Product Description
layout-grid-mode:  Develop your own iPhone applications Ideal for non-Mac programmers, this introductory guide shows developers how to create applications for the world's most popular smart phone. You will learn how to use a modified version of the Mac development environment, the Objective-C programming language, and the Xcode development tools.  Nearly every chapter of iPhone SDK Programming: A Beginner's Guide  consists of a self-contained project, with the corresponding Xcode available for download and modification. The book is designed around the concept of accomplishing specific, discrete programming tasks for deployment on the iPhone. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Examples just don't work...just not clear at all!
I have gone through the first few chapters, and I am just confused!I have some programming background, and have actually done some sample iPhone apps in the past, but I have not had one example in this book work.For example...the "Try This" on page 28 says "In Groups & Files, create a new folder named c_code."Unfortunately, there is nothing telling me how to do this, and all of the usual Apple ways of accomplishing this do not work.It would be nice to have a little more clearly-defined instruction in this, since this is a book targeted at "beginners."

I think the most frustrating thing was after the first exercise, the book acknowledges that the exercise is confusing, but assures the reader that by the end of the book it will make sense.Sure, I feel like an idiot...wouldn't it be more effective to build my confidence in the first exercise, rather than drag me through an exercise that doesn't work, that I don't have enough experience to troubleshoot?I still can't figure out why it's not working.

On the next page, it says "Open main.m, import cwork.h, and add the sayHello method to the file (Listing 2-4)."Does this mean that I need to go to the file menu and import, or is it by typing the instructions in Listing 2-4 accomplishes this?The jumping around in chapters to find these "Listings" is really confusing...I'm not sure why the information is discussed on one page, but the actual code is listed several pages later.It might have made more sense if the methodology was described in the Intro...this is the single most frustrating problem with the book.It keeps telling you to go to "listings" of code, but it's not clear whether you're adding the code to existing code, or replacing it.

Also, when I "Build and Go" it would've taken the author two seconds to tell the user that the Console is found under the "Run" menu.I kept waiting for a window to pop up with results, but couldn't understand why nothing was happening.

I'll keep trudging along, but I can say at this point I'm frustrated, and about ready to toss the book and start over with a new one.Sorry to be so harsh, but I really don't see yet how this is considered a "beginner" book.I'll be returning the book this afternoon and looking for something that's a little more straightforward.By the fourth chapter, It's still not making any sense.

Fun Intro to iPhone Programming.
Easy to understand introduction to iPhone programming. Along with coding, Interface Builder is utilized in the examples and exercises to give the reader a better sense of how it can be used in development. Overall I've learned a lot from this book.

NoEasy Access to Table of Contentsin Kindle for iPhone Version
I am giving the Kindle for iPhone version of this book a low review, because it lacks an easy access to the Table of Contents.

You cannot easily navigate to the Table of Contents of this book using the "Go to" feature in the Kindle for iPhone app, because it states that no Table of Contents is available for this book.

However, a Table of Contents for the Kindle for iPhone version of this book does exist, but you have to manually flip through the pages on your iPhone or iPod Touch to find it.

Great Book for Beginners
I am a non-computer professional doing web development as a hobby. I am totally new to Mac programming. I tried a number of books and a few video tutorials to learn iphone SDK programming. I though I understood those well but I realized it was still very difficult when I tried to do real life my own programming. Then I started reading James Brannans iPhone SDK Programming book (a week ago). I am still half way through the book. But I could not stand the idea of not commenting on the book. This is a really good book. It is easy to read, fun to read, contains absolutely practical oriented examples. I am now building my own applications much more easily than building on modifying others example files. I am now on the tract. I highly recommend this book for beginners!!!!
Thank you James Brannon,

Chandana Karunarathne

Nice examples - pretty clear text
This book has well thought out examples that are nicely presented.It presents some key topics that most books shy away from, and it presents them clearly.Most notably, it has a good example of an app with a table within a nav bar within a tab bar.This is a very common app pattern and is presented here clearly and with good explanation.I don't think any other book does this quite as well. ... Read more

Product Description
The book is a short, concise and complete presentation of constraint programming and reasoning. The use of constraints had its scientific and commercial breakthrough in the 1990s. Programming with constraints makes it possible to model and specify problems with uncertain, incomplete information and to solve combinatorial problems, as they are abundant in industry and commerce, such as scheduling, planning, transportation, resource allocation, layout, design and analysis. The theoretically well-founded presentation includes exercises with solutions and application examples from real life. It is ideally suited as a textbook for graduate students and as a resource for researchers and practitioners. The Internet support includes teaching material, software, latest news and updates. ... Read more

Product Description

This Third Edition introduces the latest theory and applications in optimization. It emphasizes constrained optimization, beginning with linear programming and then proceeding to convex analysis, network flows, integer programming, quadratic programming, and convex optimization. You’ll discover a host of practical business applications as well as non-business applications. With its focus on solving practical problems, the book features free C programs to implement the major algorithms covered. The book’s accompanying website includes the C programs, JAVA tools, and new online instructional tools and exercises.

Customer Reviews (4)

A thorough, modern treatment of LP for advanced undergrads, all grad students, and researchers
I learned Linear Programming from the first edition of this book, and I teach using the third edition now.Unlike the previous reviews, I always use this book for a refresher and find it helpful.It is a reference that our graduate students turn to for many years after their first course.

This book gives a thorough treatment of linear models, their properties, duality theory, as well as their extensions.The author is a leading researcher in interior-point methods, and it is great to see a book in which both the simplex method and interior-point methods are presented in almost equal variety and extent.For the simplex method, there are primal, dual, two-phase, and parametric primal-dual variants.For interior-point methods, the author starts with a whole chapter on the geometry and the central path, and presents affine-scaling and homogeneous self-dual methods.All algorithms are demonstrated with examples and summarized in pseudocode, and the author also provides C codes for them on his website.There are also JAVA applets for in-class demonstrations of the simplex method variants.For each method, the author also devotes chapters to implementation issues, which is valuable for someone looking to write their own code to solve real-world problems.Given his expertise in the area, there is much to learn from Vanderbei in these respects.

The extensions are provided to integer programming and convex programming, and applications in network optimization and game theory, among others are presented.The newer editions have been updated with problems arising in financial engineering, a popular topic in OR/MS.

There is more advanced material in the book, especially in the discussion of degeneracy and cycling in the simplex method, the chapter on convexity analysis, and the presentation of the homogeneous self-dual method.These will be crucial for proofs and motivation in a PhD level course, and researchers will benefit from their inclusion and supplementary end-notes of each chapter pointing to key papers in LP. They can easily be omitted for undergrads and MS students.

want to learn?dont get this book
I had to get this book for class, and it's horrible.The explanations are sparse...I think the most common explanation (without any explanation previously), is "clearly ___ is the entering variable here".Sometimes, it just says what the next pivot is with.It's clear if you're my professor who contributed to the 3rd edition, but for somebody who's just started learning this, this book is terrible.
Also, the notation is weird.Slack variables are denoted with w's, which confused me a lot until I learned that they should be treated as x(n+1) <--subscript-- for pivoting rules like Bland's.I got Hillier and Lieberman's Intro to Operation Research book, and its much more concise and clear, but maybe that's because this one is just that bad.

Not a Clear Book
I fully agree with J. Pierce. I bought this book because I wanted to refresh the things I learned in the university about linear programming. I don't recall these concepts being so difficult and obscure: when the author introduces a new topic, he does so without trying to explain how does it fit into the general subject, he doesn't bother demonstrating most of the important facts in the book and most of them come as a given. I got to the 4th chapter and I decided to look somewhere else!!!

As I said, I did good when I as studying these topics in the university (simplex method and linear programming), and I just wanted something I could read on my kindle to refresh my memory and get me on track for writing an algorithm I need to solve a somewhat complex linear programming model. If this would have been my first book, I would have thought that the topic was really obscure and difficult to understand!!!

Fortunately I have Hillier and Lieberman's Operation Research book on my bookshelf. I will go back to that one, which I know will do the trick. Unfortunately it isn't available for the kindle, and it is as heavy as a brick, which is what I was trying to avoid when I went shopping for a kindle book on the subject.

Terrible textbook!
This is not a book from which to learn linear programming.Nor is it a stretch that the author and a profesor(sic) of linear programming (I assume not of spelling) may give this title 5 stars -- they are not attempting to learn the subject that this book fails miserably at teaching.i.e. Note to author: If you use a term, make sure you at least define it somewhere.Except to find the problems that were assigned in my class, my only use for this book was as an object to fling in frustration before finding a decent explanation elsewhere. ... Read more

Product Description
 

The Parallel Programming Guide for Every Software Developer

From grids and clusters to next-generation game consoles, parallel computing is going mainstream. Innovations such as Hyper-Threading Technology, HyperTransport Technology, and multicore microprocessors from IBM, Intel, and Sun are accelerating the movement's growth. Only one thing is missing: programmers with the skills to meet the soaring demand for parallel software.

