Editorial Review

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Reviews (45)

The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit
The bible of Data Warehousing by the guru of the Data Warehouse for all levels of expertise.

Excellence for starter and advanced data warehouse practioners
For a data warehouse novice this excellent starting point and it take through the advance concepts. In short, it's a reference book for any data warehouse practitioner

Excelent
I've been involved in a DW project and began searching books about DW. I take a lot of time to find this , and finaly think that I no made a mistake. It covers all aspects of DW with samples and recomendations. It's the best in that topic. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books And Software    2. Computers    3. Computers - Data Base Management    4. Data Modeling & Design    5. Data warehousing    6. Database Engineering    7. Database Management - Data Warehousing    8. Database Management - General    9. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    10. Computers / Data Modeling & Design    11. Data capture & analysis    12. Databases & data structures   

Reviews (2)

Rosetta Stone of Hypertext
This huge tome is a must have for anyone who wants to deeply understand hypertext and its precursors. From William Burroughs to Doug Englebart and Augosto Boal to Ted Nelson this book presents a huge range of articles (and discursive commentary) of interest to computer scientists, writers, new media workers, artists and everyone in between. This is one stop shopping for new media literacy with over 800 pages of good stuff, much of it very hard to find outside of this volume.

Well done!
Fascinating, thorough in its analysis, beautifully designed reader/player.Good, well-rounded selection of texts and new media objects with no attempt to be exhaustive (to the editors' credit).I plan to use it as one of the texts in an upcoming university course. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books And Software    2. Computers and civilization    3. Internet    4. Mass Communication Media And Society    5. Mass media    6. Media Studies    7. Methodology    8. Technology    9. Technology & Industrial Arts    10. Telecommunication    11. Telecommunication (Engineering)    12. Telecommunications    13. Social Science / Methodology   

Reviews (5)

GreatBook As Far As It Goes
I have used this to get a good background in the topics covered, especially inference theory, and in general I found it to be great book which fills a market gap.The only sins I see are sins of omission.I personally would have enjoyed seeing a more task driven organization.I seem to need these methods periodically but I never seem to need the same method twice.Also, many of the techniques are heavily iterative, i.e., monte carlo, neural networks, etc.This is fine but much of what I do is in the context of simulations where 100,000 step iterative methods don't work so well because of resource constraints.Historically, that has been the problem with many of these methods.They are useful for relatively small domains but don't necessarily work that well for "real" problems. That is probably why more task oriented books are not available.Of course the author is following the outline of the current research into the subject manner which in turn is largely determined by "interesting" and "doable" problems.The real progess in this field will come when the problems are formulated more by what is needed in the nontraditional domains of application. A good example of a useful compression (and identification in some cases) technique that is not covered is Principal Component Analysis.Technically, it is in none of the technique domains covered in this book, but it would have been nice to see some of the methods in the book compared with PCA.The author does make the statement at one point that image recognition is an interesting problem for which the method being discussed at the time is used.Nevertheless, this is a great overview of the subject manner and is very entertaining.That in the long run probably explains the problem: it is a textbook.

A must have...
Uniting information theory and inference in an interactive and entertaining way, this book has been a constant source ofinspiration, intuition and insight for me. It is packed full of stuff - its contents appear to grow the more I look - but the layering of the material means the abundance of topics does not confuse.
Good value text on a spread of interesting and useful topics
I am a PhD student in computer science. Over the last year and a half this book has been invaluable (and parts of it a fun diversion).
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Subjects:  1. Algorithms (Computer Programming)    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Data Modeling & Design    6. Information Theory    7. Neural Networks    8. Programming - General    9. Applications of Computing    10. Computer Programming    11. Computers / Application Software / General    12. Electronics & Communications Engineering    13. Theoretical methods   

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Reviews (15)

