Slashdot Mirror

Instead of AddAll, I prefer to use BestBookBuys. Both AddAll and BestBookBuys appear to have similar functionality (for instance, they both identified BookPool as having the lowest price), but I personally prefer the interface on BestBookBuys.

But, I do share your sentiment about Fatbrain. Sure, it used to be independent and cool, but now they're just yet-another subsidiary of Barnes & Noble (bleh!). Besides, Fatbrain also costs $18 more than the lowest AddAll/BestBookBuys price.

Alex Bischoff

All clear, wail the sirens!

Apparently this book is just a warm-up for Hack Attacks Denied

From the "publisher's summary":

Once you've seen firsthand in Hack Attacks Revealed all the tools and techniques that hackers use to exploit network security loopholes, you're ready to learn specific methods for protecting all parts of the network against security breaches. Corporate hack master Chirillo shows readers how to develop a security policy that has high alert capability for incoming attacks and a turnkey prevention system to keep them out. Network professionals will find expert guidance on securing ports and services, intrusion detection mechanisms, gateways and routers, Tiger Team secrets, Internet server daemons, operating systems, proxies and firewalls, and more.

The Right Way to implement this is to make an abstract class for the tree node, write the tree manipulation methods to work with the abstract class, and make derived classes that store different types of data, with appropriate constructors that initialize the data fields. Anything that doesn't have to care about the data type can just manipulate the objects as the original abstract class.

This sounds like a perfect place to use the STL and/or C++'s templating mechanism. Trust me, I'm not a huge C++ fan, but the container classes in the STL kick ass (I imagine something like what you describe is already there). Even if the STL don't give you no lovin', templates (and references) make it really easy to write a storage class that works over an arbitrary range of types.

This is just my 2 cent's worth. I'm mainly a C guy too, but the STL was the single biggest thing tempting me to switch to C++.

There is good coverage of all this in Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C++ (and other such as the C++ Primer by Lajoie et al.) I mention Bruce Eckel's books because they're available to peruse online, his site is mindview.net which unfortunately seems to be down right now (maybe it's hosted in california ;-). I found a mirror of his C++ books in PDF form here and a mirror of all his books in HTML form here. If you're like me you'll read the book(s) online and end up liking them so much you want to own a paper copy (and here I make my standard reference to bookpool for discount tech books).

bookpool.com has pretty good prices

Pick up any book on graphic design (by that I mean stuff like page layout). Any college of journalism will have at least one course on this (and by extension the college bookstore(s) will have the texts). My fiancee recently got her journalism degree (concentration in magazine design), so I've absorbed some of this stuff over her shoulder.

One book I got that does a pretty good job of explaining this stuff to amateurs is The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams (1994, Peachpit Press; $10.50 at www.bookpool.com). See specifically chapters 7 through 9 (the "Designing with type" section).

I haven't yet felt the need to order movies online, but if I did, I'd go to noamazon.com and pick out one of the vendors there.

--

That's cheeper than any (and for many other books too) and significantly less commercial. I mean thinkgeek is just a sad way of targeting people who buy odd things. They browse around and find other people's products (like that PC window kit) and sell it at a markup.

-Daniel

I don't have numbers comparing their stacks, or SMP ability data (why do you need a multi-proc firewall unless you're doing it for a large company?), but from a user standpoint, I think OpenBSD is fantastic and I recommend that anyone remotely interested in security find a P-166MHz with a 2 gig drive and throw it on, just to try out.

psxndc

It is a nice overview of the technologies, and gives you a good sense of how things fit together, but I really recommend getting the two O'Reilly books Java Servlet Programming and JavaServer Pages if you need a more in-depth coverage.

Be warned, though, the Servlet book talks some about specific versions of the various servlet engines, and so it is getting a little long in the tooth in those sections.

It is a nice overview of the technologies, and gives you a good sense of how things fit together, but I really recommend getting the two O'Reilly books Java Servlet Programming and JavaServer Pages if you need a more in-depth coverage.

Be warned, though, the Servlet book talks some about specific versions of the various servlet engines, and so it is getting a little long in the tooth in those sections.

