Book Description
Dashboards have become popular in recent years as uniquely powerful tools for communicating important information at a glance. Although dashboards are potentially powerful, this potential is rarely realized. The greatest display technology in the world won't solve this if you fail to use effective visual design. And if a dashboard fails to tell you precisely what you need to know in an instant, you'll never use it, even if it's filled with cute gauges, meters, and traffic lights. Don't let your investment in dashboard technology go to waste.
This book will teach you the visual design skills you need to create dashboards that communicate clearly, rapidly, and compellingly. Information Dashboard Design will explain how to:
- Avoid the thirteen mistakes common to dashboard design
- Provide viewers with the information they need quickly and clearly
- Apply what we now know about visual perception to the visual presentation of information
- Minimize distractions, cliches, and unnecessary embellishments that create confusion
- Organize business information to support meaning and usability
- Create an aesthetically pleasing viewing experience
- Maintain consistency of design to provide accurate interpretation
- Optimize the power of dashboard technology by pairing it with visual effectiveness
Stephen Few has over 20 years of experience as an IT innovator, consultant, and educator. As Principal of the consultancy Perceptual Edge, Stephen focuses on data visualization for analyzing and communicating quantitative business information. He provides consulting and training services, speaks frequently at conferences, and teaches in the MBA program at the University of California in Berkeley. He is also the author of Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten. Visit his website at www.perceptualedge.com.
Customer Reviews:
Buy this Book!.......2007-09-12
This book is great, it gets to the point, tells you what you need to know, provides many examples and is entertaining at the same time. The people who are still fascinated by all the colors in their kids Crayola boxes probably would object to some of Few's points.
Over-raed approach to stern looking dashboards.......2007-09-03
The key elements of dashboard design (avoid clutter, focus and limit visual cues, beware of rainbow colors, carefully chose when to show numbers, tables or (appropriate) graphs), converted in a very lengthy and expensive piece of litterature. And the results is by all accounts debatable in terms of look and feel, in particular as very little attention is given to who your audience is...
I would not recommend this book.
Another Tech Book Killed by Frills and Filler .......2007-09-02
There can be no doubt that the pages of this book contain some of the most original and decisive ideas about dashboard design of any book to come out on the market. Yet this strength cannot quite redeem it. This book is mostly pictures, figures, and graphs, many of which are not needed. The same could be said of dashboards in general. The prose is watered down and childlike, as if the author would spoon feed his ideas, one per chapter, to an infant audience. In the end I am forced to conclude that, like many tech books in HCI, a hard core text filled with complex ideas, lean, well-written chapters, and something like wit is both outside the reach of its authors and outside the bounds of contemporary techie marketing. This book may sell, but it does nothing to promote a sophisticated, confident HCI core at a time when awareness of the profession is still patchy. It will be a great day for HCI when its "Gurus" stop condescending to their audience.
Excellent Treatment of the Material.......2007-08-17
This is an easy to read book which does a fantastic job of conveying the topic material. I strongly agree with Few's perspective and think that you wouldn't go wrong with a design that's in alignment with this book.
Great design principles.......2007-08-08
This manual is a great resource for best practices and principles for designing dashboards. It doesn't matter if you buy or build, the material is golden.
Book Description
Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.
Customer Reviews:
best book for learning character sub-d modeling and animation.......2007-10-16
This is not just a good Blender book, this book is the best Ive seen for learning the whole process of modeling and animating a 3D character. If you are new to 3D, you should know that Blender has a very difficult interface in which to learn, although all the rabid Blender devotees will tell you once you learn it, its the best workflow (I still dont know Blender well enough to make a fair call). But not only does this book effortlessly explain how to use the interface, it teaches very good modeling practices by using a simple but good quality character in which is used for entire book (the body was very easy, the face sort of tricky). This is so much better than regular 3D books that jump around to a thousand different unrelated aspects to the interface. You also are given a brief but good coverage of materials and texturing. And then go on to make quite a complex rig as well as many other aspects of rigging and skinning such as action constraints and facial animation with lip syncing. The book also covers nonlinear animation, lattice deformation and metaballs as well as python scripting. And of course how to render the final animation. Ive found no other 3D modeling/animation book that covers all this so simply. And I was even able to send my .blend file to the email the author provided in the book when I got stuck on rigging and he gladly gave advice.
not bad at all.......2007-10-10
I pre-ordered this book the moment it appeared on Amazon...there are few resources which delve so in depth on this subject with blender all in one place, so if you're a blender enthusiast, it is surely the way to go.