An Agile Developer's Primer
This book by Venkat Subramanian and Andy Hunt (one of the authors of "Pragmatic Programmer") provides an interesting view into the life of an agile software developer. So many of the misconceptions of what agile development processes are (and aren't) are broken by this book with its clear articulation of the foundational tenets of the concept. Having worked with TJ Hadfield, one of the key fathers of agile development at the C3 project, I can say this book re-enforces much of what I've learned from him and his many years of wisdom and experience.
Learn To Become A Better Programmer TODAY
'Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World' by Venkat Subramaniam and Andy Hunt is an outstanding book that will teach you how become a BETTER programmer.One of the other reviews of this book used the word BREVITY and it's a perfect word that far too often has been forgotten when it comes to writing books that are clear and TIGHT.Books nowadays seem to be like everything else in society: MORE MORE MORE -- the ability to write tight books that don't bore the reader seems to be a forgotten art that should be remembered IMMEDIATELY.
Excellent primer on being a better developer
Reading this book is helping me label my habits as "good" and "bad".It is very hard to know this after only a handful of years as a developer.This book feels like you are being mentored by a very wise person that has been there and back again.Some of it is common sense but there is still too much "noise" out there from "heavy" process practitioners that think that pretty diagrams, formal design artifacts and extensive documentation are more important than writing good code, working well with others and keeping the customer involved.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Programming - Software Development    5. Software Development    6. Computers / Languages / Programming    7. Computers / Programming / Software Development    8. Extreme Programming, XP, Agile, software engineering, best practices, methodology, methods    9. Software engineering   

Reviews (9)

Great book for analysts too!!!!
I am an experienced analyst looking for an antidote to the RUPies use-case-jaundiced view of requirements. This book provided the perfect foil to the sentiment that use cases are all that is in the requirements universe.
If you understand the target audience this is the best book on the market
For those who want a quick, fun introduction and intermediate mastery of UML 2.0 without getting sidetracked in all the esoteric notation that is rarely used, this is your book. I have used it since its release (and the edition before that) for teaching UML and good Object Oriented Design concepts. Many will throw stones (UML Purists that are more interested in UML Metamodel Purity then getting systems built for example) but don't let that phase you. If you need to learn UML 2.0 and have fun doing it, this book will do an incredible job for you. Scott writes in a very accessible style, not trying to show off his deep technical knowledge of UML (which he has). I admire him for writing this book as it is a tremendous service to our community. He simply wants people to get working as fast as possible. I admire his ability to have such a deep grasp of UML yet not flaunt it and distill things down to the necessary 20% that is all you need 80% of the time. More accurately, perhaps it is more accurate to say he covers the necessary 35%-40% that covers 90% of what you need to be effective.
Read This Book!
This book should really be called "Agile Models Distilled" or perhaps "Agile Model Driven Development".It does for modeling what UML Distilled does for UML: it provides a concise overview of a wide range of modeling techniques.One thing that is a real eye opener in this book is how many simple techniques exist work involving your users in the modeling process, as well as developers who may not want to learn the complex UML tools which management foists on them.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Science    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Object-oriented methods (Compu    6. Object-oriented methods (Computer science)    7. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    8. UML (Computer science)    9. Computers / Programming / Software Development    10. Object-oriented programming (OOP)    11. Software engineering   

Editorial Review

Combining some of today's best ideas about customer-driven object-oriented design, Read more

Reviews (25)

Ditto this NOT being Unified Process
I had to read this book for a class I took. Here is my interpretation of the purpose of this book: Not Unified Process
If you are looking for a book on the Unified Process (as I was), then this book is not for you. This book covers the author's Iconix process. Considering the book's title I would have expected it to examine use cases and UML more than it does. Heresy! This isICONIX, a compact method borrowing UML
This is the eighth software engineering title that uses the UML (Unified Modeling Language) that I have read in the last five months as I work to establish a software engineering guide and reference framework for a small team at my technology company. This book really sets forth the ICONIX methodology, the author's streamlined approach to modeling using mostly, but not only, UML. Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Object-Oriented Programming    6. Object-oriented methods (Compu    7. Object-oriented methods (Computer science)    8. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    9. Programming - Software Development    10. Programming Languages - General    11. UML (Computer science)    12. Use cases (Systems engineering    13. Use cases (Systems engineering)    14. Computers / Programming / Software Development    15. Object-oriented programming (OOP)    16. Software engineering   

