5 comments about Software Tools.

1. Software Tools. I can't say enough about how important this book was - and still is - to me. The Software Tools in Pascal version does not have the same effect - it doesn't really work. But Software Tools gets across the idea that you do not have to accept the constraints of your environment to produce excellent programs. Instead, develop the program the way is should be and make a surprisingly small effort to then map it to your environment. Don't let the environmental problems constrain your thinking or actual programming. Then with a little effort you can get your environment to match what you need. The book develops a series of software tools, unix style commands, but implements them in a language called RATFOR (Rational Fortran). This is done because Fortran IV was universal at the time, but also horrible as a structured programming language. The delima: Use a better but less widely available language, or use a horrible but very popular and standard language. The author's choice - and the philosophy of the book - don't be boxed in by this choice. They added to Fortran the structures found in C and then wrote a preprocessor to translate this RATFOR to Fortran. The end result was the best of both worlds: well structured programs that will run on just about anything. The whole book is about this kind of choice. It is great philosophy for software development and great philosophy for life. END



2. My hopes were high because of the good reviews this book had received... I was disappointed. The idea of many simple programs, each with some clear functionality, that can be combined to produce powerful commands is illustrated clearly enough in the book. But the readability of the code leaves something to be desired. There are lots of if-the-else, while, and repeat constructs, and it's not possible to understand the code without the verbose explanations from the text. Often checking program behaviour for special cases, such as an empty file on input, are not part of the normal text, but left as excercises to the reader.

   I would have liked concise comments that state invariants, pre-conditions, and post-conditions to illustrate the correctness of the program. These comments should be part of the program code, not some separate prose that is disconnected from the code. All too often have I had to support code without these comments, and without the accompanying prose to describe the code. This book seems to encourage writing such code.

   And also the book is somewhat dated: some of the programs have functionality that made sense in the early days of FORTRAN programming, and are of little use to currentday C/C++ programmers.




3. Elsewhere on Amazon I reviewed Kernighan's "Elements of Programming Style." To quote one paragraph from that review -

   Brian Kernighan has co-authored three books almost essential to learning our craft, this volume, "Software Tools" and "The Unix Programming Environment". "Elements of Programming Style" spells out the fundamental rules, "Software Tools" shows you how to apply them to a number of simple projects and extends the rules to software design and finally "The Unix Programming Environment" shows you how to use them in an operating system designed to reward you for your effort.

   It could be said that "Elements" teaches programming and "Software Tools" teaches software design. Rules such as "do just one thing, do it well" seem to seep in through the pores as you read and work through this book.

   It presents a number of projects starting with a word count program and progressing through some filters to some fairly complex tasks culminating in a RatFor pre-processor for Fortran. All the examples are written in RatFor, a version of Fortran that adds some more structured elements to that early language.

   Don't be put off by the use of RatFor, the language is easily understood and the style of programming so clear that the algorithms are easily understood. I've personally translated a fair number of them to both BASIC and C and the RatFor pre-processor design became the basis for an AppleSoft BASIC pre-processor written by a close friend.

   I've relied on this book so much for the last ten years, after writing "Hello World" I drag it out and translate a couple of the tools into every new language I've learnt. I then spend a day or two thinking about and implementing a design optimised for the new language. After that I find I have a good handle on a language and how to design for it.

   This volume is not for those who want a book that gives them pre-written tools, a fair number of the tools are standard issue on any Unix derivative and the code is only tersely commented, relying on the exaplanatory text. However I recommend this book to all software designers and programmers because as you work through these examples you will learn a great deal about honing your craft.




4. The tools you will find in this book are ancient. They're written in a cockeyed hybrid of C and Fortran, and they're almost hilariously user-hostile by modern definitions. If this intimidates you, look at it this way -- you're looking under the hood of modern applications. Much modern word processing, page layout, and language implementation can be built by putting a nice, shiny coating on what you find in this book.

   Kernighan and Plauger set out in this book to document what they used in their labs at the time it was written, and show how to build them. Ratfor was chosen because C was not as widespread then as it is now, and for those who didn't have it, a translator to standard Fortran '77 was one of the major parts of the book. A simplified version of the nroff text formatter and a version of ed are also included for text file processing (then as now one of the major uses for computers), the result being both a toolkit and a practical education in the ins and outs of applications development.