Tony Mullen's writing style is superb for any newbie who wants to understand, a style which seems to be fairly prevalent in much of the resources that the blender community offers. They tend to write for those whom they know may or may not have extensive experience in CGI. If someone writes an introduction to the concepts of Blender, they write it accordingly. mind you this is an individual who holds a Ph.D. and yet his writing isn't intimidating at all.
I also enjoyed the forwards by Bassam Kurdali and Ton Roosendaal
and as far as having a problem with the included dvd, it worked just fine! And I really enjoyed watching the surreal "Elephant Dream", who knew blender could accomplish so much? though I do suspect that some heavy programming was done to accomplish some of the effects, but at least you get an idea that Blender is a very, very serious program with some amazing abilities.
Excellent!.......2007-08-25
If you are new to Blender and 3d animation, this book will help you to "open your mind to the possibilities". You will learn to build and animate your own character step by step. Easy to follow and very well explained. The included DVD has a lot of animation samples and source files used in the book. Go for it!
Great Blender Intro and Character Design.......2007-08-17
Of all the books I've read on 3D, this is the first that actually has been useful and direct to me. I have been using Blender 3D for a year now, but I found that there was alot of cool features that I missed that I then learned from this book.
Besides a great introduction, this book flows smoothly with the creation of a face from only a reference photo (with all the intermediate steps to get there), and then the rest of the book is showing how to build a a fully rigged (ready for animation) character from scratch. I am so amazed with this book.
This is a definitely a worthwhile book. I teach Blender 3D for a organization at Texas A&M University, and I suggest this to them all.
Animation Motivated Novices .......2007-08-13
Great book for the Blender Project. The intro says it all, for Blender Pros and highly motivated novices. Great tutorial and all the pieces included on CD.
Customer Reviews:
Qt book really helps get you started........2007-09-22
I've recently started GUI programming again after about 12 years doing other things, and I've never used Qt. I needed a book to get me started, and this one really worked well. It provides many examples and pieces of template code that help bootstrap whatever it is that you need to do. The major pieces of functionality are all covered, and the explanations are precise and understandable.
My one complaint for this book is that it doesn't cover everything in Qt. For more esoteric things you'll have to switch over to the Qt on-line documentation available at trolltech.com. I've read other reviewers' complaints that the information in this book is all available at the Qt web site. That may be true, but if you're just learning, this book presents things in a logical and subsetted way. Also, since it has an index, it's easier to look up a specific area of interest.
Overall, I highly recommend this book if you're just starting out with Qt and/or GUI programming in general.
Well structured and nice examples........2007-07-14
What impressed me the most, was how simple was to build a drawing icon widget and a spreadsheet with qt 4. I believe that this is a must have.
Amazing real-world reference.......2007-03-13
This book is one of the best reference materials I have read. The author is clearly not regurgitating Trolltech's documentation but elegantly cranks out a series of real life applications.
I read this quite differently than other 'introductions to'. In fact, I initially ignored it. But when it came time to build my own code, I kept running into questions as to how a particular programming problem was approached 'the right way'. A reference manual only shows you what you can do and there is an abundance of literature out there which will show you all the minutiae of endless variations of function calls - theory.
This book showed me how to properly put together FTP sessions, build a graphical directory tree of my own and much else. I am less interested in 'what does the framework offer?' but 'how do I best accomplish this task?'. This only an author with real-world programming experience can answer. This book's teaching by example will get you started quicker in Qt than anything else I have seen.
The other book 'Introduction to design patterns in C++ with Qt4' is also recommended but fairly high-level. The two together make a great combination.
If you want to learn QT4, this is your book!.......2007-03-10
I think that is a good book to learn QT4 for different reasons. One of those is that is a book plenty of examples. You can learn to program with QT4, without previously experience in QT.
Touch all the main aspects of QT (from beginning to advanced programming) in a good way.
The sequence of the chapters are adequate.