Reviews (1)

Designing for Six Sigma
Disclosure: I'm a competitor of Skip's in the Design for Six Sigma field.
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Subjects:  1. Engineering - General    2. Experimental design    3. Quality Control    4. Science/Mathematics    5. Statistical methods    6. Technology    7. Technology & Industrial Arts    8. Research & development management    9. Software engineering    10. Technology / Quality Control   

Reviews (4)

An expense that can be justified.
You are already into various Java technologies like Pricey for what it provides
I was excited about this book when I bought it online. Now that I read it, I am not very happy. The authors could have drilled deeper into some examples of how to implement the application using some wide spread technology like Java or ASP and COM. Giving concrete examples of what a Boundary Object should be, or what classes make sense to implement to interact with databases, just to mention a few, would have been very helpful. I also found "the top ten error" method very tiresome (I often skipped it and went straight to the right ways of doing things). The book was helpful though in providing a guide of what steps to follow in the design process as well as giving us a good idea on how to break the project into objects and diagrams.

A practical follow-up
Okay. I became interested in the lightweight Iconix process after a series of 5 articles in Software Development magazine, so I went out and bought the first book "Use case driven object modeling with UML - a practical approach". Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Electronic Commerce    5. Object-Oriented Programming    6. Object-oriented methods (Compu    7. Object-oriented methods (Computer science)    8. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    9. Programming - Software Development    10. Software Design    11. UML (Computer science)    12. Use cases (Systems engineering    13. Use cases (Systems engineering)    14. Computers / Programming / Object Oriented    15. Object-oriented programming (OOP)   

Reviews (4)

Good book on software testing, but interesting also for other test engineers
Recommended book for software test engineers. Since the author also discusses political aspects of testing in today's real business world, where the CFO rather than the CEO rules, this is an interesting book for other test engineers, too.
Meat ratio is too low
I am a graduate of Computer Science and found a job in software testing. I bought this book based on the Recommendations on Amazon. However, after reading a few chapters, I am disappointed:
Risk based software testing
This text describesMITs (Most Important Tests),a risk based test methodology.MITs makes use of prioritized test cases, which collectively are referred to as a test inventory. The book is organized in 3 sections.Chapters 1 through 5 focus on background concepts.Chapters 6 through 8 focus on the test inventory and how to create it.Chapters 9 through 14 discuss risk analysis,test techniques , and test planning and estimation.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books And Software    2. Computer software    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Programming - Software Development    6. Software Testing    7. Testing    8. Computer Software Packages    9. Computers / Programming / Software Development    10. Software engineering    11. Systems analysis & design   

Reviews (10)

