3 comments about Information Modeling and Relational Databases, Second Edition (Morgan Kaufman Series in Data Management Systems).

1. This new edition of Information Modeling and Relational Databases maintains its predecessor's achievement of being the best, most complete book out there on design of information systems, and particularly of database schemas -- and of seeming a few decades ahead of the rest of the pack! The relational database theory world seems to move at a rather glacier-like pace -- with the result that some of the schema design methods still in common use have stayed well past their "obsolete by" date. But as a reviewer of the first edition said, this book presents MATURE database design technology; and it can only be hoped that the database design world will sooner, rather than later, realize the immense, and immensely practical, value of the mature theory and design procedure that this book presents. Do you want to be able to arrive at the correct schema the first time? or even to know whether you've reached it or not? This is the book that shows you how, and gives you a rich, formal modeling notation that has very significant and improving tool support. Terry and Tony have both added very valuable new chapters to the book, and expanded and updated the other chapters, so that this is a very much improved book -- as amazing as that may seem to those (like me) who loved the first edition. This book will, in my opinion, be setting the standard for books on information system design for many years to come.



2. Everyone needs this book. Read more to find out why:
   
   If you intend to create genuinely useful business applications without first creating an accurate conceptual data model and deriving the database schema from the model, then I hope your projects have very large budgets and flexible deadlines, because you'll need both. Accurate conceptual data models are not an academic curiousity, they are a practical necessity. Well designed databases are the heart of every business application, and accurate conceptual data models are the foundation of every well designed database.
   
   This book presents a method for data modeling called Object Role Modeling (ORM). If you've never created a data model before, you might as well learn the best method from the start. If you've used E-R (Entity Relationship) modeling before, this is your chance to learn a method that overcomes the limitations of E-R, while building on the knowledge you already have.
   
   ORM is based on facts (assertions about the business sphere you are modeling), not entities and attributes. Business users understand facts much better than they understand data modeling abstractions. By using ORM facts, you create your data model in a language that business users can understand and validate. Poor communication with business users and inadequate understanding of requirements are major causes of design deficiencies. ORM solves these issues through its fact based approach.
   
   ORM is also much more expressive than any other popular data modeling notation, ncluding UML and all major flavors of E-R. Many business rules should be expressed as data constraints, but traditional data modeling languages don't do well at capturing these constraints. By capturing the constraints in an ORM model and validating with the users, you make the construction of a good application much easier.
   
   Halpin is an excellent writer, and this book is very easy to read. The many examples and crisp writing style mean that you'll actually understand what the author intends, a refreshing change from most computer books. If you've read the previous edition of this book, this update is very worthwhile. There is a lot of expanded and new material, and you'll be happy you purchased the new edition.



3. The first edition of this book was excellent - one of few books I have that I would call primary references - but with the addition especially of the chapters on advanced concepts and behavioral specifications this second edition represents a big step forward by presenting a more holistic view of conceptual modeling. As a specific example, I've long wished for the ability to do state modeling in ORM without a kludge. This book presents a method and a semantic foundation for doing just that. Now all we need is for the tools to catch up! Kudos to the authors.

5 comments about Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UMLTheory and Practice.

1. This book puts the whole business analysis process into perspective with a practical guide for how to go from step A to step Z. I am new to the ICONIX process and am very impressed with how ICONIX eliminates the burden of learning all the steps of UML and instead teaches in detail just the essential components of UML, so you can quickly develop the use cases, requirements, test cases, and coding specifications. The book is written with the business analyst in mind by highlighting the theory, but concentrating and demonstrating the practices with straight forward guidelines and examples. The Enterprise Architect modeling tool, which we are learning how to use, is referenced occasionally and is shown to be a very useful tool for the business analyst. This is one of the finest IT books I have ever purchased.



2. This book does everything it promises and more. While reading this book you will learn a design methodology that will help you in every project you work on. What you won't learn is a framework that does all the work for you. You also won't learn to rely on someone else's code. Instead you will learn how to really think about your project from the initial design to the final solution. You will learn how to properly document the requirements and the user interaction with the system. You will learn how to be a Software "Developer" not just a Software "Programmer". Some will say there is no difference, but others that have read this book will understand the work and thought process that goes into real development of a software solution.