The examples in the book are clear and the code is self-explained, and It helps a lot to understand the main concepts explained in the book.
Definitively, It's a learner's book, not a reference's book.
A recommended book to learn QT programming.
A comprehensive guide.......2007-01-20
A really comprehensive guide to GUI programming with QT4, with some hints as to porting QT3 code.
Book Description
Brilliantly compiled by author Juval Lowy, Programming .NET Components, Second Edition is the consummate introduction to the Microsoft .NET Framework--the technology of choice for building components on Windows platforms. From its many lessons, tips, and guidelines, readers will learn how to use the .NET Framework to program reusable, maintainable, and robust components. Following in the footsteps of its best-selling predecessor, Programming .NET Components, Second Edition has been updated to cover .NET 2.0. It remains one of the few practical books available on this topic. This invaluable resource is targeted at anyone who develops complex or enterprise-level applications with the .NET platform--an ever-widening market. In fact, nearly two million Microsoft developers worldwide now work on such systems. Programming .NET Components, Second Edition begins with a look at the fundamentals of component-oriented programming and then progresses from there. It takes the time to carefully examine how components can simplify and add flexibility to complex applications by allowing users to extend their capabilities. Next, the book introduces a variety of .NET essentials, as well as .NET development techniques. Within this discussion on component development, a separate chapter is devoted to each critical development feature, including asynchronous calls, serialization, remoting, security, and more. All the while, hazardous programming pitfalls are pointed out, saving the reader from experiencing them the hard way. A .NET expert and noted authority on component-oriented programming, Lowy uses his unique access to Microsoft technical teams to the best possible advantage, conveying detailed, insider information in easy-to-grasp, activity-filled language. This hands-on approach is designed to allow individuals to learn by doing rather than just reading. Indeed, after digesting Programming .NET Components, Second Edition, readers should be able to start developing .NET components immediately. Programming .NET Components, Second Edition is the consummate introduction to the Microsoft .NET Framework--the technology of choice for building components on Windows platforms. From its many lessons, tips, and guidelines, readers will learn how to use the .NET Framework to program reusable, maintainable, and robust components. Following in the footsteps of its best-selling predecessor, Programming .NET Components, Second Edition has been updated to cover .NET 2.0. This invaluable resource is targeted at anyone who develops complex or enterprise-level applications with the .NET platform--an ever-widening market.
Customer Reviews:
Great, but...........2007-08-24
This book is incredibilly well written and has a very comprehensive way of explaining the ways of Component oriented programing. Explains its differences betweent COP and OOP. You can easily understand what the author has in mind, BUT, I found one big flaw on this book. Not that this flaw will make the book less comprehensive, but it will make it less fun.
In all concepts it presents Examples, but not exercises. It explains the features and then give a short example to it. It doesn't stimulate the reader to actually build a code within a major context. You read, see the example and move on to the next topic. It is not fun to just stay around and read and read and read without actually working with the book. It is still a great book, but the approach to the reader could be better.
Excellent book with an eye for Component Oriented Design.......2007-08-16
While going over component and control design, this book teaches the principles of the component-oriented design philosophy. The author doesn't pander and isn't overly verbose; getting to the point and explaining his meaning efficiently and succinctly. Definitely worth the read.
Good for Newbies.......2007-06-08
Book goes through the entire process of building controls, nothing is untouched. It dwells however much too long on the 'standard' topics of installation, distribution, setting up etc and is rather lite on the the real stuff like building controls that look and feel like commercial controls. Would be a good book if it had 20% of the pages.
Excellent in what it covers.......2007-03-08
Pros:
Material that was covered was done an a very concise, clear and justfied manner. More so than just about any other computer book I have read. As others have mentioned, the explanation of the mechanics of remoting are excellent. The coverage on the other topics was incredibly informative as well its just that Remoting stands out since the topic is not covered as well elsewhere. Several helper/extension class examples are included which help to enforce good practices. I found the coding practices addendum to be a helpful summary of the topics discussed in the book.