What, you're ever at a computer without access to TMMM!? :-)

Brooks does mention two mice, but has no pointers to further info. In Chapter 19 (pp. 261--262 in my A-W softcover edition), the section ``Command utterances and the two-cursor problem'' discusses how most commands consist of a verb and a noun---action and object---and how convenient it would be to use two cursors to simultaneously select each. The notes for that chapter are prefaced with ``Material quoted without citation is from personal communications.'' The note from that subsection, says in its entirety:

7. It appears the Apple Desk Top Bus could handle two mice electronically, but the operating system provides no such function.

If you haven't read this book, do so now. If you wonder why, you might check some reviews:

• A collection of reviews at Softpanorama.org. Covers more than just TMMM. Well worth checking out. The general site looks very interesting, too.
• /.'s own review. If anything, understated.
• Ed Yourdon's brief commentary, with an interesting sidelight on how the book got updated.
• Fatbrain.com's sales page $25
• Bookpool.com's sales page $24

--

--

Or did you mean, more like IndigoPerl? Perhaps you aren't aware that Perl has been available for Win32 systems for over four years, and that it's been ported to almost every other OS under the sun...

Or, more than likely, IHBT.

Well, it seems Sharky glossed right over this one. They don't seem to get what rotating registers are for. They just make some vague statement about them working well for streaming things or something. *sigh*

One of the chief techniques that VLIW (and EPIC) processors will use to extract parallelism from looping code is Software Pipelining. This technique extracts parallelism across multiple loop iterations by scheduling them in parallel. The most popular form of software pipelining, Modulo Scheduling, offsets the loop iterations by a fixed interval known as the initiation interval.

The minimum possible initiation interval for a software pipelined loop is limited by two factors: The resource bound for the loop, and the recurrence bound for the loop. The resource bound is determined by counting up all the resources the loop uses and finding the minimum # of cycles (ignoring dependences) that you could pack everything into. The recurrence bound is a little trickier.

The recurrence bound is the bound imposed by loop-carried dependences in the loop. That is -- dependences that feed from one iteration of the loop into future iterations. For instance, in the following loop, there's a dependence from the result written to "z" on one iteration to the calculation of "x" on the next:

• for (i = 0; i &lt N; i++)
  {
  • x = z ^ 3;
    y = x + 42;
    z = y * 69;
    
  }
  

On an architecture with infinite resources, this loop is still recurrence bound by the path from x to y to z, back to x. So, what does this have to do with rotating registers?

Well, so far, I've just described flow dependences. If you pick up a copy ofHennessy and Patterson's Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach , you'll see that this corresponds to "Read after Write" hazards -- meaning a later instruction reads a result written by an earlier instruction. There are two other sorts of hazards to watch out for: Write-After-Write (two instructions writing to the same place have to write in order), and Write-After-Read (a later instruction might clobber a value read by the current instruction).

Write-After-Read hazards are particularly interesting in the case of software pipelined loops. First, some terminology: a value is live from its earliest definition to its last use. In the example above, x is live from the first statement until the second within the body of the loop. In a given loop, a value may be live for quite a long time. However, the initiation interval for the loop might be quite short. This can lead to problems, such as violated Write-After-Read hazards.

Suppose we have the following code:

• for (i = 0; i < N; i++)
  {
  • b = a[i];
    c = b + t;
    d = c + u;
    e = d + v;
    g[i] = e + b;
  }

Suppose we can fit all of this into a single cycle loop on our hardware because we can do four ADDs in parallel, plus the load and the store. Notice that the instructions in the middle are just dependent on each other, and on constants that are initialized outside the loop. Notice that the final instruction uses the second-to-last ADD's result as well as the value we loaded initially.

If we try to put this into a single-cycle loop, we'll have a problem, because we'll load multiple values into b before we even get to the calculation which finds g[i]. Oops. This is because the b = a[i] from a future iteration has moved up above an instruction from the current iteration which reads b--that is, we've violated a Write-After-Read hazard. In software-pipelining parlance, this is a "live-too-long" problem. The value of b is live across multiple iterations.

