economics-software

one of the best books in its field, gives details yet doesn't go deeper than what business students would like, its language is easy yet specific and use network jargons. in short, buy it.

i want to know more about local area networks

I read the third edition front to back. If the forth edition is anything like the third, you won't be disappointed.

Our banker said the plan we wrote with this book was "the best plan he had ever read" and approved our loan before we filled out the application, without a credit check! This simple, easy to understand guide will be especially helpful to first-timers and people with short attention spans (like myself). This book got us $120,000 in startup capital and, 4-1/2 years later, a company worth $3,000,000. Buy this book!

No joke. I have to say, I'm no idiot. But writing a business plan was the most difficult thing I had ever had to write in my life. And I'm a professional journalist/writer. However, this book really helped me structure my proposal, leave out the non-core information, research my market and --very important-- understand what I could leave out of the b-plan. While the book de-constructs the business plans of other extremely successful companies, it doesn't bog you down with too much information. It presents useful, crystallized examples from those plans. The Best Practices, so to speak. Anyway, the best news: I just got funded for my web business (and in this down market, too!). It's called www.mediabistro.com and the comment I heard over and over from the VCs I spoke to was: "GREAT business plan." I have Mr. Gumpert to thank for that. --Laurel Touby

This book was recommended to me by an executive with 30 years of experience and 8-digit net worth as the "bible" for starting a business. I have used this book twice during the past 6 years to assemble successful business plans. The lessons in the book are not industry specific or date specific, but rather the wisdom that applies to any business. Some of the insights in the book were later worth a lot of money to my companies. My compliments to the author for not just putting together templates or example plans, but rather teaching the entreprenuer how to think.

After reading this book, I would say for sure that Richard Whitehead understands the role of the project lead. I would buy this book for a new, or existing lead, if I wanted him to understand the challenges he might face. I really applaud this and would add that many books feel like they were written from the outside looking in (sure, everyone on the outside wants twice the functionality in half the time!). I would love to see an update that included more strategies for success however. A lot of the solutions seemed to be based on a specific set of circumstances and personalities. Perhaps adding some examples from others who faced similar challenges, and overcame them with different methods, would increase the impact of this book.

While the programmer in me has often railed at the managers of software development, generally with very good reason, but admittedly sometimes for reasons that were less than pure, I do readily admit that it is a very difficult job. Humans tend to have distinct sets of skills, some of which seem to have a fundamental incompatibility. Writers of good software seem to be predisposed to having limited social and managerial skills and in general one needs to be able to understand a great deal about software in order to be able to manage its' creation. Programmers are also known as being "somewhat difficult" to organize, so even the best managers can be challenged by what is oftentimes an unruly bunch of developers.
However, difficult does not mean impossible, I have yet to meet a quality programmer who did not have a "weakness", that properly exploited, will cause them to work intensely and log an enormous amount of keyboard time. Teams are built in many ways, and Whitehead quite properly notes that many (most) successful teams are made of people who respect and rely on each other's skills, but may not personally like each other. Some of the most successful sports teams of all times were made up of players who did not speak to each other outside the bounds of play. Arguing and bickering, as long as it is within clearly defined boundaries, should be considered normal and tolerated. Attempts to dictate that people like each other and engage in silly "teambuilding" exercises more often lead to failure rather than success. Other examples in the book show the same good sense, as Whitehead clearly has experience in making projects work.
The book is split into sections, which are

* The new leader.
* Project management.
* Leading people.
* Requirements capture.
* Stress and conflict management.
* Relationship with management.
* Making decisions.
* Analysis and design.
* Testing and project release.

Under these sections, there are a total of 40 different points, with a header and explanation of some of the rights, wrongs and different shades of gray inherent in the points. While forty is not large enough to cover all possible contingencies, I cannot find a reason to criticize those that were chosen.
Writing good software is hard, and managing hard people is difficult. However, from this book you can find some very sound advice that will improve your chances of managing a project to a successful conclusion.

This is an excellent "how to" book. It describes in detail all the steps required to properly lead a software development team. It pays particular attention to conflict resolution including examples on how to handle difficult situatuions and people. I get the impression that in Richard Whitehead's limited project experience he has had significant exposure to conflict.
It would have been useful if he had fully explored some of the other paths during conflict resolution. He explains what to do in certain circumstances, but does not go the additional step; what if it doesn't get results, what then?

In my opinion this is the most detailed and systematic treatments of reuse from business and development process strategy points of view.