3. This book was extremely helpful because it takes the reader from Use Cases to code development using a real-life "sample" system (an internet book store) to describe the steps. The ICONIX Process is used in this book and the goal of the book is to get from Analysis to Code using a minimal, yet sufficient core subset of UML. Each step is broken down into detail and examples of how to do each step are provided and explained. Built into the "sample" project are mistakes (ones that are commonly made in real life) and the book shows those mistakes as well as the corrected versions. In addition, the book discusses the Enterprise Architect (EA) tool, which our company is evaluating, making the examples provided even more pertinent. The only thing that would have made this book more useful would have been appendices or detailed examples of using the EA tool with the "sample" project. It would be great if one could obtain the sample project in a *.EAP file where folks that have the EA tool could load the sample project to understand how the project was actually laid out in the EA tool. This book is very well-written and, as a bonus, has some decent humor throughout keeping the reader's interest. If you are using EA and Use Case Driven development, this is an excellent book for you.



4. Since 2001 I had a lot of courses on UML modelling at the university and in inhouse company workshops. But none of them gave me the real power to write use cases so that I can easilly extract an object model from it. I always had problems to bridge the use cases to sequence diagrams and class models.
   
   This book gave me the clues (with red and bold highlighted) such
   "You can't drive object-oriented designs from use-cases unless you tie your use cases to objects."
   
   Now I have to say, I write use cases more confidetially, knowing that they build a real basis for futher object modelling. 5 stars!!



5. The Rosenbert & Stephens's Book is a great example of doing by practice, but highly supported by foundations about what is important in UML.
   The book offers a great discussion not only how use UML effectively, but how can you go through practice and coding. That's essencial if you want coding in a right way, but explore the UML notation.
   The approach with ICONIX was fantastic. You develop a e-Commerce system completely using UML, Iconix process and coding with JAVA. I coudn't found books that offer this path.
   Fantastic. Excelent aquisition.

5 comments about PHP in a Nutshell (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)).

1. A decent broad coverage of many PHP basics but I didn't really learn much more than I had found on my own by randomly poking around in the online PHP manual every time I needed a function to get a job done. I was hoping that reading a book like this from cover to cover would expose some parts of PHP I missed or teach some techniques and best practice that I didn't figure out myself. Unfortunately it did not.
   
   For someone who known no PHP at all (and no C) I would give that a 4 star rating. But every PHP programmer has access to great free online PHP manual so I think this book has less value. And anyone who knows C can start programming PHP right away without reading much of anything. I assume the average programmer knows some C or Java and can read the online PHP manual. For those people, this book is no better than 3.



2. I bought this book after studying PHP with the author's online tutorials. They covered quite a bit of what was in the book but I enjoyed the online version so much, I decided to thank him for putting a free online version out on the net by buying his book. In addition, I like to have the hard copy for a reference. Excellently written and one of the clearest and easiest programming books I've every read. It is also one of the few programming books I have read without any programming errors in it.



3. I am pretty familiar with PHP and worked with it some time ago, but I needed a book to quickly refresh my knowledge of it for a project, and this book did a pretty good job of that. It gets to the point on the right topics (including chapters on OOP, Cookies and Sessions, and Databases) and has a short, useful function reference instead of listing every function under the sun.
   
   Nonetheless, there are many errors both in the code and in the writing. If you don't have a solid foundation in PHP and programming, these errors can really throw you off. Sometimes I would get confused as I tried to figure out why a line of code does what the author says it does only to realize it was an error that made it into print. If the editing had been better and caught these errors, the book would have received a four-star rating from me.
   
   Bottom line, if you know PHP and need a good reference book or a book to quickly review concepts and functions, this book is for you. Don't buy this book if you are new to PHP.



