5 comments about Bringing Design to Software (ACM Press).

1. "Bringing Design to Software" is not a software design "how-to" book; it is an edited exploration of the nature of software design through dialog. It investigates the concepts of software, design and prototyping as basal considerations for an understanding of the tenets of software design as a practice. The dialog involves looking at design from a number of areas including software design, other design fields, research, instruction and design management. Winograd, et al., have compiled the perspectives of practitioners from the fields mentioned above, many of them responsible for some aspect of some of the most popular applications currently available, and profiled explanatory and illuminating projects and programs to accompany those perspectives. They have woven this collection of experiences into a coherent focus on the factors and issues characteristic of design activities and the inherent "...situated nature of design - a sensitivity to the human context in all its richness and variety," proffering that design is both enabled and constrained by interaction with people.

   The book promotes the idea that the most important people in software design are the users. Mitchell Kapor (interface designer for Lotus 1-2-3), the author of chapter 1, says that "...design...(is) where you stand with a foot in two worlds - the world of technology and the world of people and human purposes - and you try to bring the two together." "Bringing Design to Software" attempts to provide a way of looking at the interaction between the users and their world from a software design perspective and should be read by anyone seeking to enhance their ability to design software or to better understand software design considerations.




2. This book is a collection of chapters focusing on design and design topics. The chapter authors are from a variety of disciplines including software and product design, technology, architecture, graphic arts, and philosophy. This diversity adds to the richness in which the book addresses "design," expands the notion of the "designer" community of practice, and illustrates the importance of multifunctionality in design by taking lessons of practice from a variety of disciplines. After each chapter a "profile" of a product or situation is provided as a real-life example of the key points of the chapter.

   The following themes appeared throughout the book:

   · There needs to be a move from product-centered design to user-centered (or maybe use-centered) design. Talking, observing, interacting and listening with the users are key activities in making this happen.

   · The move to a user-centered design can be aided by recognizing and professionalizing the role of a designer in the software development process. (in this book people are variously referred to as software designers, interaction designers, artist-designers, software architects, etc.)

   · There is a need for tools and materials developed for software designers to create a language of design, and to develop prototypes and models. These things are needed for use in the design process to allow for a "conversation with the materials," --to create opportunities for exploration of the design, which may lead to unexpected characteristics and surprises. These, in turn, allow for reflection and lead to the development of better questions about our design and design process. These tools and methods also allow for communicating ideas, changes and goals to others involved in the design process.

   · Design is a team-sport. Successful designers will be familiar with the roles, language and concerns of everyone involved in the design process so as best to include them, and their contributions, into the overall design effort. It's also true that the design process resides within an organization, whose values, culture, management and business concerns have an impact on the success of design efforts. A skillful designer will be aware of (and perhaps challenge) the impact of the organization on the design process to allow the design effort to be as successful as possible.

   This is a good thought-starter for anyone interested in broadening their definition of designer and incorporating additional perspectives into their design practices.




3. Winograd brings together a mix of software designers, computer scientists, graphic artists, architects, scientists, and consultants, and their conceptions and methodologies for software design. Each describes their design situations from his or her position of expertise. Each of the "designers" has a similar message, ease of use and interaction must be relevant to the user, not only to the hierarchical structure of the software. Another point in the book is, if software is designed in such a way as to have the user append knowledge, as opposed to throw all daily logic of how things work in their world out the window, the learning curve for new software would be minimal.

   The designer's involvement needs to be invoked from the beginning of the software project, and should not be considered as just a "final coat of spray-on aesthetics". Thought and design energy need to be given towards the capabilities of identifying the skill level and needs of the user, so that the user can accomplish his or her tasks while enduring the least amount of frustration. Hopefully the user will also learn something through his or her experience with the software, which would then bring them up to a new level of mastery. The use of design teams, with members encapsulating differing points of view, is emphasized as a successful methodology for the development of such software applications.




4. I had to buy this book for a class; if you're interested in a historical perspective on instructional technology, you might find this interesting. I didn't.



