Effective STL: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of the Standard Template Library (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)

Average customer rating:

does for the STL what Effective C++ did for the rest of C++

a very good book

Great resource - must have

Converted a hard-core C programmer to the STL!

Standard Template Advice

Effective STL: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of the Standard Template Library (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)
Scott Meyers
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs (3rd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)

More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)

The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference

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ASIN: 0201749629

Amazon.com

Written for the intermediate or advanced C++ programmer, renowned C++ expert Scott Meyers provides essential techniques for getting more out of the Standard Template Library in Effective STL, a tutorial for doing more with this powerful library.

STL is a hugely powerful feature of today's C++, but one with a well-earned reputation for complexity. The book is organized into 50 tips that explore different areas of the STL. Besides providing a list of dos and don'ts, Meyers presents a lot of background on what works and what doesn't with STL. Each tip is demonstrated with in-depth coding samples, many of which make use of two-color printing to highlight the most important lines of code. (Advanced developers will enjoy Meyers's in-depth explanations, while those who are in a hurry can skip ahead to the recommended tip itself.)

A good part of this book involves using containers, like vectors and maps, which are built into STL. (Besides the standard built-in containers, the author also highlights recent additions to STL like B-trees, which are available as extensions from other vendors.) You'll learn the best ways to allocate, add, change, and delete items inside containers, including associative containers like maps. You'll also learn to avoid common pitfalls, which can result in writing code that is slow or just plain wrong.

Other areas covered in Effective STL cover getting the most out of the 100-plus STL algorithms that are bundled with this library. Meyers shows you how to choose the correct algorithm for sorting and other functions. (Even advanced developers will learn something here.) Sections on using function objects (called functors) round out the text. Meyers shows you when these classes make sense and the best ways to implement them. Besides specific tips, you'll get plenty of general programming advice. A useful appendix shows the limitations of STL as implemented in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and how to overcome them.

Overall, Effective STL is a really invaluable source of programming expertise on an essential aspect of today's C++ for anyone who is using--or planning to use--STL in real production code. It is quite simply a must-have. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

Introduction to advanced Standard Template Library (STL) programming techniques
50 tips and best practices for STL illustrated with sample tutorial code
Choosing containers
Efficient copying of elements inside containers
Removing, erasing, and cleaning up items from containers
Using custom allocators with STL containers
Thread safety with STL
Tips for programming with the STL vector and string classes (including reserving memory and calling legacy C/C++ code)
Tips for associative containers (including comparing items, sorted vectors, and non-standard enhancements to STL)
Tips for selecting and using STL iterator classes
STL algorithms (including sorting, removing, and comparing items)
Using functors with STL
General tips for STL programming (including advice for choosing algorithms and understanding compiler diagnostic messages)
String locales
Overcoming STL imitations in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0

Customer Reviews:

does for the STL what Effective C++ did for the rest of C++.......2007-02-22

The man Meyers has worked his magic on the STL. If you've read Effective C++, then you know what to expect, and should invest accordingly. Meyers is on top of his game, finding the right balance of sage advice and dry wit as he guides you through the complexities of the STL. If you haven't read Effective C++, you really ought to before reading this one.

A wide range of advice is dispensed, including: advice on what containers to use, range member functions, avoiding loops, erase-remove, auto_ptr, associative containers, equality vs equivalence, gotchas like const keys in sets and maps and references to reference problems, efficiency in sorting, searching and inserting, iterators, functors and adapting them.

Phew. A lot of ground is covered. You will want to be familiar with the structure of the STL, I don't recommend learning the STL from scratch from this book, and you may want a good STL reference. But those aren't half as much fun to read as Scott Meyers.

a very good book.......2006-11-25

I really enjoyed to read this book as it contains very good tips. The only detail that annoys me a little bit is the amount of cross references between the items. The author first 2 books were a little bit like that but it seems to me that this one is too much. I would have prefered to have items more self contained. If you want to refer to a particular item, this one will refer to 2 other items that will refer to some more items and so on to the point where if you would like to close the open loop, you would need to consult all the items.

Except for this small annoyance, this book is very good. You should read it or have it.

Great resource - must have.......2006-11-07

I tought I knew STL but Dr. Meyers showed me how little I knew. His in-depth analysis and numerous examples gives new insight into STL and how to best implement solutions using it. This is a must-have for every C++ programmer/software engineer.

Converted a hard-core C programmer to the STL!.......2006-03-19

I thought this book was great. It gave me allot of good ideas and showed me how to things I didn't know how to before. But the real selling point was that I loaned it to a coworker who was a hard-core C programmer. He scoffed at C++ and OOP in general; making statements like "Everything I need to do can be done in C". After reading three items in the book he was questioning his thinking and trying new things. His latest project is not only in C++ but it's also embedded in the STL. He's taken quite a liking to it and has learned a lot of new things.

While I wouldn't recommend this book for a beginner, anyone that wants to further his or her understanding of the STL should read this book cover to cover.

Standard Template Advice.......2006-03-16

This book will help you make better progamming decisons when it comes time to use the STL in a project. Scott Meyer is one of the best writers on the subject of programming. Here he shows you how to best use the Standard Template Library and avoid some of it's dangers. His examples are clear and help you better understand the rationale for his advice. His writing style is terse but pleasant.

This is not a tutorial on the STL, nor is it a comprehensive reference. You should already know the basics to get the most form Meyer's book. It does illustrate the best practices for using the STL.

Anyone using C++ should read this book and "Effective C++", too. The only problem with these books, is that you may feel like rewriting some of your existing code after reading them. I did.

Average customer rating:

fabulous and concise
Wonderful Book on Generics and Collections With Java Focus
Finally, A Book Devoted To Generics And Collections
Oddly dull for an interesting topic; not Wadler's best
Beyond the simple T.class question!

Java Generics and Collections
Maurice Naftalin , and Philip Wadler
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0596527756

Book Description

This comprehensive guide shows you how to master the most important changes to Java since it was first released. Generics and the greatly expanded collection libraries have tremendously increased the power of Java 5 and Java 6. But they have also confused many developers who haven't known how to take advantage of these new features.