4. The O'Reilly "in a Nuthsell" series is the best reference to standard libraries and language features available. PHP in a Nutshell sullies the name, however, with what amounts to an introductory survey in the course and little, if any, analysis of standard libraries. Certain tips, such as those on flash and pdf handling are interesting, but irrelevant to most programmers. This goes doubly for the discussion of PHP's 2D drawing API; it seems as though the authors decided they would provide a schizophrenic volume which is on the one hand a beginner's tutorial and on the other hand a survey of the more esoteric, unused portions of the language.



5. Regarding the Oct 2005 - First edition. I sure hope O'Reilly hires a better proof-reader, and re-issues this book with some basic corrections, and 100% more attention to the index problems.
   
   I think the author did a poor job. A dedicated proofreader should have caught all the errors I have listed. I am only 20% through this book. At this point, this author has built zero confidence in the accuracy of anything he has to present in the rest of the book. I will now proceed to prove where my 'poor' evaluation comes from.
   
   
   (My background: 25 years of programming, including skills with various machine languages,
   assembly languages, Fortran, Pascal, PL/1, C, C++, Java, PHP, and Regular Expressions. )
   
   Stated by the author: "This book assumes you are familiar with variables, lops, and other basic programming concepts [period]." This is incorrect, as other reviewers have noted. The author quickly drifts into examples of arrays, objects, advanced operators, etc. with no explanation, or even a reference to the section of the book that covers these new concepts.
   
   Starting with "The PHP Language" section, I am finding an error or obvious omission, on an average of every three pages. This book has been poorly proof-read, and should not have made it past the publisher in this form. I expect far more accurate text that this, for an O'Reilly publication.
   
   As for the six people whom the author lists as standing out particularly,
   with regards to contributing corrections, improvements, and comments . . . I couldn't imagine how bad this work would be without their efforts.
   
   Page 32: Using complex data forms and concepts in examples, without providing page references.
   Here, arrays are introduced. Would it be so hard to add a footnote
   "See the extensive Arrays section, starting on page 61."?
   
   page 32: Same comment, applied to 'Objects'
   
   Page 32: Same comment, applied to the '->' object operator.
   
   ( Page 132: "use the special -> operator". Other PHP documentation calls this the 'object operator', but this author does not use this literal phrase. There is also no index entry for this phrase, or any reference to it under 'operator' or 'object'. )
   
   Page 42: 'Returning by Reference'. This obscure concept really needs an explanation of what is happening in the 5-line example. According to the 'Variable Scope' explanation (ten pages later),
   the variable in this function is local, and is therefore not reference-able outside the function.
   Yet the description of "Returning by Reference' indicate that the value of the variable is accessible.
   
   Page 45: Introducing the capability of the GLOBALS array, with no caveats, for the purpose of overriding
   scope. Ten pages later, in a different topic (Superglobals), we find the warning: "two superglobals that you should avoid ... $GLOBALS...". The warning should be on page 45, where you first start describing this superglobal. Again, has this author never heard of the literary construct called a footnote?
   
   Page 51: In an example, '(int)' is used to typecast a bool into an integer. At the top of the next page, the typecast operation is written in another example as '(integer)'. If both syntaxes are supported, this sure would be a good place to note that.
   
   Page 64: In the example, function_load_member. A $ID parameter is passed, but not used. Probably the "Bob" literal should be $ID.
   
   Page 64: Same code example as above. This two line function has one assignment, and one return statement ('return true;'). The calling code evaluates the completion of this function as if there are multiple
   methods of return; i.e. true or false. The text ahead of his example loosely implies that if the function was not 'successful' (whatever that means), the returned boolean will be 'false'.
   
   Page 66: Array_intersect() with multiple arrays parameters. There is no indication if this is an AND or an OR operation, with multiple secondary arrays. That is, will an array1 entry be returned if it is in array2 *OR* array3, or must it be in array2 *AND* array3?
   
   - - -
   
   One thing the author did get correct is in his list of web-sites. The TOP entry is www.php.net/manual , and it consistently clears up the errors the author makes. I recommend it.

5 comments about Beginning Ubuntu Linux, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional).

