Computing Internet Books

This book won't teach you how to design games, but what it will do - and what it does very well - is to give you an insight into what the Games Industry is really like. The lifestyle, terminology, how it works, how it's changing with the sudden mainstreamification (yeah, I know that's not a real word!) of Games.

By various measures, the Games Industry has or will soon overtake the Film and TV Industry in terms of turnover. And yet, the infrastructure, the job descriptions, the career paths - all of these are just evolving.

Issues like the increasing age of the average gamer (around 28) and the impact that's having on games design are discussed by a wide variety of experienced Industry veterans.

Appendices include real-world examples of flowcharts, storyboards, case treatments, status reports and other everyday documents that will really help a newcomer to the Industry not feel completely clueless on Day One in the office. For all they teach you in a Games Development course at college, this is the kind of practical information that is often overlooked.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone considering entering the Games Industry. It will give you a really good insight into what it's like to work in this crazy, rapidly growing field. And then, when you hit your first 'crunch' time and end up working 18 hour days and sleeping under your desk - you can't say no-one warned you ;)

Deb Todd has been a leading force in game design for 15 years (or so) and this book echoes her profound knowledge of it. The recent explosion in interest in game design has brought many parvenues to the field. This book is the opposite: solid advice from a proven expert. She also interviews many key people whose advice is valid and worthwhile.

From the initial blue-sky sessions to pitching for a green light, Deborah Todd's guide uses exercises and examples for all kinds of games to build a working knowledge of the game design process, from brainstorming and character design to content, testing, and flowcharting. Interviews with top game producers supplement the author's position as an award-winning designer and writer, with exercises and a puzzles checklist at book's end for maximum learning and reinforcement. Any college-level collection strong on games development needs this.

This book is just a little more than a piecing together of the RFC's. Comparing with Richard Stevens' book about TCP/IP protocols, this book can be scaled to only one star. I gave this book two stars only because this is the only book I can find about PPP.

PPP Design is a great technical reference for anyone who has to deal with ppp on an intimate level. I picked up this book while I was writing an embedded PPP implementation. The information contained in the book is complete, precise and if you need to implement PPP, this book is a must! On the down side I did not find the CD-ROM very useful, but the book is a definite five stars.

Top of page 119 - the tip about not using count(*) because it is slower than using count(something else)

You have proof of this? Where, what, when, and you, of course, have set Tom Kyte straight on this matter?

I purchased this book for my Kindle and it is a well written, informative text on the Oracle database. The problem is that virtually all the tables and figures are completely unreadable on the Kindle. Either the people responsible for converting this eBook never looked at the result on the Kindle or, worse, they did and released it anyway. This will be my last eBook purchase from this publisher.

I grabbed this from the company bookshelf to learn more about SharePoint and how I might use it to for simple document collaboration. I forced my self to read on even though things are not really explained and the reading is quite dry. I got to Chapter 6 and I had to quit....I still don't see any light.

I've read enough books to know that it may take another chapter or 2 before you start to 'get it', I never got any of it. The book basically goes right into site design from architecture and site design/layout. Problem is they skipped telling you just what all these things are....Portal(s), Area(s), primary site, sub site, sub area, Topics and many other SharePoint terms.

It's like they assume you know what all of these things are, maybe it's covered later. Problem I have is that I got to know what a 'widget' does before I can think about how to use it. Up through chapter 6 I have only vague ideas of what all these SharePoint things are and how I might use them.

Maybe a simple reordering of chapters could help. SharePoint in itself is confusing as well it consists of 2 things 'SharePoint Services' and SharePointPortal Server'.

I'm a developer going on 20 years of coding experience and quite a few books under the belt. While this book is not a 'coding' book I should be able to learn from it but I didn't. I have given up on very few books in my career and none recently.

When I first started working my current job, I was given this book. I have to say that this is an extremely boring book. It didn't engage me in any shape, form, or fashion. Learning SharePoint is already difficult and this book does not make it any easier. I am glad I didn't buy it.

I have had this book for almost a year now and read almost the whole thing. One aspect of this book which makes it a very worthwhile read is the clear differentiation which the authors maintain between Windows Sharepoint Services (free to implement) and Sharepoint Portal Server (can be VERY expensive.) Most Sharepoint books I have read fail to make this distinction and suffer greatly for it. I very much appreciated the clear differences between the products.