Java Generics and Collections covers everything from the most basic uses of generics to the strangest corner cases. It teaches you everything you need to know about the collections libraries, so you'll always know which collection is appropriate for any given task, and how to use it.

Topics covered include:

Fundamentals of generics: type parameters and generic methods
Other new features: boxing and unboxing, foreach loops, varargs
Subtyping and wildcards
Evolution not revolution: generic libraries with legacy clients and generic clients with legacy libraries
Generics and reflection
Design patterns for generics
Sets, Queues, Lists, Maps, and their implementations
Concurrent programming and thread safety with collections
Performance implications of different collections

Generics and the new collection libraries they inspired take Java to a new level. If you want to take your software development practice to a new level, this book is essential reading.

Philip Wadler is Professor of Theoretical Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, where his research focuses on the design of programming languages. He is a co-designer of GJ, work that became the basis for generics in Sun's Java 5.0.

Maurice Naftalin is Technical Director at Morningside Light Ltd., a software consultancy in the United Kingdom. He has most recently served as an architect and mentor at NSB Retail Systems plc, and as the leader of the client development team of a major UK government social service system.

"A brilliant exposition of generics. By far the best book on the topic, it provides a crystal clear tutorial that starts with the basics and ends leaving the reader with a deep understanding of both the use and design of generics."
Gilad Bracha, Java Generics Lead, Sun Microsystems

Customer Reviews:

fabulous and concise.......2007-10-04

I recently went from about 0 Java experience to it being the only language (virtually) at a brand new job. I came from a heavy C/C++(STL)/Perl background (12 years).

I bought about 6 Java books including the Sun ones (language spec + "effective programming", both great).

This has been most useful as it's relatively short, covers up to Java 6 (sadly work we only use 5 as we're on mac os X). but it's like a quick ref to the "STL" of Java, at least how i see it .

great boook

Wonderful Book on Generics and Collections With Java Focus.......2007-08-18

'Java Generics and Collections' by Maurice Naftalin in a fantastic book focussed on this interesting topic of generics and collections with Java as the main language to explore these programming concepts. At nearly 300 pages in length, this book has plenty of meat and content within. I love the new font look in this O'Reilly book and was impressed all throughout while perusing this book. 15 chapters of content are seen when you pull back the cover and start reading. This book 'could' be for the most novice of programmers but it's better suited towards a more experienced programmer that is looking to expand their knowledge and become a BETTER developer.

If you want to learn about generics and collections for Java or any language, this is a great reference to learn and expand your development skillset with best practices in mind.

**** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Finally, A Book Devoted To Generics And Collections.......2007-08-12

Ever since the release of Java 5, I've been keeping my eyes open for a book that describes what I believe to be the most powerful new feature of Java - generics. The new book published by O'Reilly, Java Generics and Collections covers the topic in spades. As a bonus, the second half of this book examines the Java Collections Framework. Since the Collections Framework was rewritten to incorporate the use of generics, it makes perfect sense for the authors to spend a reasonable amount of time describing the new interfaces.

A brief introduction highlights the use of generics, autoboxing, foreach loops, generic methods and varargs. The examples are written using the Collections Framework. Subtyping and the use of wildcards follow the introduction and begin to show the real power of generics.

Getting past the basics, a chapter devoted to the Comparable and Comparator interfaces describes some very useful concepts, such as how to use the Comparable interface to find the minimum or maximum element in a collection. The use of enumerated types is briefly covered here, as well as the concepts of multiple bounds, bridges and covariant overriding.

A chapter describing how to declare a generic class helps you build your own classes. Following that is a useful chapter that describes how the design of generics is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It details how generics in Java 5 allow you to gradually migrate your legacy code, rather than replace it all at once.

If you use generic types in casts, instance testing, exceptions or arrays, a chapter on reification warns you of rough edges and limitations you may find and describes some workarounds. How generics changes reflection is also covered.

The last two chapters of the first half of the book describe how to use generics effectively in your code and provide samples of how implementations of select design patterns can take advantage of generics.

The second half of the book, which dives into the Collections Framework, starts with a quick chapter called 'Preliminaries' that spends time discussing underlying concepts, such as the Iterable interface. Thread safety issues are covered in this chapter as well. Thread-safe concurrent collections were introduced in Java 5 and their use, as compared with synchronized collections is also discussed.

The Collection interface is given its own chapter, which is important considering that it defines functionality common to any type of collection other than maps. Following are chapters describing sets, queues and lists. The Map interface also warrants its own chapter, in which the available methods and the various map implementations are discussed. The comparative performance of different set, queue, list and map implementations is shown in tables at the end of each chapter.

Following the Collection and Map interface chapters is the final chapter which describes the Collections class in detail. The Collections class contains static methods that operate on collections or return them.

I found the code and diagrams in this book very easy to understand and a great resource when trying to decide which collection or map implementation to use for a specific problem.

Once you learn how to take advantage of generics, you'll begin to write more useful, reusable code. This book now occupies a space on my shelf next to my Algorithms and Data Structures books.

Oddly dull for an interesting topic; not Wadler's best.......2007-08-09

I've read many of Wadler's whitepapers (usually on Haskell), and have always found him interesting. That's why this book was a bit of a surprise; parts of it were very hard to get through. Some of the examples (mostly the relentless focus on the Collections framework) were, frankly, dull. Much of the writing was repetitive. And many times the authors referred to another complex or difficult concept by section number, rather than briefly summarizing the issue. Apparently they were trying to be concise, but they succeeded in being cryptic.

Beyond the simple T.class question!.......2007-05-04

"Why cant I instantiate T?"
"Why cant I use the T.class literal?"
"Why cant I call a parametrized method if the"

If you are looking answers for these questions, this book will be an overkill! It does not only covers these basics, as it goes much over to advanced topics. Erasure, reification, reflection, java.util classes design, and a "effective generics" chapter, much like Joshua Bloch's book.