That's where Patterns for Parallel Programming comes in. It's the first parallel programming guide written specifically to serve working software developers, not just computer scientists. The authors introduce a complete, highly accessible pattern language that will help any experienced developer "think parallel"-and start writing effective parallel code almost immediately. Instead of formal theory, they deliver proven solutions to the challenges faced by parallel programmers, and pragmatic guidance for using today's parallel APIs in the real world. Coverage includes:

• Understanding the parallel computing landscape and the challenges faced by parallel developers

• Finding the concurrency in a software design problem and decomposing it into concurrent tasks

• Managing the use of data across tasks

• Creating an algorithm structure that effectively exploits the concurrency you've identified

• Connecting your algorithmic structures to the APIs needed to implement them

• Specific software constructs for implementing parallel programs

• Working with today's leading parallel programming environments: OpenMP, MPI, and Java

Patterns have helped thousands of programmers master object-oriented development and other complex programming technologies. With this book, you will learn that they're the best way to master parallel programming too.

Customer Reviews (7)

A pretty decent guide to parallel programming
"Patterns for Parallel Programming" (PPP) is the outcome of a collaboration between Timothy Mattson of Intel and Beverly Sanders &Berna Massingill (who are academic researchers). It introduces a pattern language for parallel programming, and uses OpenMP, MPI, and Java to flesh out the related patterns.

The Good: this volume discusses both shared-memory and distributed-memory programming, all between one set of covers. It also makes use of a general-purpose programming language and is therefore of interest both to computational scientists who are interested in clusters, and to programmers interested in multiprocessors (these days that covers pretty much everyone). More generally, PPP offers valuable advice to those interested in robust parallel software design. The authors cover a number of topics that are an essential part of parallel-programming lore (e.g. the 1D and 2D block-cyclic array distributions in Chapter 5). In other words, they codify existing knowledge, which is precisely what patterns are supposed to do. To accomplish this, they make effective use of a small number of examples (like molecular dynamics and the Mandelbrot set). That allows them to show a specific problem as approached both from different design spaces, and also from different patterns within one design space. This book follows in the footsteps of the illustrious volume "Design Patterns" by the Gang of Four (GoF). In chapters 3, 4, and 5, Mattson, Sanders, and Massingill introduce a number of patterns using a simplified version of the GoF template. Despite the structural similarities between the two books, PPP is more readable than the GoF volume. This is probably because it introduces a pattern language ("an organized way of navigating through a collection of design patterns to produce a design"), not just a collection of patterns. Essentially, the writing style is a linear combination of narrative and reference: it can be read cover-to-cover, or not. Finally, the three appendices contain introductory discussions of OpenMP, MPI, and concurrency in Java, respectively. They can be read either as the need arises, or before even starting the book: though limited in scope, they are pedagogically sound.

The Bad: despite being easier to read from start to finish than the GoF classic, this book is still constrained by its choice to catalog patterns. As a result, the recurring examples lead to repetition, since they have to be re-introduced in each example section. Also, given that the book was published in 2004, a few implementation-related topics are somewhat out-of-date (e.g., OpenMP 3.0 was not around at the time). Importantly, the book predates the recent explosion of interest in general-purpose GPU programming, so it doesn't mention, say, texture memory. However, more fundamental things like data decomposition, which the book does explain, are related to any parallel programming environment. On a different note, even though the book is generally readable, from time to time the authors resort to the "just look at the code and figure it out" technique: the best-known example is in chapter 4 when they discuss ghost cells and nonblocking communication. Furthermore, even though the authors have been for the most part clearheaded when naming the different patterns, I found their decision to call two distinct patterns "Data Sharing" and "Shared Data" (in the "Finding Concurrency" and "Supporting Structures" design spaces, respectively) quite confusing and therefore unfortunate. Also, the Glossary is very useful, in that it explains many terms either discussed in the text (e.g. "False sharing") or not (e.g. "Copy on write", "Eager evaluation"), but it is far from complete (e.g. "First touch", "Poison pill", and "Work stealing", though mentioned in the main text, are not included in the Glossary). Finally, I think the authors overstate the case when they claim that "the parallel programming community has converged around" Java: Pthreads would have been an equally (if not more) acceptable choice.

All in all, this book provides a good description of many aspects of parallel programming. Most other texts on parallel programming either are class textbooks or focus on a specific technology. In contradistinction to such books, "Patterns for parallel programming" strikes a happy medium between focusing on principles and discussing practical applications.

Alex Gezerlis

A total waste of money
When I bought this book, I was hoping that the word 'patterns' in its title is only there to make it buzzword compliant.But sadly not.It is one of those completely useless pattern books, that long-windedly explain what should you do, without telling the how, and the why.Moreover all that explanations are about things, that you find out during the first day, when you actually sit down, and try to do some parallel programming.

Probably one of the best books on this subject
A little dry and a little repetitive but only to a small degree. The subject is (necessarily) approached from several different 'points of view' so some repetition is to be expected, but this should not discourage you from buying and reading this book, it is one of the most readable and affordable books on this topic. I highly recommend this book.

Easy to read and useful content
Normally design pattern books are things that you dip into rather than read end to end, simply because they can be very dry reading. Not this one - as long as you have an interest in parallel programming, reading this end to end should be easy. But that's not to say that you couldn't just dip in to the bits that are most applicable to your work - I'm sure you could.

Many of the examples given of where each pattern is used are in industry sectors other than where I work, but with such good descriptions of each pattern it is easy to picture where they are used other than the examples given and to identify where you have used them yourself without previously knowing that you were using a "named" pattern even if you have been doing it that way for years.

Much of the material in this book is stuff that is hard to find elsewhere. I've heard bits of it at Intel seminars or touched on in Intel books (e.g. the Threading Building Blocks book), but otherwise have not seen this stuff in print, even though many people (possibly unknowingly) are implementing the same ideas in code.

Excellent book. I've knocked one star off though, simply because the authors work on the premise that almost everyone is using one of OpenMP, MPI or Java. In practice, there are still an awful lot of people implementing such systems using C++ with either native threading APIs or third party libraries wrapping those threading APIs.

Read this book
This is a very good book: It will start teaching you how to think about parallel programming and will help you get started in this area.

Why only four stars you may ask? The trouble is that after over 40 years knowledge about parallel programming is still weak. The scientific computation folks have their (often heavy duty) tricks of the trade, but, as another reviewer pointed out, parallel computing is much more and is starting to address much broader areas.

This book will help you wade through the maze of confusion and will help you get oriented - that is of a huge help. Then you need to practice... ... Read more

Product Description
IF EVIL'S YOUR NAME,THEN THESE ARE YOUR GAMES! Always wanted to be a genius game creator? This Evil Genius guidegoes far beyond a typical programming class or text to reveal insider tips for breaking the rules and constructing wickedly fun games that you can tweak and customize to suit your needs! In Programming Video Games for the Evil Genius, programming wunderkind Ian Cinnamon gives you everything you need to create and control 57 gaming projects. You'll find easy-to-follow plans featuring Java, the most universal programming language, that run on any PC, Mac, or Linux computer. Illustrated instructions and plans for an awesome mix of racing, board, shoot 'em up, strategy, retro, and puzzle games Gaming projects that vary in difficulty-starting with simple programs and progressing to sophisticated projects for programmers with advanced skills An interactive companion website featuring a free Java compiler, where you can share your projects with Evil Geniuses around the globe Removes the frustration-factor-all the parts you need are listed, along with sources Regardless of your skill level, Programming Video Games for the Evil Genius provides you with all the strategies, code, and insider programming advice you need to build and test your games with ease, such as: Radical Racing Screen Skier Whack an Evil Genius Tic-Tac-Toe Boxing Snake Pit Space Destroyers Bomb Diffuser Trapper Oiram Java Man Memory Ian Says. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (40)

iPhone Apps and Android Apps
I have a lot of ideas for mobile apps so my instructor said I should start by learning programming in Java first.He gave me some books and this is one that has been the best, most fun, for me.You develop games by following the code and learn Java basics.It's a lot of work but fun.My goal is be a dveloper for iPhone/iPad and Android apps. I have a long way to go but this is the first step!!

Summer Project - Done!
It took longer then I thought it would to finish the book - but it was worth it!! There were two sections that were pretty difficult so I asked for help from some older computer expert friends that have been programming for a couple of years and we figured it out together. My plan is to learn Java then work my way to iPhone and Android apps using "C".Now I'm on my way.Anyways this is a really good way to learn the basics of programming. I'm glad my teacher told me about it!!

Best on Shelf.
I own Weiss's C++ for Java Programmers, Liang's Intro to Java Programming, Dietel's How to Program, C++ Primer Plus, Effective Java, plus, plus.
The most dog-eared is my copy of Cinnamon's Programming Video Games.Good book.

Code Goddess Rules!
It's the first week of school :( so I brought in the Java Man and Whack-an-Evil Genius projects I programmed this summer from the Programming Video Genius book. Teacher impressed.Guys in my class humbled by my intelligence!Awesome book!!!