This book is a great primer for someone looking to get a Sharepoint implementation up and running (which I have been.) Understanding scalability, using farms, managing the databases are all covered in sufficient detail to be able to implement it yourself and have it survive use.

I was disappointed that the scope of the book wasn't wider. I would loved to have seen some developer information, or at least a list of resources. I would also liked to have seen more guidance on creating sites, organization of sites and other setup information. Perhaps a better title would have been Sharepoint 2003 Infrastructure Unleashed.

With those comments, I can also say that I'd buy another volume of this and appreciate the authors attention to detail, especially in clearly differentiating between the free and the expensive Sharepoint products.

The book (2nd edition) is good but don't get the eBook version. It's very irritating because you are allowed to print 30 pages in a month. Can you believe it? You will find more security restrictions that won't let you read the information pleasently as it should be.

This book is not worthy of the "Unleashed" series, which typically has stellar books. Mostly just marketing level advice with very little in-depth information. You can get more information out of a Google search.

This is a great book for the new Cisco Phone administrator, but please realize that although it is in its 7th printing, it has not been updated. I ordered this book and found that most of the information I was looking for was on items added after CCM 3.1 (which is the version that is covered in this book).

I studied this book for my CIPT exam. Even though this book itself does not suffice to pass the exam, I could not have done without it either. It provides a clear understanding of CallManager and other CIPT components. All the pictures and graphics are well designed. If I have to criticise a couple points, I would say there are a few organization flaws. Titles could have been organized more effectively. Another improvement could be deviding Route Plan chapter. This chapter is very long compare to others.
Overall, I strongly recommend this book for those who want to understand "Fundamentals of CallManager." Also, if you are studying for CIPT, you should consider "Cisco IP Telephony" book along with this.
As far as practice tests concerns, neither books have enough questions for practice. I had to find a third party question bank to study and it helped a lot. "Cisco IP Telephony" book has some practice questions at the end of each chapter, but I can almost gurantee you that they don't help on the actual test.
Good luck to everyone...

Thankfully, a new edition. This is hands down the best book available on using the Cisco CallManager system. Unfortunately the first edition came out in 2001, since then the software has gone through at least five revision levels. This book has been updated to include the 4.1 version, a big improvement over the old book which covered 3.0 or maybe 3.1.

The biggest point about this book is that it covers the inner workings, the architecture of the system. This is often helpful in understanding just what it is that you're doing. Of course it also covers all of the standard user interface tools like management, monitoring, reports and everything else.

This is hands down the best book on the CallManager, if you have to manage one of these beasts you have a much harder job on your hands if you don't have this book. My only real negative, please guys, don't wait for six software releases to go by before you do a third edition.

One of the other customer reviews for this book (which may have been removed by now because I have complained about it) says: "This book has been updated to include the 4.1 version, a big improvement over the old book which covered 3.0 or maybe 3.1."

But clearly, that customer was referring to the 2nd Edition of the book - this book that you are looking at is the First Edition; in other words, it IS the old book which only covers version 3.1. I know, because I just bought it for $20 and now I will throw it away and buy the 2nd Edition.

I did the CIPT training course hoping that it would be enough to pass the exam. Although the instructor was excellent, the documentation was not. It did not couther certain topics in detail, and was hard to follow. As I had to pass the exam for myself and so that the company kept its Cisco Partner Status I had to get some good documentation.

Although I am only half was through this book I am finding it excellent. It goes into good detail on the information, which you have to know, whilst not sending you to sleep on information, which is not relevant to call manager, networking, or telephony. I am confident that once I have read the book a few times I should be able to pass the exam without too much trouble. Cannot say this about the Cisco training documentation.

I finally got a chance to use this book. I hadn't had time to really sit and play with it. My friend called and needed me to come over and help set up Ipods for all three children. I grabbed the book thinking it may help. And yes it did. I would have been lost without it. It made things so simple and if I had a question it had the answer. I was so excited I came home and used the book to organize my ipods better. A must have for any ipod owner.

This book is a good book for folks with thier first iPod opened before them on up to intermediate users who already know all the basic functions. All folks in these groups will learn useful stuff about many aspects of the iPod and iTunes.

It contains some basic "hacks" and such but states most don't work with the latest iPods (as of the published date). The hacks are pretty basic things like modifying the on-screen interface and such so not really what an advanced user would be looking for.