Ever wondered about the strange Collections methods signatures? A beautiful and detailed explanation about the max method signature:

public static

Average customer rating:

You can't live without Groovy. You just can't.
Cracking stuff
Mostly as good as everyone says
Programming literature
An amazing journey

Groovy in Action
Dierk Koenig , Andrew Glover , Paul King , Guillaume Laforge , and Jon Skeet
Manufacturer: Manning Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1932394842

Book Description

Groovy, the brand-new language for the Java platform, brings to Java many of the features that have made Ruby popular. Groovy in Action is a comprehensive guide to Groovy programming, introducing Java developers to the new dynamic features that Groovy provides. To bring you Groovy in Action, Manning again went to the source by working with a team of expert authors including both members and the Manager of the Groovy Project team. The result is the true definitive guide to the new Groovy language.

Groovy in Action introduces Groovy by example, presenting lots of reusable code while explaining the underlying concepts. Java developers new to Groovy find a smooth transition into the dynamic programming world. Groovy experts gain a solid reference that challenges them to explore Groovy deeply and creatively.

Because Groovy is so new, most readers will be learning it from scratch. Groovy in Action quickly moves through the Groovy basics, including:

Simple and collective Groovy data types

Working with Closures and Groovy Control Structures

Dynamic Object Orientation, Groovy style

Readers are presented with rich and detailed examples illustrating Groovy's enhancements to Java, including

How to Work with Builders and the GDK

Database programming with Groovy

Groovy in Action then demonstrates how to Integrate Groovy with XML, and provides,

Tips and Tricks

Unit Testing and Build Support

Groovy on Windows

An additional bonus is a chapter dedicated to Grails, the Groovy Web Application Framework.

Early PDF chapters of Groovy in Action are available from the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP) at http://www.manning.com/koenig. As part of this program, readers can also discuss the early manuscript with the author and help shape the manuscript as it's being developed by joining the Author Forum.

Customer Reviews:

You can't live without Groovy. You just can't........2007-08-18

I am going to make this short, because I want to get ONE message across to you, loud and clear. If you are working with Java, you MUST take a look at Groovy.

I cannot overemphasize the coming importance of Groovy on the Java platform, not just in web development, but everywhere. Just try it already. You'll "get it." Just trust me and do it!

Groovy in Action is a first rate introduction and reference, and you really do need a book for this language. I don't recommend trying to go it alone with online reference material, though there is plenty there to give you a taste of why Groovy is about to become your new favorite language.

Read the other reviews. I'm not going to repeat a bunch of stuff here. But whatever you do, TRY GROOVY. You will quickly come to wonder how you ever got along without it.

Cracking stuff.......2007-07-20

Whatever you think about the merits of Groovy as a language, a serious contender on the JVM, or a complete mess, you couldn't hope to find a better advocate for Groovy than this book.

One of the secrets of GinA's success is that it assumes the reader is already proficient with Java development, including Swing, Ant and JUnit. It would also help to know about XML, SQL, HTML, JSP and a vague idea of how MVC applies to web apps. You don't need to be an expert in these areas, though. If you've sufficient knowledge to decode the preceeding alphabet soup of initialisations, you'll be ok.

The reward for possessing this background knowledge is that GinA doesn't waste time with trivial examples, and barrels through Groovy the language in the first part, leveraging your existing knowledge of Java to highlight the important differences in Groovy. In particular, the advantages of interpolating strings, simple hash and array construction syntax, optional typing and metaprogramming are stressed. The big win in Groovy over Java is the use of closures and their used in a block-based approach to iteration, which is as well motivated here as the material in, say, The Pickaxe is for Ruby.

The second part of the book provides examples of the Groovy library. It begins with an excellent chapter on Groovy's Builders, which provide a very neat, uncluttered syntax for putting together hierarchical structures. An obvious application is XML, and by extension Ant scripts, which appears to have some major advantages compared to the challenging readability of vanilla Ant. Even more impressive is the SwingBuilder example, which builds a GUI with the minimum of fuss and a complete lack of anonymous inner classes.

Beyond the Builders, there are also compelling chapters on templating HTML and server side Groovy (Groovlets), writing DAOs and DTOs in Groovy to simplify database programming, and a chapter on XML, which even manages to find the space to introduce Groovy for SOAP, XML-RPC and REST web services.

The final part of the book describes some non-core libraries and other applications of Groovy. The chapter on Groovy extensions to JUnit is interesting, although perhaps this is one place where it assumes too little on behalf of the reader. I would have assumed that the average developer sufficiently motivated to pick up a book on Groovy knows enough about unit testing and JUnit that more space could have been given to the advanced topics. Particularly appealing is the idea of testing Java code with dynamically typed Groovy unit tests, which would make mocking and stubbing more palatable; I would have liked more on that subject.

Another noteworthy chapter is the last one, which introduces the web app framework Grails. This has a different style to the other chapters, being a dialogue between two of the authors as they build a simple app. This reader admits to finding it a little bit naff, but it does usefully demonstrate the grails way (which is a lot like Rails).

If you have the slightest interest in Groovy, alternatives to Java on the JVM, or dynamic languages, GinA makes the perfect case for Groovy as a first class integration language for all the bits of Java where you really wish you were working with something like Perl, Ruby or Python. It's well-written, with good examples, clear explanations, and it's relentlessly practical, never forgetting its target audience. It's all the more impressive given lead author Dierk Konig's comment in the preface that English is not his first language. Kudos to him and his co-authors for what they've delivered.

One can only wish that every language had its GinA. Outstanding.

Mostly as good as everyone says.......2007-06-22

What more can be said of a book extolled by dozens of reviewers, a book that seems to have matched its subject in ubiquity, a book that will likely become to Groovy what the "pickaxe book" is to Ruby? As much as I would love to be a lone voice (or rather a lone whisper) of dissent, the clarity, simplicity, and accuracy of most of Groovy in Action cannot be overlooked. Let no one be fooled by the size of the book - to learn the gist of Groovy, all you really need is a leisurely stroll through chapters 2 through 7 (chapter 1 is the mandatory introduction/history chapter which, in the frustrating tech book tradition, doubles as the "free sample" chapter). Of course, most of its clarity and concision GIA inherits from the language it describes. Still, it is encouraging to have a book that is as valuable a reference as it is a tutorial, and GIA shines in both capacities.

