Modeling

Though the book covers a broad range of mathematics present in the field of computer graphics, I found it lacking in certain respects. The plentiful diagrams and figures greatly assisted comprehension of stated materials, yet I would like to see written proofs of methods used. In addition, such topics as quaternions are only briefly mentioned in historical references. Although this is an excellant mathematics book, I strongly recommend the purchase of Mathematics for 3D Game Programming & Computer Graphics in addition to this title.

A very simple and clearly written book; richly and highly appropriately illustrated. A perfect option to start with the computer graphics math.

Yes, like some of the reviewers below mentioned, there's a whole lot more to computer graphics math than just what's covered in this book, but you gotta start somewhere, and it better not be overwhelming at first. Which is not to be interpreted like this book is cursory or superficial, it's just fine and discusses a lot of relevant topics; after all, to cover everything is impossible, you gotta get comfortable with the basics and them scour the net for papers. Mortensons's book is a very high quality work, thumbs up. And, interestingly, it doesn't cost $... like some other books of the similar kind. Thank you, Mr Author, please give us more of the same.

PS. Again, this is a good refresher or starting book; for someone with a PhD in comp. graphics there'll be nothing new there -- it's not a collection of academic papers on current goings on. But I know of no better book for a moderately math-competent beginner. I love this book, I wish all I read was written like it. Visually it's very good too: readable fonts, big-size sheets, clear and illustrative figures. And the book is not one of those 2000-page lumps of everything the authors thought could be included to make it look respectable -- it's moderately sized and easy to handle, you don't need a truck to take it along when you're going somewhere.

if you want to learn the mathematics behind computer graphics buy this book.

it is well written and the explanations are first rate. i'm studying on my own with the book and hardly have need to ask others for any help with understanding topics.

i'm not sure what else to say, except I first tried Mathematics for Computer Graphics and Game Programming and it was pretty horrible compared to this book.

It's cheap, so get it.

I consider this book on two levels:
1. How well does it capture and present the important contributions Parnas has made to the Software Engineering discipline?
2. Is the content (i.e. Parnas' papers) useful?
---

This book does a beautiful job of collecting and organizing Parnas' papers. Each paper is preceeded by an introduction from a peer or other recognized prominent computer scientist. Almost all of these introductions are insightful in themselves: they help create a context for the essay which made it easier for me to fill in the gaps. Almost all of the contributors' writting styles are lucid and easy to read. I found reading through this book quite enjoyable.

Parnas' contributions are critical, no doubt. The concept of Information Hiding as a criteria for modular decomposition really helped form modern "object-oriented" thinking. It seems to me that returning to the first well-formed idea can often grant insights into how to be more effective with its offspring. Indeed, Chapter 7 in this text is essentially a primer on how to think in object-oriented terms.

You'll not find a passage that reads, "now here's an example of that in Java/C#/C++" But that's the blessing: Parnas communicates the essence of the principles that yield quality software engineering without getting lost in unnecessary details. The fact that some of these papers were written 30 years ago helps bring home the fact that novel ideas are rare.

One aspect of 30 year-old writtings that may be a stumbling block for similarly aged programmers is that these works live in an iron world: where programs lived very close to their hardware. Parnas uses phrases like "4 bytes packed in a word" and "core" that seem primal (not to say that some folks aren't concerned with word-sizes and which endian, just that the overall percentage is much lower). For some, this may seem to be a waste of time to try to understand. I encourage the reader to ferret out the bigger message...the more abstract picture of principles that guide one to conceive, organize, implement and document quality software.

If you are a journeyman programmer looking for the original latin, enjoy this well-polished collection for yourself.

Anyone who considers themself a Java developer should know who Dave Parnas is. Without the insight of Dave Parnas in the 60s and 70s there would be no such thing as the Java programming language. Ever heard of information hiding (the basis for all Object Oriented programming)? Yeah, Parnas came up with that. Exception Handling? That's him too. Interfaces? Parnas. (Get the idea?)

This book reprints 33 of Parnas' most influential papers. Each paper is started off with an introduction from one of Parnas' peers (like Barry Boehm), giving the paper a connection to the modern state of Software Engineering, and trying to give the reader an understanding of just how seminal the particular paper was to the world of Computer Science and Software Engineering.

I believe you become a much better programmer if you understand where things come from. Once you understand how things were before "Information Hiding" came about, you get a better appreciation for why its such a necessary and important practice. You'll become a better programmer because you're more aware of what would happen if you didn't have exception handling. And you'll be come a better writer when you understand why buzzwords can be so dangerous in technical papers.