Chosen as Supplemental Text for College Course
I have selected Programming Video Games for the Evil Genius as a supplemental text for my freshman class.I find the project based orientation and clear coding of Cinnamon's text to be valuable for my students with sight to moderately advanced exposure to Java. ... Read more

Product Description

John Chambers turns his attention to R, the enormously successful open-source system based on the S language. His book guides the reader through programming with R, beginning with simple interactive use and progressing by gradual stages, starting with simple functions. More advanced programming techniques can be added as needed, allowing users to grow into software contributors, benefiting their careers and the community. R packages provide a powerful mechanism for contributions to be organized and communicated. This is the only advanced programming book on R, written by the author of the S language from which R evolved.

Customer Reviews (7)

It was needed
The book arrived on time and in good condition. I need it for a class next year.

Bad english
I wouldn't consider myself an R expert, but I do have some R-programming experience. I also have a lot of experience in using other programming languages, so I guess I have the technical prerequisites to understand a text of this level with some effort. Said that, however interesting the technical information might be in this book, I wonder whether Mr. Chambers is a native english speaker or whether this book was originally written in another language and has been machine-translated by Babelfish. The english is bad, non-sensical at times, and the philosophical parts of the book, liked by some of the reviewers here, are in my view useless babble. I wish this book had had a proofreader with some didactical expertise. I don't expect this kind of book to follow primary school didactical guidelines, but here the author doesn't seem to give a dime about correct use of grammar and linguistic concepts. In the end, one can understand what he wants to say, but it needs an intellectual effort that should rather have been done by the author in writing good english, leaving more resources to the reader to understand the actual technical stuff.

Enlightening
Well, there is not a better way to understand any kind of processes than knowing the way it works. That is exactly the point of this book, and it is done in a didactic, uncomplicated way. You can find your own pathways to interact, program and get more and more from R. It will help with functions understanding and customizations, starting from the basic S language to R's specifics characteristics and goals. This book turns R easier than I have expected.

could have been titled _Understanding_How_R_works_
For the past year or so I have been puttering with R, but never really "got it".This book is just what I've been looking for, to understand what R is "thinking".It isn't a cookbook with loads of examples, but a thorough guide to understanding how R works and how to be productive in it.After only an hour, I understand data.frames, and the environment structure better than several nights of struggling with the online documentation.This isn't really a book about how to analyze data, it's about becoming comfortable and expert in R to make it easy to analyze data. Once you understand the tool, the data analysis becomes much much easier.

I agree with the reviewers who say it's chatty, but that makes it very readable.You don't have to work every example to understand the points the book is making.Likewise, it _is_ cross referenced to death, but it's easy enough to read over the links, and when you're trying to make sense of something, the cross references do take you to the right information to round out a picture.

A legend and pioneer of Graphic statistics
John Chambers, a pioneer and legend for many statistician who is the father of S language and the dream fulfiller for statisticians. The graphic statistics is once a dream for statistician from 1960's. Many statistician once dreamed about to use the high-quality graphics to say something about statistics. the dream get realized by Mr. chambers. The S language is born from the Bell lab which is a great place for the Unix lovers and the once expensive printer users.Now it is transplanted to the Microsoft Windows more than two decades. Mr. Chambers helps statistician fulfill the dream of last century- the graphic statistics and brings the people to the promised land of statistical computing. He is a superstar for statisticians, like Jeff Bezos to the Online book selling. The legend has something to say. So..we..LISTEN..... ... Read more

Product Description
Concepts in Programming Languages elucidates the central concepts used in modern programming languages, such as functions, types, memory management, and control.The book is unique in its comprehensive presentation and comparison of major object-oriented programming languages.Separate chapters examine the history of objects, Simula and Smalltalk, and the prominent languages C++ and Java. The author presents foundational topics, such as lambda calculus and denotational semantics, in an easy-to-read, informal style, focusing on the main insights provided by these theories. Advanced topics include concurrency, concurrent object-oriented programming, program components, and inter-language interoperability.A chapter on logic programming illustrates the importance of specialized programming methods for certain kinds of problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Excellent explanation of fundamental concepts
I read this book out of interest in programming languages theory. I did not want to read a pure theoretical book but wanted to get an understanding on how important concepts are currently implemented in various different languages. This book does this job quite effectively. It also has a puritan theoretical flavor that I liked. It used ML for explaining important concepts and I think that is a right choice. It also has pointed out many good references at the end of every chapter in case one may want to explore more about a topic.The topics covered here are very relevant to Engineers particularly to understand the possibilities the set of all languages can provide.The same author has a theory book. However, that book is mainly for researchers in programming languages.

Excellent introduction to programming language concepts
I really enjoyed reading Concepts in Programming Languages.

The book covers a little bit of everything. It includes an introduction to mathematical foundations such as computability theory and lambda calculus, but I found it quite readable (at the time when I was reading it, which was early during my undergraduate studies). It also includes a tiny bit on the semantics of programming languages (that is, how to describe the meaning formally), which is another important concept from the mathematical foundations of programming languages.

Then it talks about many programming languages and concepts that come from them and are interesting including LISP (which is a basis for Clojure), ML (a basis for Microsoft's F#) but also Simula and Smalltalk (two fundamental OO languages that inspired all modern OO languages, both dynamic such as Ruby and static such as Java). It also talks about C++ and Java (practical OO languages with quite different approach). There are also a few notes about different approaches to concurrency (quite important nowadays!) and logical programming (an iteresting alternative).

It doesn't go into much details and covers wide range of topics, which I consider as a benefit if you want to read it to get a broad overview of the programming language theory. The book actually motivated my current interest in programming languages :-).

Get it! Read it!
I used this book in CS 242. It was a great class; and this is one of my favorite books ever!

Good introduction to the subject
I can't speak to John Mitchell's skill as a lecturer, but some of the complaints here seem to betray a misunderstanding of the purpose of the book: to serve as an introduction to programming language theory, such as can be found in Mitchell's other book *Foundations for Programming Languages*. Mitchell is taking you *out of* the marketable skills zone and into abstract computer science, and he's being pretty nice about it -- the book contains friendly precises of topics like lambda calculus and denotational semantics, which make up the formal core of programming languages. What you will learn has applications in all popular programming languages, even if it's not spelled out in the text.

ML was a good choice as an example language, because it includes many of the features a programming language might have (being both imperative and functional), and furthermore is a serious research language on account of its well-understood semantics and type system. Focusing on it to explain core concepts was not a mistake. Mitchell knows how to do it the other way, too: explanations of the basic elements of object-orientation are parceled out over several notable OO languages, providing a way to compare and contrast how the major OO concepts can be implemented. (I didn't find the final chapter, Apt's summary of Prolog, as helpful: the declarative paradigm is too far removed from what was developed in the rest of the book.)

On account of its relatively gentle explanations and the importance of its concepts for all aspects of CS, this would be a good book for a relative beginner in CS to pick up (provided they can comprehend more than just code). But if you find it too repellent, you're probably not going to be much happier with more advanced treatments: its character just reflects the nature of the field.

Good Review Book, Bad Intro Book
It's a good review book if you know your material and just need a quick refresh or need the same concept explained differently.However, this book will intimidate you if you're new to computer science.An example would be in Chapter 1, the words "stack memory management and recursive functions or procedures" were thrown at the readers without any explanation. ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Outlook is the most widely used e-mail program and offers the most programmability. Sue Mosher introduces key concepts for programming Outlook using Visual Basic for Applications, custom Outlook forms, and external scripts, without the need for additional development tools.

For those who manage Outlook installations, it demonstrates how to use new features in the Outlook 2007 programming model such as building scripts that can create rules and views and manage categories. Power users will discover how to enhance Outlook with custom features, such as the ability to process incoming mail and extract key information. Aimed at the non-professional programmer, it also provides a quick guide to Outlook programming basics for pro developers who want to dive into Outlook integration.

*Dozens of new programming objects detailed including views, rules, categories, searches

*No previous coding experience or additional development tools required

*Examples outline issues using real-world functionality 

Customer Reviews (6)

Already making use of this book.
I have yet to go through the whole book.What I have gone through, I am already applying to a project I am developing.

Fantastic
The book is full of good information. I have already experience in the subject and I like it very much. Very good.

Very good book
As the title says, this book is not for newbies.It covered a lot of different topics.It was hit or miss on the specific application I was writing, but no book will ever hit that 100%.

The only issue I have is the toggling back and forth between VBA and the less content rich VBScript.The two systems are so close to each other, it sometimes was confusing which code block I was reading.

Suggestion, for VBA examples, use the color coding that comes with the VBA editor.

Makes a Poor Product Useable
The Outlook VBA programmable attributes are very poorly designed and executed, with minimal support from Microsoft. Ms. Mosher's books make the product at least minimally useful. They are well written and cover most of the topics needed by an intermediate to advanced VA programmer.They do suffer from the ills of most books that attempt to make Microsoft products usable in that the topic approach is linear.Examples, as in Microsoft's Help files tend to be of the simple, direct type.I like texts that are a richer mix of reference and "how to".Ms. Mosher is at her best when she moves off the beaten path and covers information needed for more complex tasks.