5. I got this book to prepare a syllabus on design aspects of software engineering for an undergraduate course in computer science. Despite being more than ten years old, in terms of content, the book is fit for the purpose. Indeed, the authors of this edited volume provide several design perspectives (e.g., graphic design, architecture) on software. So far so good, but how is the reader supposed to read through pages with illegible fonts? The problem is not one of style, but of print quality, which looks like a photocopy from originals made with a dot matrix printer from the 80's.

No comments about MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework Application Development Foundation, Second Edition.

5 comments about Software Test Automation (ACM Press).

1. I bought this book because I was new to software quality assurance, yet placed in charge of an automated testing effort. This book clearly encapsulates years of experience -- you can almost feel the pain the authors must have experienced as they learned these lessons the hard way! I have already avoided making a number of mistakes.

   The authors organized the material effectively and wrote it in a way that promotes skimming and scanning. By reading the first few sentences of a section, you will know whether you are interested in the section. If you're not interested, skip to the next section. The authors even occasionally tell you what sections you can skip should that material not apply to your situation.

   These skimming and scanning aids are important because the text itself is frequently unexciting and cumbersome. There's not much to do about the former -- nuts and bolts are hard to make exciting. I hope, however, that the authors will consider a good edit for more vigorous writing should they update this book for a second edition.




2. I found this book to be a solid roundup of good practices within automated software testing.

   It doesn't provide any startling new techniques, but makes a good job of explaining the common pitfalls that are usually encountered when trying to automate testcases, and provides good advice for how to get the best out of commercial tools such as the one available from julianjones.com.

   The writing style can be a bit dry, and there are times when the thought of reading 500 pages can be a bit daunting.

   All things considered, highly recommended.




3. Hi
   This book deals with various issues of Automation such
   as basic concepts, impelementation details. It has various
   case studies also. A must for those who are considering
   for testing automation.
   It should have more coverage for data driven automation.
   [Niteen]



4. The book theoritically explains testing in great detail.It would have been an awesome book if it had a software part to it.Lack of software makes the learning experience incomplete but still the book is worth the money.



5. I've written code that shipped in 1 to 2 million units. I also did an academic post-doc in computer science at a good university.
   
   Testing is not just underappreciated in the academic community it is widely misunderstood. Academicians are fascinated by questions like how do you create a program to test your programs. By comparison the automation of human designed tests is not academically worthy. But this is most of what separates commercial grade code from research code. It is what creates 99% of the economic value of testing. And done well it elevates the status of testing from clerical work to top-tier design work. This book explains why this is true. Armed with that insight, a skilled technologist will be able to work through the rest of the details.
   
   Nevertheless, the book offers quite a few recipes. None of which can be implemented without a skilled technologist capable of working without a recipe, but all of which enhance the value of the book.
   
   Really a rare gem.

4 comments about Op Amp Applications Handbook (Analog Devices Series).

1. I've used 3 editions of the author's Op Amp Cookbook over the last 15 years, and found it to be an invaluable source of practical designs, accompanied by solid descriptions of the underlying principles. Based on that experience, I expected this book to be good. I am by no means disappointed.
   
   It isn't a cookbook, although it does include many useful concrete design examples. It is more of an applications problem-solving guide. I've often found that some of the most useful op amp design information is buried in specific device datasheets and application notes, and have often found myself wishing someone would extract all of those nuggets, organize them, fill in the gaps, and publish them. As I read through this book, I found many such nuggets (primarily derived from Analog Devices' datasheets and app notes), which I had previously regarded as hidden treasure, uncovered only by tedious slogging through numerous datasheets. This is not, however, a re-packaging of previously published app notes. The chapters are comprehensive, well-written, and well-integrated.
   
   Those interested in audio applications may remember that the original edition of the author's Op Amp Cookbook contained an extremely useful chapter on audio circuits. In the second edition, this material was extracted and published in a separate book, which (unfortunately) went out of print and has become hard to find. You will be happy to note that the new Applications Handbook has excellent coverage of audio op amp applications and design principles.