   The environment given is not Unix-based inherently, but this book is a natural companion to Kernighan and Rob Pike's The Unix Programming Environment and John Lions' Commentary on Unix 6th Edition. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to do software development.




5. I read this book about 20 years back. And I keep quoting it and recommending it, and re-reading it. This is because it changed my whole perspective about writing software. Let me share the two big lessons I learnt.
   
   The first was ego-less programming. Sharing the code and encouraging feedback. We applied this in our group with amazing results. It is a valuable lesson because it is so tough to implement - because of our ego.
   
   The big one was about not writing applications but tools. And creating applications from tools. This lesson kept haunting me whenever I wrote any program. It helped me write generic programs that could be re-used.
   
   The Ratfor examples are a bit dated now. But they elegant and pure.
   
   A must read for all aspire for excellence in coding software.

2 comments about Pro Netbeans IDE 6 Rich Client Platform Edition (Expert's Voice in Java).

1. I've bought this book hoping that it'll help me use the "platform", i.e. a set of reusable components that Netbeans itself is built with, to write my own app.
   
   Instead the book is basically a shrunk paper based version of the Netbean's own help.
   
   Absolutely worthless. Definitely returning it.



2. Eagerly anticpated book that was utterly disappointing. I had decided to make Net Beans my IDE of choice, but because of the lack of good documentation (including this book) I am going back to [...]

5 comments about The Data Warehouse Toolkit: Practical Techniques for Building Dimensional Data Warehouses.

1. This book contains concepts and implementation methodology associated with building and deploying a data warehouse.

   To understand data warehouse, it is important to understand the difference between an OLTP system and a data warehouse (an OLAP system). The author first emphasizes this difference before getting into the nitty gritty of data modeling.

   The author is a leading advocate of Dimension modeling. He gives clear reasons for doing so and then jumps into the techniques for dimension modeling, also called as Hub-and-Spoke architecture.

   Book contains examples (in the form of chapters) of data warehouse models for many verticals such as shipping, insurance, banking, subscriptions, inventory. Going through these examples will help anyone to understand data modeling and to create a dimension model based on specific requirements.

   The best book for fundamentals of data warehouse and especially, Dimension modeling.




2. The real life implementation examples for different types of Data Warehouses from simple to the more complex, make this book one the better of the Data Warehousing books. Kimball is an leading authority in Data Warehouses since its beginnings, and the explanations and examples are very easy to understand. I took a Master's course in Data Warehousing and read Kimball's book and Ponniah's book(Data Warehousing fundamentals). Kimball's book was the better book of the two in how useful it was and easier to understand. The version I bought had a program to run reports based on the Data Warehouse structure for each type of example. It is an antiquated program (DOS based), but it is useful in learning and helps implement some actual Data Warehousing concepts. The program needs to be installed through the command line interface of the newer versions of Windows (2000 and XP).



3. This is the best book on dimensional modeling by the master himself.Equally useful for beginners as well as experts.



4. Great place to start learning about DW. The author builds the concepts layer upon layer. Very easy to follow the progression. Once you'e finished this book, then move on to Ralph's Lifecycle Toolkit for some nitty-gritty examples and much more about building data marts into datawarehouses.



5. Data warehosuing is a difficult subject to grasp. There are many disciplines that have to come together to make data warehousing work : database design, business understanding, management expertise, data mining, creating reports, project management, OLAP and more.

   Finding a book that can full explain the full data warehousing picture is not possible, what one must look for is a series of books or materials that will together paint the full picture.

   Building Dimensional Data Warehouses is one of the books that can help readers in the process of painting the whole data warehousing picture. Ralph Kimball is an experienced data warehousing leadder who has stayed away from hype and concentrates on facts.

   The focus of this is book is creating the data structure for repositories in the data warehouse set-up. This is a highly recommended book for technical readers looking to enhance on their database design skills for building large data repositories that are optimized for providing analysis.

   Business readers may obtain more value from reading some of the other of Mr. Kimball's books.

   Please let me know if you have found this review helpful.