1. I'd heard about Linux for years and had been wanting to use it. I didn't know where to start, though. My biggest concern was not damaging my current Windows XP configuration. I also wanted to know how I could use Linux on a daily basis. All these issues were addressed by this book. If you're an semi-experienced Windows user but know nothing about Linux, this book is for you. It is written in an easy to understand way that covers Linux's inception and installation. All in all, I would recommend this book.



2. Ubuntu Linux is the easiest Linux distribution yet. I'm a computer programmer by trade and I have played with Linux in the past and felt it just wasn't ready for the mainstream public. Linux has come a long way in the last couple of years and Ubuntu proves that Linux IS a mature O/S that can be learned and loved by anyone.
   
   Beginning Ubuntu Linux is one of the best books I have ever read about any Linux distribution. It introduces you to this foreign O/S called Linux. It helps you with the install and then it leads you on a journey of installing software that you will really use every day. The best part of all is you don't have to pay anyone for the use of the software this book shows you because it's almost all free. That's right I said free. The author has went to great lengths to find free software that the everyday Jane or Joe will use and then he takes it a step farther and gives you information about the software and he also provides links to other software that may be of use to you.
   
   This book is so easy that even my wife (a non-technical person) could pick it up and start working with Ubuntu.
   
   I wish Ubuntu and this book would have been around 2 or 3 years ago.



3. To start off this is a great book for beginners Much better 100 times than the Dummy book Great Reccommend, Good Reference & training book



4. The title says it all: "BEGINNING Ubuntu Linux". It really is about using Ubuntu Linux as a substitute for Microsoft Windows. There are advantages to doing so, namely cost. Ubuntu Linux is free.
   
   Ubuntu has gained popularity because it is a straight-forward installation, a welcome relief to many people who have previously tried to install Linux or are simply accustomed to the sort of hand-holding insallation of Microsoft products (when nothing goes wrong).
   
   Keir Thomas tries to cover a lot of territory and therein is the major weakness of the book. Linux, the operating system, by itself is a huge subject. Add to that sections on the BASH Shell, running various forms of multimedia, OpenOffice and a few other subjects and guess what? Nothing is covered in great depth. Usable, yes. But not great depth.
   
   Also, Thomas has a slightly idiosyncratic style. This is particularly bothersome in chapters where he is dipping into more or less pure Linux, such as using the BASH Shell. The examples can occasionally be a bit hard to follow, though they all eventually do make sense.
   
   Overall, for the inexperienced Linux user who is seeking a replacement for Microsoft Windows and Office, "Beginning Ubuntu Linux" is worthwhile. For the person seeking a more extensive knowledge of Linux, per se, there are better books available.
   
   Jerry



5. I purchased this book to get a better understanding of how Linux, and especially Ubuntu, works - I got exactly that. This book offers a broad basic introduction and a fairly in-depth insight into not just Ubuntu, but also to Linux as a hole.
   
   It describes the differences between Linux and windows, and gives some insight into why Linux does things a little different.
   
   If you a looking for a beginners guide into Ubuntu, this will do the trick!
   
   Jesper
   Denmark

3 comments about Microsoft Office Word 2003 Inside Out (Microsoft Office Word Inside Out).

1. I'm a fan of Microsoft Press's "Inside Out" series and own half a dozen books (or maybe more) from it. I bought this book to become an expert at Word 2003, but I found that while the book covers a lot of ground, it lacks depth on many topics. And it's writing style is quite confusing. For example, I tried to understand how to customize headers and footers by section, and after reading and re-reading the parts of the book that deal with this topic several times, I stil couldn't figure out. In the end, I just experimented on my own. Word is a complex piece of software. This book unfortunately does a poor job at making Word easier to learn, even for someone like myself who was already quite proficient with the software at the basic-intermediate level.



2. I just ordered this book to prepare me for the Microsoft certification exams. I've just flipped through it, but I don't think I'll be able to use it. It has very detailed sections on how to do things within Word, but I need more of a workbook. I expected the CD to contain exercises, but upon inspection it's just a PDF version of the book and some "extras." If you want a workbook version with exercises to do, I just purchased the PowerPoint version of the Step by Step series, and I think I'll have to order the Word version of that.



