More advanced examples for the impatient "newby"

[RobinS]

That relates to another project I have in mind, and have done some
experimenting on. I think the idea of a virtual library, to which
readers would gain access by paying an annual fee of, say, $50. It is
not too hard to design the web interface in such a way as to provide
better protection of copy-righted material than does print and paper.
I have spent some time working in south asia and have seen whole books
photocopied. It is bad enough that many publishers produce special
versions, made of much cheaper materials, specifically for south asia
and sold at a tiny price relative to the versions sold in north
america. But some of the best titles are not available there, except
as imports of the versions sold here.

Anyway, I expect there would be many people who'd pay $50 a year for
access to a virtual library instead of, or perhaps in addition to,
conventional hardcopy books.

It may be just a matter of time. I can even see how publishers could
profit from it, by using a virtual library as a means of marketing
their books. After all, while I do read a technical reference online,
there is much to be said for having it in hardcopy in my library. And,
there are so many titles out there, it can be a challenge to examine
them all to determine which best fits my needs, especially when there
aren't any bookstores within 100km (about 60 miles) that stock even one
good technical reference. All of the good technical references I have
bought over the past few years have been bought online, and thus were a
bit of a gamble since I didn't know the work of the author. I have
seen a number of interesting titles, with equally interesting
descriptions, but I have refrained from buying them because they're so
expensive that the risk of getting what turns out to be junk is too
great.

Cheers,

Ted

Isn't that kind of like Safari Online? Or do they only make the books
available if you bought the hardcopy?

Robin S.

 

[RobinS]

7 MONTHS!! Geez! I understand how you feel. How frustrating.

If I bought an E-book, I'd have to print it out if I was
going to read it cover-to-cover. I do better with paper
that I can put post-its on (so they stick out the side)
and write on. I guess I'd better go plant some trees
so I can buy some paper when your next e-book comes out and
print it. ;-)

I bought a book from a company that prints them on demand.
They print books that have a rare use -- mine was a Visio
programming book that I needed to do some OLE Automation of
Visio back before v2003 when they added Macro Record.
I thought that was pretty cool.

Good luck with your book.
Robin S.
-------------------------------

 

[RobinS]

I'll have to check out the books I don't have. I'm not as
interested in the ones about language origins and evolution;
I just don't have time. I'm trying to make the jump
to .Net before they change it again. (Oops! Too late!)

Do you really like the Petzold book? There are a lot of unkind
comments on amazon about it (like "I hope it's recyclable."). Yikes.

I saw your other post about not living with 100km of a bookstore
that stocks technical books. You have my deepest sympathy. I live
in the SF Bay Area, where Barnes&Nobles and Borders are everywhere.
Of course, they don't have everything you want to look at, but
they do have a decent selection.

Good luck,
Robin S.

 

[William \(Bill\) Vaughn]

Safari is different.

--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant
Microsoft MVP
INETA Speaker
www.betav.com/blog/billva
www.betav.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________
Visit www.hitchhikerguides.net to get more information on my latest book:
Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server (7th Edition)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Ted]

I'll have to check out the books I don't have. I'm not as
interested in the ones about language origins and evolution;
I just don't have time. I'm trying to make the jump
to .Net before they change it again. (Oops! Too late!)

;-)

Ah the joys of working in IT. Everything changes so fast that one's
studying is NEVER done! Even something I'd thought fossilized has
changed: FORTRAN has, in its latest standard, has some support for
object oriented programming. Its object model is only a little less
primitive than that in VB v 6; certainly not as useful or pwerful as
that in Java let alone C++. Understand, from the perespective of an
old C++ programmer, the object model in VB 6 was seriously broken. I
am presently studying VB 2005 (and C# 2005) to see how their respective
current object models compare with that in Perl, C++ and Java. What I
have read so far about generic programming in these languages strikes
me as disappointing as I have the impression that that support does not
support template metaprogramming; something I've used to make my C++
code faster than the code I'd have to write in FORTRAN to do the same
thing. While of little significant when developing a front end for a
database application, many of my programs are built around simulation
models that can take hours or even days to complete, depending opn
model configuration and parameterization. For these applications, the
speed of number crunching is critical; so important that I normally
would not consider using anything but C++ because I can make my C++
number crunching code fly.