OPM is an Excellent Methodology
I have used many methodologies over my career. Most of them are based around the object-oriented and structured design paradigms. I found out about OPM quite by accident about a year ago. I've been using it ever since. I have used it to model both hardware and software systems, as well as for business process modeling. It is an excellent methodology and I recommend it for anyone developing any kind of system.
The way modeling ought to work
OPM is a methodology for modeling systems, technical as well as any other system. In the techical world it compares with UML. OPM is designed with consistant and simple notations, uses simple rules that when combined can be used to model any system (real or informational) to any level of complexity that is desired by the system architect. Also, it integrates object modeling and process modeling in one diagram (although you can still keep them separate if you wanted). Object-Process Methodology (OPM)
This book describes how Object-Process Methodology (OPM) CASE can be used as a tool for generating complete system intent specifications by graphical object diagrams, precise semantic and syntactic language, and intuitive symbols, definitions and structures. As systems have become more complex, a prevalent problem in systems development has been the number of accruing errors. These errors can cause catastrophic failure in the worst-case in addition to intolerable schedule delays and cost overruns. Introducing errors as well as difficulty finding and successfully correcting them occurs because of the lack of proper analysis and design tools for complex system specifications. OPM has the attributes to mitigate against the possibility of system failure, providing comprehensive visibility for better schedule and cost control in product development. It enhances reuse of system modules, processes and software routines in different contexts, while reducing the chance of errors. OPM automatically generates intent specifications that are readily understood by both customers and product team members and are translatable to machine control subsystems. OPM is a holistic systems paradigm that extends the Object-Oriented (OO) paradigm and overcomes its major shortcomings by integrating system structure and behavior in a single integrated graphic and natural language model. OPM successfully tackles the task of development and lifecycle management of systems, products and projects. OPM is a significant extension of and a major departure from the OO approach. It incorporates the system static-structural and dynamic-procedural aspects into a single, unified model. Presented as a concise visual formalism by a set of Object-Process Diagrams (OPD set), it is automatically translated into a set of Object-Process Language (OPL) script, a subset of natural English. At the basis of the OPM philosophy is the observation that to faithfully and naturally analyze and design systems in any domain, processes, like objects, should be considered as stand-alone "things" (entities) that are not necessarily encapsulated within objects. This detachment and de-coupling of processes from objects emphasizes the duality and complementarity of objects and processes, and opens the door for structure-behavior unification. At any point in time, objects exist with some structure and state. This is the static aspect of the system. Processes affect objects by changing their states. This is the dynamic aspect of the system. System complexity is managed through a number of graphical scaling options: zooming into and out of processes, unfolding and folding objects, and expressing or suppressing object states. These mechanisms provide for selectively detailing a subset of things while still maintaining the high-level context of the details.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Industrial Technology    5. Interactive & Multimedia    6. Object-Oriented Programming    7. Object-oriented methods (Compu    8. Object-oriented methods (Computer science)    9. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    10. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    11. Systems Engineering    12. Computers / Programming / Software Development    13. Information systems engineering    14. Informationssystem-Entwicklung    15. Knowledge representation    16. Object-oriented development    17. Object-oriented programming (OOP)    18. Objektorientierte Softwareentwicklung    19. Software engineering    20. System analysis    21. Systemanalyse    22. Systemmodellierung    23. Systems modeling    24. Wissensrepräsentation   

Editorial Review

For anyone who designs applications or Web pages professionally, Read more

Reviews (8)

Great info, but needs to be shorted and better organized
First off, the information in this book is fantastic! I have attended lectures by Larry Constantine and as a professional software designer with 10 years experience myself I find his methods well grounded in the realities of building actual product. That said, this book has a major flaw. I completely agree with a prior review titled, "Why use 1000 words to explain that which could be done in 10?" This book is too wordy and poorly organized. It meanders about intermixing the mechanics of constructing design artifacts with anecdotes that are tangentially related. The book could be half as long and should separate overviews, details and examples. As stated by Constantine & Lockwood, software (or a technical book for that matter) is at it's core a tool. As a designer I want to be able to easily jump from big picture concepts to details to usage examples as needed. This book as currently organized makes that very difficult. So the information is great, but I would very much like to see this book re-edited and released as a thinner, more focused v2.0.
An Informative and Enjoyable Read.
For anyone in the business of delivering usable software, the book 'Software for Use' by Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood is a must addition to their personal library.This book is wonderfully written in a very readable format (as would be expected from usability experts).

Subjects:  1. User Interface    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Development    6. Programming - General    7. Programming - Software Development    8. Software Development    9. Computers / Programming / Software Development    10. Software engineering   

Reviews (2)

Ambitious, but doesn't fully meet its ambitions
Mathematical level: Moderate
Teachers, students, and researchers - stop here!
This is far and away the best statistics book I have found for the non-statistician.As a researcher and introductory behavioral statistics teacher this book has proven invaluable to me.Read more

Subjects:  1. Data processing    2. Engineering - General    3. Mathematical & Statistical Software    4. Mathematical statistics    5. Mathematics    6. Probability & Statistics - General    7. Research & Methodology    8. S-Plus    9. Science/Mathematics    10. Technology    11. Computers / Mathematical & Statistical Software    12. Probability & statistics   