Among the things I especially like about this book are: (1) the book addresses only blackbox reuse (assets that are used without modification) and defines the assets as both code and documentation instead of code alone. This is consistent with contemporary component-based software engineering practices, making this 1997 book's content valid in 2001. (2) The overview of reuse metrics is illuminating in that this chapter exposes flaws in the reuse percent model, and offers alternatives such as a leverage model and economic models (cost avoidance, ROI and cost/benefit). (3) Relative costs of developing with reuse of *for* reuse - each approach has some significant strengths, but each approach has quantifiable costs, which are thoroughly analyzed. (4) Counting rules. Here the rules for what to count as "reuse" are discussed. This is one area that, without defined rules, can result in inflated claims or skewed results. I especially like that fact that while the author prefers lines of code as a basis, he also shows how to use function points, objects, etc. to get accurate baseline metrics.

One of the most useful chapters, 5, covers measuring reuse and reuse benefits. It's useful because in this "one size does not fit all" profession the nine different metrics and economics models provided give you an array of choices from which to choose. Chapter 6's Applying Reuse Metrics on a Project reinforces the preceding chapters. Possibly the strongest chapter (to me at least) is 9, which covers reuse across the life cycle. The material here dovetails nicely with a later book by Carma McClure titled "Software Reuse: A Standards-Based Guide".

Overall, this book stands as the definitive work on software reuse metrics and is probably more applicable today because of the strong movement towards component-based software engineering and off-shore development than when it was first written.

This book clearly explained the toughest problems associated with measuring reuse. It had numerous practical examples and references to break down the most difficult topics- especially "what should I measure?" in Chapter 4. I found the approach practical and applicable to any organization.

This book clearly explains reuse issues better than I have found anywhere else. It has practical advice on how to measure in all languages, to include object-oriented development and the reuse of things beyond just code (like documentation). I highly recommend this book to anyone working in reuse, component-based development, or related efforts.

Managers and IT Staff who have not performed Network Resource Planning analysis themselves will learn a great deal from the book. Network IT staff who have experience in capacity planning will be able to adjust and/or validate their approaches by studying the authors' approach.

The examples in the book are interesting for two reasons. They elucidate the authors'methodology and they provide some basis from which to compare the NRP maturity level of one's own IT organization.

In terms of details, the authors provide useful insights into the various kinds of network delay, approaches to utilization baselining, the strenghts and weaknesses of categories of modeling tools, and a view of the limitations of the state of the art of NRP. Recommended!

Clewett et al do a great job of demystifying the current art of network planning. As with any technical challenge, the sound approach is to decompose the problem space to manageable pieces, and Clewett's valuable experience shines through in their approach to this methodology.

Their timing has been ideal-- Reference volumes like this coincide with IT industry demand trends, and are a must reading or desk reference for engineers, managers and IT planners who are involved in deploying these hot products. Over time, material like this will help defray the high cost of IT delivery by applying well-accepted and proven methodologies in network planning.

One caveat: Practical experience tells us that heavy analysis can produce 99% accurate results yet take an unacceptably long time to produce. As Clewett et al point out, the key is to balance a costly analytical approach with practical judgement calls and systematic *educated guesses* in order to reach decisions quickly enough to make a difference.

I would look for sequels that deal with the rest of the lifecycle in this business!

According to the Gartner Group, "By 2000, no network design process will be successful without the characterization of applications - a process that will consume 30% of the overall budget." Network Resource Planning is the process of preparing a wide area network to meet the needs of new applications like groupware, messaging, ERP. It can also help identify bottlenecks, single points of failure, and network growth requirements. It can even tell you where you are spending too much on bandwidth that is unneeded. This book is easy to understand if you know anything at all about networks, and the case studies alone are worth the price of the book. People should read it, and then ask themselves if their network is going to be ready for prime time?

I found this book hard to read. I often had to force myself to read further, although the ideas and principles described are important and should be required knowledge of any software engineer and SE manager (which does not mean that they necessarily apply to all projects).

The book contains endless redundancy and lots of hard to understand details of projects the author has worked on. One chapter even contains excerpts from other books and articles that confirm the author's views - as though the author feared he hadn't been convincing enough (that wasn't the problem).

In summary, the book should have had half the length and that would have still covered the same content. It might be interesting to readers new to the principles of evolutionary delivery, measurable attribte objectives, and inspection.

