Short comings of the author can affect the review of the author's book. This isn't poetry. It's like the creditability of a witness can affect his/her testimony.
I worked on a project that the author created. Without projects like that I would not be employed. A team of programmers (craftsmen or not) made it architecturally sound. I truly hope that not all the projects the author coded was like the one I worked on.
I never meet him but his reputation perceives him - Talks the talk but no walk.
In the context to the project I worked on, the author has no creditability and can/will suffer from personal attacks. The lack of creditability will be fuel for the downfall of the book.
[the author of the material either doesn't know, or changed his mind several times and didn't edit well.] - all three
The question you should be asking yourself is, 'Am I obtaining education for a job or higher learning?'. Computing science is science - the quest for knowledge. Tech. College and a ton of certifications in every app and/or framework you use is the way to go if you have/want a non-research job.
Things come easier when you understand the underlying technologies/science, although not necessary to know. Books, like this one, targeting beginners to intermediates will help ease the learning curve and that's always welcome. Besides, how many IT folks are really going to cruise the source. If they're from a Microsoft background... nil (there's no source in Bill's world).
Why know matrices and vectors if all you're going to use is someones rendering engine? Why know sorting algorthims and trees if all you're going to do is drag and drop in access? Why understand tcp if all you're going to do is turn-on/off properties on tabs of win2k?.... Because whenever things go seriously wrong the deeper low-level knowledges saves the day.
BTW: I gots two tech diplomas, plethora of certs, and 2 1/2 years on my CS degree. Overkill for the day to day MS monkey stuff but that's okay I'm NOT a monkey.
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Short comings of the author can affect the review of the author's book. This isn't poetry. It's like the creditability of a witness can affect his/her testimony.
I worked on a project that the author created. Without projects like that I would not be employed. A team of programmers (craftsmen or not) made it architecturally sound. I truly hope that not all the projects the author coded was like the one I worked on. I never meet him but his reputation perceives him - Talks the talk but no walk.
In the context to the project I worked on, the author has no creditability and can/will suffer from personal attacks. The lack of creditability will be fuel for the downfall of the book.
[the author of the material either doesn't know, or changed his mind several times and didn't edit well.] - all three
The question you should be asking yourself is, 'Am I obtaining education for a job or higher learning?'. Computing science is science - the quest for knowledge. Tech. College and a ton of certifications in every app and/or framework you use is the way to go if you have/want a non-research job.
.... Because whenever things go seriously wrong the deeper low-level knowledges saves the day.
Things come easier when you understand the underlying technologies/science, although not necessary to know. Books, like this one, targeting beginners to intermediates will help ease the learning curve and that's always welcome. Besides, how many IT folks are really going to cruise the source. If they're from a Microsoft background... nil (there's no source in Bill's world).
Why know matrices and vectors if all you're going to use is someones rendering engine? Why know sorting algorthims and trees if all you're going to do is drag and drop in access? Why understand tcp if all you're going to do is turn-on/off properties on tabs of win2k?
BTW: I gots two tech diplomas, plethora of certs, and 2 1/2 years on my CS degree. Overkill for the day to day MS monkey stuff but that's okay I'm NOT a monkey.