With all its accolades, GIA does have two caveats. First, it is getting closer and closer to being out of date. Groovy 1.1 is already in Beta, and it has an impressive list of features not covered in this Groovy 1.0 book: EJB3 support, JUnit4 and TestNG integration and annotations, just to name a few. I am reminded of Pragmatic Programmers' Agile Web Development with Rails, whose second edition shipped a year after its first. I sincerely hope GIA 1.0 buyers will not be similarly cheated.

The second caveat is the coverage of Grails. Grails may be the single most attractive Groovy application to date yet its coverage in GIA is flaky at best. The authors decide to abandon their polished, clear, and concise writing style and instead author the entire chapter as a bland conversation amongst themselves. In addition to failing to grasp the humor in such presentation, I find that this style hinders me from following along with the tutorial. It makes scanning back for missed steps or clarifications extremely difficult. Furthermore, vapid attempts at humor occupy space that could be otherwise devoted to some omitted topics, such as mapping domain objects to specific tables or using data sources. Coverage of these topics would have been far more valuable than the authors' purported beer garden conversations with a DBA named Martin.

Despite the pour Grails coverage and the looming Groovy 1.1, Groovy in Action is a must-have for anyone who is even mildly interested in Groovy or dynamic languages in Java in general. Coupled with the ease, clarity, and downright beauty of the Groovy language, GIA can turn even a passing interest in Groovy into a burning passion.

Programming literature.......2007-05-15

It is a Gordian challenge to write an interesting and readable book about nothing but a programming language. Dierk König and his co-authors actually did succeed in cutting the knot. They even accomplished much more: they added lots of insight about object orientation, programming language design and good software development. As long as I only had the PDF availabe, it served me as THE reference for all my questions about Groovy. Now the printed copy makes my commuting time worthwhile. Cover to cover. 700 pages of computer LITERATURE.

An amazing journey.......2007-03-29

The book contains a lot of Groovy interesting features, with samples tested to work,asides the writting style exciting to you to discover the new programming world open in front of your eyes thanks to the exceptional Groovy features.

I consider it as much as a Groovy bible.

Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports

Average customer rating:

Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports
pretty poor book
Great for forms, not so much for reports
Great Book
Not a must but a very Useful Book.

Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports
Peter Koletzke , and Paul Dorsey
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0072120487

Book Description

This unique guide contains an invaluable discussion of actual Forms and Reports standards used to create production systems.

Customer Reviews:

Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports .......2007-05-21

The seller is excellent. speedy delivery. I will buy books from him again.

pretty poor book.......2006-06-21

very poorly laid out and confusing presaentation of both forms and reports. some fairly good detailed examples (if you can find them) but the overall presentation is chaotic.

really not worth the bucks

Great for forms, not so much for reports.......2002-12-17

This is a solid reference book for those doing primarily Forms development, but it lacks quite a little in the Reports department. If you're buying it for Reports development, as I did, you'll be disappointed. I have yet to find a very good Reports reference. That said, this is probably the best one out there. The book contains something like 70% - 30% Forms info to Reports info (and that may be a little generous). It does have a few good examples and is an easy read.

Great Book.......2002-01-10

This book is a great tool for creating Visual Basic Applications

Not a must but a very Useful Book........2001-11-26

Thought this book does not explain any of the subjects in detail but it touches almost all the advanced topics of Oracle Forms and Reports. If a lead can get you going and you can get the details yourself... this is the book for you.

Average customer rating:

Best book on C++ templates
You have gotta READ it
Too much to say about templates with not enough good reference materials on the topic!
Good and highly detailed
No issue left behind

C++ Templates: The Complete Guide
David Vandevoorde , and Nicolai M. Josuttis
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0201734842

Customer Reviews:

Best book on C++ templates.......2007-08-24

I used the book when I was working on templates. Book is very clear and concise with proper layout of chapters. I was able to read relevant sections and get clear understanding. It is possible to get all information by reading C++ specs and other sources, but having this one book is a real time saver.

If you work on templates and have some doubts ever then have this book next to you.

You have gotta READ it.......2007-05-29

The title says it all :)

To keep it really short and sweet, learning about C++ templates is really painful till this book came along :)

It's my opinion that advanced C++ developers use this book to guide them in understanding and navigating the world of C++ templates. It's simply easy to read and it has amazing clear presentations

Too much to say about templates with not enough good reference materials on the topic!.......2007-05-08

Before this book, most C++ textbook were at most devoting one chapter on templates which clearly is not enough to cover a topic as complex as the C++ templates. The C++ Templates book is filling this void nicely and one of the coauthor of the book is the author of my favorite STL book The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference. The book has 4 parts: The basics, templates in depth, templates and design and finally advanced applications. Personnally, I found the 2 last parts good but less interesting because I think that other books such as Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied do a better job to cover templates applications.

Where this book really shines is the first part that covers the C++ templates syntax very well. With a capricious syntax like the templates one, a good reference is essential. One example that come to my mind is when I was trying to declare a friend template function from a class template. That sounds like a simple thing to do but it is not. The syntax rules for this declaration are, to my opinion, far to be intuitive and hard to find in regular textbooks. With the help of this book I have finally been able to fix my friend template function declaration and make my compiler happy.

Good and highly detailed.......2007-03-22

I must admin that I could have got most of the C++ template info that I actually needed directly from the Internet for free, but I got the book anyway because it is nicer to read a book that to google for everything separately. And once I started reading, I must admit I was quite impressed. LOTS of information and background clearly presented and including reasonable readable examples of a quite hairy topic. But a word of warninng: This book goes beyond being a simple user guide. If you only want to be able to program using templates, this book may be a bit too much. And you should have experience with the C++ standard template library before reading it. If you havn't then you should probably start your quest there instead.