1 comments about Software Project Management For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. I am *not* a project manager, nor do I ever want to be one. However, the art of project management affects every project I work on to one degree or another. If you're a developer geek who doesn't want to wade through the minutiae of formal traditional methodology, this particular title makes it all go down a little easier... Software Project Management for Dummies by Teresa Luckey and Joseph Phillips.
   
   Contents:
   Part 1 - Starting Your Software Project: Examining the Big Picture of Software Management; Initiating a Software Project; Creating the Software Scope
   Part 2 - Planning Your Software Project: Planning for Communications; Planning for Software Project Risks; Planning for Software Quality; Building the Project Team; Creating Project Time Estimates; Building Your Project Budget
   Part 3 - Executing Your Software Project Plan: Working the Project Plan; Working with Project People; Procuring Goods and Services
   Part 4 - Controlling Your Software Project: Managing Changes to the Software Project; Using Earned Value Management in Software Projects; Tracking Project Performance
   Part 5 - Closing Your Software Project: Finalizing the Project Management Processes; Documenting Your Software Project
   Part 6 - The Part of Tens: Ten Ways to Make Your Software Project Crash and Burn; Ten Ways to Make Any Software Project Better
   Appendix: Formal Project Management Training and Certification; Index
   
   Using the entertaining Dummies style of writing, Luckey and Phillips take the reader through the importance of software project management, as well as what steps are involved in taking the project from inception to completion. They approach the topic using what I refer to as the "traditional" approach to software development. Generally speaking, requirements are gathered, development is initiated, testing takes place, and the project is delivered. This is different than the "agile" methods where there are a series of iterations involving requirements, coding, testing, and release. Many of these same project management concepts apply to both, but you most often see this level of management and documentation in the former style. What's nice with this book is that an often dull (at least to me) subject is served up with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor and practicality. They actually treat the project manager as a real person facing some impossible conditions, which is pretty much normal from what I can tell...
   
   While this book wouldn't help you pass any project management certification tests, it would be valuable to help keep your head above water if you've been thrown into the deep end of the project management pool...

1 comments about Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis.

1. This is first in its kind book that tackles enterprise architecture modeling with a holistic approach. Book presents a unified modeling approach for enterprise architecture and simplifies the relationship between architecture domains with a simple Meta model. It also deals with communication and analysis aspect nicely.
   
   This does not provide any details about what architecture development process should be nor it gives any insight on choosing an architecture framework. So set your expectation before buying. AS book title says it is about modeling, communication and Analysis.

5 comments about AI for Game Developers.

1. Is good book to initiate within world of AI, brings very good examples on fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms, in my opinion would have to bring CD-ROM with more examples but even so I recommend them for people that is initiating within development of video games, have a simple way to explains concepts that in other books can that are abstract and until moments very confused, explain it of direct and very simple way, are a book not very extensive you will be able to read it in a pair of days, and thus to begin to apply it within any application or game, the code comes very simple manageable and easy to use, it comes in c++, I hope enjoy so much as I.



2. AI for Game Developers is a book aimed at beginner game programmers that want to apply AI techniques in their games. The range of topics covered is vast, chasing, flocking, pathfinding, state machines, bayesian networks, neutal networks, genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic and more.
   
   The authors spend time to explain these AI concepts from the ground up, with numerous code samples and accompanied by full programs including GUIs & simulations, downloadable form the book's website.
   
   So far all good, but not really so if you look a little closer. For a programmer with more experience than the complete novice, many problems become apparent quickly:
   
   The code listings ("examples", as the authors uncommonly call them) are lacking in many aspects. The code is of low quality. C++-- some call it, and it's an appropriate name for the code of this book (take a big program with a bunch of globals and void foo(void) operating on them, wrap it all (public) in a class, and call it Object Oriented). The principal author is a scientific programmer, which shows well since the code looks sometimes like a port from Fortran. The code is also poorly typeset, in a font almost identical to the text, which makes samples hard to spot and follow. The authors also paste huge amounts of code in the book that sometimes fill whole pages, without any apparent reason. Another little deficiency is the typesetting / overall formatting quality of the book - some diagrams are simply missing, fonts are uncomfortable (especially the mix of code & text)...
   
