Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary socialist who fought and died for her beliefs. In January 1919, after being arrested for her involvement in a workers' uprising in Berlin, she was brutally murdered by a group of right-wing soldiers. Her body was recovered days later from a canal. Six years earlier she had published what was undoubtedly her finest achievement, The Accumulation of Capital - a book which remains one of the masterpieces of socialist literature. Taking Marx as her starting point, she offers an independent and fiercely critical explanation of the economic and political consequences of capitalism in the context of the turbulent times in which she lived, reinterpreting events in the United States, Europe, China, Russia and the British Empire. Many today believe there is no alternative to global capitalism. This book is a timely and forceful statement of an opposing view.
Visit our eBookstore at: www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk.
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Accumulation of Capital
Rosa Luxemburg
Manufacturer: Monthly Review Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
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ASIN: 0853450595 |
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- Never read something like this book!
- An Embellishment of True Observations
- minha
- minha
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Corporate Lunacy : How to Win (or at Least Survive) the Corporate Game
Robert McMillan
Manufacturer: Corporate Lunacy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
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ASIN: 0967856809 |
Book Description
R. A. McMillan, a retired Vice President & Treasurer of B.F. Goodrich, has just released a funny new book called Corporate Lunacy, "How to win (or at least survive) the corporate game," a humorous, all-too-true expose' of life in the corporate world.
During his successful career, McMillan was adorned with many corporate titles. Now, with many corporate adventures behind him, McMillan has written a guidebook to be used by those entering or already living in the minefields of the corporate world.
With chapters named Beginning Corporate Life, Who Are These People, Bosses Are "Beautiful" and Let Me Out of Here, McMillan illustrates the idiosyncrasies that we all love to hate about our jobs.
R. A. McMillan earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1972. He began his professional career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Ohio. McMillan continued to climb the corporate ladder at an Akron, Ohio-based Fortune 500 company in positions including Chief Economist, Director of Investor Relations, Planning & Development, Analysis & Control and Vice President & Treasurer. Now, McMillan is spending his retirement writing, consulting, traveling and playing bad golf.
About the illustrator. Currently, Douglas M. Goldsmith teaches Illustration and Color Theory classes at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Goldsmith received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1981 from the Cleveland Institute of Art and received his Master of Fine Arts in 1988 from Carnegie Mellon University. Goldsmith enjoys traveling to Portland, Maine and Long Island, New York to paint landscapes.
Customer Reviews:
Never read something like this book!.......2004-01-24
If you're working in the big company/corporation, you have to read this book. This is just masterpiece!
An Embellishment of True Observations.......2000-11-08
This book is a gem. It is full of sarcasm and real-life-annoyance. You can tell that the author was writing this book as a healing process for all of the years he was "stuck" fighting the corporate monster. The illustrations were wonderful and really brought the book into a visual light. I think that anyone who has ever had a job, whether it's office, factory, restaurant, etc., will be able to relate to this book. As much as we'd like to deny it, this book is the real thing. It might be a little embellished for entertainment value, but the observations are true and they are pure Corporate Lunacy.
minha.......2000-11-06
This is a "must read" for anyone in corporate America and, for sure, those considering entering the corporate world. Honest and a real eye opener -- some things we all knew, but never believed! RA McMillan gives you the facts in a style which makes you chuckle! The illustrations are great! Hope there is a sequel - will be sure to read!
minha.......2000-11-06
This is a "must read" for anyone in corporate America and, for sure, those considering entering the corporate world. Honest and a real eye opener -- some things we all knew, but never believed! RA McMillan gives you the facts in a style whick makes you chuckle! The illustrations are great! Hope there is a sequel - will be sure to read!
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Management of Problem Soils in Arid Ecosystems
A. Monem Balba
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Environmental Science
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ASIN: 0873718119 |
Book Description
Management of Problem Soils in Arid Ecosystems examines the challenges of managing soils in arid and semiarid regions. These soils contain low organic matter, are not leached, and accumulate lime, gypsum, and/or soluble salts, requiring special management and practices. This book discusses how to identify problems, reclaim the soils, and then use them efficiently and economically. Water management and desertification in these areas are also discussed. It contains extensive references as well as 40 tables and illustrations.