Cons:
While remoting is discussed, it defers discussion of the EnterpriseServices namespace (object pooling, transactions, lifecycling, etc) to a previously published book. I find these features a necessary consideration in component design. Instead of feeling like I know everything about dot NET components, I now feel like I have to read another book. Having said that, WCF, at least at first glance, appears to be among other things a rework of ServicedComponents into an attribute driven dot NET framework and less reliant on COM+. I hope that is the case because JEE has already proven that inhertance based component mangagement such as ServiceComponent cramp system architectures. I also feel like the book does not adequately cover the use cases appropriate for designing a distributed application. It covers the mechanics/how fine but it doesn't address the when and where portion of distributed components.
Juval's latest book covers WCF and I am looking forward to reading it and hope it will address the areas I felt still needed to be addressed by this book.
Interfaces Factoring.......2007-02-02
On page 73 of this book the author wrote:
" An in-depth discussion of how to decompose a system into components and how to discover interface methods and properties is beyond the scope of this book".
I would encourage the author to write a book that discusses specifically about interface factoring and to provide more examples on how components should be decomposed and organized in large scale applications.
Customer Reviews:
Terrific book which is still highly useful.......2007-04-27
Windows Presentation Foundation has been released and we will all immediately stop doing WinForms development and move to the latest and greatest technology. Right. WPF may take over the world -- but not right now. Plenty of folks will still be doing Windows Forms development for some time. Ergo, this book is a great resource to have on the shelf.
The writing style's clean, clear, and concise, and the examples all show the right level of detail. Graphics throughout the book are good, and there's even a full-color section in the middle of the book to show off how nice various WinForms displays can look. (Although I should note some of the figures there aren't particularly interesting.) A very handy "New" marker in the margins highlights features and functionality new to the .NET 2.0 framework -- a great benefit for folks experienced in 1.1 development who are looking for quick exposure to what's new in 2.0.
The book's content is terrific and extremely useful. There's a solid introduction which hits all the important fundamentals of WinForms development and also hits the right features you'll need in Visual Studio. There's awfully good coverage on basics such as form lifecycle, MDI basics, data validation, and why/how properties are important in WinForms development.
The authors do a very solid job laying out other important concepts like data binding and validation. There's also a great amount of background on localization through the entire book, and I found the chapter on resources particularly informative. The bits on components and custom controls were also a very good read.
Overall it's a solid book and very useful for folks still working in WinForms development.
An exceptional work.......2007-03-23
This book is great, exceptional, outstanding.
The authors take on a subject of mind-boggling complexity, and manage to structure their way into a readable, understandable explanation. It's not a reference book: you have to read your way through it from cover to cover, once, to gain an understanding of Froms 2.0. Yet such reading is probably the most efficient way for you to learn the subject. Thereafter, use it as a "how-to" reference for specific items and techniques.
Also, it assumes familiarity with both the c# language and the casual use of VS05. Having first done some elementary c# programming on VS05, read the book and it'll be an eye-opener.
Outstanding.......2007-02-19
The writing style is easy to follow, the coverage is comprehensive, and there are details and tips throughout the book that distinguish it from other books on the subject.
The authors clearly leverage their knowledge and experience. Sample code is clear and concise. There are many things in Windows Forms that you simply should or should not do; the authors convey these best practices in an expedient fashion.
The book is relatively new, and there is not an errata page on the AW website, however I noticed only a very small number of errors.
Incomplete title.......2007-02-12
OK, I'm a little ticked off because I have just wasted some money. If you're a VB developer like I am, this book is not for you. If you're a C# developer, then maybe it is; maybe it isn't. I don't know. All the coding examples are in C#, although the title of the book doesn't say it's exclusively C#. I gave it four stars (since that's the current overall rating) just so I wouldn't be responsible for changing the overall rating. And considering I'm really ticked off at the moment, I'd say that's pretty good of me.
Now for my rant:
I just don't understand why in the year 2007 these authors and publishers can't properly identify whether their books are for VB or C# developers if they're going to make all of their coding examples in one or the other language. While most do, many still don't, like these authors. If you're not going to indicate which language, then include examples in both. If you're only going to show all the coding examples in just one language, THEN INDICATE THIS IN THE TITLE!!!
Is this done to purposely trick people in to buying a book they can't use just to increase sales?