   It seems that most of this book's problems are about the code, though. On the conceptual level, the book is not bad. As far as I can judge, the explanations are clear and even novices should have no trouble understanding how the algorithms work. Just look away from the code, please !!



3. Terrible and useless even for a book on AI for budding game developers. The theory and explanations in this book are sometimes decent but more often than not quite lacking. (es: in one of the first chapter the author uses Bresenham algorithm without taking the time to explain it). The use of tile based examples introduce unnecessary overhead, and the continuos attempts to introduce physics related code and references to the author's other book on game physics are just plain annoying. The range of subjects covered is very broad (chasing and evading, pathfinding, emergent behaviours, rule based reasoning, bayesian networks, neural networks, fuzzy logic, finite state machines, genetic algorithms), definitely too broad to treat each of these subject in decent depth and with clarity. Example code is of low quality and just superficially object-oriented. If you are looking for a decent introduction to game AI I recommend Matt Buckland "Programming Game AI by Example" and "AI Techniques for Game Programming".



4. This book gives people that are new to AI in game programming a quick start in that area. If you are interested in looking at the broad fields of AI with direct application to game programming, this will show you a bit of everything. The text is clear and doesn't require any higher understanding of mathematics than some basic trigonometry. I think that the problem most people have with this book is that none of the chapters covers its subject in depth. Thus, people looking to learn AI from this book that ignor the "Game" part of the title will be disappointed. Full C++ sample programs are available on the books web site-the book is all in C++, and you should have no problems understanding the code with moderate C skills. Bresenham's line algorithm, line-of-sight-chasing and intercepting are all explained in a pretty simple way. My biggest complaint is that, even within the construct of game programming, the presentation of Bayesian systems and probability was too short for my taste. The following is a description of the book from the context of the table of contents:
   
   Chapter 1, Introduction to Game AI - Defines game AI and discusses the current state of the art as well as the future of this technology.
   
   Chapter 2, Chasing and Evading - Covers basic techniques for chasing and evading as well as more advanced techniques for intercepting. It also cover techniques applicable to both tile-based and continuous game environments.
   
   Chapter 3, Pattern Movement - Pattern movement techniques are common to many video games and developers have been using them since the early days of gaming. You can use these techniques to preprogram certain behaviors such as the patrolling of a guard or the swooping in of a spacecraft.
   
   Chapter 4, Flocking - The flocking method examined in this chapter is an example of an A-life algorithm. In addition to creating genuine looking flocking behavior, A-life algorithms form the basis of more advanced group movement.
   
   Chapter 5, Potential Function Based Movement - Potential-based movement is relatively new in game AI applications. It can handle chasing, evading, swarming, and collision avoidance simultaneously.
   
   Chapter 6, Basic Pathfinding and Waypoints - Game developers use many techniques to find paths in and around game environments. This chapter covers several of these methods, including waypoints.
   
   Chapter 7, A* Pathfinding - No treatment of pathfinding is complete without addressing the workhorse algorithm of pathfinding; therefore, this whole chapter is devoted to the A* algorithm.
   
   Chapter 8, Scripted AI and Scripting Engines - Programmers today often write scripting engines and hand off the tools to level designers who are responsible for creating the content and defining the AI. In this chapter, you'll explore some of the techniques developers use to apply a scripting system in their games.
   
   Chapter 9, Finite State Machines - Finite state machines are the nuts and bolts of game AI. This chapter discusses the fundamentals of finite state machines and how to implement them.
   
   Chapter 10, Fuzzy Logic - Developers use fuzzy logic in conjunction with or as a replacement for finite state machines. In this chapter, you'll learn the advantages fuzzy techniques offer over traditional logic techniques.
   
   Chapter 11, Rule-Based AI - Technically, fuzzy logic and finite state machines fall under the general heading of rules-based methods. This chapter covers these methods as well as other variants.
   
   Chapter 12, Basic Probability - Game developers commonly use basic probability to make their games less predictable. Such cheap unpredictability enables developers to maintain substantial control over their games. Here, basic probability is covered for this purpose as well as lay the groundwork for more advanced methods.
   
   Chapter 13, Decisions Under Uncertainty--Bayesian Techniques - Bayesian techniques are probabilistic techniques, and in this chapter you learn how you can use them for decision making and for adaptation in games.
   