Reviews (1)

Brilliant book on software design
This is an excellent book providing exposure to a new technology in software design. Design For Trustworthy Software is well written. The quality initiative ideas are quite innovative.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computer software    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Development    6. Programming - Software Development    7. Quality control    8. Reliability    9. Computers / Programming / Software Development    10. Other manufacturing technologies    11. Software engineering   

Reviews (3)

Checkland's masterpiece
When I first read this book I thought it to be revolutionary, ahead of it's time (as others have) and insightful.Despite the fact that Checkland has in large moved away from the ideas and the model of this book - to me it represents the original vision of SSM (soft systems methodology) more so than his later books.Checkland presents a history of systems thinking in the book then goes onto to discuss the need for a new approach - that of SSM.With extreme elegance of style Checkland delivers a long and stinging critique to Hard Systems thinking and presents a coherent and thoughtful argument for his own version SSM.Further he creates a platform for real world problem solving that is useful and interesting.A lot of his ideas have appeared in American texts (like the fifth discipline for example) and rarely are they credited or made use of in that regard. This book is a good place to start exploring the real world of problems with but I would highly recommended that before you go to his two other books you start here.This in my opinion has not been bettered in any systems context to date and I am not sure it ever will or could be. Having said that you really do need to read it and find out for yourself.Be warned it's not for those who want to be challenged in their thinking - especially those of you who don't like the qualitative stuff.

Really worthwhile
This book is a gem. The basic concepts of systems, hierarchies and emergent properties are developed from the methodologies of physical and social sciences in chapter 3, and makes for fascinating reading. I'm currently writing a master's thesis on it! =) Where it all began...
Well, since I've been on a bit of a 'systems' binge lately, I might as well review this old gem...Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Information Management    5. Information Technology    6. Management - General    7. Management Information Systems    8. System Theory    9. System analysis    10. Business systems analysis    11. Management decision making    12. Science / System Theory    13. Software engineering    14. Systems analysis & design   

Editorial Review

Aimed at the working test manager or test engineer, the second edition of William Perry's Read more

Reviews (9)

Excellent book and great ready to use templates
Excellent book that covers testing in a lot of detail.It provides excellent ready to use test processes if you don't have any established already.Very comprehensive but you can still pick out the bits that are going to be of immediate value to your organisation.If you don't have a lot of experience you may need some help doing this though.
a great book for the software organization trying to improve
This is a very good book, despite what the other reviewers say.It is aimed at the professional software developer, consistent with good software engineering practices.Unfortunately, those who still work ad hoc in software development do not understand the value of formal processes and the resulting reduction of risk or increase in quality.This book assume that readers, and their organizations, have the required discipline to formalize their testing methods.One of the key principles in the book is that requirements must be validated and traced throughout the software life cycle - garbage in garbage out. Move Away from this Page
The book is full of hypothesis. Till now nobody would have implemented all the checklists/templates/procedures mentioned in this book, in their real environment and I can bet on this.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books And Software    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computer Programs Testing    4. Computer software    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Programming - Software Development    8. Testing    9. Computers / Programming / General    10. Software engineering   

Reviews (9)

Just starting out with "agile"? Try Crystal before XP.
The Crystal methodology is extremely lightweight, and is not saddled with the percieved "rules" of XP. This is *the* guidebook for the Crystal familiy. Pick a few of the 7 properties and get started building better software!

Informative
Lots of relevent information about Software Development project management.It give insight into ways of dealing with stuff I see every day at work.I am about 1/3 of they way through, it is well laid out, I'd recommend it for anyone that is a technology development group and want some good ideas for how to deal with projects.

A realistic agile methodology...
While I like the general concepts behind agile development methodologies, sometimes they seem to be focused on speed with a disregard for any documentation.Alistair Cockburn has an agile methodology that appears more palatable in today's environments...Crystal Clear : A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Manufacturing    5. Process Engineering    6. Programming - Software Development    7. Software Engineering    8. Computers / Programming / Software Development