It seems to be a fair book. I didn't like the fact that it was in black and white only. I also thought it was a little outdated.

iPodpedia was a Christmas gift I bought for my brother who purchased his iPod in 2006. I bought myself an iPod 80GB Classic and my six-year-old son a iPod Shuffle for Christmas this year and was confident that my brother would share his iPod knowledge with me. Needless to say, the iPodpedia has become the CHRISTMAS GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING.

My brother has been reading it like a book and shares all the great tips and tidbits he has found in the well-written book by Michael Miller. I'll receive phone calls from brother so excited, "Hey, did you know that your iPod can do this?"

I'm not certain, but I may have to buy another copy just for myself. What if I can't reach my brother one day and I have a question?

I purchased this book for my Dad because he is always asking me questions about his Ipod. I learned more by reading three pages from the chapter labeled secrets then all of the lookups I have done on my own. I was so impressed with the book that I purchased one for myself. If you own an Ipod or know someone that does, you must purchase this book.

This book is excelent, but I don't make my exam yet. By the way I can't rate this book in 5 stars.
The book sintax is really simple and good to read.
Thank's Shuja

In a world of lean, agile, etc., large projects and complex organizations still require rigor that is difficult to accomplish with lightweight methods. Although RUP was never intended to be a heavyweight method, misinformed and undereducated RUP users have often misused and abused RUP, counteracting its primary objectives.

Jochen's diverse background and experience offers grounding for presentation of RUP in a pragmatic manner that offers a lot of information in an efficient format. Anyone who is involved in non-trivial projects will be well-served to understand the key elements of RUP to ensure that those projects sufficiently handle critical tasks to reduce project risk. Instead of drowning in information overload, Jochen's book provides a thorough, comprehensive, and clear explanation of the elements of RUP that are most useful and relevant for project work.

I think of this book as answering three questions:
* what do developers need to know to work as professionals?
* how does quality coding and design play into unfolding designs?
* what is the proper way to integrate refactoring, test-driven development and design patterns in the real world?

All too long this industry has allowed individuals to do what they like instead of what their teams and businesses need. Programming is not just about individual people's opinion of approach and quality, but about real issues that have been long identified.

This book weaves the tale of what is known and how to use it in a real environment. I didn't react to this book the way Mr. Vodde did as an advertisement for Net Objectives. I like the anecdotal story telling of how this knowledge is conveyed to realy people in real situations.

Developers often talk about their problems in getting others convinced of better approaches. What better way than to hear how Mr. Bain has done this himself - something good to learn.

While this book is probably thought of as being for agile developers (those who write code in iterations) it'd be highly useful for anyone. Everybody's code needs to morph over time - even if the first release is done in a classic waterfall.

EMERGENT DESIGN: THE EVOLUTIONARY NATURE OF PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT is for college-level libraries strong in software engineering, and discusses the foundations of systems development, helping developers work with the flow of ideas inherent in emergent design principles. From tips on how to produce more professional software designs to testing designs throughout the process and learning when to stop, EMERGENT DESIGN is a fine choice for software engineers who would streamline their efforts to produce quality designs early in the process.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

As the cover implies, this book is the basis of a revolution. It is a tour of everything required to become a professional software developer. I believe this book to be distinguished from other technical books in the way that great works of fiction are different from genre books. It defines a category rather than just being a part of one.

It is a call to arms for all of us who consider ourselves professionals to band together into a true profession. Simultaneously, it is a tour of all those things that we as a proto-profession have identified as important and valuable. Practices, patterns, principles, disciplines, tools... Bain shows how all of these things work together. He goes one step further, though: he shows how they can coalesce into the basis for our occupation's transcendence into a profession.

If you have not been introduced to these concepts - if you work in a heavily waterfall environment with brittle code and death-marches at the end of long release cycles - this book is your way out. Read it. The most you will have lost is the time it takes you to read a three hundred page book and you have everything to gain. Emergent Design will show you that there is a better way. A way to make software that gets easier to maintain over time, not the other way around.

If you are familiar with these concepts, as I believed myself to be, then you will enjoy seeing everything come together in one book. You will probably gain some valuable insights along the way. I certainly did. You will also find that it is powerful recommended reading for those around you. Scott Bain's writing is clear, concise, friendly, funny... oh yeah: and very persuasive. Having read this book will give you and those whom you coach, teach, or work-with a common frame of reference; even more-so than Design Patterns.