In a device without rotating registers, you solve this problem by manually copying b to temporary registers. In C code, this might look like so:

• for (i = 0; i < N; i++)
  {
  • b = a[i];
    b1 = b;
    b2 = b1;
    b3 = b2;
    c = b + t;
    d = c + u;
    e = d + v;
    g[i] = e + b3;
  }

Fine, except that can increase codesize, and in some cases impact performance. (It is, however, the technique of choice on processors that implement a minimum of hardware, so as to save power and cost.) Rotating registers alieviate this by performing these copies implicitly whenever the loop branch is taken.

So there you have it. That's the scoop behind rotating register files.

My text covers Red Hat 6. It is a bit dated - I've been yelling at the publisher for a revision, but they are not very responsive.

The book assumes basic UNIX knowledge, so you will want to use this in tandem with one of the basic texts by Sobol or the equivalent.

The text lacks a chapter on sendmail (which I regret), and I included material on the Gimp which people have found to be superfluous.

I also have some older articles that I published on UnixWorld Online - I have made them available on my website. My tutorial on PHP and Postgres had great critical acclaim (hearing about this review was my introduction to Slashdot). I will formally GPL the contents of these articles if you like - use them as you wish.

I am actually hoping that my text goes out of print so the rights revert back to me. I will GPL it at that time.

I do feel at the moment that I chose the wrong route in publishing a book - I turned down too many opportunities to do great documentation because I had such a large commitment.

Try Bookpool for discount technical books. I never understood people's attraction to Fatbrain. Bookpool's service is first rate and their discounts are almost always better than Fatbrain's.

Yeah, I caught that too. Bookpool has it for $5 less than ThinkGeek. But maybe that's because they're not paying Hemos a commission ;-)

That aside, everyone should check out Bookpool. Their prices are even cheaper than Fatbrain's (most of the time) and I've never had a problem with them.

Just trying to help the little guys,
psxndc

Don't forget the bookpool, at least for computer books. I haven't been able to beat their prices anywhere.

B&N is usually better than Amazon, too, because B&N offers coupons (which is why they're taking heavy losses on their web sales, from what I've read. Check out Movie Price Guide for coupons to B&N, as well as a lot of DVD sellers.

They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me.

The HOW-TOs were useful as well, but without a notebook computer, HOW-TOs don't really travel on a plane well. I do feel that some of the stuff in the book is irrelevant (setting up dial up services) but that it ONLY because it doesn't apply to me setting up my DSL/Cable modem LAN at home. I'm sure it would be very useful to somebody else.

One thing I was disappointed in was the lack of coverage of DHCP. Having recently moved to a new apartment and switching from static IP-DSL to DHCP-cable modem, this book wasn't all that helpful getting me hooked up to the Net. It helped in getting my internal LAN up, but New Riders Linux Firewalls is much better for dealing with DHCP. My $.02.

Bottom Line: A few MINOR flaws, but anyone that uses two or more Linux machines should have this book.

-psxndc

You want to purchase "A Quarter Century of Unix" by Salus. ISBN 0-201-54777-5. Order it from Bookpool or your favorite local bookseller. (Friends don't let friends order from Amazon.com)

'Quarter Century' is the definitive history of Unix.

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

Sounds like the C++ version of Plauger's like book for C. Something very useful.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

I have D&E and read some of it. It didn't seem to be useful for learning C++ at all. I saw LSC++SD in a "brick and mortor" bookstore, but wasn't impressed enough to hold on to it for more than about 20 seconds. However, Inside the C++ Object Model sounds from the title like it might be worth looking into.

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal.

I've rarely ever found magazine articles to be much helpful in things.

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

That I can write C in C++ is probably one of the big negatives for C++ for me. I would be so tempted to just do what I know. Why do I need to "get" encapsulation when I already have it in the abstract sense of the design? C is just the vehicle I use to bridge the abstraction-to-reality gap. Don't assume that because I code in C, that I didn't do anything object oriented in the design (I do to varying degrees in many projects).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

Sounds like the C++ version of Plauger's like book for C. Something very useful.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

I have D&E and read some of it. It didn't seem to be useful for learning C++ at all. I saw LSC++SD in a "brick and mortor" bookstore, but wasn't impressed enough to hold on to it for more than about 20 seconds. However, Inside the C++ Object Model sounds from the title like it might be worth looking into.