Do you really like the Petzold book? There are a lot of unkind
comments on amazon about it (like "I hope it's recyclable."). Yikes.

While not what I'd call a great book, it isn't bad. It could even be
said to be good for the apparent target audience. It is probably a
waste if you're already reasonably familiar with .NET, but if not, and
especially if you've little experience developing software, it is OK.
(But this is based on a cursory examination - I haven't yet taken the
time to assess its accuracy.)

I can see an experience developer with expertise in .NET being
disappointed, but them such a developer was almost certainly not
cosidered by the publisher or author as part of the target audience.
To use that to be harsh is about as fair as criticising your favourite
book introducing Java programming for not covering generics. When I
was teaching the Georgian College curriculum for Java programmers, at
no point in the curriculum was any treatment of generics or even
procedural programming provided. The students interested in such
things were expected to look at them on their own. If I had my way,
that curriculum would be quite different, but I wasn't in a position to
effect changes I thought necessary. If I were hiring, I would hire
recent college graduates unless I had the time and resources to provide
an extra couple of years of education, filling in the gaps I see in the
curricula used in apparently many college programs. Many of them seem
to graduate functionally illiterate, mathematically challenged, and
missing many key concepts in modern software engineering. :-( And I
have been told by colleagues that many graduates from computer science
programs would find it difficult to even write a few lines of code,
even when told what algorithm to implement and provided with a function
signature and definitions of relevant objects. I think I feel a
headache coming on. :-(

I saw your other post about not living with 100km of a bookstore
that stocks technical books. You have my deepest sympathy. I live
in the SF Bay Area, where Barnes&Nobles and Borders are everywhere.
Of course, they don't have everything you want to look at, but
they do have a decent selection.

My skin is turning green! ;-)

Cheers,

Ted

 

[RobinS]

Oh, dear, object-oriented Fortran. I didn't think I'd live
to see the day *that* would happen.

I don't blame you for using C++ to write your simulation
models; sounds like you've really figured out how to
optimize it to get the best performance.

I agree about it not being fair to judge a book by its
level of expertise, unless the book is billed as a book
for non-beginners, and then it's a book for non-beginners,
or vice versa. I think the biggest problem is ordering
books off of amazon and not being able to go to a bookstore
and look at them. Although they have a lot of books at B&N
and Borders, they can't keep everything in stock.

Hope you look good in green. In honor of your predicament,
I'm going to go over to B&N today and fondle the tech books.

Have a great day!
Robin S.

------------------------------------

 

[Ted]

Oh, dear, object-oriented Fortran. I didn't think I'd live
to see the day *that* would happen.

I didn't think I'd live to see that either, but I just read a ittle
about it recently. I'll have tosee if the GCC Fortran compiler
supports it and, if so, try a few experiments.

[snip}
I agree about it not being fair to judge a book by its
level of expertise, unless the book is billed as a book
for non-beginners, and then it's a book for non-beginners,
or vice versa. I think the biggest problem is ordering
books off of amazon and not being able to go to a bookstore
and look at them. Although they have a lot of books at B&N
and Borders, they can't keep everything in stock.

I should probably add here that Petzold describes his own book as being
for relative newbies. That is, he assumes little experience
programming. At the same time, he says he envisions many of his
readers will be experienced in older Windows programming technologies
(such as MFC) who want a quick and concise introduction to .NET 2. He
said programmers already familiar with .NET 1 could probably just skip
the first third of the book (the first two chapters consume about 100
pages out of a total of just over 300 pages).

Of course, this is information you'd have only with the book in hand.

If there is interest, I'll add a remark or two about the value of the
book (by email if this is deemed too off topic for this forum.

 

[RobinS]

There is always interest in books. I've seen several
postings in the various dotnet newsgroups asking for
recommendations. You could also get really daring
and post a review on amazon. :-D

Robin S
---------------------------

Oh, dear, object-oriented Fortran. I didn't think I'd live
to see the day *that* would happen.

