stars
   
   In Summary, This should be a standard book on most DBA's desktops.
   
   Pinal Dave
   Principal Database Administrator
   [...]



3. This book becomes useless on page 5 where it begins to reference sample code that is not provided. After registering my purchase with Safari and Addison -Wesley and reporting the problem, I was deluged with daily "reminders" to upgrade to a paid service. In all farness I should report I received a forwarded email from Safari in which the author states he would like to provide me with the missing code. That was months ago. Gee, do you think I ever received the code? In the meantime, the automated emails continue. This book is trash from a trash publisher. The other reviewers obviously did not read this book or they did not try to reconcile its contents with the propriety code that would make sense of it.



4. I cannot believe how much you get for your money with this book. Very informative.



5. The cd is missing the code from book.
   The author/publisher is ignoring my email.

3 comments about Oracle Developer Forms Techniques.

1. This book is an excellent work describing the essential techniques for forms development. It has got valuable tricks of the trade involved in forms development and covers all new features of version 6 with live examples. I feel this book is a handy and expert reference to forms programmers and developers alike.



2. If you are looking for an advanced, to the point, and concise book, look no further! I am surprised that there has been only one review so far for this book. Oracle Forms is a failrly complex piece of tool. This book teaches you the 'right way' of using the software. It provides a ton of advanced tips like applying object oriented methods in forms, advanced GUI programming etc. A comprehensive index allows you to find areas of interest very quickly.

   Obviously, 226 pages of text could not cover a vast subject like Oracle Forms, however, this book gives enough pointers to lead you in the right direction. If you are a little experienced with Oracle Forms, buy this book to leap to the next level.




3. This book is badly written, and the organization could be considered bizarre or non-existant, depending on your point of view.

   That being said, if you really want to dig deeper into Oracle Forms, this book might help. The author shares a number of useful tricks, and the code is available at the publisher's site, so that is a help. In keeping with the bizarre tone, the code is in Word format, so if you don't have Word (I don't at work) you may need someone to reformat it for you. I had to rewrite all the examples anyway, for a decent layout. But, like I say, there are some good tricks to learn here, so if you have patience and are willing to dig, this book might be for you.

   The question is, tho: why are so many computer books written so badly? I guess it's because editors can't write software. Maybe I'll have to write one myself.

5 comments about Crystal Reports(R) 9: The Complete Reference.

1. Right now we're working on web based reporting and Window apps. So Part II and Part III are very helpful. Instead of hacking around and wasting time, just open this book and find what you need.



2. Has provided little more than the basics despite substantial girth. Especially disappointing are the few pages devoted to VB. Contains no mention whatsoever of .ttx files. The index is also poor for a volume that masquerades a reference tool.



3. As a developer you better check the knowledge base of Business Objects, post in their news groups and/or if you are a registered user ask/email their consultants.
   Perhaps some "missing" information is covered somewhere in the book but if so the index must be very poor.
   The book should be titled the "Totally Incomplete CR9 Reference".



4. I was fairly new to Crystal when I bought this book and I found it to have some good material for the intermediate user of Crystal, but the index is the most incomplete I have ever seen in a reference book. Every time I try to look up something that I KNOW I have previously read in the darn thing, it inevitably is not listed in the index and I have to go thumbing through the book to try to locate it. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes the help screens are much much better.



5. Being new to Crystal Reports and finding the company's website and software tutorials very inadequate, I put forth the money to get this book with the aspirations that it would help my ability to utilize this software better. Unfortunately, that was not accomplished. I found the book to be difficult to follow, screen shots were haphazardly inserted onto the pages, and, as another reviewer pointed out, the index was a complete disappointment. The book does a pretty good job describing parts and pieces of Crystal Reports 9 but did very little to actually "teach" me how to use them. I was able to get through parts but re-reading and repeated trouble-shooting mostly taught me what I needed to know. Unfortunately, because this was my first "Complete Reference" books that I've purchased I doubt that I will purchase another. The bad news is that when I purchased this book, there were not many books on CRv9 that were available so I had little choice. Thankfully my company reimbursed me for the cost of the book.