economics-software

This is one of the earliest in a series of books that Cusumano has written on software technology. In this book he cries "Wolf!": the Japanese are so much better at industrial strength software development than Americans, they have a "software factory", etc., etc.

In his subsequent books, especially those on Microsoft and Netscape, Cusumano slowly discovers that the traditional software development process, requirements/specifications/code, etc., e.g. the waterfall model, is *NOT* the model adopted by successful software companies (and, indeed, not the model adopted by many hardware companies). He learns that designs are not something to be churned out by a factory - indeed, if they can be churned out, then they should be reusing exactly the same software.

In some ways the packaged software industry, e.g. Microsoft, supplanted the custom software industry in this timeframe, the time of the PC; Microsoft's process, which Cusumano calls "synchronize and stabilize", may be considered to be JIT (Just In Time) software specification and development. Or, if not Just In Time, As Soon As Possible and No Earlier than Necessary.

While I cannot agree with the conclusions of this book, it is interesting to have on one's bookshelf, to see the evolution of the author's thought over time.

The explanation for what happened to Japanese software factories is in Cusumano's latest book, The Business of Software, which is a more valuable read. The Japanese factories tried to solve the problem of efficiently building custom systems for Japanese customers using mainframes. Cusumano still argues that the factory approach worked well for mainframe software but Japanese programmers didn't have the skills to shift to newer platforms (PCs, workstations). I think the author over-estimated what the Japanese would be able to do. The Japanese are still struggling with old-style development techniques, despite close to zero-bugs, according to recent data from Cusumano. The Indians adopted similar practices (standard dev techniques, reuse, statistical data) but with much better trained people, more adaptable processes, and have been able to handle a wide variety of systems requirements and technologies. I still find Japan's Software Factories a useful look at how Japanese and some U.S. companies made progress in software engineering, particularly their approach to quality control and testing, and reuse. The Indians have gone a step beyond Japan, but they had to start somewhere.

This book is designed for an introductory course on accounting. It deals with some of the basics or using Excel and Access in accounting. It does not deal with transactions except for some simple examples in Access.

Dr. Nelken has compiled a series of articles
by a variety of authors dealing with particularly
diverse aspects of exotic options.

Although some of the papers contain useful
information, the book does not deserve to
be called a "handbook": it is more like a
loose compilation, thus making it useless
as a reference.

I ordered the book in 1998 at my local
bookstore and felt cheated after the
first browsing. The extra star is there
to praise the occasional pearl of wisdom
you will encounter while reading through
all 15 chapters.

Finally, the cover advertises with
"valuable software included", referring
to a demo (!) of EXOTICOP (c). I strongly
disagree: the program is nothing more
than a black-scholes type exotics pricer
with a primitive interface, barely touching
the level of an undergraduate paper.
To add insult to injury, some of the
input parameters are frozen in the
demo version.

To put it in dealer's phraseology, this
book is a big yours.

The cover says that this is a book for advanced users. How come they spend 21 pages on installing the software. Do you know an advanced user who needs 21 pages to install a piece of software?

In the section about modifing templates they fail to mention that there is hidden text at the beginning of the document that if deleted will cause you document not to be added to your history tab.

This is a beginners book.

While it is no easy task to write captivating prose
for operations research, this book is a step
below the typically dry literature. This manual
assumes that you already know how to do
the various techniques and offers vague examples
of how to input the necessary formulas into a DOS based environment.

If you are a beginner and just want to learn
some practical applications of operations research
techniques read Stokey and Zeckhauser's
"A Primer for Policy Analysis." Although it is not
a software based book, there are plenty
of free software programs available on the
web. If you want a Windows based package,
try the Solver plug-in for either Excel
or Lotus 1-2-3 (97) and pick up
Ragsdale's "Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analysis."

This book is a little difficult to follow. The editoral review said that you only need some familiarity with excel but I found this to not be the case. You will need to be at least at the intermediate level with excel to follow some of the examples and many of the problems in the book. Some examples are unclear and no answers are given to the questions. However if you are able to follow the book, the practical applications will be benefical to managers.- Even though there are better applications than excel that managers can use.

This book is full of excellent information with tools and methodologies for future systems analyst work BUT the information is so abstract. There are no real practical examples in any of the chapters which would make it easier for me to grasp it (not to mention help with the assigned homework). Unlike most college subjects and textbooks that have three or more examples at the beginning of a chapter, this book has little if any at all.

I purchased this book hoping to find advanced strategies for managing information (I have my own Information Tsunami). I use a variety of incompatible methods for storing my files - including the file system for Microsoft Office documents and other applications (such as MindManager), and Pagekeeper for scanned documents. I need a way to store searchable metadata about all types of digital assets and be able to share that metadata. The blurb on the book says it will "demonstrate simple ways to change how you think about and use everyday technologies such as Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer." Unfortunately, the book is a series of short introductory articles on using various tools with Windows and Office XP, starting with Internet Explorer 6.0 and then on to Outlook, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, FrontPage and finally 9 pages on Share Point Team Services. The book treats each application separately and not as the overall knowledge management system I need. If you have not used Office XP very long this book may help you. Experienced users will not find much here.

Save your money. Has some good ideas about using 3 1/2 inch floppies instead of the aging 5 1/4's

The book is well organized and provides useful sources for further information but beyond that the material is very dated. The book mentions that CD-Roms are in their infancy and focuses mainly on DOS programs.

Here is the entire book, quickly summed up:

* Fill in these many, many "worksheet pages" * Work with experienced persons to get experience * Fill out some more checklist worksheets * Thanks for your money

PLEASE do yourself a favor, and get a WBT book in which the author acutally is a Subject Matter Expert, and not someone out to take your money and provide obvious advice.

Too fluffy - Not enough meaningful conten

This 300+ page book could easily have been 150 pages. Furthermore, he spends entirely too much time in the evaluation process. If you're looking to jump into web-based training design, this book's not for you. Too much preliminary analysis chocked full of theory from basic educational classes. The first 200 pages are a repeat of what I learned in educational classes for a degree in training and technological education. If you're a beginner, then this book could give you an overview of the complete thought process of deciding whether or not you need training. In fact, he almost tries to talk you out of training, but instead to try other alternatives first. If you've already made your mind up and need an expert book on the subject, this book is NOT for you. He readily admits that he has never done WBT!?! Designed more for academia and as a student workbook. I was looking more for a book that would detail the pro's and con's of WBT and distance learning from an expert doing it. It isn't until page 252 of 350+ that he begins talking about WBT (never mind he hasn't done it). He then spends less than 50 pages on it. Disregard all of the Web-based hype that you read on the back cover and in the book synthesis from the publisher.