No issue left behind.......2006-11-13

Templates are a so powerful and complex part of the C++ language, they deserved long ago a book of their own. The authors take this difficult job and do very well. The first 12 chapters cover the current standard for templates (I was sure I could skip this part, but even a quick look revealed to me many unknown details), chapter 13 hints about future directions, and starting from chapter 14 the more advanced topics (like metaprogramming) are nicely covered. Any serious C++ programmer should have this book.

Average customer rating:

A pick for any library strong in web programming topics
Good Intro To Ajax Java
Save Your Money
Way too shallow
Value for your money

Ajax on Java
Steven Olson
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0596101872

Book Description

This practical guide shows you how to make your Java web applications more responsive and dynamic by incorporating new Ajaxian features, including suggestion lists, drag-and-drop, and more. Java developers can choose between many different ways of incorporating Ajax, from building JavaScript into your applications "by hand" to using the new Google Web Toolkit (GWT).

Ajax on Java starts with an introduction to Ajax, showing you how to write some basic applications that use client-side JavaScript to request information from a Java servlet and display it without doing a full page reload. It also presents several strategies for communicating between the client and the server, including sending raw data, and using XML or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for sending more complex collections of data.

The book then branches out into different approaches for incorporating Ajax, which include:

The Prototype and script.aculo.us Javascript libraries, the Dojo and Rico libraries, and DWR
Integrating Ajax into Java ServerPages (JSP) applications
Using Ajax with Struts
Integrating Ajax into Java ServerFaces (JSF) applications
Using Google's GWT, which offers a pure Java approach to developing web applications: your client-side components are written in Java, and compiled into HTML and JavaScript

Ajax gives web developers the ability to build applications that are more interactive, more dynamic, more exciting and enjoyable for your users. If you're a Java developer and haven't tried Ajax, but would like to get started, this book is essential. Your users will be grateful.

Customer Reviews:

A pick for any library strong in web programming topics .......2007-07-08

Web programmers working with Java will appreciate this guide, which tells how to make a Java web application more responsive and dynamic by incorporating new Ajaxian features, from suggestion lists and drag-and-drop modes to producing third-party tag libraries and using Ajax with Struts. The idea is to streamline operations and use Java developer backgrounds to understand Ajax's strengths: AJAX ON JAVA is the place to begin the process, and is a pick for any library strong in web programming topics in general and Java in particular.

Good Intro To Ajax Java.......2007-06-09

'Ajax on Java' by Steven Olson is a nice intro book to learning how to use Ajax with your Java code. Nothing more than a quick overview (certainly not a reference) at just over 200 pages, this book will help Java programmers get their feet wet and start learning how to program the Ajax way with instant responsiveness in the Web 2.0 world.

If you program with Java and want to begin to learn how to use Ajax to make your apps hit the "turbo" button, pick up this book and start your engines!!!

**** RECOMMENDED

Save Your Money.......2007-04-29

Sad to say, this book is little more than a code dump, and the code does not run without debugging.

There are no explanations of technologies and concepts that surround Ajax, therefore, given the state of the code, there is not a lot of reason to work through the book. In fact, this is the first computer book that I returned to the seller, simply because I found so little reason to keep it on my bookshelf.

The writing in the introductory chapter gives promise, but as the book progresses the code quickly becomes dense and the organization and writing becomes unacceptably thin. I expected more from O'Reilly.

Before I gave up on this book, I was half way through it, and only one code set had ran correctly from build on. For example, the author's code has at least four variations of the basic application URL sprinkled among the Javascript and build files of the first four examples. Finding and correcting the URL was annoying but not difficult, but even after that, the examples did not run without further debugging.

I finally threw up my hands and surrendered... defeated by the author's rush to publication.

Way too shallow.......2007-04-27

This book is just a mix of bunch of shallow examples which can be easily found on the web. Nothing else really. You should skip it. Wondering how O'Reilly make money from it?

Value for your money.......2007-04-23

This book is a good value for the money you spent. It takes you through the basics of Ajax and then touches on the different frameworks and implementations available. The section to integrate Ajax with Struts and JSF is also useful and conceptually sufficient to get started.

STL Tutorial and Reference Guide: C++ Programming with the Standard Template Library (2nd Edition)

Average customer rating:

I found MSDN more useful than this book
Good for Beginners and Intermediate Users
Tutorial and Reference Worth Having
Useful, but not Handy
Not the best

STL Tutorial and Reference Guide: C++ Programming with the Standard Template Library (2nd Edition)
David R. Musser , Gillmer J. Derge , and Atul Saini
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0201379236

Customer Reviews:

I found MSDN more useful than this book.......2003-08-16

Whenever I need help with STL, I open this book only to find that it has nothing useful on it. For those who have MSDN don't bother to buy this book.

Good for Beginners and Intermediate Users.......2002-08-30

As an advanced programmer, I must say that I'm disappointed that the level of information provided is not as deep and meticulous as I had hoped.

Additionally, both the index and the overall organization of the book leave much to be desired.

The book, however, is a valuable reference for beginning and intermediate programmers. It explains the STL (Standard Template Library) from the ground up, explaining when, where, and why you would use any particular aspect of the STL, how to use the STL, and sufficient examples to understand correct syntax. This book also contains a detailed section of applying the STL to real-life programming examples. Furthermore, the book also contains a comprehensive reference guide for quick and easy access to pertinent information about STL aspects you frequently use and modestly comprehend.

If you are a beginning or intermediate programmer, this book is worth adding to your collection.

Tutorial and Reference Worth Having.......2002-01-08

This volume is a much improved version of the original of the same title. An additional author has come aboard. The major improvements I noticed were in the examples. There are many more examples and many more STL features now have examples showing how you can use them.

The tutorial aspect of this book, which comprises the first part of the book, makes a strong case for not re-inventing the wheel, but rather using the containers, iterators and algorithms in the standard library. Practical examples come right from the start. This may take some getting used to by those who have never seen STL used before, however, the excitement is tonic.

Also, the approach, of showing STL use before getting into the theories of iterator-based access, has been adopted in several subsequent C++ texts by teachers of C++ and has been found pedagogically sound.