2. This is a great textbook for electrical engineers and hobbyists with fundamental knowledge of op-amp operation. The text is easy to read and explains concepts that are understandable for both the inexperienced and experienced engineer and also gives an excellent historical treatment of op-amp evolution. The mathematics involved is concise and to the point. This text gives engineers tools to understand the op-amp beyond the ideal models presented in basic circuit theory and electronics courses given in undergraduate programs. To apply op-amps properly, you need to go beyond the simplistic assuptions - this book will help you given you have an understanding of basic electronics design and analysis. I highly recommend having this book on your shelf for a reference.



3. This is a great reference book. Starting with Op Amp Basics (chapter 1) and continuing on with Instrumentation amps, Op Amps used in data converters and signal conditioning, the book is full of valuable information. The book even covers PCB layout techniques and parasitic effects that become important in high speed systems and precision systems. There is also a history of the Op Amp which is interesting to read.
   Anyone interested in analog circuit design in general, and op amps in particular will enjoy this book. It is a good reference for any engineer's bookshelf.



4. Walter has written another down-to-earth design book. This book contains much theory, but not at the expense of practical design information. A good read here profits the analog designer; so says an analog designer of 40 years experience.

No comments about Pragmatic Version Control Using Git.

3 comments about Executing SOA: A Practical Guide for the Service-Oriented Architect.

1. There has been books in the market on the topic of SOA, in numbers. Many of them quickly get into the quagmire of either keeping it too abstract and talk about just business aspects and their benefits or going to the other extreme and treating just the technology aspects of SOA.
   
   'Executing SOA - A Practical Guide for the Service Oriented Architect' is a revealing, startling and supremely practical treatise on this topic of SOA. The first great point about this book is that it does not go into too much of the basics of SOA as a concept; its definitions; terminologies etc. It provides just an introductory chapter on its history and more significanly why SOA matters more and more in today's world of business and IT.
   
   The topic of SOA Governance has not been treated so well if not, at all, in the books that try to fill up the shelf. An entire chapter is dedicated to this topic! The chapter focusses on how business and IT alignment is enabled and empowered by SOA Governance and demonstrates how SOA Governance can and should be used as an SOA Strategy to realistically align IT initiatives with the business drivers and goals of the enterprise. It provides a splendid treatment on how to structure the organization; with its roles and responsibilities and the management of power so that SOA Governance can be implemented as a mainstream SOA discipline inside an enterprise. What I found most useful was the way the authors provided a prescriptive checklist of the various components of SOA Governance and what to execute to make each component be executed upon.
   
   SOA introduces a new architecture paradigm to IT. Rational Unified Process, as a methodology to perform software lifecycle development saw the hole in its existing process around how a typical SOA project should be executed. They used SOMA as a service oriented modeling and architecture method and came up with their new version of RUP called RUP-SOMA. This book is the first of its kind that dedicates an entire chapter in defining to its reader what RUP-SOMA is and more importantly provides step by step guidance on how each phase of the service oriented methodology should be executed in a real world project. I not only find this chapter as a first of a kind in the industry but also am startled by the way the authors have treated the subject and brought it to the reader. One can easily use some very basic and common sense to create a project plan to execute on an SOA project based on the sheer merit that this chapter brings to the table.
   
   Each other chapter focusses on a specific discipline of how to take SOA into a real world project engagement but the topics are kept so well aligned, integrated and standalone that the reader can either focus on one single chapter and execute on it or put them all together and be the guru in your company! The chapter on 'Realization of Services' is a master art that demonstrates how you can implement the RUP-SOMA methodology using the present day products and technologies that are available in the market.
   
   In short, I consider this book as an eye-opening treatment of the subject of SOA and it keeps itself very true to its title i.e. it provides the reader with enough arms and ammunition to go execute successfully on a real-world and practical SOA project.
   
   Thank you authors - now I know why IBM is the best and has the greatest share in the SOA market!



2. Like many of the acronyms in use today, SOA is quickly becoming so broadly used that it is difficult to understand the real role of SOA, the impact on legacy platforms and the realization of true return on investment.
   