Excellent reference for Winforms 2.0.......2007-01-26
This may be the best Winforms 2.0 book out there. It serves as an excellent reference, given the breadth of information that it covers. It also is a great way to learn Winforms from scratch. Sells does a wonderful job of explaining how things work and has very clear and understandable examples.
Amazon.com
Everything changes in the Microsoft .NET Framework and the C# language, including the creation of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Windows Forms Programming in C# explains the Windows Forms (WinForms) environment to programmers who have some experience with .NET programming, and in the process (thanks to a clear and deliberate expository style) reveals a lot about .NET to less experienced developers. The overall effect is that almost every reader comes away with better knowledge of .NET, not just its user-interface libraries and behaviors.
Author Chris Sells takes care to balance code samples with explanatory text, meaning that most chapters take on a characteristic "code, explanation, effect" style (in which "effect" is usually documented with a screen shot). This approach is effective, and serves both to answer "How do I..." questions and inspire "I should give that a try!" exploration. Once in a while, callouts will link two or more screen shots with a sample of code, graphically illustrating how code affects the appearance of a form and how it's represented in the Visual Studio development environment. On top of his clear teaching style, Sells calls attention to workarounds for shortcomings in the .NET environment (particularly where similar limitations don't exist in Microsoft Foundation Classes), helping to improve programmer productivity in the growing .NET environment. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to use the WinForms environment within the Microsoft .NET Framework. Dialog boxes, drawing, printing, and controls all are covered by means of explanations and lots of illustrative examples, and there's good coverage of the WinForms event model, too. An appendix compares MFC and the .NET Framework.
Customer Reviews:
Wasn't helpful for me - nothing about design and weak coverage of components........2006-03-21
I'm a Java programmer who finished reading O'Reilly's "Programming C#" (very good book), and wanted to get started in Windows Forms programming. Chapters 1 and 2 were decent and Appendix B was an excellent introduction to Delegates and Events.
The rest of the book, however, was very weak. All it did was give a brief summary of some of the windows forms components (and the coverage was very weak). If you want to learn about a component you are going to have to look it up it on MSDN.
I was hoping the book would give me something other than what I can get by looking at an API. I was really hoping there would at least be a few chapters on how to design Windows Forms applications - there was nothing. The easy part is learning how to use a component. The difficult part is learning best practices about design an application - something this book didn't touch.
Also, I'm not sure how the rest of the books in the "Microsoft .NET Development Series" are, but I think it's very cheap and dishonest to make a book 'appear' weighty. The book is 680 pages, but the margins, line spacing, and text are all very large. This book easily could have been half its size.
The second edition is out the covers Windows forms V2, you may want to buy it instead. .......2006-03-16
The second edition is out that covers Windows forms V2, you may want to buy it instead.
Very readable coverage of very relevant material.......2006-01-10
I got this book after having already done quite a bit of WinForms programming and found it a compelling read. I'd have read after a platform/language primer but before doing any actual WinForms work, had I had it in my possession at that time.
Its the first programming book in some time that I read as a 'page turner' - it's that well-written (in prose terms).
It's also very well copy-edited, which shows that a lot of effort went into getting the book just right, which can't be said for all books (I guess the gap between release of .NET 1.0&1.1 and this book allowed for that more than in other books).
As for the relevance of the information, I believe it to be very relevant to a wide variety of application types, regardless of that being the main criticism I see in other reviews here. I guess that comes from the fact that you can't please all the people all the time. Still, I'd venture it comes as close as any other book is going to come.
For me it's very near the top of the must-have books if you're going to be writing non-trivial production WinForms apps.
One thing to be aware of is that the .NET 2.0 version is on the way in the coming months, making it Essential unless you're not in a position to use 2.0 stuff.
Would have written my own review, but..........2006-01-03
"...I had hoped it would be a convenient and quick reference to such questions as "how do I use FolderBrowserDialog and/or OpenFileDialog to open a file in my C# program?" but although these standard components are indexed in the book the discussion of them in the book is shorter than this review I am writing. What I would want is some kind of sample code, maybe a step-by-step description of how to add the components to my program..."
There's no way I could have said it better. The book seems to want to cover "everything" but actually manages to say "nothing".
The only part in which I would have to disagree with the previous reviewer is his rating. He gave it three stars. I think it deserves one.
