Distributed

This book is so superficial in its decription of CORBA 3. The style that its written in is dry and highly unstructured. In providing readers a quick overview of CORBA 3 (which the title suggest), the author often ignores the important aspects of presenting clear concepts behind some of the technologies and to explain (at least) a high-level overview of the operations. I would point readers to access the omg site directly for more rich information than what this book attempts to cover.

I thought this course could be of some value, but after 8 hours I took it back to my local book store and demanded a refund. The major problems are: 1. The book's illustrations use small (5-6 point) type, then shade it so dark you can't read it. The flowcharts were often impossible to follow, and required readers to understand logical concepts (and, or, xor). Finally, the logic was often confusing. For example: there was a circle with one input and two outputs that contained the operator XOR. Without two or more inputs, XOR makes no sense at all (XOR is Exclusive Or, this OR that but not both). Presenting Business Engineering (BE) as an alternative to Business Process Reengineering (BPR), without adequately describing either does the reader no good. You must understand the process (in infinite detail) if you wish to improve it. 2. The three hours of video of Curran's head, as he slowly paraphrased the material in the book, was almost painful. The bulleted lists and poorly done graphics were a welcome relief, even though they added little to the understanding of the material. I found myself counting his "blinks" instead of learning the material. He makes Al Gore look animated. 3. The CD is supposed to give you access to a live SAP R/3 session. If it did, I couldn't find it. All I got was what the author calls "blueprints" (flowcharts). Zooming in let me read what was in the boxes, but I couldn't see the flow. Zooming out let me see the flow, but I couldn't read the legends. Bugs in the system caused the boxes to break-up when zooming in. 4. The Website has an "interactive" test with a total of 43 questions. Guessing at each question and pressing "submit" gets you all the correct answers. If you print the answers out, then retake the test, I'll bet you can get 100%! The list of "links" was the only useful part of the website.

I am disappointed. Maybe for a beginner who lost his manual. There is nothing really new on this books I rather recommend "SQLWindow 5 developer guide" (Shah & Griswold) that is a lot better.