Dave Parnas has been a huge influence over the world of Software Engineering. Everyone should have the chance to read his work.

The ideas presented in this collection of papers changed forever the way I think about developing sofware. These papers separate the men from the boys. If you understand the concepts layed out by Parnas in these papers you are well along your way to understanding the fundamentals necessary for developing quality software. The papers are clearly research oriented and don't have modern real world applications presented in the text, however, the ideas are timeless. The reader will need to make some connections with the modern world on their own. It is well worth the time and effort to read and digest what Parnas has to say.

great info about pipe, shared memory. need some more work but overall good to have this book. It is sad that author of this book (GodFather of Unix) is no longer here. I learned very much from having this book. Some improvements have been made from earlier edition. This may not be the first book recommended for beginners.

Since anyone considering buying a technical book always needs to know what it covers, here's the table of contents:

Part 1. Introduction

1. Introduction

2. Posix IPC

3. System V IPC

Part 2. Message Passing

4. Pipes and FIFOs

5. Posix Message Queues

6. System V Message Queues

Part 3. Synchronization

7. Mutexes and Condition Variables

8. Read-Write Locks

9. Record Locking

10. Posix Semaphores

11. System V Semaphores

Part 4. Shared Memory

12. Shared Memory Introduction

13. Posix Shared Memory

14. System V Shared Memory

Part 5. Remote Procedure Calls

15. Doors

16. Sun RPC

Epilogue

Appendix A. Performance Measurements

Appendix B. Threads Primer

Appendix C. Miscellaneous Source Code

Appendix D. Solutions to Selected Exercises

Bibliography

Index

This is the third and least of Stevens' three books on UNIX programming (he also coauthored a multi-volume work on TCP). It is the not the least because it is necessarily the worst, but because it has the shortest and has the narrowest application domain.

Having said it is the least, it remains a work of the highest quality in an industry that is notable for the huge quantity of bad books that it produces. The structure of this book will be familiar to readers of his prior two books: the lowest-level building block around which Stevens structures the book is the individual function call. For each call (or minor variations on a single call), he provides the C prototype, and then, in text, explains what the function does, what it's arguments are for, and then provides a small C program that demonstrates it in action (all of the sample programs can also be downloaded from the web). These function-level building blocks are arranged into related sets, each of which is a chapter in the book. Each chapter has a wrapper that explains the basic concepts behind the functions in that chapter, and some review exercises at the end. The chapters in turn build on each other, with the most basic ones at the beginning and the more difficult ones towards the end.

In spite of the book's many positive qualities, one thing that this book brings to light, however, is that there is a thread-sized hole in Stevens' UNIX writings. "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment" had a great deal of information about processes, but nothing about threads. "UNIX Network Programming: Volume 1", discussed multi-threaded socket programs, but didn't go into any depth on threading. This volume, although it discusses thread synchronization, only touches on general threading issues. Thus, the works, taken as a group, go into some of the important issues and uses of threading without giving the reader a solid grounding in the subject. As threading increases in frequency, this deficiency has grown in importance.

Another difference between this book and its predecessors is that it deals with an area where standards are much weaker than the others; thus, the chapters often have to explain different implementations for accomplishing a task rather than building a basic-to-advanced sequence. This obviously is in no way Stevens' fault, but many readers will find that half the book, which is already the thinnest of Stevens' programming books, is concerned with API's which do not exist on their platform of interest.

To sum up, while this review clearly shows the reservations I have about this book compared to its predecessors, it must still be stressed that Stevens' is a technical author of the highest level. If you do have a need to understand any of the subjects in this book, you won't find a better teacher from which to learn it, and that is why I am still giving the book five stars.

This book is a must own for every serious programmer on the unix platform. It provides an insight on various forms of IPC APIs available on the unix platform. It provides coverage of both System V and POSIX standards, there is no match to it as far as IPC is concerned. The Appendices in the end also provide a performance comparison between pipes, FIFOs, posix message queues, System V message queues, doors and Sun RPC. I have not seen another book provide such a wide and deep coverage of this topic. What more - it all comes from the GURU himself!

There is a lot of good information contained in this book just waiting to get out. Unfortunately, the poor chapter organisation and the abyssmal index makes finding the information you need (or trying to find it later) a frustrating experience. There's also a lot of padding with CGI and PHP scripts that didn't seem to serve any purpose unless you really wanted to learn how to program 'hello world'. Overall, it will teach you the gist of administrating an Apache Web Server, but I found it disappointing.