Excellent Book.......2005-11-12
Very good book! Windows Programmer must have.
Easy to follow.
Customer Reviews:
Better than nothing..........2007-04-29
Good reference books seem to be hard to come by lately. Good reference books give you insight and a fuller understanding of the inner workings of whatever their subject matter might be. This is not the case of this book.
You need "Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets" only because the standard wxWidgets documentation is so very crude (no one to blame there, except each and every one of us for not contributing better documentation) and because its source code (as well as part of the core development team, I dare add) is so unfriendly to tools like Doxygen. Smart's book is what the wxWidgets online documentation would have been in a perfect world. No more and no less. The author has done a good job compiling and explaining with sample code the basic usage of most wxWidgets components, but you will not emerge a wxWidgets guru after reading this book. For example, just half a page is dedicated to explaining the by no means trivial wxObject class.
You will be disappointed if you are expecting a mind-opening book, the likes of Petzold's classic "Programming Windows", or Prosise's "Programming MFC", or Wall's "Programming Perl" (just to name a few excellent books from a time when the pace of technology was slower and authors still had time to put together great tutorial/reference works), but having a book like this is probably better than no book at all and buying it is a way to support the project, after all.
wxWidgets is great and this is the only book so you better get it :).......2007-03-06
This is the only wxWidgets book so far so it's not like you have many choices! I read this book twice and then the official documentation and I still use this book as a reference sometimes. This book has a TON of errata though so the next release hopefully they are more careful with editing...
I highly recommend getting this book if you want to learn wxWidgets and cross-platform application writing!
Great for getting started with wxWidgets.......2007-02-06
I have found this book extremely helpful in getting started on my first project with wxWidgets. It is easy to read and is written in a straight forward manor. It explains the concepts behind wxWidgets and covers the basics pretty well. My only criticism is that if something is hard to do, the book may give a hint on how to get started, but does not have many complex examples.
Good Book.......2006-08-09
It covered alot of things, but I thought it was a little bit too vague. I would of rather liked to see more coding then words explaining the coding. A complete script for example would of been nice instead of just code snippets.
Lacks flow and some details.......2006-04-06
Looking at the Table of Contents we find a good start: (1) Introduction, and (2) Getting Started. Then we go in a direction I find illogical: (3) Event Handling, (4) Window Basics, (5) Drawing and Printing, (6) Handling Input, and (7) Window Layout Using Sizers. I believe that a better order would have been (4), (7), (3), (6), (5).
Due to the libraries use of MACROs (which are not well described within the text), many other issues arise. One of which is variable visibility. C/C++ scope is simple, but due to wxWidget's use of MACROs the accessing of variables can become difficult. There is a validation class which has only two type of validators, one for text and a generic one which does no validating at all. Those validators can also handle data transfer, but the transfer happens on an "OK" event back to the widget which is being destroyed. Useful?
Otherwise a decent introduction to the language and its promises. Good luck with more support from on-line documents and the mailing list! I have not found the answers/support that I seek.
Book Description
Embedded software is in almost every electronic device designed today. There is software hidden away inside our watches, microwaves, VCRs, cellular telephones, and pagers; the military uses embedded software to guide smart missiles and detect enemy aircraft; communications satellites, space probes, and modern medicine would be nearly impossible without it. Of course, someone has to write all that software, and there are thousands of computer scientists, electrical engineers, and other professionals who actually do.
Each embedded system is unique and highly customized to the application at hand. As a result, embedded systems programming is a widely varying field that can take years to master. However, if you have some programming experience and are familiar with C or C++, you're ready to learn how to write embedded software. The hands-on, no-nonsense style of this book will help you get started by offering practical advice from someone who's been in your shoes and wants to help you learn quickly.
The techniques and code examples presented here are directly applicable to real-world embedded software projects of all sorts. Even if you've done some embedded programming before, you'll still benefit from the topics in this book, which include:
- Testing memory chips quickly and efficiently
- Writing and erasing Flash memory
- Verifying nonvolatile memory contents with CRCs
- Interfacing to on-chip and external peripherals
- Device driver design and implementation
- Optimizing embedded software for size and speed
So whether you're writing your first embedded program, designing the latest generation of hand-held whatchamacalits, or simply managing the people who do, this book is for you.