Don't overlook the precision and clarity of the (English) language discussion of the STL in the tutorial. It's worth reading every so often as a refresher.

And the value of the reference section, which is easy to navigate and has everything in it that most other books dealing with STL don't is great indeed.

On the whole, if you work in C++, this is a carefully put-together book that will have lasting value and continual use in your library.

Useful, but not Handy.......2001-11-25

John's reviews are interesting. While I agree with many of the points he makes, I disagree with some. And I found a few to be self-contradictory.

He says, for instance, that "This is a good solid book that will get you up to speed quickly on all the important ideas in STL, and many of its basic usage idioms", but then naievely claims that "there aren't any higher level ideas than those presented here". Does the book cover only basic concepts, or is it that if the book doesn't cover it, it is not knowledge?

The book is full of concrete examples. But my problem was that they were trivial. Reversing or sorting or finding characters within a string is great fun. But it doesn't help me understand who owns the memory within a container. Or how to directly and safely reference an element at an arbitrary position within a container outside of an iteration loop. A majority of the examples use trivial intrinsic datatypes for contained elements; how is using a struct or class different?

All of those issues are important aspects of using the library, and not something I think a busy reader should leave to "a little imagination". While most of the disputed facts are eventually available in the text, they're not easy to find. The organization of the book isn't quite intuitive enough to make it a thoughtful reference or a breezy tutorial.

And, in many cases, once found, they're not clear. John cited page 151 for an explanation of the differences between some of the collections. There, it says "With maps an multimaps, the data items are pairs of keys and data of some other type..." What's that mean? Two keys and data of some other type? Or a key and data of some other type? Does "pairs" mean "two", or an instance of the "pairs" utility class?

The book really is missing information. None of the examples do any error checking whatsoever, and the exceptions that the templates throw aren't described. (Maybe, like priority queues, error handling was formalized after the book went to press. It is showing its age, and there's now a 2nd edition. I haven't purchased it.)

It's ambitious to write a book that tries to serve as both a tutorial and the reference. (Me, I think it's just impossible.) This book does very well, but falls short of adequately completing either goal.

I think that there's a bias against this book because it doesn't fit well with the way these reviewers would have liked to learn the subject at hand. I know that's where I landed. While true masters do indeed make it look simple, making it look simple doesn't help learning. Otherwise, we could all watch Tiger Woods for a few Sundays before taking home a Buick and a six-figure check.

Not the best.......2001-11-25

This was one of the earlier STL books, and even with its Second Edition, it hasn't caught up much. On its own, it would deserve 3 or 4 stars, but it's expensive and there are better ones out there for your money. I think even the publisher must agree, as this book's #1 competator is also an Addison Wesley book, _The C++ Standard Library : A Tutorial and Reference_.

Book Description

Timothy Budd takes an exciting new approach to teaching data structures by incorporating the power of the Standard Template Library (STL). This book represents a reversal of the traditional presentation. Before concentrating on writing programs, Dr. Budd emphasizes how to use a standard abstraction. Working with this standard library, students will master the fundamentals of data structures and learn the power of C++, allowing them to carry their knowledge to later courses and into their careers. While the major topics have remained similar to the author's earlier book, Classic Data Structures in C++, the implementations have been completely revised. Since data structures are assumed to exist in the programming environment from the start, the presence of the STL permits reordering of topics within each chapter. Data Structures in C++ Using the STL. begins each new data structure by describing a typical use of the data structure. Dr. Budd then typically gives an overview of all the operations of the data structure, and only lastly presents an implementation. The implementations are, in most cases, simplified from the standard library versions.

Highlights Teaches data structures in the context of the C++ Standard Template Library Instructs the use of analysis techniques with which to evaluate algorithms Provides examples of modern software engineering principles and techniques, including object-oriented programming Introduces the proper use of various features of the C++ programming language

Customer Reviews:

Readable Overview of the STL.......2006-10-14

Provides a well thought-out and organized overview of fundamental data-structures in the STL. Most frequently used member functions are clearly described and summarized at the end of each chapter. One of the few books on the subject that strikes a balance between showing how data-structures are implemented while still providing practical information so you can use the STL in your own code.

No good!.......2001-11-30

This book did provide some usefull expamples of C++ STL, but overall it is the worst C++ book I have ever read! I only have it because it was the required text for my Data Structures class. The Index is worthless! Many poor explanitions! There are fare better books out there for STL.

For beginners in C++ Data Structures.......2000-06-09

Actually this book is nice. This is the only book I use to learn STL C++ beside the Stroustrup's book. But, the only reason I bought this book was that this was the only STL book available in my local bookshop...;-)

I am really irritating in the way the author targets the readers. If you have programmed using C++ before, this book is NOT for you. This is really for second year Computer Science student who learns Basic Data Structures (List, Tree, etc.). It would be too slow for you and not give you much information. Sorting algorithm, binary tree implementation, and other data stuctures and algorithms are covered too much for an STL book, but too little for a data structures book. And finally, the price is too high. My suggestion is if you really love data structures and algorithm , buy other data structures and algorithm book (not this one), if you really want to dive deeply to STL C++ , buy other C++ books. If you would like to do both, maybe this book is for you.

I do not give this book 2 stars because this book has also useful information and I put this book on my shelf too, just beside the Stroustrup book.I do refer to this book more than the other one because I could only access to the French version of the Stroustrup book...;-)

Good Intro to the STL.......2000-05-17

I used this book in a Data Structures course, and it turned out to go pretty well. It covers all of the data structures in the STL (vectors, queues, strings, lists, etc.) in addition to some things not implemented (trees, hashes, etc.).

The nice thing about this book is for each data structure, it broke it up into two sections. A look at how it was implemented in the STL and also a look at the interface and how to use it, along with examples. In our course, we focused on how to use it (why reinvent the wheel), but it was nice to know how it works as well.

Budd also provides a nice quick sheet for each structure so when you are writing programs, you can refer to it and know immediately how to use that structure.

Be forewarned, some of his code has errors. You can download fixes for some at his website (listed in the book). Not all code has fixes on his website, but you should be able to fix them yourself after reading the book.