Very Good if You Stay On Track
I needed to parse tables in a received Outlook email (HTML code), get information from an Excel spreadsheet based on what I found in the received Outlook email, and use what I found to create a new Outlook email to be sent to someone else. "Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming" helped me with about 50-60% of what I needed to do. I had to use Visual Basic and the Visual Basic parts of "Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming" helped steer me in the right direction.

Using Visual Basic with the Microsoft Suite of Programs appears to be a black art. Either you know it or you don't. "Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming" outlines how to do a number of very specific things. If that is what you need to do, then you will be OK. Once you try to do something other than what is shown in the book, you will pretty much be on your own. ... Read more

Product Description

Would you like to create your own games, but never have the time to dig into the details of multimedia programming? Now you don’t have to! XNA makes it simple to create your own games, which will run on your PC and Xbox 360 console. Even if you don’t know how to program at all, Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional will teach you the basics of C# 2005 programming along the way. Don’t get overwhelmed with details you don’t need to know— just learn what you need to start creating your own games right now!

The fast–paced introduction to XNA and the C# language provides professional developers a quick-start guide to creating a commercial product using XNA, as well as offering home enthusiasts or hobbyists everything they need to begin putting together games in their spare time. You’ll discover and understand all the key concepts required to create smooth, professional–looking results in a range of gaming genres. Every reader will come away with a firm foundation onto which they can build more advanced ideas.

Customer Reviews (14)

Everything I neede to get going with XNA
Started reading the book and going through some of the examples and it is exciting.I can't wait to play with the code to see want I can do.

Good Vendor
The vendor delivered the item sooner that stated.It was quick, simple and smooth.My type of shopping.Thank you.

AWESOME for 2-d tutorial, TERRIBLE for 3-d tutorial
If you are just getting into game programming, XNA is a terrific framework to use, and this book, despite it's flaws, is a great way to get started.

The 2-D material, which takes up a little over half the book, walks you through pretty much everything you need to create a fully functional asteroids-esque clone, and even shows you how to make it playable online, multiplayer. The examples are explained well, done slowly, and while there are a few errors here and there, it's pretty accurate for the most part.

The 3-d material, in the last part of the book, started out ok, but ultimately left me wanting. It seemed to make the bad assumption that "since we're all experts on 2-d XNA programming, the book can slack off on explaining some of the details with 3-d XNA programming." The book also assumes that many of the rather difficult concepts that simply come with the territory of 3-d programming (matricies, transformations, effects, textures, etc.) are just *understood* by the reader. I'm still not completely clear on what an "effect" is (it was never clearly defined / explained). The examples jump around a lot too. I would be anything that the authors of the 2-d and 3-d sections are different -- it seems too different stylistically. The authors seem to forget that this is a BEGINNING book and try to instead speed towards stuff that "looks cool" for wow factor.

It would have been better to break this book up into two books, one for 2-d programming and one for 3-d programming, so that they can spend more time walking through the 3-d programming details. (It'd be nice to get some more practice with 2-d).

Also -- you may want to look into the 3.0 edition, I have heard they corrected many of the errors from this edition.

That said -- it would probably be worth spending a few bucks to buy a used copy of this book (or maybe buying the ebook?). Be sure to download the source code from apress.com -- you'll need it for some of the media files!

The Worst Game Design Book I Ever Bought
This book is absolutely horrible! I've followed the steps to make the first project in chapter 2 five times in both XNA 2.0 and XNA 3.0, and it won't even compile. I'm no slouch in programming either. In fact, I downloaded the source code from the web site, and even THAT has compile errors!!! Even worse, the book doesn't even tell you what code they want you to put in to the editor and what code they are just sampling for you, meaning you have to decipher that to even stand a chance at a working game. (For example, chapter 2 claims that you would have only entered a single line of code, but if you look at the example code, you would have to type almost a full paragraph). This book claims to be for novices, but if you don't already have XNA experience, STAY AWAY.

Great code, not enough explanation
I would like to say that the book is good, it covers a lot of material pretty well and the downloadable code is just excellent(the one in the book has errors or is not full). Well structured classes, usage of game components and services, no out-dated name conventions. The code can be downloaded and is up-to-date.

The problem is that the book covers a lot and does not explain it fully, the HLSL is really ran over through. There are portions of source that are not explained either. At places the book feels like source code listing rather than book. I think the book should be revised so that it includes better and thorough explanations of everything!. The 2D part I have not read. What I was looking for was the 3D and I have read 4 chapters so far and it is good that I had some background experience with 3D and XNA. Otherwise I would have felt completely lost. I found myself pondering over code (especially the shader code) trying to connect 2 and 2. This is not a good way to teach, by giving source code and explaining here and there. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the book that you want to read if you have knocked around VB 6 for a couple of years and you've decided to move up to .NET. ... For the target audience, technical books don't get much better than this.

&#8212; Dan Mabbutt, Visual Basic Guide on About.com

In Programming VB .NET: A Guide for Experienced Programmers, authors Gary Cornell and Jonathan Morrison carefully explain the exciting new features of Visual Basic .NET. Since VB .NET is, for all practical purposes, a whole new language even for the most experienced Visual Basic programmers, developers need to think differently about many familiar topics. Cornell and Morrison are there to help you with careful discussions of each topic.

All experienced programmers wishing to take advantage of the amazing new powers of VB .NET will benefit from this book's careful treatment of fundamental topics, including inheritance, interfaces, and exception handling, as well as all the powerful new features, such as stream-based I/O and true multithreading.

Cornell and Morrison write from the point of view of the experienced programmer, with constant references to the changes from earlier versions of VB. Developers learn how to use VB .NET for database programming through ADO.NET and web programming through ASP.NET. After reading Programming VB .NET: A Guide for Experienced Programmers, developers will have a firm grasp of the exciting new VB .NET language and its uses in creating powerful .NET applications.

Customer Reviews (23)

Will help you make the transition from VB6 to VB.NET
The book is primarily designed for experienced Visual Basic developers making the transition to VB.NET. However, it can also be appreciated by other experienced programmers regardless of their programming background.

The book begins with an introduction to the differences between VB.NET and VB. The next chapter introduces you to the new Visual Studio .NET integrated development environment (IDE). You will get a tour of the main windows, and learn how to compile and debug your VB.NET applications. Chapter three teaches the VB.NET syntax. You will learn the VB.NET expressions, operators, and program control flow. The next couple of chapters form the core of the book. These chapters cover object oriented programming and inheritance. VB.NET is the first truly object oriented programming version of VB, and a solid understanding of these new features is essential in taking full advantage of VB.NET's new powers.

The next few chapters go on the cover important topics such as, event handling, error handling, building user interfaces, input/output streams, and multithreading. The final two chapters give a brief introduction to database access with VB.NET using ADO.NET, and a brief overview of ASP.NET.

The book provides clear and complete coverage of all topics. It includes many real world code examples which help the reader to better understand all the concepts presented.

Good for the Beta but a little long in some chapters
This is a pretty-good book if you base it on the Beta. The chapters on OOP (Chapters 4 - Classes and Objects and 5 - Inheritance and Interfaces) are very long. Chapter 4, 5 and 6 (Event Handling and Delegates)form the heart of this book, but I would have broken them down into smaller chapters. The information in those chapters provide a good introduction to OOP. At times, I felt the authors were hard to follow and found myself re-reading several pages especially in Chapters 4 and 5. Overall this book probably is about 3 1/2 stars. I am hoping that in the next release of this book that the authors would follow their own advice and break the chapters down into smaller parts. ...

Well written and hard to put down
I bought this book and several others to prepare myself for the transition from VB6 to VB.NET.I wish they would have covered the disconnected datasets, ADO.NET and ASP.NET in more detail.I would have given it 5 stars if it had.

Other than that, I feel that it is an excellent resource to prepare a programmer from any background for VS.NET.It does a good job of covering the OOP, Inheritance, Overloading, and multithreading subjects in a concise manner.

The book also has a web site for errata and source code.Gary Cornell is a good author and it shows in this book he co-authored.

I have a few Wrox Publishing Books, but my library is starting to collect more an more APRESS books because their style and format is what I expect from a book.

Wrox does publish some good books also:
I would also recommend .NET Enterprise Development in VB.NET from Design to Deployment, ISBN 1861006179, (Wrox Publishers)

Misleading title
This book simply doesn't have enough information to be named "a guide for EXPERIENCED programmer". It is rather a quick overallintroductions. So don't get this book if you need to get some serious work done.