   This book avoids focusing on the generalities and re-definitions found in most SOA books and heads straight at the heart of and challenges addressed by SOA. The book gives superb treatments of service modeling and how to maximize reuse of existing silo based services, decomposition of silos and implementation of new reusable components.
   
   But, even more critical to the reader and SOA implementor, the book provides the best and most useful information on SOA governance that I have seen in any of the SOA books out there. Like all models oriented towards reuse, SOA models without proper governance can quickly devolve back into a silo structure negating the value of SOA. This book provides a clear path towards delivering the benefits of SOA in conjunction with implementing an evolving SOA governance model.
   
   Anyone who wants to understand the value of SOA, the challenges of deployment and a means of delivering it while avoiding the risks of "big bang" deployment should definitely read this book.



3. This book contains much valuable information, but I see little that is not readily available on the web. Just do some searching and you can find this information quickly enough. If you don't mind paying for information that is available for free, then buy this book. Look at sites like zapthink, searchsoa.com, soa-consortium.org. Also look at a book named "An Implementor's Guide to Service Oriented Architecture - Getting It Right" and authors like Thomas Erl.

No comments about Interactive Theorem Proving and Program Development.

5 comments about Safeware: System Safety and Computers.

1. This is an OK book that should have been an excellent book. Frankly, it was a big disappointment. The author is the grand poo-bah of software safety, and so I expected the book to be deep and profound. Instead it is rather shallow with lots of generalities. A lot of what is said is the type of common sense discussion that I would expect from a social scientist, rather than a scientist. I was particularly surprised to see but one page on independent verification and validation. This is a very important topic for ensuring software safety, yet one evidently not on Professor Leveson's radar screen.



2. The key to understanding safety lies in the understanding that no one component failure or no human error ever occurs in isolation - an accident is a result of some systemic problem, and this is the fundamental theme of this book. No single book could ever address in detail all of the finer points of system safety analysis (indeed this would take a series of books) but Leveson is able to capture the core issues in an engaging manner. This book is a must read for any student of software and system safety, and will continue to be relevant in an age where automated technology is ubiquitous.



3. This book is among seminal works on system safety and safety engineering and should be read by anyone who is entering the field. One may not necessarily agree with Prof. Leveson's views (e.g. her often unfair and unjustified dismissal of european approaches to safety engineering) but her views in the field are simply too important and influential to be ignored!
   The book is a good "bed time reading" that gives an overview of the field, major problems and introduction to some major approaches. It is however not a handbook per se - you will not understand any particular method sufficiently to apply it.
   Overall, very good introductory text with a good coverage and a very easy and clear language!



4. Interested in the development of high integrity software? Looking for a system safety engineering text? This is not the one for you.
   
   This book won't describe when to use a sequence number or what size CRC is appropriate for your safety-related communication, or what level of code coverage is appropriate or what level of requirement coverage is appropriate for your identified hazard etc. It won't describe the actual versus perceived issues with OOA/OOD, what aspects of a hard real-time design require attention or how to meet the expectations of an independent assessor or certification agency.
   
   The principles of software design assurance/software integrity can be garnered from the standards such as DO-178B, and DO-248-style discussion papers or from CENELEC 50128 and good old MIL-STD-882B to name but a few. Alternatively a free start can be achieved by downloading the Joint Software system Safety Handbook from the US DoD.
   
   Save your money for the works of Moriarty (executive-level), Ericson (introduction/supervised practitioner), or Dunn (software controlled system safety intro) if you must buy something.
   
   But if you're looking for some stories to put into your slick safety presentation or seminar then it might be just the right book.



5. This book is a starting point of what is important to make a system safety.
   This provide over all view of system safety not software safety.
   The case studies in appendix are very important for safety engineers.
   Appendix A is the therac-25 story on Medical devices.
   Appendix B is Apollo 13, the DC-10 and Challenger, Aerospace.
   Appendix D is windscale, Three mile island and Chernobyl, Nuclear power.
   These are very bad accidents, so we should study more deep.
   The naming "safeware" is very good wording, this is not safe software nor safe hardware.
   Go ahead, after this book. There are many resources about ssytem safety and software safety.