Amazon.com
Emily Dickinson wrote "The Brain--is wider than the Sky," and who can argue with that? Quoted by Nobel-winning scientist Gerald M. Edelman and his Neurosciences Institute colleague Giulio Tononi in A Universe of Consciousness, Miss Emily neatly explains the problem of conscious awareness, then ducks out of the way as the two scientists get to work solving it. Testable theories of consciousness are mighty lonely, as even the soberest mind can be driven to tears of madness pondering its own activity. Centuries of work by philosophers and psychologists like James and Freud have made little progress by starting with awareness and working backward to the brain; these days we have a secure enough base to try looking in the other direction and building a theory of the mind out of neurons.
Though Edelman and Tononi do make a good effort to help out the lay reader, ultimately A Universe of Consciousness is aimed at the interdisciplinary gang of scientists and academics trying to understand our shared but invisible experience. The first sections of the book cover the basic philosophical, psychological, and biological elements essential to their theory. Swiftly the authors proceed to define terms and concepts (even the long-abused term complexity gets a reappraisal) and elaborate on these to create a robust, testable theory of the neural basis of consciousness. Following this hard work, they consider some ramifications of the theory and take a close look at language and thinking. This much-needed jump-start is sure to provoke a flurry of experimental and theoretical responses; A Universe of Consciousness might just help us answer some of the greatest questions of science, philosophy, and even poetry. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
A Nobel Prize-winning scientist and a leading brain researcher show how the brain creates conscious experience In A Universe of Consciousness, Gerald Edelman builds on the radical ideas he introduced in his monumental trilogy-Neural Darwinism, Topobiology, and The Remembered Present-to present for the first time an empirically supported full-scale theory of consciousness. He and the neurobiolgist Giulio Tononi show how they use ingenious technology to detect the most minute brain currents and to identify the specific brain waves that correlate with particular conscious experiences. The results of this pioneering work challenge the conventional wisdom about consciousness.
Customer Reviews:
A Commendable Attempt at our Most Miraculous Question.......2006-12-05
-This is a leading neuroscientific contribution to explaining the nature of consciousness. The authors have written other books and abstracts (an excellent, concise summary by Dr. Edelman may be found in the NY Academy of Science Annals, Vol 882), but this one seems to have the most depth and development. The book was written in 2000 and is intended to give an overview, which makes it less prone to going out of date. In fact, it seems to give a reasonably sound foundational basis for understanding more recent developments, such as the role of electrical wave propagation in conscious activity.
-The main purpose of "Universe" is approaching the problem of how objectively describable events ("the external and internal world") produces private subjective experience. Many have attempted this but only recently have we been able to scientifically probe it (although our understanding still reflects the insights of the Greeks and other capable philosophers). The authors give us some unique suggestions for current understanding and integrating further developments. "Universe" builds a foundation of basic neural activity, discusses how computer modeling can offer hints to the working of the human mind although they cannot explain or duplicate it, discusses how conscious and unconscious neural activity may be integrated and differentiated, and suggests how neural activity self-selects (the authors expand upon an earlier thesis that Darwin's evolution is a far better foundation than directly psychological abstractions like Freud's). "Universe" humbly recognizes the incomprehensible vastness of the human mind (the authors call it "hyperastronomical"), and how unlikely it is that we will ever completely describe it except in a trivial sense. The authors suggest we are far better off conceiving of the mind and Consciousness as an incredibly dynamic Event rather than something static (Heraclitus was too kind -- we cannot even have the same thought once, let alone twice). The authors seem to make a major descriptive contribution by insights into the Dynamic Core Hypothesis ( a highly differentiated, anatomically clustered, complex, and self-coordinating functioning of neuronal groups) and re-entry (a continuous reciprocal signalling, roughly similar to a coordinated and massively dynamic feedback type system, which can integrate anatomically segregated areas of the brain without demanding a central "man-in-the-box" coordination area). The authors' discussion of Qualia (the quality and intensity of private subjective experience) seems to reflect our continued inability to describe these phenomena as accurately as we would like.