One final note, I was able to use most of the code in this book with both MS Visual C++ 5 and Borland C++ 5 with only minor modifications.

This is a worthless book !.......2000-03-21

We have used this book at our University, but it doesn't provide any answers, actually it gives more bugs than answers ! I advise NOT to buy this book, there are other books out there which are a lot better !

Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates (Internet Series) (Internet Series)

Average customer rating:

Pick out the good advice, leave the poor advice alone.
Not-so-professional Web design
Worthwile for any web developer
Great for learning certain techniques
Nice Job

Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates (Internet Series) (Internet Series)
Clint Eccher , Eric Hunley , and Erik Simmons
Manufacturer: Charles River Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1584503653

Amazon.com

Clint Eccher has designed professional Web sites for seven years and now makes some of his designs available as templates through his own site (A5design.com) and with his new book, Professional Web Design. You get 50 templates (each of which features home and second-level pages) and careful instructions on how to adapt them for your own use. Along the way, Eccher offers sound advice on good Web design practices; a little bit about HTML, cascading style sheets, and JavaScript; a look at JPEGs and GIFs; and some insight into "comping" (sketching) a site design for the client's approval.

For the most part, however, this book addresses just those aspects of Web design that readers will need to know in order to successfully utilize the templates. These are designed as "mortised" sites; that is, they are built with nested tables and sliced GIF/JPEG combinations, the kind of design made easy with the advent of Adobe's ImageReady and Macromedia's Fireworks. Although this is not a how-to about using those applications or about creating such sites from scratch, Eccher does help readers learn how to debug and otherwise adjust the source code in order to successfully implement the designs. In addition to trial versions of the major applications, the CD-ROM also contains the JavaScript Cookbook and HTML/CSS Developer's Resource Guide, which provide lots of cut-and-paste source code for all kinds of features (games, sounds, pop-up messages) that can be added to a Web page.

One caveat: despite the templates, this book is too detailed for beginners. For those with some experience, and especially for developers who lack design skills and like the A5design style, this book amounts to an intensive Clint Eccher brain-picking seminar. He offers a few tricks that can be applied to any design (like his tips on how to drastically reduce file sizes) and some good general advice (for example, "Do not get attached to the work" because a client may just decide against it). --Angelynn Grant

Book Description

Whether you are an intermediate Web designer looking to take your sites to the next level or a more experienced designer looking to improve your professional skills, you will find the tools to meet your needs in Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates, Second Edition. This completely updated version of the best-selling book features the 50 professional-quality, license-free Web design templates from the original, as well as 15 new templates, all of which can be easily customized and extended. Each ready-to-use design includes a homepage, and one second-level page, and the framework to build subsequent pages. All of the specific techniques that are required for building these and other highly usable sites have been updated to cover the latest technologies, including HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, Photoshop CS, and PHP. Also included are five new HTML e-mail templates, an increasingly important marketing tool. Detailed tutorials and hands-on projects teach both basic and sophisticated design concepts, including how to create designs for low, medium, or high content sites and the strengths and weaknesses of each. The new edition also includes four new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, using client-side scripting, creating dynamic sites, and an overview of the new Web designs. It covers important topics such as client- and server-side scripting, security, and using databases to update a site,s content.

Customer Reviews:

Pick out the good advice, leave the poor advice alone........2007-08-23

This book has a handful of useful things to say regarding the use of graphics, planning as well as a plethora of ready-made web site templates. It is also spotted through with handy advice and clear writing as well as good examples and discussion. There is a huge "if" though.

The book has become clearly dated in regards to current web site design practice. This book uses tables for layout and to be honest, xhtml/css is the industry preferred method separating content (provided by html/xhtml) from presentation (CSS). As such, I think those looking for a complete and professional introduction and presentation of current (mid-2007) methodologies would be better served by the following suite of books:

Usability Issues
- Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug

Clear Presentation and Introduction to XHTML and CSS
- HTML Dog: The Best-Practice Guide to XHTML and CSS by Patrick Griffiths

Advanced CSS Design
- CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll

Different Designs demonstrating what can be achieved using CSS
- The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter) by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag

While there are other great books about current best practice, these are the ones that I believe best encapsulate what "Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates" tries to do. I think a 3rd edition of this book is needed to truly update it to current practice.

Not-so-professional Web design.......2007-05-21

The title of this book should be "Professional LOOKING Web Design." The numerous template sites provided look great, and are useful for running by clients and asking "which of these do you like?" However, under the hood, the implementation of these pages is anything but professional, at least not by modern standards of using CSS for layout, and tables only for content that is truly tabular.

Instead, the templates rely heavily on tables, and tables within tables, for dividing up the layout of the pages. This can make it hard to customize them (particularly all the chopped-up graphics), and gives you a headache when trying to figure out which cell-inside-a-cell you're editing. This is exacerbated by the poor layout of the HTML code, with tag pairs that don't line up, indents that don't reflect the document structure, and so on.

CSS is mostly relegated to providing styling for text. On page 42 of the 2nd edition, the author does briefly address the table-v-CSS issue, and concludes that CSS is more difficult than using tables (I'd disagree) and that not all browsers support CSS exactly the same way (true enough for some features, but in general a small amount of tweaking and testing will let your designs work in all major browsers).

There are some useful tips and tricks in this book, and the templates do provide some great *ideas* for design and layout, but not good *implementations*. When you come to designing your own pages, the best approach is throw out the book's HTML and CSS and start from scratch. Because this book is most likely to be used by beginning developers, it's unfortunate that it provides so many inadvisable lessons in implementing its templates.

Right now I don't have a good modern (CSS) design book in my library to recommend - I've found that many great resources are available on the Web, such as w3.org and the CSS Zen Garden.

Worthwile for any web developer.......2007-05-08

This book gives some good insights into web design, and is worth reading by any web developer no matter how experienced.

Great for learning certain techniques.......2007-05-04

So, I'm not sure all of the templates are the greatest I've ever seen, but they're really good. If they were better, you'd be buying them or creating them yourself. I think this book is really good at helping understand that given all the ways I could build a website and given the current trends and methods, why to choose what they recommend. I've been doing web design profesionnaly for over six years and I am glad I got this book.