3. I found this book to be thorough & easy to understand. A great purchase that delivers all that I've come to expect from the "Inside Out" books! Love it and I use it often.

No comments about Open-Source ESBs in Action.

5 comments about Building a Monitoring Infrastructure with Nagios.

1. The author clearly likes the product on the products own merits. The books is not written by a hack who was filling a void. He writes clearly and methodically explaining in detail why, what, how and when of Nagios. The index is very good and has allowed me to effectively use it as a reference in learning Nagios. I like some humor in my technical books and David does not disappoint me when he explains how to "ssh into his power strip" to do a little environmental monitoring.
   
   Nagios - in my opinion - is a killer-app with such flexibility as to be the "ultimate" monitoring tool. Learning it is a wise investment of anyone's time, and Josephesen's book is invaluable to understanding and exploiting all of Nagios's features... and yes, I am over the age of 13.



2. I use Nagios heavily at my company and as a result, I've purchased all of the available texts on the subject. This one is simply the best work on Nagios available right now. It's clear and succinct where even the online docs from the Nagios project can be confusing. It covers things that the No Starch volume barely touches on (WMI Scripting and Nagios) and honestly, the diagrams and code samples are clear and useful in real-world application.
   
   Really, buy this one. If you need another one, I would be surprised.



3. This book takes the fairly complicated matter of configuring Nagios for monitoring your network infrastructure and makes it straight forward. Kudos and many things to Mr. Josephsen.



4. It's well written, but it didn't provide much more insights and coverage than reading the existing documentation you can download for free. There are also some glaring gaps in its coverage. There's nothing about passive checks! And I don't think it was written before v3.0 came out.
   
   If you like written docs for stuff you reference often, it will be worth the money. But don't go to it with any significant troubleshooting problem.



5. Main benefit of this book is that it will teach you many things in a short time. You might want to purchase it if you want a quick start on Nagios, and don't plan to use Nagios on larger systems. Also, although the author's (brief?) style has some benefits, it also has some drawbacks.
   
   Things like distributed monitoring, fail-over, passive checks,... are barely touched. If you are installing Nagios for the first time, you probably won't miss these subjects elaborated, because you will want to have it running soon as possible. However, I think the Apress book covers these advanced topics much better, and gives a more comprehensive overview of Nagios. The decision is up to you. I preferred the lengthier book with more things explained, although it was a bit harder to read.
   
   One more thing that I disliked was that for Passive checks author references Chapter 2. I couldn't find anything about passive checks there, so I checked the Index. No mention of them there either. I gave this book a relatively bad review due to this kind of unclear issues and for the lack of distributed monitoring and failover coverage, which I think is very important for a monitoring system in a serious installation.
   
   As said, some things are better in this book than in Apress one (like ie. Windows check explanation), but in general, Apress book left a better impression on me.

5 comments about SAP NetWeaver For Dummies.

1. I got this book to get myself more educated on what SAP Netweaver is all about. I've been doing SAP consulting for over ten years but, like others, feel like I'm not up-to-date with the latest SAP Technologies and products.
   After carrying this book around with me for over two months, I'm still not done with it. This is because I keep on getting irritated when I read this book and then I put it down. And I'm not easily irritated. I think I'm at the point where I'm going to put it in a box (with many other books that I DID read) and read something else instead. This book is just wasting my time.
   
   Here's my problems with this book:
   1. The writers try to be funny/entertaining all the time. I do like humor, but they do it way, way too much and they are not funny at all.
   2. Some of the things they discuss are simple, basic, worthless information that any IT person knows.
   3. They make Netweaver seem easy, all-good and the future of IT. I love SAP and I think Netweaver is probably a good platform. But I think this book is overselling it and making unproven claims that may mislead less-experienced people.
   
   This book could have been good if the (useful) content was offered in a different way. Some suggestions if a second edition materializes.
   1. Don't try to be funny. Just present the material.
   2. Leave out all the unnecessary, useless information. You're not obligated to go over 400 pages. I'd prefer to read a thinner book with just the relevant information.
   