A wonderful book, clear and to the point
Of all the books I bought to learn VB NET, this is the one I find myself turning to repeatedly for information on object oriented programming. The author' treatment of inheritance and delegates/events are models of clarity.I also found his treatment of mutithreading to be clearer and far easier to understand than the new Wrox book which was supossedly devoted to threading. If you want a book on the VB NET language you can't do any better than this one! ... Read more

Product Description
"Create and Use Stored Procedures for Optimal Database Performance Develop complex stored procedures to retrieve, manipulate, update, and delete data. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Stored Procedure Programming in T-SQL And .NET identifies and describes the key concepts, techniques, and best practices you need to master in order to take full advantage of stored procedures using SQL Server's native Transact-SQL and .NET CLR languages. You'll learn to incorporate effective Transact-SQL stored procedures into client or middleware code, and produce CLR methods that will be compiled into CLR stored procedures. This is a must-have resource for all SQL Server 2005 developers. Essential Skills for Database Professionals * Group and execute T-SQL statements using batches, scripts, and transactions * Create user-defined, system, extended, temporary, global temporary, and remote stored procedures * Develop and manage stored procedures using C# and Visual Basic .NET * Implement database access using ADO.NET * Create CLR user-defined functions and triggers * Implement reliable debugging and error handling techniques and security measures * Manage source code in a repository such as Visual SourceSafe * Create stored procedures for web search engines * Use system and extended stored procedures to interact with the SQL Server environment" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Interesting - But not as Practical as I need.. .
Be advised that in this book, the author is in a hurry to get to advanced concepts.Only the first three chapters could be called basic.After that, it quickly climbs to advanced material before (in my opinion) sufficiently covering basic and intermediate material.By Chapter 14, the subject is, "Advanced Stored Procedure Programming".But I still can't find what I need in 1-3.Then, as if it is even more advanced, the next subject (Chap 15) is "Debugging".Please, when will we have an author who sees that debugging is a progressively learned process?Perhaps there should be a section in a chapter early on covering debugging of basic stuff.

My background as a programmer of relational databases and writing SQL statements goes back over fifteen years.As my reports and SQL statements have gotten more complex to please the customer, I have had to move into writing stored stored procedures to meet the need for speed.My intent was to get a book that would help me get my SQL statements to work as Stored Procedures.This book appeared to match my customer's software make-up (MS SQL Server, Stored Procedures, .Net, T-SQL, etc) as well as being written in a fairly straightforward and easy to understand manner (it does get a big plus on that!).But if you haven't been writing stored procedures for a year or more, and you have little staff assistance where you are, I would not recommend this book.If on the other hand, you have been doing SP's for a few years or have lots of staff help and want to go the next step, this book may be for you.I'm going to get another one that will help get the basics to work.

Easy to read explanations
I'm finding the book easy to read and understand. Some authors are hopeless, but this one is helpful

Lacks Technical Editing
Like many IT and programming books, this one is no exception in that it seems to be riddled with small errors - things like showing a database schema and then referring to a table by an incorrect name.The most problematic issue with errors like this is that details really matter in these technical fields and it results in a "not ready for prime time" feel to the work.However, if the writer's teaching style appeals to your learning style, then go ahead, because at the end of the day that's what's most important.

Stored Procedure Programming Inside Out
First off I know the author personally.In spite of that, the book definitely stands solidly on its own merits.This book is shock full of tips, tricks, angles and perspectives to maximize the use of stored procs in your SQL databases.Dejan really goes under the covers to the many aspects of SQL and the reader is the richer for it.This is a very important how to and reference for any serious SQL developer.You will go back to this book again and again.Highly recommended!

Good reference on obscure parts of T-SQL
Dejan Sunderic, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Stored Procedure Programming in T-SQL and .NET (McGraw-Hill, 2006)

Not a bad little book, this, though if you've had to dig into SQL2005 for work you're likely to have picked up on a good deal of this already. Still, Sunderic digs down into a number of places where most developers either don't normally have a reason to go or simply fear to tread. You're sure to find things in here you've overlooked (or never thought to look for) unless you're a guru, and even then there might be a [...]bit or two. For someone who just got thrust into "we're upgrading!", it's been great. *** ½ ... Read more

Product Description

Pro Crystal Enterprise/BusinessObjects XI Programming shows you how to create customized solutions using the Business Objects/Crystal Enterprise object model. Here youll see the object model utilized to create professional-quality tools like on-demand web services, report metadata extraction, scheduling, security, and user management.

Author Carl Ganz explains in detail how to build advanced reporting solutions for Crystal Enterprise/Business Objects XI. He shows how to integrate CE/BO XI with .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio to create more flexible, tailored, and responsive reporting solutions than have previously been possible. In short, youll surpass what you thought you could achieve, and learn to create almost any imaginable reporting solution that Business Objects XI can handle.

Customer Reviews (3)

Good if you only use Crystal Reports
While Carl has a lot of good SDK programming information, it all seems focused on Crystal Reports content of Business Objjects XI. I'd really like to see him update this book to include Web Intelligence and Desktop Intelligence reports used in XIR2 and up to the latest version 3.1. One thing I was searching for was how to list objects for WebI reports to match the list I have from Universes for Impact Analysis.

Excellent Reference Material
This book is one of my most-used referenced books.I've done a LOT of work using the BO XI SDK to build utility programs to help administer our system and I regularly use it to look up details.

Carl's explanations of the many of the intricacies of using the SDK and the query language are straight-forward and easy to understand. He includes many tips about undocumented and little-known features along with information about things to watch out for where the software may not behave like you would expect it to.

In addition to the SDK, there is a good overview of the admin tools that are supplied with the BusinessObjects Enterprise software and there is a full chapter on the security model.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to enhance the capabilities of their BusinessObjects system.

The best book available for Crystal Enterprise
The company I work for started a Crystal Enterprise project several months ago.I can honestly say that we would have been unable to complete the project if we did not have this book.It really takes you step-by-step in an easily readable format through what needs to be done.Also, the examples used all worked properly (a problem with many other computer books) and were extremely relevant.There are few people with Crystal Entreprise experience out there today so this book is really needed.We also find ourselves using it as a reference guide occasionally.If you are working with Crystal Enterprise or planning to implement CE I would strongly recommend this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Get the definitive guide to learning how to exploit the built-in functionality in Outlook 2007. Written by two experts on Outlook extensibility, this book delivers practical guidance and extensive code samples to help you extend, adapt, and customize information flow to the desktop.Discover how to:Programmatically create built-in item types to expose Outlook functionality in your solutionUse the Items collection and Table object to access containers for Outlook itemsConnect to shared folders, Internet calendars, and RSS subscriptionsWrite event handlers and hook up event delegates for Outlook objectsImplement programmatic search and organizational schemasAdd controls at design-time or runtime to help you build rich form regionsExtend the Office Fluent Ribbon with customized task panes and property pagesDevelop trusted add-ins that do not display security promptsWrite registry keys, install required assemblies, and deploy your solutionCompanion Web site includes:Code samples in Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C#Reusable code snippetsAdd-in templates and samples ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Essential for Outlook 2007 developers
If you're writing add-ins for Outlook, then this book is essential.The small cost of the book will save you days of trying to work out the best most appropriate ways to do things with the new object model.
Programming Outlook 2007? Writing an add-in? Want to speed up the development time?This is the book for you...

Well written and good C# examples
I found this book quite helpful since I am familiar with C# yet new to Programming with Outlook.My current assignment is to use VS 2008/C# to integrate with Outlook 2003 and 2007, I could apply some of the examples to my needs.Since I need to use VS 2008, then some of the steps are different and stick with events that would work for both Outlook versions, however, I have managed to figure them out.

Programming Office Outlook 2007 review
This book provides a good basic understanding of the process for programming Office Outlook 2007 plug-ins. It has a good spread of information about all the underlying office/outlook types and objects, although only briefly touches on their use.Demo's of using these objects are provided, covering typical basic tasks, but more advanced functionality is not really shown, though alluded to.The book makes extensive use (for C# programming) of a Shim Wizard which provides the interlinking functionality between the managed code and the COM interfaces. Unfortunately this wizard has been extensively modified since the book was published, and some of the instructions provided are out of date, resulting in the plug-in not functioning correctly.As very little information is provided with the book (and with the Wizard) working through these issues takes some time.The book's website does not include any errata to indicate the correct use of the modified wizard, though the site does contain links to the latest version of the wizard.Other than that the book is well worth it.

Great Book
Anyone who develops on Outlook should buy this book -- even if you don't have Outlook 2007. The beginning chapters review best practices and underlying architecture that every Outlook developer should understand, regardless of which version of Outlook you're using. Plus, you'll see all the great new stuff in 2007 which you'll want, so you can convince your stakeholders to upgrade. Later chapters drill into the technical details with surprising depth so you can find out what you need with only minimal trips to MSDN. Code samples are generous, albeit limited to only managed code... but that's understandable given the obvious advantages to using it for rapid application development.

The difference between this book and previous attempts to document the Outlook development experience is like night and day. Kudos to Randy and Ryan for understanding what we face and doing an admirable job at enlightening us. ... Read more

Product Description
Get up to speed on Symbian OS v7.0s with this new, from the source reference guide.

After a brief introduction to Symbian OS fundamentals the book focuses on describing the interaction between the OS and the application, broadly following the lifecycle of an application. It describes the new features particular to v7.0s and provides conceptual and theoretical underpinnings to give the reader a thorough understanding of the OS.

• Aims to build a general understanding of Symbian OS, not just for a particular smartphone or UI
• Packed with code and examples
• Details advanced features such as user interfaces, files and views, multimedia services and communications, and messaging

Customer Reviews (2)

High Level
If you want to know Symbian from a high level, buy this book.