Nice Job.......2007-02-24

I needed this book for a class, and I found it very helpful. The overall organization was good, with helpful details.

C++ Template Metaprogramming: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques from Boost and Beyond (C++ In-Depth Series)

Average customer rating:

I found the title misleading
Hope to see more books written by David Abrahams
Necessary book for template library writers.
An interesting book...
A different take on templates

C++ Template Metaprogramming: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques from Boost and Beyond (C++ In-Depth Series)
David Abrahams , and Aleksey Gurtovoy
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0321227255

Book Description

"C++ Template Metaprogramming" sheds light on the most powerful idioms of today's C++, at long last delivering practical metaprogramming tools and techniques into the hands of the everyday programmer.

Since the introduction of templates, C++ programmers have discovered surprising and powerful ways to perform computation at compile-time. While the excitement generated by these capabilities among C++ experts has reached the community at large, their practical application remains out-of-reach for many programmers. Literature on C++ template metaprogramming has focused primarily on details of low-level "tricks" at the expense of strong idioms and abstractions, and without illuminating the path from metaprogramming to expressive interfaces and efficient, maintainable software.

This book delivers both "big picture" ideas and practical tools. It explains what metaprogramming is, why it matters, and how the unique combination of features in C++ make it an especially powerful language for metaprogramming. It also presents the Boost Metaprogramming Library, a powerful open source framework of high-level compile-time components based on familiar STL idioms, which makes C++ metaprogramming easy, expressive, and fun.

Customer Reviews:

I found the title misleading.......2006-04-26

This book is called "C++ Template Metaprogramming" but it should be called "Boost MPL API Reference." The first portion of this book covers the basics of template metaprogramming fairly well, but what I wanted the rest of the book to cover were both advanced techniques and real-world applications. What I got was material on how to use the Boost metaprogramming library. This book mostly covers just that library, and the various templates that it offers, but what I felt the book should have provided was not only how the more interesting parts of the MPL were implemented, but also interesting applications of the MPL where some interesting algorithm was made possible by template metaprogramming. I can look up the MPL reference docs online, thank you very much.

To summarize - this is a pretty good introduction to template metaprogramming, but seems to be suited for the unlikely position of someone who wants or needs to use this technique, but isn't academically interested in it, and so mainly needs a walkthrough of the set of standard functions available as part of the MPL.

This book is a bad choice for those interested in template metapgramming and wondering if it might help them, but want to learn more about it and its applications first.

Hope to see more books written by David Abrahams.......2005-04-04

C++ Template Metaprogramming is a very valuable book. For me, already chapter 2 was worth the money of the complete book. It showed me how to think in Templates and Metafunctions. That helped me to understand a lot of the other template technics.

As a user of boost.python I always wondered what's possible with templates. My personal target is to understand what's going on in that magic library. This book brought me a very big step further.

I suggest reading this book before reading any of the other Template books like 'Modern C++ Design'. But probably you don't need no other book after reading this one.

Necessary book for template library writers........2005-01-21

This book describes the boost MPL library. Its a very useful guide to this library and it includes enough examples to walk you through how to use it.

Secondly the book explains Meta-programming. This is a new concept to a lot of C++ programmers and old hat to LISP programmers. The C++ pre-compiler is constrained to integral types as constraints. But there are a host of tricks you can use within that constraint to build libraries that adapt to their calling structure. Thus generating code that is as efficient as hand written. Of course with your compiler, your milage may vary.

The other great thing about using this library, MPL, is that where you would write repeticious template code for every parameter in a template'd library like Tuples, you can automate with it with MPL.

Meta programming is a pretty new concept within the C++ community and this book will give us a common language to talk about it. There are other resources on the net, but this book pulls them together.

Highly recommended for expert C++ programmers, C++ Library writers and intermediate programmers study'ing to become experts. If you finished Andrei's book, "Modern C++ Design", this is a great next book to buy and own.

An interesting book..........2004-12-31

This is a really interesting book. The template metaprogramming technical topics covered are extremely advanced, and right at the leading edge of C++ library development, yet the step-by-step presentation makes the material understandable even to intermediate programmers. Since the book draws its examples from code that works with the Boost libraries (supplied on a CD), readers can try the examples and play around with them to see how they work.

Some of the libraries discussed (Boost Type Traits, Boost Bind) are well along to becoming part of the C++ standard via a library technical report, so they will eventually become available to every C++ programmer. The bulk of the book is devoted to the Boost Metaprogramming Library, which packages up a lot of advanced techniques into accessible form.

One issue with template metaprogramming is that compile times can get out of hand. The book includes an appendix with hints on avoiding the problem, together with test timings for a half-dozen popular compilers. I really like the timings; too many other authors make assertions about efficiency without supporting data.

I would guess that this book will be of interest to intermediate and advanced C++ programmers interested in library development. And less interesting to beginning programmers, or programmers who never package up their creations into libraries.

A different take on templates.......2004-11-26

It was only some 5 or 6 years ago that templates became standardised in C++. Even now, frustratingly, different C++ compilers may still have slightly different treatments. That notwithstanding, templates have been widely recognised as enhancing the expressive power of C++. But the authors reveal that perhaps you have not fully appreciated just how expressive templates can be.

They aim this book at experienced C++ programmers. Who still probably have not used templates beyond the standard examples. The metaprogramming in the book goes on at compile time, not run time. Previously, explicit user directives at compile time might have been parser type commands, along the lines of YACC. But templates open up this compile time to a wide new space of manipulations. While the authors were not the first to discover it, the book appears to be one of the first to promulgate the idea.

The book is replete with examples of programming these templates. Some of you will thrill to explore it. But others may find it very confining. Because data is immutable. So compile time C++ has no analog of the non-constant variables used in run time C++. This immediately rules out for loops, for starters. Instead, recursion is often used in place of for. It's a different mind set to cultivate. Metaprogramming is intriguing, but its utility may be only in a few circumstances.

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