I didn't think I'd live to see that either, but I just read a ittle
about it recently. I'll have tosee if the GCC Fortran compiler
supports it and, if so, try a few experiments.

[snip}
I agree about it not being fair to judge a book by its
level of expertise, unless the book is billed as a book
for non-beginners, and then it's a book for non-beginners,
or vice versa. I think the biggest problem is ordering
books off of amazon and not being able to go to a bookstore
and look at them. Although they have a lot of books at B&N
and Borders, they can't keep everything in stock.

I should probably add here that Petzold describes his own book as being
for relative newbies. That is, he assumes little experience
programming. At the same time, he says he envisions many of his
readers will be experienced in older Windows programming technologies
(such as MFC) who want a quick and concise introduction to .NET 2. He
said programmers already familiar with .NET 1 could probably just skip
the first third of the book (the first two chapters consume about 100
pages out of a total of just over 300 pages).

Of course, this is information you'd have only with the book in hand.

If there is interest, I'll add a remark or two about the value of the
book (by email if this is deemed too off topic for this forum.

Hope you look good in green. In honor of your predicament,
I'm going to go over to B&N today and fondle the tech books.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Ted

Have a great day!
Robin S.

 

[Ted]

There is always interest in books. I've seen several
postings in the various dotnet newsgroups asking for
recommendations. You could also get really daring
and post a review on amazon. :-D

Well, I'll skip Amazon, but here I'll say a more thorough reading of it
confirms my first impression. It is a book for newbies, and those who
have plenty of experience with other frameworks (e.g. MFC), and he is
right that those who have experience with .NET 1.0 could skip the first
third of the book. If you fall into his target audience, you'll get
good value for your money. It is a pretty good book.

It is a bit too narrowly focussed for my taste, though, covering only
what is new to .NET 2 and ignoring those parts of .NET 1.0 that remains
in .NET 2. My impression here, though, is that if he covered the whole
of .NET 2, the result would have been a book several times its present
size and cost.

If the reader has never written a computer program before, let alone a
simple application, he would be better served by first picking up
Petzold's earlier book on programming Windows using C# (2002?) or
Marshall's much more recent book on the C# language, and a few dozen
introduction to programming books in VB or Java, or Koenig and Moo's
introductory text for beginning to learn C++ programming. Lippman's
book providing an introduction to C++ programming is excellent, but
Koenig and Moo's book strikes me as being a better introductory text.
Alas, I don't have, and thus don't know, any books introducing
programming using any other programming language (I taught myself
programming, over 26 years ago, by studying language specific reference
manuals). I'd recommend this as perhaps a third or fourth book in a
sequence to bring a programming student up to speed as a junior
programmer, after he has read a couple books on introductory level
programming using C++, Java, VB or C#, followed by a book like
Marshall's or Petzold's earlier book on C#/.NET1.

Does this make sense? Is it useful?

Ted

Robin S
---------------------------

Oh, dear, object-oriented Fortran. I didn't think I'd live
to see the day *that* would happen.

I didn't think I'd live to see that either, but I just read a ittle
about it recently. I'll have tosee if the GCC Fortran compiler
supports it and, if so, try a few experiments.

[snip}
I agree about it not being fair to judge a book by its
level of expertise, unless the book is billed as a book
for non-beginners, and then it's a book for non-beginners,
or vice versa. I think the biggest problem is ordering
books off of amazon and not being able to go to a bookstore
and look at them. Although they have a lot of books at B&N
and Borders, they can't keep everything in stock.

I should probably add here that Petzold describes his own book as being
for relative newbies. That is, he assumes little experience
programming. At the same time, he says he envisions many of his
readers will be experienced in older Windows programming technologies
(such as MFC) who want a quick and concise introduction to .NET 2. He
said programmers already familiar with .NET 1 could probably just skip
the first third of the book (the first two chapters consume about 100
pages out of a total of just over 300 pages).

Of course, this is information you'd have only with the book in hand.

If there is interest, I'll add a remark or two about the value of the
book (by email if this is deemed too off topic for this forum.

Hope you look good in green. In honor of your predicament,
I'm going to go over to B&N today and fondle the tech books.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Ted

Have a great day!
Robin S.