5 comments about From Bash to Z Shell: Conquering the Command Line.

1. This book is a must for any sysadmin or power user. It is definitely not for the novice. It's writing structure is almost akin to what it would be like if you could read pthreads! I am so happy with this book.



2. I bought this book for two reasons: To get a quick view of the Z shell, which was excellent, and to complement the many books on Bash that I have. This is where it really shone. I found information here, and quickly, that I could not find elsewhere. I would recommend it for all Bash programmers. This comes from a Korn shell bigot, too.



3. I've just finished reading From Bash to Z Shell from APress Publishing. It's taught this Linux NetAdmin several new tricks, and should be an addition to any Admin's bookshelf. It'll fit nicely next to your O'Reilly's.
   
   I initially bought the book to lean the Z Shell (zsh), but decided that I'll stick with good 'ole Bash for a little longer. The tricks I've learned through this book about Bash quenches my needs for the moment. This book teaches you about essential techniques such as CDPATH, History options, key bindings, editing modes, and tons more. I've only read it only once, but I have already dog-eared 20 pages. My ~/.bashrc, and ~/.inputrc are in full swing with many new shortcuts! I highly recommend this book!!



4. I work on multiple Unix platforms all day long. I had never really taken the time to learn about the shells, but I had picked up the basics over time. I knew how to run commands, string them together with pipes, and redirect their output into files. So when I tell you that I started learning new things in the first chapter of From Bash to Z Shell, you will know the coverage is in depth. If you are a casual shell user, or even less experienced, this book has a lot to offer you.
   
   From Bash to Z Shell is organized into three parts. Part one is an introduction to shell basics. It focuses on typical interactions with a shell including all of the things I mentioned knowing before reading this book. There is surprisingly good depth even here though and I doubt that anyone short of a power user could make it through this section without picking up a new trick or two. I learned multiple things from each chapter in this section.
   
   In part two, each chapter takes a single aspect of the shells and really focuses in on just that. You will find chapters about the startup files each shell invokes as well as shell command histories. This is comprehensive coverage that really gets you to understand how things work as well as how to tune them to your personal tastes. You are even less likely to not pickup great tips in here.
   
   The third and final part of the book turns to shell programming. While I suspect that plenty of users interact with a shell regularly without getting much into scripting them, there are still useful tidbits in here for them too. For example, after reading this section, I added some code to my startup file to customize my shell's completion functionality. I can now tab-complete the server names used by my workplace and even file system paths on those servers. This section also has a very good chapter on variables that will definitely help in day to day usage. A couple of the final chapters in here are heavily slanted towards or exclusively about the Z Shell though, so those chapters don't hold much for users of other shells.
   
   As the title suggests, the book extensively covers both the Bash shell, which seems to be the standard default on many Unix systems now, and the feature-rich Z Shell that power users seem to favor. Surprisingly though, the book does talk about many other shells. In the first part especially, features tend to be described for more than just the two shells with top billing. This falls off in the later parts to some extent though. Also, the authors clearly aren't fans of the C Shell or its derivative the T C-Shell, so fans of those will want to look elsewhere. Windows receives some screen time, but only from the angle of running Unix-like environments and shells on it. You won't find coverage of the native Windows shells in these pages.
   
   The book is quite good at covering the similarities of the shells. They frequently tell you when some command will work unchanged in both Bash and the Z Shell and they always do their best to give two equivalent commands when there are differences. This makes the shell knowledge you pick up from reading quite portable. It's also nice for those who don't know much about the differences between the shells and thus are trying to learn enough to pick the right one for them. It helped me choose a favorite. The only downside of this is that the transitions seem to become less smooth late in the book and I found myself wondering if we were still talking about Bash or had moved on to Z Shell a few times. This is a minor complaint though.
   
   Beyond covering the shells well, the book can also help you better understand the design of the Unix operating system. It has some great asides on things like process forking and child process inheritance, special files and devices, and terminal drivers. Seeing these items through their interactions with a shell can make them significantly easier to grasp.
   