   Chapter 14, Neural Networks - Game developers use neural networks for learning and adaptation in games for anything from making decisions to predicting the behavior of players.The most widely used neural network architecture is covered here.
   
   Chapter 15, Genetic Algorithms - Genetic algorithms offer opportunities for evolving game AI. Although developers don't often use genetic algorithms in games, their potential for specific applications is promising, particularly if they are combined with other methods.
   
   Appendix, Vector Operations - How to implement a C++ class that captures all of the vector operations that you'll need when writing 2D or 3D simulations.
   
   All the chapters in this book are fairly independent of each other. Therefore, you generally can read the chapters in any order you want, without worrying about missing material in earlier chapters. The only exception to this rule is Chapter 12, on basic probability. If you don't have a background in probability, you should read this chapter before reading Chapter 13, on Bayesian methods. I would recommend this book if you are looking to implement AI into a game without wanting a complete explanation of the theory. If a complete explanation of the concepts is what you require, you will be disappointed.



5. I bought this book because of the chapter O'Riley had on its site (Flocking) and the general experience I have had with O"Riley in the past. While there is plenty to learn from this text, its not for the faint of heart or new programer. There is a lot that needs to be done to get set up for this.
   
   My first issue is that some of the code seems just a little too complex for a beginner. While I respect the features hes trying to put in, it can clutter up the main point of what is happening, and makes learning the basic principles harder.
   
   It seem the writter assumes you read his other book 'Physics for game programer' since he refers to it several times.Download the sample code for the book and you will see what I mean.
   
   Then there is no discussion of the graphic package being used. I tried to do the stuff with GDI+ and ended up switching to DirectX because the flickering was so bad. Some discussion on setting up a test and development enviroment to run these projects on would have been helpful.
   
   Oh and it was written in C+. Okay, no big deal, but a warning would have been nice. I can handle C+, but I do my work now in C#. Since it was written in an OO language, a little back ground on system design would have been helpful too.
   
   Asking too much? While the info there is good, there are a lot of obstacles for a 'beginner' to handle. I'm motivated though, and bought his phyiscs book just to see if it helps out any.

No comments about Pro SQL Server 2005 High Availability.

5 comments about Fonts & Encodings.

1. 'Fonts & Encodings' by Yannis Haralambous is about as complete a book as you will find on any computer topic, bar none. Rarely are expectations exceeded when it comes to anything in life, but this book goes way way way beyond what any other fonts/encodings book has done in the past. Packing 1000+ pages of content into this text, the author discusses all the relevant topics as hand, from history to font creation and specification to math involved in creating these typefaces we use every day... truly to infinity and beyond!!!
   
   If you are a developer or user of fonts and want to learn more about the history of how difficult and non-trivial even the most basic characters were to get on your browser window, this book is for you. If you need this pertinent information and are in the business of creating fonts yourself, this book is for you. If you are just interested in the topic of one of the most basic computer technologies, this book is (you guessed it) for you!!!
   
   With 14 chapters and 6 appendices, this book truly puts the U in Unicode and is a must read for anyone that wants to learn more about this exciting topic!!
   
   ***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED



2. 'Fonts & Encodings' by Yannis Haralambous is one of the most complete books I've ever read on a single topic. But surprisingly and opossite to most computer-related books, this one is perhaps the most easy to understand.
   
   This is not a book just for the web developer or the typesetter. Nor it is for the graphic designer or for the software programmer. This is also a book for everyone interested in how computers work, in how data is converted into a graphical interpretation readable by humans.
   
   Being a graphic designer and publisher for 30 years and a web designer and programmer for the last 10, I really enjoyed the history section, which transported me to those days when personal computers did not even exist and typography had to be hand-made as well as its continuous evolution to get the state as we know it now: Fonts & Encodings.
   
   The way this book is structured make the novice readers find the subject of interest without having to go into the complicated technical stuff, while making the techs and versed find and easily understand the most complicated issues regarding the topic.
   
   Special credits to P. Scott Horne for a so brilliant translation. Those who speak several languages will agree with me on how difficult is to translate a book mostly technical without getting lost in translation.
   