   I don't always give the lowest rating for things I don't like. And this book does have some useful information here and there. But the presentation is just so terrible to me that it makes whatever good it has worthless.



2. While the book's attempt at humor irritates me, I still manage to find good information. The author covers a lot of material. Some of it is way too simplistic. Some of it is not deep enough in my opinion. I've picked it up a few times and put it back down, but won't toss it. That being said, I'm still looking for seomthing better (SAP Press doesn't have anything actually good either, despite some new titles).



3. 1)I might have sat with the book if not for their jokes
   2)The terminolgy used in definitions and in examples is different.
   3)Repeating stuff that is not at all useful.
   4)The paragraghs of repition wont work but i dont understand how the pictures also dont work
   5)I sincerely request the authors to stop writing text books.



4. This is the first "for Dummies" book I have read and I was very pleased. The authors did an excellent job explaining all of the elements of SAP NetWeaver and how they inter-relate. As a business executive trying to get my arms around the technology, this was exactly what I needed. It will be valuable reference for the future, as well.



5. Buy the book if you like, but for me an ABAP programmer w/10+ years experience it was just fluff. A couple hundred pages of hearing how great Netweaver is and what it could do, w/o actual hands-on is not IMO what a 'Dummies' book is meant to be. The included CD was even less.

5 comments about Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process.

1. For those few places left that steep themselves in documentation and don't have a legally-required reason to do so (do they exist?), this book should help motivate why producing too much documentation and doing too much modeling up front can hurt rather than help. Even for a company that sees itself as lightweight, he's got some rough assessments you can do to see if you're overdoing things, which were relevant even where I work.

   The only bad thing is that it was a very theory and ideal oriented book. It didn't contain concrete examples of what Agile Modeling would look like on a real project, how it would feel, and how what models were produced would evolve. This made it a bit difficult to verify my interpretation of the book.




2. Good book with lots of behind the scenes process info about how to implement agile modeling techniques. If you are looking for step by step instructions to modeling or how to model, look elsewhere. It doesn't cover specific modeling, but techniques. Some of the techniques are common sense, but there were lots of suggestions of how to apply them in a difficult political environment. I did not completely agree with the often repeated
   statement that unless you apply all of the techniques you cannot truly claim agile modeling success, which I think is a somewhat arrogant statement. Agile modeling is a huge cultural change and implementing as much as possible, if not all, is still a great idea.



3. Agile modeling is about the latest approach to the modeling of Business Information Systems. This book focuses on the Agile method and also describes how to incorporate the strong points of UML. The book will be an aid to "survive" in the jungle of developing modern BI Systems. There are IT decision makers that are not aware of Agile, since Agile is a mind shift, be careful how you introduce the new ideas to these decision makers. The book is for the IT professional (all levels), who wants to be in the forefront of software development. If you are in the "nuts and bolts" of systems development, do yourself a favour and look also at "Agile Database Techniques", by the same author.



4. This is a mix of good, bad, and annoying
   
   Good: the author really does know a lot about modeling (except data modeling, see "Bad") and gives good explanations and examples of many aspects of modeling at many stages in the development process. If you can plough through his 350+ pages, you will have found many stimulating and practical concepts and some good advice on implementing them.
   
   A very good chapter is Chapter 29 - a discussion of how to implement Agile Modeling - or really, any agile practice - in a usually hostile world. Some battle scars showing here!
   
   I also like that he does not consider the UML the be-all and end-all of modeling tools. Like him, I've found good use for the trusty old DFD (Data Flow Diagram) of the 70's, where appropriate.
   
   And his overall message - that the agile approach can extend to your design and modeling task, not just code, and the implications for minimizing the documentation effort - is very strong.
   
   I find his reference to quick diagrams "on the back of a napkin" a bit overdone. Sure, the quick informal diagram is excellent, but paper napkins are not the best medium! Hand-drawn on a piece of paper, or a card, sure...if you are discussing models in a bar or restaurant with that degree of focus...get a life!
   