No good for beginners
As a semi-experienced C++ programmer, I found this book utterly useless. The book contains no full working program examples. What code is offered is so out-of-context as to be indecypherable. It makes no effort to get you up and running quickly.

Definately of no use to someone who doesn't already know almost everything about C++ in Symbian OS. So, useless to everybody except academics and Symbian employees! If you do buy this anyway, prepare to read the whole book through 3 times, spend a lifetime in the forums and a fortune on coffee and headache pills, before you can approach a semblance of reasonable proficiency.

A beginners' book is due to be published in October 2005 by Symbian Press. Till then, stick with Java for mobile development unless your life depends upon it. ... Read more

Product Description
Here you will find interesting exercises that show you, step-by-step, how to write programs that use the iPhone's built-in camera.

The book provides you with several unique benefits:

Unique Benefit #1: Written from scratch for the new iPhone OS 3.1 Camera Interface.

While other books cover the previous, less functional camera interface that was in iPhone OS 2.x and 3.0, this book focuses 100% on the new iPhone OS 3.1 Camera Interface.

Unique Benefit #2: Step-by-Step Exercises.

If you are a beginner, you can follow every step, and learn every key skill. If you are an expert, you can skip directly to those steps you need to refresh or enhanced your existing skills.

Unique Benefit #3: As few words as possible, but no fewer.

While some books focus on writing as many words as possible, the goal here is to write only the key words that you need to quickly learn and master iPhone programming skills.

The iPhone OS 3.1 technologies that you will use in these exercises include:

UIImagePickerController

This class handles the details of displaying a camera, a photo library, or a photo album. While this class existed in previous versions of iPhone OS, additional functionality was added in iPhone OS 3.1 to provide a camera overlay view and program control of taking a photo.

UIImagePickerControllerDelegate

This protocol provides two methods for notifying you of the user's selection (cancel or select photo) when using the UIImagePickerController. As with the class, this protocol has additional functionality in iPhone OS 3.1.

UIImage

This class represents the image taken by the camera.

As you work through these exercises, here are some of the skills that you will learn.

* How to display the default camera.
* How to override the default camera with your own custom view.
* How to scale the camera image.
* How to save the camera image.
* How to take control of the camera shutter button, pressing the button under program control.

Contents

Introduction

Exercise 1. Create New Xcode Project

Exercise 2. Determine Photo Source Type

Exercise 3. Display Camera

Exercise 4. Respond To Camera Buttons

Exercise 5. Add Move and Scale (Editing)

Exercise 6. Save Images To Photo Album

Exercise 7. Add Camera Overlay View - Part 1

Exercise 8. Add Camera Overlay View - Part 2

Exercise 9. Hide Camera Buttons

Exercise 10. Program Control of Shutter

UIImagePickerController Reference

UIImagePickerControllerDelegate Reference

UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum() Reference


... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent Quick Start to Learning iPhone Camera for OS 3.x
* These exercises saved me a lot of time. Well worth the $4.95 price
* A great start to getting familiar with the new and changed camera features for iPhone OS v3.x.
* Norman comments pretty much every line of code and include several NSLog statements. Really helped me learn what is going on, instead of just copying a bunch of lines of code.
NOTE: You don't have to have a Kindle to use this. You can download the Amazon Kindle app for iPhone and iPod touch and view it on your handheld. The screen is a little small for viewing code, but the reader is free and it works! I can't find a way to copy / paste code, so you will need to type the lines manually. This appears to be a limitation of the Kindle reader, not Norman's offering. ... Read more

Product Description
Linear Programming: Foundations and Extensions is anintroduction to the field of optimization. The book emphasizesconstrained optimization, beginning with a substantial treatment oflinear programming, and proceeding to convex analysis, network flows,integer programming, quadratic programming, and convex optimization.

The book is carefully written. Specific examples and concretealgorithms precede more abstract topics. Topics are clearly developedwith a large number of numerical examples worked out in detail. Moreover, Linear Programming: Foundations and Extensionsunderscores the purpose of optimization: to solve practical problemson a computer. Accordingly, the book is coordinated with freeefficient C programs that implement the major algorithms studied:

+The two-phase simplex method;+Theprimal--dual simplex method;+The path-followinginterior-point method;+The homogeneous self-dual methods. In addition, there are online JAVA applets that illustrate variouspivot rules and variants of the simplex method, both for linearprogramming and for network flows.Also, check the book'swebpage for new online instructional tools and exercises that havebeen added in the new edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Professor Robert Freund's review
This is a much more detailed one as compared to the other two and was penned by MIT ORC Professor Robert Freund.

Summary. This book presents a thoroughly modern treatment of linear programming that achieves a healthy balance between theory, implementation, computation, and between the simplex method and interior-point methods. It's most novel feature is that it is written in a delightful and refreshing conversational style, that bespeaks the author's teaching style and relaxed wit. It is a pleasure to read: students will find the book to be friendly and engaging, while professors will find in the book a wealth of teaching material, nicely organized and packaged for classroom use. The book is also meant to be used in conjunction with a public-available website that contains software for various algorithms, additional exercises, and demos of algorithms.
The need for new linear programming textbooks. The world of linear programming has changed dramatically in the last ten years. For one thing, the incredible changes in computer technology have made it easy to solve truly huge LPs, and routine LP problems solve in fractions of a second even on a personal computer. As a result, the study of linear programming algorithms is of less interest to the casual student. (In a similar vein, we usually do not teach students how to efficiently compute square roots; we simply presume they can press the right buttons on their calculator.) On the other hand, because we can now solve truly gigantic linear programs, issues of computer implementation, numerical stability, and software architecture, etc., are as important for the serious optimizer as is, say, duality theory. Furthermore, the development and recognition of the importance of interior point methods has changed the landscape of linear programming significantly, so that linear programming is no longer synonymous with the simplex method, and a modern treatment of LP must also present an in-depth treatment of the most important interior point methods.

Vanderbei's book is thoroughly modern. Vanderbei's book is completely up-to-date. Aside from a nice treatment of the simplex method, it also contains a very up-to-date treatment of interior point methods, including the homogeneous self-dual formulation and algorithm (which might soon become the dominant algorithm in practice and theory). It contains extensive material on issues of implementation of both the simplex algorithm and interior point algorithms. A politician might call it a book for the 21st century.

Vanderbei's book has many novel features. This book is quite different from most other textbooks on LP in a number of important ways. For starters, the standard form of a linear program in the book is the symmetric form of the problem (max c^T x | Ax <= b, x >= 0), as opposed to the usual form (min c^T x | Ax=b, x >= 0). This difference allows for an easier treatment of duality, and allows one to see the geometry of linear programming more easily as well. The symmetric form also makes it easier to set up the homogeneous self-dual interior point algorithm. However, this form has the drawback that discussions of bases, basic feasible solutions, and some of the mechanics of the simplex method are all a bit more awkward. (The book uses the language of dictionaries to describe the essential information in a simplex method iteration.) The book has more of a focus on engineering applications than does the more typcial LP textbook (which tend to rely on business problems). For example, there is a nice chapter on optimization of engineering structures such as trusses. The book gives a very broad treatment of interior point methods, including several topics that are not usually found in textbooks such as the homogeneous self-dual formulation and algorithm, quadratic programming via interior point methods, and general convex optimization via interior point methods.

These novel features are good in that the author has clearly tried to be innovative and to build an LP text from the ground up, without regard for past texts.

Some Nice Features. There are some particularly nice features in the book. The book contains a much-simplified variant of the Klee-Minty polytope that allows for a more straightforward proof that the simplex method can visit exponentially many extreme points. In addition to proving strong duality, the book also presents Tucker's strict complementarity theorem, which has become important in the new view of sensitivity analysis, optimal partitions, and interior point methods. The book also contains a nice treatment of the steepest edge pivot rule, which has recently emerged as an important component in speeding up the performance of the simplex algorithm. In the treatment of interior point methods, the author spends very little time on polynomial time bounds and guarantees (as a theorist, I like to see this material), instead adding value by discussing important computational and implemention issues, including ordering heuristics, strategies for solving the KKT system by Newton's method, etc. The book sometimes has an engineer's feel for the proofs, which is good for students but is a bit frustrating to hard-core math types such as myself. There are many instances where the proof is just a proof via an example. This is consistent with the conversational and informal style of the text, and this informality spills over into the mathematics on occasion.