Everything you need to know about v.1.3, but with Apache 2.0 just around the corner (currently in beta), you might want to hold off until the 2nd edition. This edition touches very briefly on 2.0, providing a general overview of what to expect, but no meat. A lot remains the same, but some critical things are different, and clear documentation of the kind that this book provides for 1.3 is scant. Hopefully something will come out before too long fill the void.

Of course, Apache 1.x is no slouch, has the majority share of servers on the web currently, could be all you need and more. If you're inclined towards the tried, tested, and true, and shun the unproven, consider this a 5 star recommendation for an excellent book on an excellent, if somewhat venerable, web server.

Excellent instructions, and an amazing companion to the O' Reiley book. Takes the guesswork out of Linux Apache admin, and is a handy tool for any other Unix folks as well.

It's so nice to read a technical book that is accurate and in English not geek.

This text is for sophomore-level students, but as the authors claimed it's a good read for professionals as well, a reason being that a professional of many years may not have learned data structures together with designs and implementations in C++ with STL. Going back five to ten years, the book in its current form could not have existed, which is why it's beneficial for the professional to read it.

As a professional, I envy the current college students who are lucky to have this book as the text of one of their courses. A student is also given a semester to digest its content, to do the exercises and projects at the end of each chapter, which is not usually possible for a professional. On the other hand, because of years of experience and perhaps plus college background, things students usually and sometimes must do aren't necessary for the professional, who should be able to read through the book in considerably shorter period of time.

In summary, it's a great read on the subjects, though one star is taken off for its imperfection such as mistakes in the code and less than superior presentation of some materials.

Excellent book! It was assigned for my Data Structures course. Basic knowledge of C++ and the way classes work is required, but it is an excelent reference. I would NOT sell this book back to the campus bookstore for anything after completing the class.

This book presented the material on data structures in a clear and concise manner. The written exercises were appropriate for the subject matter at hand and they enhanced comprehension of the material in the chapters. This book teaches the abstract concepts of Data Structures, while also teaching how to practically go about implementing them in C++. Particularly useful is the concept of an abstract data type, and the emphasis on separation of implementation from specification. The bottom up approach to Data Structures is brilliant, this book is a must for college students. This was my Data Structures textbook, it was excellent!

An excellent framework for learning about how to balance (organizational) mission, vision, business, strategy, organizational learning, processes, and culture. Truly visionary book that elucidates concepts concerning processes, learning, knowledge, human, and strategies. I found the book to be an excellent framework for understanding the world of organizations.
I think that almost all MBA and graduate business students will deepen their knowledge and skills by thouroughly exploring this book. Even, Mintzburg has applied some of these authors concepts!

I am a graduate MIS student who hadc to buy this book for my course in Organizational Design. I started reading this book and found it to be very rich and innovative in terms of what an organization is and how to design the organization using an organization modeling (OM) framework. I could not believe what
vision and insight the authors had into the world of organizations. Some of the fascinating and useful ideas that they have invented are about the organizational knowledgeworld, how to balance vision, mission, business, strategy, tools, organiational molecules which can be used ot represent the formal and creative aspects of organizational domains, (early and late) knowledge binding (when, where and by whom is knowledge applied to a process, etc. This book is concept rich, deep, purposeful, and relative to my future as an oganizatinal strategist. Numerous good tables, diagrams, and illustrations of their ideas and practical applications.
Truly a pioneering book. Good job Stevens profs.

The research that I undertook using this book led me to discover the other chapters of this book. I also discovered that all the chapters are very interlinked (i.e., the book is systematic). At the same time I discovered a certain surprise that the complex work of modeling can become an easier task by utilizing the concepts and tools found in this book. Organisation Modeling : Innovative Architecture for the 21th Century is a book I warmly recommend to those whose ane interested in the modeling of organizations and information technology. I hope that the research that was undertaken by my class will be useful for other students who are interested in this domain especially in the approach taken in this book.

Balhorn's explicit exploration of the intricacies of the (mainly American) modelling world seem perfect for the brash mid 1980's surge in modelling interest and public obsession, yet seems almost comically isolated in today's understated chic that the industry is based upon.

I've read many modeling books, but I think that this book is the best because it gives you information about make-up, hair, photo sessions, analyzing your face, agency information, and etc. There is so much information in here that I had to read at least 5 books for. I bought this book after 2 years of modeling and I wish I had read it when I was starting out. This is a great book to add to your collection and if you are a model you should always be reading books and studying your field. Don't get started until you are absolutely sure this is what you want and you know everything about the industry. Good Luck!