Customer Reviews:
Not so good.......2007-07-26
I'm new to embedded system programming so I bought this book. I was disappointed because I didn't get much from this book. Buy something else.
Promptly returned ..........2006-10-06
In agreement with an earlier reviewer who also gave this book 1-star rating, it took me about 10 minutes of going through this relatively thin book to realize that its contents was not substantive (at all). Too much hand-waving, and not nearly enough meat. And there's barely any C or C++ code in the book.
Excellent.......2006-08-07
I am curious for the meaning of "advanced users" and what they would enjoy on a "advanced book" and why they despise this book for its basic content, And perhaps, they are after a title like "do my work". I guess much of the material here is very important to embedded developers, being experienced or not. For ex, start up code, the memory initializations and the excellent introduction to a RTOS. I am an Electrical Engineer, always writting embedded application code ( mostly dealing with API calls when it comes to low level ) and I was looking for clarification of several issues and the book did it well. Have a manual for your processor, your compiler and it will be all that you will need. Tips for embedded applications might be easily found on application notes ( be it ARM based processors or AVRs or Freescales ). This book is about writting the software not about the applications them selves.
Over-rated.......2006-06-17
"But keep in mind, it is extremely superficial. In other words, it's a great introduction for people who have no idea whatsoever what embedded development involves." This is a quote from a reviewer that gave it 5 stars. I agree with this reviewer comments but don't buy a book you will outgrow before you finish reading it! For now, I still recommend the David E. Simon book.
Good introduction to embedded systems.......2006-01-19
This book is geared towards people who intend to venture into the field of embedded systems and need an overview on the basics. These include the scope of development and most importantly, things that the developer should pay attention to (In the embedded system field, the developer has to pay close attention to the underlying hardware's characteristics such as registers, interrupts and memory address locations, in Java application development on the other hand, the underlying hardware and to some extent the OS is considered an afterthought).
Though the examples are targeted to the Arcom board, the author makes a good effort to extract general principles applicable to any other hardware type. A passing knowledge of C and C++ is required though to understand the code.
Of course, experienced embedded systems programmers would find the text a rehash of what they know however for those new to the field, this serves as a very good foundation.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Experience.......2007-06-23
This book is an excellent well of experience for budding project managers out there. It focuses on the "Why" and while short on the how, never pretends to be a 'how-to' book. I learned something from every chapter.
The First VSTS Book You Should Read.......2006-08-30
This book is a terrific high to mid level introduction to Visual Studio Team System, Microsoft Solutions Framework, and the overall philosophies and strategies behind Microsoft's ambitious undertaking. It provides terrific VSTS coverage, but it's also one the best overviews of modern software development approaches available today.
It's required reading for our instructors and mentors, and I recommend it to every one of our class and workshop participants.
Highly Recommended.......2006-08-09
Gives a nice peek into the "why" as opposed to the "how". I have read all the VSTS books that are out there right now and I appriciated this one very much. It was an easy read, but very informative.
Wealth of theory and practices.......2006-08-09
This book provides wealth of theory and practices for software development. It throughly explained the ideas behind Visual Studio Team Studio, just like the author said, it's not a how-to book, but will let you know why VSTS provides those functionalities, and what benefit would you get if you follow the practices.
All in all, it's a must before you use VSTS to run your projects.
A great intro into building business software.......2006-07-09
Forget the production mention in the title; this is a true book on Software Engineering. This book actually addresses the real problems that occur in development: vague requirements, changing scope, not enough time to test all the features, warts and all.
The beginning discussion includes an overview of traditional project management techniques, such as gannt charts, earned-value-analysis, and task breakdowns. The author then explains how software products are intangible and unique, and goes on to cover agile methods. I was particularly impressed with his explanation of the 'value up' technique, which pulls together all of the agile concepts like measured running tested features and quick software releases.
Perhaps the best explanations are in the area of software metrics; how to measure bug count, code coverage, and work products completed vs. the product backlog. The view of metrics proposed in the book is surprisingly mature; the book discusses tradeoffs of various metrics and the concept of dysfunction. I was particularly surprised to find myself taking mental notes as I read the book, tracking all the new ideas to try in the office.