------------------------------------


RobinS wrote:
I'll have to check out the books I don't have. I'm not as
interested in the ones about language origins and evolution;
I just don't have time. I'm trying to make the jump
to .Net before they change it again. (Oops! Too late!)


;-)

Ah the joys of working in IT. Everything changes so fast that one's
studying is NEVER done! Even something I'd thought fossilized has
changed: FORTRAN has, in its latest standard, has some support for
object oriented programming. Its object model is only a little less
primitive than that in VB v 6; certainly not as useful or pwerful as
that in Java let alone C++. Understand, from the perespective of an
old C++ programmer, the object model in VB 6 was seriously broken. I
am presently studying VB 2005 (and C# 2005) to see how their respective
current object models compare with that in Perl, C++ and Java. What I
have read so far about generic programming in these languages strikes
me as disappointing as I have the impression that that support does not
support template metaprogramming; something I've used to make my C++
code faster than the code I'd have to write in FORTRAN to do the same
thing. While of little significant when developing a front end for a
database application, many of my programs are built around simulation
models that can take hours or even days to complete, depending opn
model configuration and parameterization. For these applications, the
speed of number crunching is critical; so important that I normally
would not consider using anything but C++ because I can make my C++
number crunching code fly.

Do you really like the Petzold book? There are a lot of unkind
comments on amazon about it (like "I hope it's recyclable."). Yikes.

While not what I'd call a great book, it isn't bad. It could even be
said to be good for the apparent target audience. It is probably a
waste if you're already reasonably familiar with .NET, but if not, and
especially if you've little experience developing software, it is OK.
(But this is based on a cursory examination - I haven't yet taken the
time to assess its accuracy.)

I can see an experience developer with expertise in .NET being
disappointed, but them such a developer was almost certainly not
cosidered by the publisher or author as part of the target audience.
To use that to be harsh is about as fair as criticising your favourite
book introducing Java programming for not covering generics. When I
was teaching the Georgian College curriculum for Java programmers, at
no point in the curriculum was any treatment of generics or even
procedural programming provided. The students interested in such
things were expected to look at them on their own. If I had my way,
that curriculum would be quite different, but I wasn't in a position to
effect changes I thought necessary. If I were hiring, I would hire
recent college graduates unless I had the time and resources to provide
an extra couple of years of education, filling in the gaps I see in the
curricula used in apparently many college programs. Many of them seem
to graduate functionally illiterate, mathematically challenged, and
missing many key concepts in modern software engineering. :-( And I
have been told by colleagues that many graduates from computer science
programs would find it difficult to even write a few lines of code,
even when told what algorithm to implement and provided with a function
signature and definitions of relevant objects. I think I feel a
headache coming on. :-(

I saw your other post about not living with 100km of a bookstore
that stocks technical books. You have my deepest sympathy. I live
in the SF Bay Area, where Barnes&Nobles and Borders are everywhere.
Of course, they don't have everything you want to look at, but
they do have a decent selection.

My skin is turning green! ;-)

Cheers,

Ted

 

[RobinS]

Well, I'll skip Amazon, but here I'll say a more thorough reading of it
confirms my first impression. It is a book for newbies, and those who
have plenty of experience with other frameworks (e.g. MFC), and he is
right that those who have experience with .NET 1.0 could skip the first
third of the book. If you fall into his target audience, you'll get
good value for your money. It is a pretty good book.

It is a bit too narrowly focussed for my taste, though, covering only
what is new to .NET 2 and ignoring those parts of .NET 1.0 that remains
in .NET 2. My impression here, though, is that if he covered the whole
of .NET 2, the result would have been a book several times its present
size and cost.