This book will tell you everything! I owned it for years and it gives you great tips on Modeling as well as how to represent yourself In Modeling. I Highly Recommend it.

A friend of mine recommended this book to me several years ago. Upon reading it, he went from a job as a roofer to an MCSE professional making significantly more money. I bought and read it, and was amazed how Heywood was able to explain very complicated concepts in a very understandable way. I achieved MCSE status as well in short order, largely relying on this book, and tripled my salary. No guarantee, but this book covers a great deal of the material you need to know to be an effective Microsoft expert. I passed the MS TCP/IP exam using only the TCP/IP chapter as preparation. For those of you wanting to achieve MCSE status before the 12/31/00 deadline, pick up this book and read it.

This is an excellent computer book. It was the only book I used to pass three core exams and the TCP/IP exam. NB. I also used resources from the web. It is absolutely essential to do practice exams before the real exam.

This book with some help from Herb Martin, MCT allowed me to pass my MCSE! Drew just finds a way of explaining it all! Any book that Drew Heywood authors is GREAT! I have others!

Joe F. CNE,MCP+I,MCSE

The book is technically well written. BUT...it's about as dry as burnt toast. And the author insists on using non-standard phrases like "contention domain" to describe "collision domains". How about writing a book in plain English? This book has useful information, but the author seems to put too much energy into writing in a style that says "Hey, look at me! I'm so smart that I can make even simple concepts sound confusing!". Keep it on your shelf as a reference. You might need to take it out and blow the dust off of it every few months.

Sheesh, half a chapter and it is lights out! Just kidding. The book is very good, but like one other reviewer said, it could be half as thick and still have the same info in it. Alot of reviewing and repeating of stuff already talked about (I guess redundancy is not all that bad). But it is not light reading- very dry writing that is at times tedious to read. But the subject is well covered and gives a good background into the principles of routing and IP.

I don't understand why this book deserves so many 5 stars (which was the reason I picked up the book). While it provides sufficient introductary material on the subject, the book should really be half thick at most -- the layout wastes lots of paper, and also there is simply too much repeating and redundency, in some cases repeating the same diagrams, paragraphs and sentences. Added to that is the existence of errors, some of them in the examples.

For many topics, this book provides more thorough coverage for beginners than other books, and is a good resource for building up your intuition about vectors and matrices. Especially good is his discussion of matrices and operations on matrices such as gaussian elimination.

A few minor things I didn't like:

1. The whole book has a slightly "mathematical" slant, as opposed to a "geometric" slant. In other words, contrary to the title, this book is actually more about linear algebra (pure mathematics) than about geometry. For example, solving systems of equations, gaussian elimination, and the like, really don't have anything to do with geometry. Likewise, the notation is more "mathematical" than "geometric" - using e1, e2, and e3 for the basis vectors rather than x, y, and z like everybody else.

2. The book covers many topics very well in 2D - the problem is that it doesn't cover much in 3D. Some topics, of course, extend naturally from 2D into 3D and so detailed discussion isn't necessary. Other's topics dont. For example, orientation in 3D, left-handed vs. right-handed coordinate spaces, perspective projection and homegenous coordinates, quaternions. Coverage of these topics would have added a lot.

3. Other people seem to like the diagrams, but I didn't think they were that good. I think a better way to describe the diagrams is that the book has *more* diagrams than most other books, but not necessarily better ones. I personally don't like hand-drawn illustrations. And 3D diagrams needs to be rendering using shading and perspective foreshortening - schemtic-style isometric diagrams are difficult to interpret. Another example, all of the elementary geometric transformations were discussed by showing the effect of the transformation on an object. This is wonderful - most books don't do this! The only problem is that the object he choses to use is a confusing-looking circle thingy. Using a very simple object, such as a teapot would have been much better.

All-in-all, this book has some unique coverage and I would recommend it, especially for the discussion of matrices and transformations, and nested coordiante spaces. The books tends to spend time on more "purely mathematical" subject matter, which is not a bad thing, just a warning. The information on 3D topics is conspicuously lean, which is somewhat of a negative. However, I was pleased with my purchase and was able to look at several things from a different perspective.

good focused coverage

I've read quite a few math texts looking for an understanding of the math necessary for 3D graphics software. This was the first one that I was able to read straight through, like a novel. I highly recommend it for an understanding of 3D math. It has clear descriptions that build gradually.