   Daniel Ajzen "WEBstationONE" (San Diego, CA, USA)



3. I ordered this book to help me with character encodings in our digital library files. That is fully covered, but there is so much more. Chapter 11 - History of Latin Fonts - is worth the price of the book. It makes sense that this book would be written by a European because of the great number of languages in Europe. I am very thankful that it was translated from French to English so I could have access!



4. This is a terrific book for the technically minded person either designing type or dealing with its use from a technology perspective. I read the English translation and found the writing good and informative. My problem is that there appear to be numerous typos particularly in the hundreds of code examples. This may only be in the translation since I have not seen the original French. I hope the publisher can give it a thorough proof reading!



5. It's a good book, it's a thick book.
   
   But it does not deserve 5 stars. Three main problems:
   
   1) it is too thick and often goes in far too many details
   
   2) some of the material is out-of-date: for instance how to create keyboard drivers under Mac OS.
   
   3) It is not didactic, Yannis obviously wants to impress his colleagues and his readers, not necessarily be understood by the below-average geek like me. Where is a simple introduction to OpenType before going in all the gory details?
   
   This being said the book is interesting and some chapters are fascinating.

5 comments about The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)).

1. The subject of my review pretty much sums up how I feel about this book. After the first 100 pages, I thought to myself "I've gotten a handful of gems and a few good visuals, but did I need 100 pages to accomplish that?"
   
   Seriously, that sums up my impression of the entire book. There is a LOT to be desired in terms of organization and it really feels like there's a lot of good information, but so poorly organized that it's hard to connect ideas. Several times per chapter, I find myself seeing references to how something will be better dealt with in further chapters. I have to ask myself why that happens constantly, and whether or not it says something about the organization of the book.
   
   There also seems to be a tendency to wander away from central topics into tangents or only loosely related ideas. Very rarely does the author tie his thoughts back to what each particular chapter is about, or to a central idea. I have a hard time learning from books that are written this way. I have constantly found myself reading a paragraph in this book and thinking "Okay, but what does this have to do with the aspect of project management that this chapter is supposed to be about?" I tried very hard not to fall into that trap, but it kept happening.
   
   I am an avid reading and an academic, so I know dry reading and I'm not saying that this is dry or anything like that. Quite the opposite, it's witty and fun to read in places. The thing that gets me so much is that it's poorly organized and poorly optimized. I find the author spends way too much time trying to say things and not nearly enough time relating them back to his main ideas.
   
   I have read the authors second book, on Myths of Innovation, and I have to say that I was disappointed by going back to his first book (this one) on project management. I think his second book is excellent and vastly improved upon. It is much shorter than this project management book and MUCH better written, largely in part because of the organization but also because of how concise it is. In retrospect, perhaps he has since improved his craft, but his first outing (this project management book) is definitely tricky.
   
   I see all the positive comments and I believe those people are being genuine about the content of the book. On the other hand, I do believe they have neglected to mention the issues I'm pointing out here. Don't get me wrong, there is useful information here, and lots of it. I have really enjoyed the nuggets that I've found in several chapters, but I lament the page count I had to forge through to get to them.
   
   Again, the content is good here, but the presentation leaves a LOT to be desired. If you have issues with reading books where the author wanders away from central ideas and loses himself in tangents, and where you can easily forget what you're reading about in a particular chapter, you may have difficulties here. If you're just after the book for some good ideas about project management and plan to skim it, you should be okay. Anyone planning to read this from cover to cover is in for some real disappointment.



2. If you're looking to figure out why you're having problems getting your ideas heard or your projects wrapped up on time, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE NOT THE PM, this is a great book! Almost any software or system project with companies of any size require "project management" skills from anyone interested in getting things done.
   
   Scott will show you how to better estimate time, see the phases a project goes through, and give you some new perspectives and ways you can improve your product. Easy to read and enough ideas to get you thinking. Right now I'm thinking how much better my professional career would have been if I understood this a decade ago.
   
   Good book, read it!



3. I'm a rookie, so a playbook that organizes my thinking and allows me to execute the plays each day is perfect for what I need. I was surprised at how much of the role of project manager I do right now, and how much of the work is accessible if not desirable to me. The general feeling upon conclusion of the book is that I was just short of an epiphany in thinking, but it helped solidify my suspicions about project management:
   -it is about getting things done through others;
   -it requires a disciplined mind and organizational ability;
   -it can be learned;
   -it can be more rewarding than being an individual contributor.
   