I truly believe that this book is going to be at the center of a series of discussions, debates, and decisions which will ultimately lead to the formalization of software development as a real profession. It would be easy to characterize your choice as "buy it or don't buy it" but that would not be accurate. The real choice before you is this one:

You can either be an informed participant in the formation of our profession or you can just be governed by it.

I trust you to do the math from there.

This book is a gold mine of wisdom.

This book contains a ton of wisdom that has come out of the software engineering field over the years. It brings together a lot of software development best practices that can be found in other resources and puts them together under the umbrella of Emergent Design.

He covers patterns, principles, processes, and practices by presenting the best of each that has been proven to work again and again. The common sense communicated out of this book is priceless.

The author has a presentation that touches on a lot of the content found in the book. It can be viewed by Googling for "EmergentDesign_12_11_2007".

Forward thinking is something that I find lacking in a lot of the environments I am exposed too, especially development environments. This book nails how to do forward thinking when it comes to software design and development. You will end up making your solutions more valuable with each change, instead of degrading them with each change if you follow the advice in this book.

If you do development, this is a must read. I would advise all team leads to get rid of anyone who has not read this book by the end of the year.

Emergent Design by Scott Bain is a interesting book. The title is very promising, when I first heard about it, I got very excited! Finally a book about how designs emerge, how designs emerge from multiple people and how designs evolve over time compared to specifying. After reading the book, I felt the book was good, but disappointing. It did not cover the topics I would like to have seen.

The general idea of the book is that software should grow better over time instead of decay over time and that the optimal design will emerge. An idea I strongly agree with. The author links this to software development needing to change to become a profession. If SW development is a profession, then people will use proper practices and design will emerge. The practices (in a broad sense) are principles of design, patterns and disciplines. After the first couple of chapters the book was having a good start, though I started wondering if the author didn't bite of more than he could chew. Those are huge topics by themselves!

From chapter 7 to chapter 14 the author just describes good practices. He starts with qualities of code and qualities of designs. He moves to unit-testing, refactoring and then Test-Driven-Development. He ends with the pattern chapter. The last chapter puts all things together in a case study. Scott does a reasonable job in describing all practices. There are a couple of weird things, like the recommendation that every class has exactly one test class. The TDD chapter also seems to have very little TDD in it :)

As a catalog of best practices, this book perhaps does the best of all the current agile related books. Great job by the author.

However, there are some things that personally bothered me. The book seems to be very pattern focused. Scott seems to be of the opinion that patterns is what hold everything together (probably everything in the world). Though, I agree that patterns are an important concept in modern software development, I wouldn't put so much pattern focus in e.g. a chapter on test-driven development. Maybe the title of the book would better be "Scott on SW design and patterns".

That brings me to another issue with the book, the title. Emergent design is an immensely important topic. How does a design start with the first requirement. How does it evolve. How do multiple people work with the design. How can the overall architecture evolve. What about items that evolve difficult, like different programming language usage etc. So much to talk about and the book doesn't do this. It misses a huge opportunity to talk about emergent design & architecture and instead (although important) decides to talk about design principles, patterns and practices. (in that sense, the book is similar to Bob Martin's "Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns and Practices", which I would recommend over this book).

But again, the content of the book is good and useful and normally I would go for a 4 star rating, but I decided to go for 3 stars. This is because the book IMHO contains things that really turned me off.
One of the examples is the talk about professionalism. Don't get me wrong, I do agree with the author on this subject. The point is, we are not alone. In fact, IEEE has been working on certification for many years. In 1999, Steven McConnell wrote a book called "After the Gold Rush" with the subtitle "Creating a True Profession of Software Engineering". Scott talks about finally making a profession out of SW development, but he seems to have not done any research on this topic and seems to not be involved in other attempts to make it a profession. It would have increased his credibility a lot if he would have said "the earlier attempts are different because ..." or something similar.

Another item that was a huge turn-off was the constant promotion of Net Objectives. The book, at times, almost felt like a commercial. Personally, I didn't need to know about what courses Net Objectives teaches, I want to know about Emergent Design!

Anyhow, all these negative points aside, Emergent Design is a good introduction to modern agile development practices. Especially if you are not yet familiar with topics like Refactoring, TDD and patterns, this book is certainly worth reading. Next to that, Scott's writing style is funny and easy to read. So, if you belong to that group of people, recommended! Otherwise, skip it.