-"Universe" can be as challenging as you want it to be, and it is an interesting and thoughtful study of consciousness from leading and respected scientists. The notes and Bibliography are excellent, and the authors wisely uses space to develop his ideas, rather than give an overview of everyone else's. The authors admit this is not some kind of final theory of consciousness, but it seems a reasonable description of some of the issues and foundations for consciousness. It is like setting out on an expedition with a basically accurate but incomplete map, which can be changed and filled in along the way, rather than relying on guesswork or hearsay.
As a suggestion to help you enjoy this book, I found it greatly helped to set aside a few minutes to scan each chapter before reading it, which helped appreciate the continuity of the arguments. I also found a neuroanatomy atlas (such as Nolte) useful.
The BEST Book on Consciousness -- By Far.......2005-08-07
This is a most exciting and most challenging read on consciousness. Finally, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry return as the hallmarks of the theory, bolstered by a high amount of "Neural Darwinism," in order, "to formulate a specific hypothesis about the kinds of neural processes that can account for the fundamental integrative and informative properties of conscious experience." The theory, known as "neuronal group selection" is a completely naturalist, wholly scientific, empirically-sated theory of consciousness. (Some knowledge of statistics will help, but is not necessary, for some middle chapters.)
Rejected is Pinker's computational model of the brain ("How the Mind Words"). Gone are Damasio's dysfunctional subjects as counter-illustrations of the normative ("Descartes' Error" et alia). Gone too is Johnston's entirely solipsistic theory of mind ("Why We Feel"). Also ignored are the philosophical speculation and armchair conjectures one encounters in Chalmer's "The Conscious Mind," Dennett's "Consciousness Explained," and Penrose's "Shadows of the Mind."
Instead, Edleman and Tononi in "The Universe of Consciousness" respond to philosopher John Searle's demand for a strictly functional and biological account of consciousness (see, Searle's "Rediscovery of Mind" and "Mystery of Consciousness"). Among the some of the enigmas rejected is the representational theory of memory; in its stead is an associative and creative replicational theory of memory, which is dynamic and reacting to its environment always anew. If one learns anything from this book, it is that consciousness is not a state(s) of mind, but a complex, dynamic, and integrative neural process.
This fascinating, detective-like examination of consciousness is not for the casual reader; this is a demanding and rigorous read: Concepts like perceptual categorization, memory reactivation, concepts, values, etc. that depend on a wholly Darwinian sense of developmental selection, experimental selection, and "reentry" ("the process of ongoing and recursive signaling between separate brain maps along massively parallel anatomical connections"), all combine with detailed neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry in order to substantiate the theory. The theory requires one's complete, but undivided, attention. It's a difficult subject, but masterful job.
While the book is both exciting and a challenge, I admire the authors' ability to tackle a difficult task without complicating it with arcane, elliptic, or meandering conversation (cf., Pinker). This is an exciting, engaging, but very serious, book on a theory of consciousness. Where difficult concepts and biologies require, analogies are provided. Indubitably, "Universe of Consciousness" is the best written, empirical, biological, and conceptual account of consciousness I've read, and I've read more than a few. My only criticism, since it's warranted, is stylistic: The dense content could be helped by less-dense sentential structures. Otherwise, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Boring.......2005-06-08
I have been reading about the brain and working of the mind for a few years now (I am 50). I am also a university professor in engineering and consider myself well-informed. I have read many popular science books which are popular because they are interesting to general readers. This books utterly lacks interesting points especially for someone who is already familiar with the working of the brain. I am wondering if there is a reviewing conspiracy to glamorize this book which not only throws neurological jargon at you in bundles, but, at the end offers nothing content-wise. What theory? That consciousness arises from a complex and highly integrated system? Dah.. I wonder how you reached that conclusion. There is a good use for a book full of jibberish however - I use it before bed and it puts me to sleep immediately, for that reason I give it 2 starts. For a book on this subject, one can read the first and last chapters and know what the content of the book is in a nutshell. I have read them a few times and everytime I am completely blank - nothing, this books says nothing ... but it may impress some people as highly significant becasue the presentation is highly cast in scietific terms.
Imagine a complex subject ..........2004-11-17
How does matter become imagination? That's the compelling subtitle of this work. The answer is not easy to follow but Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi make the effort worthwhile. I had to work to keep up with the subject. It felt like a difficult but positive workout.
The subject matter is dense. The authors have created a writing style which in no way dumbs down the subject for its audience - if the audience is someone like me, a knowledgeable lay-person. I appreciated the chapter prefaces and came back to them often as I made my way into the billions of possible mind states.
Edelman and Tononi put forward an in depth theory of the brain's machinations to achieve consciousness. With effort the reader will get a wonderful perspective on how the world out there becomes the inner world of imagination. I applaud the authors for their research and communication skills on such a difficult subject. I recommend this book to everyone interested in the subject of consciousness and who are willing to expend some gray matter to follow the discourse.
Interesting, intelligent work that aims a bit too high.......2003-09-10
There is no doubt in my mind, after reading this book, that the authors have done excellent scientific work and made very interesting discoveries. On the other hand, it has certain problems.
To start with, it seems clear that they do not have a full grasp of the philosophical problems they are attempting to resolve - or if they do, they avoid going into the stickier points. This is not necessarily a reason to condemn the book; there are huge volumes of philosophy on this subject, and it would be futile to try and fit a quick resolution into one small volume already full of other facts. Nonetheless, they probably should have avoided the philosophical aspect entirely if all they were going to do is attack the mind/body problem in a way that arguably does nothing but shift the terms around a bit to produce the appearance of a resolution. There is essentially nothing new here, philosophically, and they certainly had more than enough interesting material for a book without attempting this.
A second thing that disappointed me is the lack of contrasting points of view. It seems unfair to ask an author to present a summary of theories which argue against his own, but in fact it's in the best interest of an author/scientist. What are the points of contention between theories, and what are the alternate explanations? This gives the author an ideal chance to explain why their theory is superior, what it has that the others lack... and in turn it gives the reader the chance to be convinced (or not) by the force of the argument, which is always more intellectually satisfying than being led by the nose.
Stylistically, also, it could have used a bit of revision. Long, complex sentences are fine (great, even) for something like Proust. When you populate those sentences - even if they're perfect grammatically - with large and generally unfamiliar scientific terms, it can be quite awkward. This happened just frequently enough to be a nuisance, as far as I was concerned.
So, apart from these criticisms, the subject material is still interesting. I would be inclined, however, to look for a more recent title by these authors (or others) on the subject. A lot can be discovered in a few years, and hopefully the experience they gained in writing this book will help them produce a work with a bit more polish.
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- We should not be taken for a ride by the environmentalists
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Through Green-Colored Glasses: Enviromentalism Reconsidered
Wilfred Beckerman
Manufacturer: Cato Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Sustainable Development
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ASIN: 1882577361 |
Book Description
A former member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution reveals the flaws in alarmist environmental movement arguments.
Customer Reviews:
We should not be taken for a ride by the environmentalists.......1998-08-26
Through Green-Colored Glasses: Environmentalism Reconsidered
Wilfred Beckerman
"We should not be taken for a ride by the environmentalist movement's predictions that we are one the verge of environmental catastrophe," writes Wilfred Beckerman in the Cato Institute book, Through Green-Colored Glasses: Environmentalism Reconsidered.
Beckerman, an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and a former member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, has written this volume as a sequel to his widely acclaimed In Defense of Economic Growth, which originally appeared in 1974. Like its predecessor, Through Green-Colored Glasses, which was published in England last year under the title Small Is Stupid: Blowing the Whistle on the Greens, has garnered significant praise. The Economist stated that its "arguments are piercing" and Nature remarked, "Environmentalists tempted to ignore Wilfred Beckerman's latest book better think again. . . . Beckerman has written a thoughtful book as well as an entertaining one."
He explodes a number of myths currently advanced by radical environmentalists, including the assertion that natural resource depletion is imminent and the never-ending claims regarding global warming. He contrasts those supposed "threats" to the environment with the very real ecological problems that face Third World countries and concludes that economic growth is the only way those areas will be able to develop the technology and wealth needed to handle their problems. In addition, he insightfully discusses the question of what society owes future generations.
Beckerman believes the argument regarding natural resource depletion is "flawed in every respect." It is "at variance with the whole of historical experience, and it takes no account of the way that societies adapt to change in the demands and supplies of materials." Defending his position, he cites numerous examples of how the market has dealt with temporary resource shortages, such as the development of synthetic rubber during World War II and the creation of plastic as a replacement for various metals.
While acknowledging that global warming "has to be taken seriously," Beckerman maintains that it is "no cause for alarm or dramatic action." If dramatic action were taken, the effects on human welfare would be horrendous--even more horrendous perhaps than the effects of global warming itself. "With the global-warming problem," Beckerman writes, "society is faced with the choice between (i) accepting some remote and unquantifiable possibility of sharp climatic change in the longer run with possibly severe economic effects and (ii) certain economic and social catastrophe if draconian policies are adopted to avoid it."
The ecological problems of the Third World, Beckerman contends, are a direct result of the low level of economic development those countries have achieved. They simply have not produced the technology necessary for environmental protection, nor have they accumulated the wealth to buy it from abroad. And to do either one, they must first industrialize and grow--paradoxically, the exact thing that many Western environmentalists lament. He writes, "The best--and no doubt the only--route by which these countries can overcome their appalling environmental problems is to become richer."
One of the most vexing philosophical problems facing those who write on the environment is what, if any, moral obligations society has toward future generations. Is it necessary, for example, to leave the environment completely unaltered, or even approximately so, as many environmentalists argue? Beckerman contends that such a proposition is overly simplistic and narrow in focus. While it is conceivable that we could leave posterity a relatively unchanged environment, doing so would be too costly, not only to us, but to future generations as well.
Beckerman leaves the reader with the following thought: "Above all, we should not be panicked into the sort of drastic action urged on us by many environmental activists. . . . In short, the message of this book is that we have time to think. What is needed is the will to do so."
"Environmentalists tempted to ignore Wilfred Beckerman's latest book had better think again...Beckerman has written a thoughtful book as well as an entertaing one." -Nature
1996/230pp./$19.95 cloth ISBN: 1-882577-36-2 /$10.95 paper ISBN 1-882577-36-1
Book Description
Since its introduction in 1986, this indispensable guide has been hailed as the definitive take-along text on the subject of outdoor medicine. This edition has been completely revised and expanded, making it even more essential for the growing numbers enjoying outdoor activities. With more than 250 illustrations, MEDICINE FOR THE OUTDOORS provides state-of-the-art medical procedures for just about every injury or illness likely to be encountered in the wild. It is logically organized, easy to reference, and surprisingly simple to understand.
Customer Reviews:
Bring DOC along on your next adventure.......2007-09-23
We're kitesurfers, heli-skiers and scuba divers. Stuff is always happening to us or those around us in remote places. We have learned to rely on medical reference books out of necessity. I have several at home (A comprehensive Guide to Marine Medicine, Emergency Medical Treatment, The Pocket Doctor: A Passport to Healthy Travel) and this is by far the most complete, easy to use and useful of the bunch.
Three examples of how I have used the book in the past come to mind. An unexpected storm came in quickly once while we were kitesurfing off shore. Although we headed back when we saw the weather change, by the time we made it on shore lightning was striking less than 50 feet away. Once on shore, I asked if anyone knew what to do if one of us got hit. No one had a clue. When I got home I grabbed my trusted "Medicine for the Outdoors", where I found an entire section on lightning, how to avoid it and what to do in the event someone gets hit.
I have also had occasion to use the book while traveling abroad. When you get sick in a foreign country, especially if you don't speak the language, life becomes pretty miserable quickly. It was wonderful to have a resource to identify what was ailing me and even what could cure me. I took the book to the nearby pharmacist and pointed at the suggested remedies and prescriptions. The pharmacist knew right away what the local name for the pharmaceutical was and relief was just a pill away. The book covers everything from the remote (male genital problems :-)) to the mundane (traveler's diarrhea). It also has a helpful first aid refresher chapter as well as suggested supplies for a first aid kit.
I used the book to create my own first aid kit on board.
This book has and continues to be a great resource for us. It is written clearly and intuitively for both beginners and the more advanced.
Customer Reviews:
The Industry Standard for Professionals.......2006-02-18
I've worked in the hour-long TV business as writer's assistant, then staff writer, then producer, for almost 15 years, and I recommend this book to everyone I work with and all my students. This book was written by professional studio typists, back before there were word processors, when every produced script was typed by people who did that as their full time job. It contains THE industry standard for how scripts should look -- which is sometimes not the default setting of those expensive script programs. This book is MUST HAVE for anyone who wants to be a professional script coordinator or staff writer, and for anyone who wants their scripts to look just like professional ones. It isn't really designed for, or necessary for, people who are just starting out, although I personally think it should be required reading for every aspiring writer, especially in TV, because understanding how a script is used as a blueprint for filming, such how the scene headers are used to create the shooting schedule, can really help new writers to understand how to create a script that is not only interesting but filmable. Combine this with Ralph Singleton's Film Scheduling/Film Budgeting Workbook. Script formatting and scheduling programs are great timesaving tools, but you should be telling the programs how to format your script, not the other way around.
An Old Book with a Homemade Look.......2004-08-25
I've just finished my first script. I suppose it's okay, but not awesome. I've read a half dozen books on screenplays. Of those books, this one is likely one of the least helpful. It was writen in 1983!! and hasn't been updated. I suspect that much of the formatting advice this book offers is now out of date, old fashioned to what professional script writers are doing this days. Two newer books I would recommend instead would be CRAFTY SCREENWRITING by Alex Epstein (2002) and HOW NOT TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY by Denny Flinn (1999). You'll get modern formatting information from these books PLUS a lot more useful advice about how to write well.
Pretty Good...but..........2003-10-26
I bought this book thinking it would give me all the technical terms and definitions of a script. It does have some, however I found another book which is more what I was looking for. This book is useful (meaning I did not return it) however, it is not easy to read if you know nothing about scriptwriting to begin with.
Intricacies of Screenwriting Revealed.......2002-08-12
The first time I looked at a screenplay script format, I thought I'd never be able to understand what went where and why. After a few days with "The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats," I felt like an expert. It should be understood that this book is an excellent resource for understanding the format component of writing a screenplay. It does not address the art writing or the literary aspects of how to construct a story suitable for making into a film. If you've already got the story down and learning the proper format for your first screenplay is your task at hand, this is the book for you.
Good advice, but some parts not absolute........2002-07-26
After downloading a few scripts from drew's scriptoroama, Basic Instinct, Fargo, Blade Runeer (the original Hampton Fancher version ), etc., I thought it would be a good idea to get familiar with what is recommended practice., since scripts tend to look pretty similar but with inconsistencies in some of the details.
Cole and Haag give plenty of clear advice, coupled with why the block elements and the inner details of a script are formatted and timed as they are. The section dealing with the setting up of a word processor to make the work easier was somewhat garbled, but the part for typewriter set up looked to be okay.
This is a book well worth having, so that you can format and structure your script to be as effective as possible, and to take care of the parts that script formatting applications such as Final Draft 6.0 or Screenwriter 2000 don't attend to. A minor example would be capitalising text to highlight sounds in a direction section.
Customer Reviews:
A surprise indeed!.......2007-08-06
"Imperfect C++" was an amazing surprise to me when I read it a year ago, it was the first time I knew that there're so many imperfections in C++, a language I thought I knew quite well before; and it was the first time I knew that nearly all those imperfections could be circumvented, and circumvented pretty well.
As a C++ fan myself, I've been spending quite a portion of my free time on C++, and that is 6 years+. Among all the books I've read about C++, I think this one fill the right gap, that is, most of the C++ books focus on isolated tricks and techniques which, while interesting, often don't take real world constraints in consideration(such as performance, compile-time enforcements, flexibility).
Genuinely new C++ material.......2007-02-25
This is very different from the many 'intermediate C++' books that are on the market. If you've had your fill of reading about pimpls, use of const and which overloaded operators should be members, it's time to read 'Imperfect C++'.
Be warned, it does take a little while to get going, and the author has a rather unusual writing style, which can best be described as an informal hybrid of Aussie and British. And admittedly the opening part of the book covers material reminiscent of the likes of 'Effective C++', albeit with a stronger emphasis on optimisation.
But once it gets going, there's a whole new world opened up, rather remote from the rarefied atmosphere of more theoretical books. Imperfect C++ has a very 'in the trenches' feel, where you need to write programs that talk to C, and on a Windows platform. None of the book is about object oriented design as such, but has a library designer's appreciation for dealing with operating system quirks.
You know how lots of books have advice along the lines of "NEVER do this" or "ALWAYS do this"? Matthew Wilson takes great delight in providing examples where you might want to do the opposite, and covers a wide variety of topics, including defining a portable boolean, a NULL value, and C#/Pascal/Python-like properties.
Purists will almost certainly dislike the fairly heavy use of macros for some of the solutions here, you'll have to get used to the appearance of code with a plethora of underscores in. And the book assumes a reasonably high level of knowledge of C++. In particular, there's little hand holding. Entire class definitions are often provided, but you won't always get example application code to see it in action. This is a little unfortunate, particularly in the chapters where the author introduces his own idioms. It requires careful concentration to work out the physical layout of some of the solutions (e.g. are these free functions or member functions? In the same namespace or a different namespace?). On the other hand, some readers will no doubt welcome the vigorous thought that is required.
Overall, this is a very different, practical book to most of the C++ books out there, with a very high signal-to-noise ratio. Add it to your C++ recommended reading list.
A Stimulating Breath of Fresh Air.......2006-11-28
I finished "Imperfect C++" last night, and it's definitely my "Book of the Month" (and last month, and the one before that). It is clearly written, and Wilson's hard won experience definitely shines through.
I liked the practical hands-on angle of the book, "Imperfect Practitioners", indeed, which is different from other books, and I look forward to Wilson's next book(s).
Perhaps, what impressed me the most was the way Wilson took common problems or ideas to their maximum logical consequences and implications. It is not common to actually think through all the possible implications of a particular design decision in terms of (mis-)use, efficiency, robustness and portability. Usually, one does what time permits and what works for the current project. Rarely, are the solutions so well thought out and robust to abuse.
From beginner C++ programmers to advanced demi-gurus, all will find something new in this book.
It is a worthy and valuable addition to any serious C++ developer's bookshelf.
highly practical, applicable advice.......2006-08-06
Skipping aside the occasional misstep (here and there in the first part of the book) from this first time author, the material really comes into its own in Part 2.
I own a lot of C++ books - probably all the "bibles" and then some - and this is the only book of which I am aware that covers issues such as ABI (and how to emulate it), threading, contract programming, operator overloading, multi-dimensional arrays (and a whole lot more) in such practical and applicable terms.
And then there's all the stuff that the author's invented, which makes reading parts 4-6 both a challenge and a delight.
The author provides a number of tools and libraries on the accompanying CD, some of which are the summer 04 snapshots of various of his libraries. I've since become addicted to several of these, in no small part because they work with just about any compile you can name. (The book makes reference to compatibility issues in several places, and the libraries bear out this obsession's worth.)
At the end of the book, he promises to return in "Extended STL". Judging from the apparent progress on his site for that book - www.extendedstl.com - we may not have to wait too much longer.
If you're listening, Dr. Wilson, please allow us the pleasure of your second book before too long. The world of C++ needs practical protagonists who are also practiced pedagogists.
a great resource for those whoose problems extend beyond the "i learnt this in class catagory".......2005-09-22
ok so you think your a pretty hot c++ programmer, you know your templates from you generics when youve only been awake to minutes and you realise that youve had too many beers. well then take a read of this excelt book, i cant recommend it enough, it'll make you re-asses the way you are solving your problems and extend your technique in directions that if your like me never really knew existed.
i find it more readable than effective c++ and the writting style is great!
anyway give your mind some excercise, it aint for the faint-at-c++ but that makes it all the better.
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