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal.

I've rarely ever found magazine articles to be much helpful in things.

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

That I can write C in C++ is probably one of the big negatives for C++ for me. I would be so tempted to just do what I know. Why do I need to "get" encapsulation when I already have it in the abstract sense of the design? C is just the vehicle I use to bridge the abstraction-to-reality gap. Don't assume that because I code in C, that I didn't do anything object oriented in the design (I do to varying degrees in many projects).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

Sounds like the C++ version of Plauger's like book for C. Something very useful.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

I have D&E and read some of it. It didn't seem to be useful for learning C++ at all. I saw LSC++SD in a "brick and mortor" bookstore, but wasn't impressed enough to hold on to it for more than about 20 seconds. However, Inside the C++ Object Model sounds from the title like it might be worth looking into.

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal.

I've rarely ever found magazine articles to be much helpful in things.

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

That I can write C in C++ is probably one of the big negatives for C++ for me. I would be so tempted to just do what I know. Why do I need to "get" encapsulation when I already have it in the abstract sense of the design? C is just the vehicle I use to bridge the abstraction-to-reality gap. Don't assume that because I code in C, that I didn't do anything object oriented in the design (I do to varying degrees in many projects).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

Sounds like the C++ version of Plauger's like book for C. Something very useful.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

I have D&E and read some of it. It didn't seem to be useful for learning C++ at all. I saw LSC++SD in a "brick and mortor" bookstore, but wasn't impressed enough to hold on to it for more than about 20 seconds. However, Inside the C++ Object Model sounds from the title like it might be worth looking into.

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal.

I've rarely ever found magazine articles to be much helpful in things.

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

That I can write C in C++ is probably one of the big negatives for C++ for me. I would be so tempted to just do what I know. Why do I need to "get" encapsulation when I already have it in the abstract sense of the design? C is just the vehicle I use to bridge the abstraction-to-reality gap. Don't assume that because I code in C, that I didn't do anything object oriented in the design (I do to varying degrees in many projects).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

Sounds like the C++ version of Plauger's like book for C. Something very useful.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

I have D&E and read some of it. It didn't seem to be useful for learning C++ at all. I saw LSC++SD in a "brick and mortor" bookstore, but wasn't impressed enough to hold on to it for more than about 20 seconds. However, Inside the C++ Object Model sounds from the title like it might be worth looking into.

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal.

I've rarely ever found magazine articles to be much helpful in things.

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

That I can write C in C++ is probably one of the big negatives for C++ for me. I would be so tempted to just do what I know. Why do I need to "get" encapsulation when I already have it in the abstract sense of the design? C is just the vehicle I use to bridge the abstraction-to-reality gap. Don't assume that because I code in C, that I didn't do anything object oriented in the design (I do to varying degrees in many projects).

Most of the documentation out there for so much stuff is written with the idea of sequential reading in mind. I don't have the time to do that in most cases, so documentation that gives an introductory concept explanation (without the usual sales talk that most use as introductions), and has all the rest as a well indexed reference, would do better for me (and a lot of people I know).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

In a previous post, you suggested:

If you still want to convert C programmers to use C++ then I suggest writing a book ... a short one, that explains every concept in C++ ... not just language syntax, but practical concepts ... clearly and concisely. Don't drag it out for newbies; focus on experienced C programmers. Explain how it is that C++ takes basic OO design concepts and puts them into a programming language. Explain how C++ behaves with each concept at higher abstract as well as lower real levels. Include a full reference section. And make sure there are examples of whole programs, not just snippets everywhere. Maybe then you might see more converts. But until someone does this, I doubt you will see very many.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal .

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

Hope this helps!