Of course, the title is "Software Engineering With Microsoft Visual Studio Team System", and all of the graphs and charts are generated using Microsoft Software. The book is not tutorial in nature; it concentrates on the essence of development, and not how to click what wizard to generate what graph. Instead, the examples demonstrate how the metrics are integrated within the Microsoft tool, and how much easier it would be to gather metrics within the team system. (Given the title, that has to be expected.)
Overall, I would recommend this for new college graduates without a background in software engineering, 'traditional' software engineers seeking an introduction to agile methods, or Quality Analysts seeking an introduction to Agile Metrics. Surprisingly enough, Team System is not a requisite; but if you are developing in MSVS Team System, I would upgrade it the review to 'highly recommended', or 4.5 stars.
Book Description
- A team of Microsoft insiders shows programmers how to use Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the new suite of products from Microsoft that can be used for software modeling, design, testing, and deployment
- Focuses on practical application of the tools on code samples, development scenarios, and automation scripting
- This timely book serves as both as a step-by-step guide and as a reference for modeling, designing, and coordinating enterprise solutions at every level using Team System
- The book begins with an overview of Team System and then offers nuts-and-bolts guidance on practical implementation
- Code examples are provided in both VB.NET and C#
Customer Reviews:
Good book, but lacks integration.......2007-04-04
This is a very good book, and covers a lot of information and has a very easy to understand language.
But it could have a sample project covering all steps from the beggining to the end.
Too much overview, no real life examples.......2007-03-23
This book is just one of those books covering everything, and actually nothing in detail.
A Big Book on a Big Software System.......2006-07-03
Big software systems such as an operating system, a database, or an integrated business package have grown where they cannot be the product of a single individual. Hence programming teams have been forced to develop. Teams have been forced to further divide into specialties such as architect, developer and tester. With all this has come the problems associated with integrating the output of the members of the team who may well be geographically dispersed (Did anybody mention India?) and may have communications difficulties.
Microsoft's answer to this is the Visual Studio Team System. It's a quite sophisticated system for the record keeping and organizating of a team programming system. Neither the software nor this book is aimed at the complete beginner who has other problems rather than team efforts.
This is one of Wrox's Programmer to Programmer books. It is written by professionals with a view to its use by other professionals.
The one complaint I have, and it's a complaint about the software, not about the book, is that this software system is very Microsoft dependent. Microsoft wants to supply all the system you have on your computers, so instead of standards like UML, Microsoft has re-invented the wheel to use their own technology.
This is a big book, about a big software package. If Visual Studio Team System is what you have decided (or been told) to use, this book is an excellent place to start.
Deep-dive technical usage on implementing and maximizing VSTS.......2006-06-01
This is the book for leverage the power of VSTS. It covers setup and install of VSTS, specific Visual Studio tool enhancements, implementing methodology, extensibility, and overall team integration.
Each of the authors are experts in specific technologies/methodologies that VSTS addresses and they take you through the insides of all the major components of VSTS.
- Sam Guckenheimer's book "Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System" is focused on software engineering and project management using VSTS.
- Richard Hundhausen's "Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System" is an introduction to "What is Team System?"
This book is the technical ins and outs of Team System.
Books:
- Inside and Outside Me/Yo, por dentro y por fuera (Scholastic Early Childhood Program, Theme 3)
- Introduction to Animal Science: Global, Biological, Social and Industry Perspectives (3rd Edition)
- Jack London : Novels and Stories : Call of the Wild / White Fang / The Sea-Wolf / Klondike and Other Stories (Library of America)
- Make a Worm Farm (Sun Sprouts)
- Mammals of Southern Africa: A Field Guide
- Many Faces of Edward Sherriff Curtis: Portraits And Stories from Native North America
- Metal Ions In Biological Systems, Volume 39: Molybdenum and Tungsten: Their Roles in Biological Processes (Metal Ions in Biological Systems)
- Mountain Lion: An Unnatural History of Pumas and People
- National Electrical Code 2005 Softcover Version (National Fire Protection Association National Electrical Code)
- Neurotoxicology: APPROACHES & METHODS
Books Index
Books Home
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Software Development
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| Programming
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Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business
Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten
Beautiful Evidence
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition
