Systems Analysis & Design Books - Page 6

Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos

Ian Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"You believe in a God who plays dice, and I in complete law and order." Albert Einstein The science of chaos is forcing scientists to rethink Einstein's fundamental assumptions regarding the way the universe behaves. Chaos theory has already shown that simple systems, obeying precise laws, can nevertheless act in a random manner. Perhaps God plays dice within a cosmic game of complete law and order. Does God Play Dice? reveals a strange universe in which nothing may be as it seems. Familiar geometrical shapes such as circles and ellipses give way to infinitely complex structures known as fractals, the fluttering of a butterfly's wings can change the weather, and the gravitational attraction of a creature in a distant galaxy can change the fate of the solar system.

This revised and updated edition includes three chapters on the prediction and control of chaotic systems. New information regarding the solar system and an account of complexity theory is also incorporated. It is a lucid and witty book which makes the complex mathematics of chaos accessible and entertaining.

Data Structures and Algorithms (Addison-Wesley Series in Computer Science and Information Pr)

Alfred V. Aho, Jeffrey D. Ullman, John E. Hopcroft

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An okay book! 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

It is just an okay book, not extraordinary in any way. Especially, this is certainly not for the novice in this topic, i.e., it is certainly not a good introductory book. So if you are new to data structures and algorithms, stay away from this book, go for some good introductory book.

For the advanced readers, it is an okay book. Better books are available, e.g., books by Cormen et al. and Robert Sedgewick.

The book is written in a way not very intersting or engaging. The algorithms are not explained in detail. Often things are left unexplained or assumed that the reader already knows it. Algorithms are presented in pseudocode, which causes problems especially for the readers familiar to some particular programming language.

A JEWEL 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Perfect book. Nice and small. You can buy it cheap too, it's old. But it's full of the meat and potatoes, no fluffy Java source code. Sure, it uses Pascal, but it's not that hard to understand Pascal code even if you never programmed in Pascal (me neither). What matters is the discussions behind the scenes. It covers the whole range of what you should know and it's concise. They don't write books like this anymore.

Everyday Scripting with Ruby: For Teams, Testers, and You

Brian Marick

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Are you a tester who spends more time manually creating complex test data than using it? A business analyst who seemingly went to college all those years so you can spend your days copying data from reports into spreadsheets? A programmer who can't finish each day's task without having to scan through version control system output, looking for the file you want?

If so, you're wasting that computer on your desk. Offload the drudgery to where it belongs, and free yourself to do what you should be doing: thinking. All you need is a scripting language (free!), this book (cheap!), and the dedication to work through the examples and exercises.

Everyday Scripting with Ruby is divided into four parts. In the first, you'll learn the basics of the Ruby scripting language. In the second, you'll see how to create scripts in a steady, controlled way using test-driven design. The third part is about finding, understanding, and using the work of others--and about preparing your scripts for others to use. The fourth part, more advanced, is about saving even more time by using application frameworks.

Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner, Second Edition

John P Flynt

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Starts with a clean sheet of paper for the complete beginner. 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This is a book oriented to the complete beginner. It basically starts with a blank sheet of paper and begins with a simple applet that just outputs a single line of text to the screen.

From here he goes on to provide a very simply step by step tutorial to cover the fundamental rules of Java. In this book he doesn't get everything there is to know about Java. It's an introductory book, it covers the bases of the language well enough to get you started. You will probably want an additional book before you become the local master.

If I have one complaint about the book it is one that I complain about a lot on Java books. On page 5 he starts talking about object oriented programming. And he talks on for two or three pages. Then he skips saying anything more about object oriented programming for about 160 pages. By then the reader has completely forgotten about the few pages on page 5.

Editorial Review:

Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner provides you with an introduction to Java that allows you to learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming while becoming acquainted with many of the core features of Java. This book starts with the assumption that you have not previously written a computer program. It then walks you through the creation of a variety of games and applications. After you have your footing with the basics, you learn to develop your own systems of classes, and by the end of the book, you are working with many of Java's Graphical User Interface (GUI) features and developing a desktop Windows application. This book provides a solid introduction for anyone desiring a relaxed, fully guided tour of the fundamentals of Java, programming, and the object-oriented approach to application development.

Text Mining Application Programming (Programming Series)

Manu Konchady

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Text Mining Application Programming teaches software developers how to mine the vast amounts of information available on the Web, internal networks, and desktop files and turn it into usable data. The book helps developers understand the problems associated with managing unstructured text, and explains how to build your own mining tools using standard statistical methods from information theory, artificial intelligence, and operations research. Each of the topics covered are thoroughly explained and then a practical implementation is provided. The book begins with a brief overview of text data, where it can be found, and the typical search engines and tools used to search and gather this text. It details how to build tools for extracting and using the text, and covers the mathematics behind many of the algorithms used in building these tools. From there you'll learn how to build tokens from text, construct indexes, and detect patterns in text. You'll also find methods to extract the names of people, places, and organizations from an email, a news article, or a Web page. The next portion of the book teaches you how to find information on the Web, the structure of the Web, and how to build spiders to crawl the Web. Text categorization is also described in the context of managing email. The final part of the book covers information monitoring, summarization, and a simple Question & Answer (Q&A) system. The code used in the book is written in Perl, but knowledge of Perl is not necessary to run the software. Developers with an intermediate level of experience with Perl can customize the software. Although the book is about programming, methods are explained with English-like pseudocode and the source code is provided on the CD-ROM. After reading this book, you'll be ready to tap into the bevy of information available online in ways you never thought possible.

Advanced NXT: The Da Vinci Inventions Book (Technology in Action)

Matthias Paul Scholz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This amply illustrated book is about building some of Leonardo da Vincis most famous inventions with LEGOs new breathtaking robot technology, the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. In this book, you will revive such fascinating devices as the flying machine, the aerial screw, the revolving bridge, the double leaf spring catapult, and the armored car, five centuries after their creation by the great Renaissance engineer. Using some of the most advanced programming environments for the NXT, you will make robots that work, move, and respond the way Leonardo intended his original inventions to do 500 years ago.

By engineering the LEGO models contained in this book you will not only become acquainted with the MINDSTORMS NXT technology but also with strategies to build advanced robots with NXT and to program them using different state-of-the-art NXT programming languages such as NXT-G, NXC, RobotC, pbLua, and leJOS NXJ.

For all five robots, historical background information is provided. Detailed high-quality step-by-step building instructions as well as an elaborate guide for each single program enable both the inexperienced LEGO user as well as the NXT aficionado to become acquainted with the art of producing marvelous NXT creations and make use of many sophisticated features of the NXT.

This book will unleash the creative powers that slumber in everyone and combine them with the pure joy of playing. But beware: you might be surprised by the stupendous results this combination is apt to spawn.

In this book, you'll:

• Get to know Leonardos most famous inventions and the theory behind them
• Build LEGO robots with the NXT kit
• Make use of advanced features of the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT
• Program NXT robots with state-of-the-art NXT programming environments
• Meet the bustling worldwide community that has developed around the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Advanced

C++ Programming: From Problem Analysis to Program Design

D.S. Malik

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Great Book For Understanding C++ 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Whenever I go to learn a new language, I always look to see whether there is a book from Thompson's, 'From Problem Analysis to Program Design' series available on that language. This style of textbook always seems to get it right when it comes to academic learning.

After trying a couple of C++ texts, I found that with this particular book, I could understand those niggly bits of the language that can be very hard to explain/learn. This book has brought me much further than I was able to go with other texts. Clear explanations and useful case studies make for the best way to learn a language. Especially the case studies, as they show you how you can use what you have learnt constructively.

My advice: learn C++ with this book, and use C++ Primer Plus (5th Edition) as a reference companion.

Editorial Review:

C++ Programming: From Problem Analysis to Program Design, Third Edition is the ground-breaking, definitive text for the CS1 course. Best-selling author D.S. Malik employs a student-focused approach, using complete programming examples to teach introductory programming concepts. This third edition has been enhanced to further demonstrate the use of OOD methodology, to introduce sorting algorithms (bubble sort and insertion sort), and to present additional material on abstract classes. In addition, the exercise sets at the end of each chapter have been expanded, and now contain several calculus and engineering-related exercises. Finally, all programs have been written, compiled, and quality-assurance tested with Microsoft Visual C++ .NET, available as an optional compiler with this text.

Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology

Jonas Löwgren, Erik Stolterman

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Editorial Review:

The authors of Thoughtful Interaction Design go beyond the usual technical concerns of usability and usefulness to consider interaction design from a design perspective. The shaping of digital artifacts is a design process that influences the form and functions of workplaces, schools, communication, and culture; the successful interaction designer must use both ethical and aesthetic judgment to create designs that are appropriate to a given environment. This book is not a how-to manual, but a collection of tools for thought about interaction design.