   Mr. Berkun has a lot of commercial software development background, so you'll need to map his model onto yours, but this isn't difficult. The processes for new projects are identical to maintenance work, only you have a smaller timeline and a more focused objective. Really, the ideas and practices scale very well.
   
   Where I was put off, somewhat was in how the footnotes were organized, and how his anecdotes tended to end. Footnotes go at the bottom of the page or, much less ideally, at the end of the chapter. Putting them at the back of the book is the least helpful of the options. I'd have rather seen long parenthetical ramblings than a collection of now-contextless footnotes to read.
   
   The anecdotes were illustrative, but lacked some kind of conclusion or resolution almost every time. "We had a problem, I discovered 'x', and we applied it." So how did it turn out? There's no reflection upon the efficacy of his examples in many cases, and it's an annoying method of storytelling.
   
   Overall, I'm pleased that I found the book, and plan to use it in my expanded role at work. Once I develop some mastery of daily/ weekly/ monthly planning and execution, I'm sure I'll be able to move onto more advanced study, but I'm not ready, and this book is clearly for rookies with some self-awareness.
   
   -C



4. I'm the author and wanted to make sure you were informed there is a new, updated edition of this book, and its now called Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management. It has been revised, polished, and enhanced, with 120+ new exercises, a discussion guide, improved footnotes, and much more.
   
   Since the old edition listed on this page is out of print and hard to find, it's selling for twice the list price of the new edition, and, if you care, I get no royalties from used book purchases. If you really really want it for some reason, go for it, but I wanted to make sure you knew there's a better, and likely cheaper edition available.
   
   Cheers and happy reading.



5. This is based on Scott's experience and it will give you good ideas, techniques and advices for project management. But if you're thinking in PMP book this isn't that kind of book.
   I red it three times and each time I learn something new. I strongly recommend read this other book "Applied Software Project Management" from Theory In Practice O'Reilly series.

4 comments about Software Configuration Management Strategies and IBM(R) Rational(R) ClearCase(R): A Practical Introduction (2nd Edition) (Visual Quickstart Guides).

1. As a long-time ClearCase user, consultant, Rational field rep, and all-around proponent of SCM, I found this book to be a wonderful update of Brian White's first edition. Tom and Dave have an extremely readable style of writing that you don't often find in technical publications. For the uninitiated, this book will serve as a great introduction to SCM concepts, ClearCase and the Unified Change Management process. For the experienced SCM administrator, this book is full of tips and practical "how-to" based on Tom and Dave's decades of experience in the SCM field.



2. Was the first edition mostly a repeat of the UCM manual that comes with the installation, this second edition brings more valuable, strategic information about SCM and ClearCase UCM. It is a must-read for SCM practitioners working with UCM or considering a step towards UCM. In fact, the SCM strategies covered in this book are a must-read for any SCM practitioner. Issues like quality promotion, parallel development and composite configurations are becoming quite common to modern software development organizations.
   Subjects that I am missing are activity management (as part of project management), reporting and audit trails, customizations (e.g. role based permissions, automation, triggers) and integration with other development tools (e.g. requirements and test assets).
   
   It is very difficult to find just the right book about SCM, with the right balance between theory and practice. Well, this book is it for Unified Change Management.



3. I purchased this book as a new Configuration Manager to the Rational suite of tools. I have used other 'big' CM tools in the past, but was unfamiliar with ClearCase. The book is very well laid out, has very good information and definitions that I have used in other presentations as I prepare to roll out a ClearCase solution to my team. After reading the first 1/2 of the book, I felt very versed on the tool, and was able to refer to my knowledge in conversations with other team members about how ClearCase is to work. I recommend that if you are new or even experienced with ClearCase, that you purchase this book for yourself. You will find in no time that you will mark many pages with yellow sticky's and highlight passages that you'll refer to many times!



4. I've a long history with CC, and SWCM. This is a good book for simpler projects, and it has some good tips I had learned, but hadn't seen in print. I wish it worked a bit more on the successful patterns that scale to really big projects, but that's not where the market is for books, right?