Gilb covers only a small portion of "Software Engineering Management" in detail. Other important issues are either not addressed at all or receive only cursory treatment. Still, what it does go into depth about it usually well thought out and makes imminent sense. I'd say it's worth reading, but it may be a bit expensive for it's narrowness.

Firstly, don't let the title put you off -this book is relevant to a lot of people who wouldn't call themselves "sofware engineers" or "managers" - it's also highly relevant to systems analysts / designers & just about any sort of IT consultant, amongst others.

What separates this from most other books on software development is that just about every page is obviously written by someone who has been there and done it (recently), not just talked about it. The main ideas of the book (evolutionary delivery, defining ojectives as either "functional" or "attributes" ) may not seem revolutionary, but apply it and it could revolutionise your project and maybe career. No IT book I've ever has ever affected my own work so profoundly.

It's also well written and exceptionally well laid out. More please, Tom!

It has a little more detail than the book you get when you buy quickbooks, but there are many many questions this book doesn't answer.

This book is still useful and 90 percent applicable towards QuickBooks 2002. The setup/interview process has changed, but the basic steps and information are still the same.

Iven's book is squarely focused on the beginner with tips that will save you frustration later on. Highly recommended.

Looking at the little help windows was driving me crazy. I needed a book. I finally located this book and now I am running the QuickBooks program with better ability than before.

This book is terrible! It gives different definitions for the same term several times in the first few chapters. Why doesn't it just give one coherent, comprehensive definition for each word?!! The concepts are broken up and presented helter-skelter, so reading this book is like working a tedious jigsaw puzzle. Then it includes lots of problems at the end of each chapter, but there is no answer key, and the Solutions Manual is only available to teachers. Do they think that my professor is too lazy or too stupid to make up his own tests? (Hint to oblivious writers/editors: a textbook is useless if students cannot practice working problems and check the answers on their own. This is not third grade, and my professor is not a babysitter!) I bought the workbook (which contains practice tests) separately, but I still don't have the answers to the problems at the end of the chapters. I will speak to the department heads at my college and beg them to switch publishers next semester.

This book is required of my Financial Accounting course and it is a great choice. The book displays many colorful illustrations and is pretty clear in the messages that it attempts to explain. This book will definitely help you to get an A in your class...or at least pass! The only flaw that I see is that it does not give many answers to the exercises and problems in the chapters. Otherwise, it is pretty good.

I used this book for my very first Accounting course and it was great. The author uses up to date info and really caters to a first year student such as myself. I can only hope that all of my Accounting books will be like this one.

i seen that other people had good marks to say about this book, and one had adverse things to say about it, take my advise either borrow it from a friend, or look at a salvage book store, save your money, give it to charity!

Whether you see the Internet as a business venture, or simply wish to find out more as a new user, 'Marketing on the Internet' is a delightful book to read. Its logical structure takes you through an overview of the subject right onto specifics on using the Internet as a marketing tool... leading onto ways and means of doing business on the world wide web. What's more, the authors have taken care to cover issues such as security and privacy, which are crucial to any e-commerce transaction. There's also a section on creating your own web site, which can help small businesses in getting their venture going. With its huge list of online resources available to draw additional information from, this book is an "everything you wanted to know" book about marketing on the Internet. Don't let its bulky textbook format put you off. Read it if you want to get 'into' the Net.

I have read now numerous internet marketing books and this one is still the best. This was the first internet marketing book and created what we now think of as "the standards" for internet marketing. Brilliant. Read this one if you read any of them.

I don't think you could be very successful running a computer business if you need this book. Its way too basic.

I thought this was a good reference for someone interested in starting a software company, but with no previous background. It is written in a simple style, and touches on everything. I had found much of the information in other places, but it is very good to have it all bound together in one place.

I have one, major complaint. Every other page of the book, it seems, refers to forms, contact information, or further topical information that is on the companion CD. The CD does NOT come with the book, however. If you call the number listed on the back page, you will find that it is available for $29.95.

It is frustrating to be constantly reminded in the text that you do not have much of the available information in hand, but could if you spend another $30. It's a nice piece of marketing by the author, I guess, but it has damaged his credibility with me. I won't purchase other books by him in the future.

After 15 years doing software development for others, I had been thinking about going out on my own, and this book was exactly what I needed to get started. One of the reasons I particularly liked it was that it isn't too theoretical. The author gives specific instructions and ideas on how to actually set up your business, turn your software into an actual products, and--most importantly--get your software sold. If you're starting a software business, or just thinking or dreaming about it, I would definitely get this book.