Working with information technology—called by the authors "the material without qualities"—interaction designers create not a static object but a dynamic pattern of interactivity. The design vision is closely linked to context and not simply focused on the technology. The authors' action-oriented and context-dependent design theory, drawing on design theorist Donald Schön's concept of the reflective practitioner, helps designers deal with complex design challenges created by new technology and new knowledge. Their approach, based on a foundation of thoughtfulness that acknowledges the designer's responsibility not only for the functional qualities of the design product but for the ethical and aesthetic qualities as well, fills the need for a theory of interaction design that can increase and nurture design knowledge. From this perspective they address the fundamental question of what kind of knowledge an aspiring designer needs, discussing the process of design, the designer, design methods and techniques, the design product and its qualities, and conditions for interaction design.

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits (EDN Series for Design Engineers)

Robert Pease

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Of some value, but not about troubleshooting 3 out of 5 stars.
12 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits takes a device-centric approach. About half of the chapters focus quite specifically on a type of device, and proceed to tell you a few common ways in which that type of device can fail. The other half of the chapters are quite random and don't seem to fit together very well, although they also contain useful information.

The primary theme in this book could be condensed quite simply: Don't assume anything. A recurring theme in the book is "This type of component is usually pretty reliable, but might sometimes be out of tolerance, so don't assume it's correct." Pease reiterates this same theme for resistors, capacitors, test equipment, circuit configurations, and so on. Virtually everything boils down to "x might not work, so if the system it's in doesn't work, x could be the problem".

This, in turn, means the book boils down to little more than a collection of random observations which normally would remain unpublished in some engineer's notebook, but are just valuable enough to make a published book in this case, because Pease has so many decades of experience that his experience is worth a bit more than the standard spurious observation. Even so, this book is in no way a comprehensive guide on how to troubleshoot anything. It really is a collection of thoughts and tips from Pease; it should be called "Bob Pease's Book Of Tips And Tricks".

Pease is also singularly obsessed in his hatred of SPICE. While he's correct that SPICE can't be relied upon for perfectly accurate simulation of anything, it's funny that he rejects its use so strongly in a book whose overwhelming theme is that *EVERYTHING* is unreliable. The accompanying photo of Pease throwing a computer off a roof is, like the rest of the book, amusing but hardly useful. In the end, this book contains a lot of information that *could* be useful, but don't rely on it as any kind of resource on troubleshooting. It has little to do with troubleshooting at all; its main audience is seasoned engineers who can benefit from a fellow engineer's experiences.

Editorial Review:

Based on the author's popular series in EDN Magazine, the book contains a wealth of information on debugging and troubleshooting analog circuits. In this book, you'll find advice on using simple equipment to troubleshoot (would you believe an ordinary AM radio?); step-by-step procedures for analog troubleshooting methods; and generous helpings of the author's unique insights, humor, and philosophy on analog circuits.

*Provides proven methods for troubleshooting analog circuits
*Accompanying disk contains over 60 pre-built Electronics Workbench circuits

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

Noam Nisan, Shimon Schocken

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the early days of computer science, the interactions of hardware, software, compilers, and operating system were simple enough to allow students to see an overall picture of how computers worked. With the increasing complexity of computer technology and the resulting specialization of knowledge, such clarity is often lost. Unlike other texts that cover only one aspect of the field, The Elements of Computing Systems gives students an integrated and rigorous picture of applied computer science, as its comes to play in the construction of a simple yet powerful computer system.

Indeed, the best way to understand how computers work is to build one from scratch, and this textbook leads students through twelve chapters and projects that gradually build a basic hardware platform and a modern software hierarchy from the ground up. In the process, the students gain hands-on knowledge of hardware architecture, operating systems, programming languages, compilers, data structures, algorithms, and software engineering. Using this constructive approach, the book exposes a significant body of computer science knowledge and demonstrates how theoretical and applied techniques taught in other courses fit into the overall picture.

Designed to support one- or two-semester courses, the book is based on an abstraction-implementation paradigm; each chapter presents a key hardware or software abstraction, a proposed implementation that makes it concrete, and an actual project. The emerging computer system can be built by following the chapters, although this is only one option, since the projects are self-contained and can be done or skipped in any order. All the computer science knowledge necessary for completing the projects is embedded in the book, the only pre-requisite being a programming experience.

The book's web site provides all tools and materials necessary to build all the hardware and software systems described in the text, including two hundred test programs for the twelve projects. The projects and systems can be modified to meet various teaching needs, and all the supplied software is open-source.