If the reader has never written a computer program before, let alone a
simple application, he would be better served by first picking up
Petzold's earlier book on programming Windows using C# (2002?) or
Marshall's much more recent book on the C# language, and a few dozen
introduction to programming books in VB or Java, or Koenig and Moo's
introductory text for beginning to learn C++ programming. Lippman's
book providing an introduction to C++ programming is excellent, but
Koenig and Moo's book strikes me as being a better introductory text.
Alas, I don't have, and thus don't know, any books introducing
programming using any other programming language (I taught myself
programming, over 26 years ago, by studying language specific reference
manuals). I'd recommend this as perhaps a third or fourth book in a
sequence to bring a programming student up to speed as a junior
programmer, after he has read a couple books on introductory level
programming using C++, Java, VB or C#, followed by a book like
Marshall's or Petzold's earlier book on C#/.NET1.

Does this make sense? Is it useful?

Ted

Yes, it does make sense, and it is useful. I'm so far into
VB.Net programming, I don't think it would necessarily be
useful to me, but I'll check it out next time I see it at
Borders or B&N. Plus, I have MacDonald's book about Windows
Forms on my table waiting for my perusal.

I've been reading Tim Patrick's "Start-to-Finish Visual Basic",
and I think that's a great book for beginners. Although I'm
not a beginner, I think I'm going to get a lot out of it once
I get past some of the basic stuff (like data types).

Thanks for the info!

Robin S.

 

[Beliavsky]

I didn't think I'd live to see that either, but I just read a ittle
about it recently. I'll have tosee if the GCC Fortran compiler
supports it and, if so, try a few experiments.

Fortran 95 has user-defined types but not inheritance -- it supports
"object-based" programming. Fortran 2003 has single inheritance and
qualifies as "object-oriented". GCC 4 contains gfortran (replacing
g77), and gfortran is currently a Fortran 95 compiler. Another free
Fortran 95 compiler is g95 -- I think it has fewer bugs at present than
gfortran. I think both gfortran and g95 will eventually be full Fortran
2003 compilers.

 

[William \(Bill\) Vaughn]

I agree that those books that focus on a single version are not as useful as
those that address a broader range of content--at least for those just
getting into the subject. As in the past, I've tried to provide broad
coverage of architecture as well as specifics for the new features as well
as the old and obsolete functionality.

--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant
Microsoft MVP
INETA Speaker
www.betav.com/blog/billva
www.betav.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________
Visit www.hitchhikerguides.net to get more information on my latest book:
Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server (7th Edition)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is always interest in books. I've seen several
postings in the various dotnet newsgroups asking for
recommendations. You could also get really daring
and post a review on amazon. :-D

Well, I'll skip Amazon, but here I'll say a more thorough reading of it
confirms my first impression. It is a book for newbies, and those who
have plenty of experience with other frameworks (e.g. MFC), and he is
right that those who have experience with .NET 1.0 could skip the first
third of the book. If you fall into his target audience, you'll get
good value for your money. It is a pretty good book.

It is a bit too narrowly focussed for my taste, though, covering only
what is new to .NET 2 and ignoring those parts of .NET 1.0 that remains
in .NET 2. My impression here, though, is that if he covered the whole
of .NET 2, the result would have been a book several times its present
size and cost.

If the reader has never written a computer program before, let alone a
simple application, he would be better served by first picking up
Petzold's earlier book on programming Windows using C# (2002?) or
Marshall's much more recent book on the C# language, and a few dozen
introduction to programming books in VB or Java, or Koenig and Moo's
introductory text for beginning to learn C++ programming. Lippman's
book providing an introduction to C++ programming is excellent, but
Koenig and Moo's book strikes me as being a better introductory text.
Alas, I don't have, and thus don't know, any books introducing
programming using any other programming language (I taught myself
programming, over 26 years ago, by studying language specific reference
manuals). I'd recommend this as perhaps a third or fourth book in a
sequence to bring a programming student up to speed as a junior
programmer, after he has read a couple books on introductory level
programming using C++, Java, VB or C#, followed by a book like
Marshall's or Petzold's earlier book on C#/.NET1.

Does this make sense? Is it useful?

Ted

Robin S
---------------------------

RobinS wrote:
Oh, dear, object-oriented Fortran. I didn't think I'd live
to see the day *that* would happen.

I didn't think I'd live to see that either, but I just read a ittle
about it recently. I'll have tosee if the GCC Fortran compiler
supports it and, if so, try a few experiments.