This book has style. As mentioned earlier, the book has a wonderfully appealing conversational style. While the author does not purposely go out of his way to be cute and corny, he succeeds in leaving the reader grinning with his humor. There are some passages that are downright funny, but the style succeeds mostly by default. One section on the issue of modeling the anchoring of truss design problems is called Anchors Away, the subsection on updating factorizations to reduce fill-in is aptly called Shrinking the Bump. And there is the hint of a racy discussion of an application of Konig's Theorem involving boys and girls that the curious reader might enjoy.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed reviewing this book, and I highly recommend the book as a textbook for an advanced undergraduate or master's level course in linear programming, particularly for courses in an engineering environment. In addition, the book also is a good reference book for interior point methods as well as for implementation and computational aspects of linear programming. This is an excellent new book. ... Read more

Product Description

The Complete Developer's Guide to Python

Customer Reviews (38)

This book takes you nowhere...
As a UNIX/linux shell programmer for 20 years, this book took me nowhere... I'm not sure what the author had in mind, but it wasn't for python programming. That's for sure... The scam of writing "really bad books" has to stop. Next time I will not waste my money but check it out from my local library. I just made a calculation, and only 20% of programming books I have purchased are good. The remaining 80% (like this one) are plainly junk.

Excellent reference for Python
Summary: Core Python Programming lives next to my keyboard.

Having been programming, in a scientific role, for a decade, I recently took up Python. This book was the text used with a short course on Python I took, and I can see why. As other reviewers have said, Python has excellent documentation; what the Python documentation usually lacks is both practical examples and an explanation of why. This book gives both of those things and in a very readable way. It's been the fastest and simplest way for me to get to grips with object-oriented concepts, and has been a great reference for most things I've needed to do.

Drawbacks: If you've never programmed before, this probably isn't for you - perhaps try Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition, which covers programming fundamentals while teaching you Python. For those with a little more background, I really like Dive Into Python 3 (free under a GNU license, so Google it). For experienced Python programmers, this perhaps doesn't have sufficient depth as it's not specialized in any one area. If you want to learn Python for basic data analysis and visualization (without a need/desire to do more), then go for Beginning Python Visualization: Crafting Visual Transformation Scripts (Books for Professionals by Professionals).

This really is a good CORE Python book. It's not really a beginner's guide, or a specialist text on any given niche topic. It's a great reference and that's it.

Avoid this textbook pretender--ANNOYED
I purchased this book from a bricks and morter bookstore and after spending a frustrating week with it realized the the annoying habit of the author presenting a snippet of code and then coping-out when it came to adding anything that would make it possible to invoke the snippet (read, to make it ACTUALLY useful). He would announce that HE LEFT THAT EXERCISE FOR THE READER.
Really?
Either he has delusions of someone using this book as textbook (not a chance) or he is just too lazy.
I RETURNED THE BOOK, and by the way, I NEVER WRITE REVIEWS. That's how annoyed I was with this book.

Excellent
This is by far the best of the five Python books I have, and one of the best general programming books I've read.The book covers every aspect of Python, from basic syntax to regular expressions, object-oriented programming, database manipulation, GUI development, and Jython.The numerous examples are compact and emphasize the topic being presented.And Wesley Chun explains the philosophy behind Python and how to make programs more "Pythonesque."

So-so
I bought this after reading its review on Slashdot, but I'm a little disappointed. Sometimes Chun just gives code with no explanation, and other times he glosses over examples of how to use things in favor of prose. I've also found some typos, perhaps the most amusing of which is his repeatedly calling Python creator Guido van Rossum "van Rossum Guido" in one part of the book.

I haven't read any other Python books, but even if this one really is a best-of-breed, IMHO it is just so-so.

Hence, I decided after about 400 pages to read other things instead. I got what I wanted out of it, after supplementing with a couple side projects to fill in the gaps with hands-on experience and the official docs. ... Read more

Product Description
The traditional division of labor between the database (which only stores and manages SQL and XML data for fast, easy data search and retrieval) and the application server (which runs application or business logic, and presentation logic) is obsolete. Although the books primary focus is on programming the Oracle Database, the concepts and techniques provided apply to most RDBMS that support Java including Oracle, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. This is the first book to cover new Java, JDBC, SQLJ, JPublisher and Web Services features in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (the coverage starts with Oracle 9i Release 2). This book is a must-read for database developers audience (DBAs, database applications developers, data architects), Java developers (JDBC, SQLJ, J2EE, and OR Mapping frameworks), and to the emerging Web Services assemblers.* Describes pragmatic solutions, advanced database applications, as well as provision of a wealth of code samples* Addresses programming models which run within the database as well as programming models which run in middle-tier or client-tier against the database.* Discusses languages for stored procedures: when to use proprietary languages such as PL/SQL and when to use standard languages such as Java; also running non-Java scripting languages in the database* Describes the Java runtime in the Oracle database 10g (i.e., OracleJVM), its architecture, memory management, security management, threading, Java execution, the Native Compiler (i.e., NCOMP), how to make Java known to SQL and PL/SQL, data types mapping, how to call-out to external Web components, EJB components, ERP frameworks, and external databases.* Describes JDBC programming and the new Oracle JDBC 10g features, its advanced connection services (pooling, failover, load-balancing, and the fast database event notification mechanism) for clustered databases (RAC) in Grid environments.* Describes SQLJ programming and the latest Oracle SQLJ 10g features , contrasting it with JDBC* Describes the latest Database Web services features, Web services concepts and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) for DBA, the database as Web services provider and the database as Web services consumer.* Abridged coverage of JPublisher 10g, a versatile complement to JDBC, SQLJ and Database Web Services. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Rating the Reviewers
I have read all the Amazon reviews for this book, which I have purchased, but not yet completed reading.In brief, its content is excellent, but its English is weak and nonstandard.

It is noteworthy that all of the Amazon 5* reviews employ broken, marginal English, while those of less than 5* rating, save for this one, employ readable English.

This book is worth buying only if your tolerance of Third World English is high.Frankly, it reflects (not represents) the current state of the IT profession.Walk into most IT shops and written English capability is at 3rd, 4th grade level.Once upon a time, badly formulated English was verboten in professional ranks.Now, it is normal.Once upon a time, badly formulated English was absolutely verboten in publication ranks.Now, even publishers bastardize English, and think nothing of it.A sorry state of affairs.

Credit to the author for a book with valuable content.Zero credit to the publisher for complete negligence in failing to edit.

Needs complete revision
I have 2 bookcases filled with computer science and engineering texts.This is by far the worst of all of them... as far as the writing is concerned.The grammar is horrible.Obviously no spell check was used.Some books require reading sections a couple of times, just because the concepts are difficult to grasp.This book requires re-reading of sections just because the wording is so poor, despite the concepts being fairly straight-forward.On the positive side, the book presents lots of useful ideas and practical examples.

Outstanding
I've been doing Oracle database-related application design and development since before Java even existed.As time progressed, Java became more and more prevalent in the Enterprise environment, web servers became application servers, and before you knew it, Java was being run right in the database.

It has always been difficult and confusing to figure out the various Java technologies and tools and implementations when it comes to a complete Enterprise system... until now.

Kuassi does a remarkable job of providing keen and detailed insight into all aspects of Java in the Oracle Database realm.

A nice, logical technical progression as well as very detailed code samples make this book useful for those wishing to introduce themselves to the basic concepts, or write a specific implementation.

The detailed case studies that show real code used in real world solutions are invaluable.(We've already implemented one of them for a new project we're starting on!)

All in all, it's an excellent book and should be on the shelf of any DBA/Developer that has anything to do with Java in their environment.

Nice but Incomplete
This book has a good deal of information that is accessible. However, several coding examples are incomplete and in some cases misleading. Given the strengths of the book, they are probably oversights or space limitations. The missing code segments are too frequently in the wrong places.

The code examples predominate the book. Hidden gems are nested where readers only find them searching out topics. On a bright note, the index is good at locating what is in the book.

For Java programmers looking to exploit Oracle, indeed!
I've been programming in C++, Corba and Java for years and was looking for a book to develop agaisnt the Oracle database. First of all this book is well written and at a glance, it covers all the API and utilities that a Java developer may use to exploit the Oracle database including Java in the database, JDBC, SQLJ, JPublisher and Database Web services ( Corba folks like myselfwill love the Web services part). You will be amazed reading through this book all the possibilities that Java in the database allows ; the Groovy and Jython stored procedures are just well presented. I am right now digging into Part-II dedicated to JDBC, the Rowset API, RAC support, etc. This book will provide great career advancement opportunities. I strongly recommend this book to my Java developers fellows. ... Read more

Product Description
A hands-on introduction to parallel programming based on the Message-Passing Interface (MPI) standard, the de-facto industry standard adopted by major vendors of commercial parallel systems. This textbook/tutorial, based on the C language, contains many fully-developed examples and exercises. The complete source code for the examples is available in both C and Fortran 77. Students and professionals will find that the portability of MPI, combined with a thorough grounding in parallel programming principles, will allow them to program any parallel system, from a network of workstations to a parallel supercomputer.

* Proceeds from basic blocking sends and receives to the most esoteric aspects of MPI.
* Includes extensive coverage of performance and debugging.
* Discusses a variety of approaches to the problem of basic I/O on parallel machines.
* Provides exercises and programming assignments. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

For C programmers, Fortran programmers get a challenge
For the undergraduate or graduate student who programs in C, this book is a well-written and informative introduction to MPI programming. However, for the old-school Fortran programmer, the book offers little guidance. Typical students today will be writing code in C (or its derivatives), and so the choice of programming language is logical, but I have still spent a lot more time online looking up MPI Fortran code and syntax than using the book.