--

Most of the documentation out there for so much stuff is written with the idea of sequential reading in mind. I don't have the time to do that in most cases, so documentation that gives an introductory concept explanation (without the usual sales talk that most use as introductions), and has all the rest as a well indexed reference, would do better for me (and a lot of people I know).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

In a previous post, you suggested:

If you still want to convert C programmers to use C++ then I suggest writing a book ... a short one, that explains every concept in C++ ... not just language syntax, but practical concepts ... clearly and concisely. Don't drag it out for newbies; focus on experienced C programmers. Explain how it is that C++ takes basic OO design concepts and puts them into a programming language. Explain how C++ behaves with each concept at higher abstract as well as lower real levels. Include a full reference section. And make sure there are examples of whole programs, not just snippets everywhere. Maybe then you might see more converts. But until someone does this, I doubt you will see very many.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal .

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

Hope this helps!

--

Most of the documentation out there for so much stuff is written with the idea of sequential reading in mind. I don't have the time to do that in most cases, so documentation that gives an introductory concept explanation (without the usual sales talk that most use as introductions), and has all the rest as a well indexed reference, would do better for me (and a lot of people I know).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

In a previous post, you suggested:

If you still want to convert C programmers to use C++ then I suggest writing a book ... a short one, that explains every concept in C++ ... not just language syntax, but practical concepts ... clearly and concisely. Don't drag it out for newbies; focus on experienced C programmers. Explain how it is that C++ takes basic OO design concepts and puts them into a programming language. Explain how C++ behaves with each concept at higher abstract as well as lower real levels. Include a full reference section. And make sure there are examples of whole programs, not just snippets everywhere. Maybe then you might see more converts. But until someone does this, I doubt you will see very many.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal .

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

Hope this helps!

--

Most of the documentation out there for so much stuff is written with the idea of sequential reading in mind. I don't have the time to do that in most cases, so documentation that gives an introductory concept explanation (without the usual sales talk that most use as introductions), and has all the rest as a well indexed reference, would do better for me (and a lot of people I know).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

In a previous post, you suggested:

If you still want to convert C programmers to use C++ then I suggest writing a book ... a short one, that explains every concept in C++ ... not just language syntax, but practical concepts ... clearly and concisely. Don't drag it out for newbies; focus on experienced C programmers. Explain how it is that C++ takes basic OO design concepts and puts them into a programming language. Explain how C++ behaves with each concept at higher abstract as well as lower real levels. Include a full reference section. And make sure there are examples of whole programs, not just snippets everywhere. Maybe then you might see more converts. But until someone does this, I doubt you will see very many.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal .

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

Hope this helps!

--

Most of the documentation out there for so much stuff is written with the idea of sequential reading in mind. I don't have the time to do that in most cases, so documentation that gives an introductory concept explanation (without the usual sales talk that most use as introductions), and has all the rest as a well indexed reference, would do better for me (and a lot of people I know).

This past weekend I picked up The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis. I've found this to be a wonderful reference, with sections not only covering the STL, but also strings, numerics, iostreams, i18n and allocators. It has a good TOC and index. I've not read it straight through (or even made an attempt), but it is very easy to find what I need. Explanations are clear and concise. Reading one page of the iostreams chapter halped me successfully derive a new stream buffer and class in five minutes. All previous documents were either too esoteric or verbose -- I couldn't get my head around the problem.

In a previous post, you suggested:

If you still want to convert C programmers to use C++ then I suggest writing a book ... a short one, that explains every concept in C++ ... not just language syntax, but practical concepts ... clearly and concisely. Don't drag it out for newbies; focus on experienced C programmers. Explain how it is that C++ takes basic OO design concepts and puts them into a programming language. Explain how C++ behaves with each concept at higher abstract as well as lower real levels. Include a full reference section. And make sure there are examples of whole programs, not just snippets everywhere. Maybe then you might see more converts. But until someone does this, I doubt you will see very many.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the following books:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Inside the C++ Object Model
• The Design and Evolution of C++

I've only read D&E. This is probably where you should start. It is very small. It's whole purpose is to explain why things are they way they are (i.e. you don't pay for what you don't use).

In addition, journals like DDJ and the (now-defunct) C++ Report have good articles about practical software development. I hear many of the C++ Report folk are heading over to the C++ User's Journal .