[snip}
I agree about it not being fair to judge a book by its
level of expertise, unless the book is billed as a book
for non-beginners, and then it's a book for non-beginners,
or vice versa. I think the biggest problem is ordering
books off of amazon and not being able to go to a bookstore
and look at them. Although they have a lot of books at B&N
and Borders, they can't keep everything in stock.

I should probably add here that Petzold describes his own book as being
for relative newbies. That is, he assumes little experience
programming. At the same time, he says he envisions many of his
readers will be experienced in older Windows programming technologies
(such as MFC) who want a quick and concise introduction to .NET 2. He
said programmers already familiar with .NET 1 could probably just skip
the first third of the book (the first two chapters consume about 100
pages out of a total of just over 300 pages).

Of course, this is information you'd have only with the book in hand.

If there is interest, I'll add a remark or two about the value of the
book (by email if this is deemed too off topic for this forum.

Hope you look good in green. In honor of your predicament,
I'm going to go over to B&N today and fondle the tech books.


Enjoy!

Cheers,

Ted

Have a great day!
Robin S.

------------------------------------


RobinS wrote:
I'll have to check out the books I don't have. I'm not as
interested in the ones about language origins and evolution;
I just don't have time. I'm trying to make the jump
to .Net before they change it again. (Oops! Too late!)


;-)

Ah the joys of working in IT. Everything changes so fast that one's
studying is NEVER done! Even something I'd thought fossilized has
changed: FORTRAN has, in its latest standard, has some support for
object oriented programming. Its object model is only a little less
primitive than that in VB v 6; certainly not as useful or pwerful as
that in Java let alone C++. Understand, from the perespective of an
old C++ programmer, the object model in VB 6 was seriously broken.
I
am presently studying VB 2005 (and C# 2005) to see how their
respective
current object models compare with that in Perl, C++ and Java. What
I
have read so far about generic programming in these languages
strikes
me as disappointing as I have the impression that that support does
not
support template metaprogramming; something I've used to make my C++
code faster than the code I'd have to write in FORTRAN to do the
same
thing. While of little significant when developing a front end for
a
database application, many of my programs are built around
simulation
models that can take hours or even days to complete, depending opn
model configuration and parameterization. For these applications,
the
speed of number crunching is critical; so important that I normally
would not consider using anything but C++ because I can make my C++
number crunching code fly.

Do you really like the Petzold book? There are a lot of unkind
comments on amazon about it (like "I hope it's recyclable.").
Yikes.

While not what I'd call a great book, it isn't bad. It could even
be
said to be good for the apparent target audience. It is probably a
waste if you're already reasonably familiar with .NET, but if not,
and
especially if you've little experience developing software, it is
OK.
(But this is based on a cursory examination - I haven't yet taken
the
time to assess its accuracy.)

I can see an experience developer with expertise in .NET being
disappointed, but them such a developer was almost certainly not
cosidered by the publisher or author as part of the target audience.
To use that to be harsh is about as fair as criticising your
favourite
book introducing Java programming for not covering generics. When I
was teaching the Georgian College curriculum for Java programmers,
at
no point in the curriculum was any treatment of generics or even
procedural programming provided. The students interested in such
things were expected to look at them on their own. If I had my way,
that curriculum would be quite different, but I wasn't in a position
to
effect changes I thought necessary. If I were hiring, I would hire
recent college graduates unless I had the time and resources to
provide
an extra couple of years of education, filling in the gaps I see in
the
curricula used in apparently many college programs. Many of them
seem
to graduate functionally illiterate, mathematically challenged, and
missing many key concepts in modern software engineering. :-( And
I
have been told by colleagues that many graduates from computer
science
programs would find it difficult to even write a few lines of code,
even when told what algorithm to implement and provided with a
function
signature and definitions of relevant objects. I think I feel a
headache coming on. :-(

I saw your other post about not living with 100km of a bookstore
that stocks technical books. You have my deepest sympathy. I live
in the SF Bay Area, where Barnes&Nobles and Borders are everywhere.
Of course, they don't have everything you want to look at, but
they do have a decent selection.

My skin is turning green! ;-)

Cheers,

Ted