Overall, the text itself is solid and readable. A Fortran version of the text would be nice, but the online code snippets are good enough to get you started.

Great for MPI beginners
Pacheco's book is a strong, gently paced introduction to a very complex API. MPI, the message passing interface, is the most common coordination tool for parallel scientific computing. When a Blue Gene programmer has 1,000 or 100,000 processors all working on different parts of one calculation, there's a big problem in getting partial results from where they're computed to where they're needed. That's what MPI is for.

When the problem is so complicated, the solution is also complicated. Pacheco does a good job of breaking MPI down into digestible pieces, starting with the basic send and receive primitives that you'll use most often. He presents each new part of the API in terms of some problem to be solved, keeping a concrete and practical tone to this book. He gradually adds more pieces in terms of more practical exercises: broadcasts and reductions, scatter and gather, data structuring, communicators, and asynchronous IO.

Along the way, Pacheco introduces algorithms that even experienced uniprocessor programmers may not be familiar with, including bitonic sorting and Fox's algorithm for matrix multiplication. This isn't gratuitous intellectual showmanship. It's a pointed demonstration that, when communication barriers change the computation landscape, old paths to solutions may not be the best routes any more. After finishing with the MPI API itself, Pacheco presents debugging techniques and common kinds of support libraries, as well as basic techniques for analyzing the potential and actual acceleration possible for a given problem.

If you're serious about MPI, you'll need the official standard for understanding the fussy details of these complex APIs. That's a pretty brutal way for a beginner to get going, though. This introduces not only the basic concepts of MPI, but also the basics of how to think about highly parallel programming. And, as multi-threaded multi-core multi-processor systems become common, that's an increasing percentage of all programming.

//wiredweird

Your MPI on-ramp
I read this book over the past week, covering chapters 1 through 6, skimming 7-10, and reading 11 through the final chapter 16. Its basically applied MPI programming, done up very well and clearly, starting with architectural history & motivations and leading into a simple numerical integrator example program in chapter 4 (chapter 3 was the MPI `hello, world'). The coding used is C, and I wrote my own integrator after finishing chapter 4 to also explore floating point numbers in calculations, loop control, and to integrate arbitrary functions on arbitrary intervals with adjustable resolution. The integrator is developed more fully throughout the book wherein MPI performance issues of the original design are pointed out and polished off as additional MPI functions and techniques are introduced. Some of these techniques included tree-structured initialization & broadcasts, data communication optimizations (such as derived types, packing / unpacking, etc), and guidance as to when certain techniques would be more useful than others offered by MPI. Communications are further advanced later in the book where the important non-blocking forms and more advanced concepts are brought to light & illustrated. Empirical analysis of algorithmic performance occupies two full chapters and is very interesting, including a detailed look into Amdahl's law. Its an excellent example of why we should keeps our eyes open in research. Program design & troubleshooting are also covered, but I only skimmed those chapters. Several parallel algorithms and some parallel libraries are also treated well in the text. At only 362 pages, (minus appendices) this book is a quick read and a superb lab manual. If you are a software developer just now getting into MPI, this book will certainly accelerate you onto MPI with the confidence that you can do anything with it. Just give it a week of your time. Its the perfect self-study manual.
5-stars

Just what I needed
I was looking for a good introduction into MPI to parallelize some software I had written. Somehow, no online resources seemed to cover the topic well, so $30 seemed like a worthwhile investment, compared to my time. I got this book and the more recent one by Quinn (PP in C with MPI and OpenMP). This one's the hands-down winner. I basically scanned it in bed for three nights, and two weeks later my code is running like a charm. Just the right mix of reference and tutorial, very little distraction, and a pleasant read throughout.

Highly recommended.

Well written, easy for someone who is not an MPI guru... yet
The book is written very well and goes through how the MPI functions work and all their parameters in pretty fine detail.He even talks about the simpler things many books overlook.The only thing I wish was in this book, and this has nothing to do with the quality of the book, is some C++ reference or talk of the C++ MPI calls.This book is written with examples in C only (I think FORTRAN one may be available online), but the theory he teaches and the design of the programs will work for any language, of course.It would be nice to have a good reference chapter that lists the FORTRAN MPI functions and the C++ ones too though. ... Read more

Product Description

Beginning Object-Oriented Programming with Visual Basic .NET 2.0 is a comprehensive resource of correct coding procedures. Author Dan Clark takes you through all the stages of a programming project, including analysis, modeling, and development, all using object-oriented programming techniques and VB .NET.

Customer Reviews (6)

Highly Recommend this vb.net oop book
If you are not real OOP developer, you have to read this book.
The author explains many oop knowledge clearly and easily to understand.
This is the only book that really combine oop theory and ve.net. The important thing is you can understand it and you can do it.
I try to contact the aurhor to know the next step book what I need to read.

A gem!
I thought the first 4 chapters were boring, but in fact the idea was to build your skill before you code the application! This book was written in a way that readers should already be familiar with OOP terminologies because it does not go into detailed explanation like those for dummies books do.Instead, it shows you how to analyze a problem, draw the diagrams and design the application! This is so far the best book i've read about object-oriented programming using VB, toppling Deb Kurata's or Alistaire Mcmonnies' books on my list. This book will teach you how to do UML/USE CASE so you can design a robust application. This is not a beginner's book on object oriented VB. I've had some knowledge in Java object programming and I know a little of object programming, but reading this book the first time has confused me as the author seemed to have tried to squeeze the discussions in short chapters and programming codes are not explained well, delving right into OOP design and techniques. As the author mentioned in the book, he doesn't know the skill level of a 'beginner', so he added some short intro to programming at the back of the book (Appendix A), so I believe the audience of this book are those 'beginners' to OOP but not to programming. I applaud Dan Clark for the way he laid out the teaching concept of this book, and how I wish he would follow this up with an advanced book with lots of case studies and applications starting from analysis to coding again. Highly recommended!

Book in very good condition
This book is in very good condition.Shipping very fast.Overall I'm very satisfied with my purchase.

I thought I got the shaft, but then discovered the gold.
I performed some programming in Visual Basic 6 a few years ago and then my job was changed so that I was maintaining a Unix program for a few years, which entailed putting fires out each day and very little programming of any type.A few months ago I was fortunate enough to get transferred to a great job programming web sites and some Windows applications. I've been able to write some fairly complex programs, but I knew I was missing some large piece of the puzzle. I'm really a novice programmer.I wasn't creating classes and I wasn't doing a lot of things that were efficient.If my programs needed to do more or scale, they were very difficult to adjust.During these months I've purchased a lot of books, and they had good stuff in them, but I still wasn't able to put things together.I would see things like "WithEvents" and ask what was that for.I had to do some threading and succeeded, but only by trial and error and I didn't understand the "why" of why it worked. For that matter, there was a lot that I didn't understand the "why" about.

I then thought that, even though I was using objects, that I didn't really understand object-orientated programming enough.I looked on some User Group sites and saw this book listed as a good one.

I held high hopes for this book. It's my first book from Apress.I started reading the first 4 chapters, which were on how to design and plan an OOP program.I'm convinced his information is important but ugh!It was horribly boring!I was mostly through the 2nd chapter when I thought I'd committ suicide .I had to quit reading chapters 2-4 and tell myself I'll get back to that later.Yes, it's that boring.It's worse than hearing your girlfriend talk for hours about makeup and dresses!So I skipped to Chapter 5 which gave basic instructions on using Visual Studio.I thought, "Why put this beginner's crap in this book".If you need to know the basics of VS, then get a beginner's book on VS. It shouldn't have been here.
By this time I'm thinking I bought a book of garbage.But I went on to Chapter 6, and I'm glad I did.It finally got to the point and started talking about OOP and classes, constructors, overloading - and I was getting some of the elusive "why" explained!Chapter 7 got into inheritance, derived classes, overriding and overloading, etc with more of the "why".Chapter 8 got into the stuff like "WithEvents" and delegates, and how delegates work with threading.You will need to use threading and you will see "why".In geekspeak, threading is cool!Chapter 9 shows how to work with Collections (arrays, dictionaries, etc).This chapter didn't explain much "why" but when I need Collections there is enough to be able to implement them. Chapter 10 starts explaining some "why" regarding databases, such as connected versus disconnected data access.The examples use SQL Server.Chapter 11 looks at forms in a different light from other books, looking at them as objects instead of just sticking controls on them, and works with using databases more.

Now I feel better about going back to the first 4 boring chapters as I will now have something to build with.

To a complete beginner, I would say to first get a basic VB.NET beginner's book and get familair with VB and Visual Studio. If this is your very first book you will be very lost.The book is made for a novice.

This book is one of the most important I have read.I am making progress very quickly over the last week or two, while previously I sputtered for several months.I've tried to convey how I felt, and if you feel similar, you must get this book.

Not exactly Like the title says
I have to admit, has some interesting stuff and information on how to make the theory of Classes to Programs, but I can not agree that is novice to professional, in my opinion I would say just novice.

Leaves many un-answered questions.

But can work as a reference. ... Read more