   Whiteboard and digital camera can certainly be used much more than they are. But the overall point is excellent: that when you are documenting (and he has some difficulty separating out "modeling" from "documenting" and acknowledges the problem) you are not creating the end-product, and there is a cost for that. "Travel light" - yes. As Einstein said "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."
   
   Bad: his data model example is terrible. What's with adding surrogate keys to every table? This is a pernicious practice that has become all too common from people who never learned relational theory and try to fit relational into the object model. A giveaway is that he calls his "identity" columns "persistent object identifiers." Yes, sometimes they are necessary or useful, but in general the natural key is way better. In his Customer table, there is a customer number - but it's not the primary key, a pesky OID is! He himself acknowledges that this may give performance problems, or at least not be optimal. It implies more indexing and triggers...oh well, enough already. Just don't let RDBMS gurus like Fabian Pascal or Joe Celko see that chapter.
   
   Slightly annoying: A few little niggles about English usage etc - by now you would think that any publisher's editor would know that "supersede" has no "c" in it, and that you can't be "reticent to" something - the word is "reluctant. Odd. On the other hand, thank goodness for someone who understands why it's "co-located" not the bizarre "collocated" that I see far too often.
   
   Really annoying: Basically, Einstein's phrase above could have replaced about half the book. It's incredibly repetitious, and also over-organized, over-conceptualized, over-categorized, generally over-inflated. We need a discipline of Agile Communication! An end to ListMania! A thoroughgoing refactoring of the contents is in order. His four Parts and thirty Chapters contain massive redundancy. The matching of agile modeling precepts, in finest detail, to the equally excruciating detail of the RUP, is really an unnecessary exercise. We don't have TIME for this!
   
   As someone else said, a short White Paper could have replaced the entire book. Hence the two stars, good though some of the material is.



5. Not much information other than what you can read on his website. I was looking for something much more prescriptive in terms of how to model in an agile way and how to communicate the model.

5 comments about Linux Cookbook.

1. I wanted to become more experienced with UNIX so I had the Ubuntu distribution installed in my computer. I spent six months having a hard time getting simple things done until I came accross this book.
   
   It is organized in such a way that it is easy to get to do what you want/need and, what's better, the explanations provided give you insights on how UNIX works. After a while, you will find yourself doing new stuff on your own.
   
   If you want to get into UNIX but knows little about it my advice for you is: get this book and jump into LINUX - it is worth it!



2. ... which comes in real handy considering how often I reference it.
   
   Chapter 10 (Patching, Customizing, and Upgrading Kernels) and Chapter 12 (Managing the Bootloader and Multi-Booting) helped me recompile my kernel for the first time. Not only are the instructions clear, but the author also made sure to explain each step so I knew why I was typing a certain command. There's even a section on how to create an initrd image for SCSI drive users, which I had a hard time finding on the web.
   
   This book does an excellent job covering all the basics, and it's worth spending the time to read it from beginning to end. I certainly see myself getting a lot of mileage from it.



3. A well-organised and clearly written collection of useful commands and solutions to help one along with the often exasperating arcana of Linux. Covers all flavours and is a 'must have' book.



4. Because this is a "cookbook," it gives you recipies -- step-by-step instructions for performing specific tasks.
   
   This makes Linux Cookbook EXTREMELY useful when it has a recipie you need, and it often gives you a good starting point when you need to do something that isn't specifically covered.
   
   For example, let's say you need to setup a mail server, which you've never done before. As long as you're willing to use the mail tools she describes (which are perfectly good tools), then this book is the fastest way to get the job done. She also shows you how to make sure the server will be secure.
   
   I'm glad I have this book on my shelf, I recommend it, and I refer to it whenever I need to do something new in Linux. The problem is, you can't have a step-by-step recipie for everything. When this book hits the mark, it's the best book you can have, but you cannot rely on this as your only Linux book.



5. Excellent Linux book! Gives step by step answers to common Linux problems in a "Problem - solution" style way. I'm a tad disappointed in the SAMBA section, but that really is a topic deserving of a book of its own.