The most important thing to remember about C++ is that it is complicated. But only as complicated as you make it. For all intents and purposes, you can write C in C++. A good place to start is using it as "C with classes" to get encapsulation, then move on to polymorphism. It's also important to understand when to use language features (i.e. templates and specialization vs. inheritance) and books like Effective C++ help in that regard.

Hope this helps!

--

If you're looking for the "free DOC encoder", it might be a little hard to find, because it got bought out by Aportis a few years ago. (For obvious reasons, they "encouraged" the author to stop distributing free software.) However, the GPL means that all distributed versions are still Free. Visit ftpsearch and look for makedoc7.cpp. Alternatively, it is included on the O'Reilly Palm book CD. (You can get ORA titles for ~40% off at bookpool, so this book and its CD is a pretty good deal.)


~wog

the cheapest place I've found to buy computer books:

http://www.bookpool.com

They only sell tech-related books, but they're
always less than than Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
Fatbrain, etc...

Note I'm not affiliated with them in any way.

At the APCS level, most kids should be proficient enough in C++ to attempt a simple recursive descent compiler/interpreter. I recommend Ronald Mak's Writing Compilers and Interpreters: An Applied Approach Using C++. The book is a very gentle (some will say too gentle) introduction to writing compilers and interpreters. Ronald Mak has done a particularly good job of introducing more advanced programming techniques (inheritence, binary file manipulation, etc.) that are not covered in the APCS curriculum. The examples in the book give a strong sense of accomplishment, every chapter has at least one utility so it is easy to see progress. Needless to say, this is not for every student, but there's something very cool about being able to say that you've written your own compiler...

$30.95 - Bookpool.com

It's not Linux specific, but it is a superb overview of the problems and solutions in low-end parallel computing. It also discusses the three favourite solutions (SMP, NUMA and clusters) in depth and goes over their strengths and weaknesses.
--
Cheers

• Bookpool
• Barnes & Noble
• Books a million
• and I'm sure there are others!

• fatbrain.com {.}
• bookpool.com
• alldirect.com
• kingbooks.com
• borders.com

And of course, it's always best to do a search for the cheapest price at places like pricescan.com

And, you can get the book from bookpool.com for $26.50 (I agree that it's a useful book, and this is a decent price, so I thought I would share).

And, you can get the book from bookpool.com for $26.50 (I agree that it's a useful book, and this is a decent price, so I thought I would share).

If you are doing the whole amazon.com boycott thing but still want to save a few bucks, you can always try out bookpool.com . They are selling it for $23.50 , which is more than amazon.com, but that is unusual - they are typically cheaper than the other online places. I have used bookpool.com several times in the past, and have always been impressed with prices and delivery time.

In this case, the book is out of stock (so you might have to wait a few weeks), but it is a good link to keep in mind the next time you are going to order tech books. All IMHO, of course.

If you are doing the whole amazon.com boycott thing but still want to save a few bucks, you can always try out bookpool.com . They are selling it for $23.50 , which is more than amazon.com, but that is unusual - they are typically cheaper than the other online places. I have used bookpool.com several times in the past, and have always been impressed with prices and delivery time.

In this case, the book is out of stock (so you might have to wait a few weeks), but it is a good link to keep in mind the next time you are going to order tech books. All IMHO, of course.

If you mostly buy tech books, you ought to give bookpool.com a try - I have yet to find better prices on most tech books (although that is all they sell, and sometimes it takes them a week or two to get the newer releases) - just fyi.

Amazon, B&N, Borders and the ilk really overcharge for computer books. My guess is that they try to make up for their discounts on other items by gouging the techie sector. After all, we collectively tend to love our books.

Go to bookpool.com and buy your nerd books. They have DEEP discounts. Like I got the boxed set of Knuth's "Art of Programming" for $45.00 less than Amazon charges.

Some guy named Chris

Bookpool is an online vendor that specializes in technical books. They have the entire O'Reilly catalog available at an approx. 35% discount. They are fast, and they're a tightly focused tech. bookseller.

For general merchandise, I usually use Buy.com; I've been happy with them, though a friend of mine ran afoul of their returns policy a couple of times.

I have found BookPool to be cheaper than Amazon.com on many occasions. There are certainly alternatives out there...