   The writing style of this book is very natural. That's important since it distills so much information into every page, you could easily begin to feel overwhelmed. Luckily, that wasn't the case at all for me. I found the material to be presented so naturally that I absorbed it with ease. The book also has abundant cross references and a strong index which will make it great to reference later.
   
   The final measure of a book like this turns out to be how much it changed your daily work habits. I've already noticed dramatic differences. I'm using shell loops at the command-line now to process many files at once; I actually understand shell quoting and when to use which types of quotes and escapes to get the desired effect; I can easily strip off a file extension or get a directory name from a full path when I need one; I make constant use of the command history now whether I'm searching for a past command, correcting a typo, or just pulling a single argument out of a previous command for reuse in a new command; and I've written a few shell functions to provide shortcuts to my common tasks. I just naturally began doing these things too, I didn't have to work at it a lot. From Bash to Z Shell just raised my understanding that much. To me, that's a big selling point.



5. This is an excellent book, even though like a lot of folks, I bought it for the wrong reason. This book isn't really specific to the title, it's actually about the subtitle. Bash and Zsh are major characters, but this book is about using and mastering the command line, in either UNIX or Linux.
   
   I don't know why the authors would target a book at me personally, so I assume there are many others out there who were once masters of the DOS and UNIX command lines when their companies made the decision (sometimes regretfully) to move "up" to Windows and Windows NT. Now here I am, over a decade later fondly recalling the power and well, frankly the fun, of being able to control my computer and the OS that runs it with commands customized specifically to my needs.
   
   If you miss DOS batch files and UNIX scripts, being able to automate functions that take dozens of repetitive steps in a GUI like Windows or CDE, then this book was written for you as well. The free, powerful open source UNIX-based Operating Systems like Solaris and FreeBSD or the many Linux versions have given the command line it's well-deserved comeback. The authors of "BASH to Z Shell, Conquering the Command Line," make the assumption that the reader has more than basic computer skills, but just in case, starts with the premise that we may have even forgotten why the command line is even desirable.
   
   Each of the early chapters on the basics warns the reader of the level of coverage and explains where to go to find the in depth version. I remembered pipes and redirection, but read the early stuff anyway and was rewarded with the fun reminder of just how powerful the command line can be. How about one command that can list every program on your system, sort it alphabetically, trim off any text and blank spaces you don't want and print it all in nice neat columns either onscreen or to a file? Ok, so nobody really needs such a list, but ya gotta admit it's pretty cool to be able to do all that with a single command. Then they launch into a discussion of for and foreach loops -- that's the basic stuff at the beginning mind you.
   
   This is a book that's destined to be dog-eared. The spine will be wrinkled from sitting on the desk next to my keyboard as I construct a list of aliases that will simplify my life and then build a menu so I can remember them all. If you're just getting back into UNIX or have newly discovered Linux, this could be an invaluable tool for the journey.

4 comments about AutoCAD 2006 VBA: A Programmer's Reference.

1. An excellent and comprehesinve reference book for both non-programmer and programmer alike.



2. This book contains everything you need to know about AutoCAD VBA and then 10x more! I was looking for a simple guide to AutoCAD VBA syntax. This book isn't quite written for simple little utility type apps, but more for big-picture drawing automation. But given the uber-complicated nature of AutoCAD VBA, Sutphin did a GREAT job. I wish I had more time so I could follow him along for all 700 pages.
   
   I wouldn't quite recommend it for newbies personally, but if you have VBA experience, you'll be okay.



3. Joe once again did an outsdanding job of breaking things down and organizing them to make this a fantastic reference. Many readers don't pay attention to "Reference" in the title, which is exactly what this is. It's not a cook book or tutorial book, it's a VBA reference for AutoCAD. If you plan on writing VBA code for AutoCAD, you need this book.



4. By far the best AutoCAD VBA book around. I've purchased several books on this subject and this is the one that I turn to when I have a real problem. I'm a VBA hack and the examples in this book have been enough to help me solve every problem that I've had. I would recommend this book to anyone. My only problem with this book is that it hasn't been upgraded to the latest version of Acad.