The description of the book has more meat than the book itself. This disappointing book is a 15 short chapter breeze through a multitude of subjects, and does not linger long on any single subject. There are some nice diagrams and ten thousand foot views crammed into 374 total pages (the page count vs. chapter count alone should indicate how superficial this book is). An example is the 21 pages devoted to weighty subjects encompassing project management tasks, configuration management, verification and validation, quality assurance, decisions and risks. Any one of the topics would have merited at least 20 page in a serious book on systems engineering. Useful to sales and marketing types who are selling systems engineering services, and executive management who might like a quick overview of systems engineering. This book is useless for technical professionals.

This book is a great introduction to the system engineering process. It might be lightweight for a practicing system engineer, but for an IT professional whose background is service delivery, production support and data center operations this book opened a whole new world.

An example of how this book opened my eyes is the way configuration management is explained, and how it fits within the system engineering process. IT professionals with my background are subject matter experts in change control; however, few of us (certainly myself) realize that change control is a subset of a much larger picture. Every part of system engineering it covered in sufficient detail to understand the basics. This understanding created, in my case, a desire to further research some areas in greater detail. Overall, seeing the process from a high-level view provided some unique insights about what is missing in IT management that can be filled by borrowing from our system engineering brothers and sisters.

I found this book valuable because I did not have to wade through a dry manual and sort out the details in order to get a big picture of system engineering. The brief, succinct chapters and excellent illustrations provided me with a coherent approach to my own job. In fact, I personally believe that applying system engineering principles to IT service delivery and operations management will significantly improve the IT profession. As such I highly recommend this book to my peers and anyone else who needs to see the big picture of the system engineering and how its principles can be related to their job.

Stevens' Systems Engineering looks at the place ofrequirements in a world which consists of complex systems in a highlycompetitive marketplace. This may be the commercial world or equally the military-industrial world in which systems must literally do battle with their rivals.

Stevens and his co-authors (two of them from the UK's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency) know that in this environment, many systems fail, very often because they were inadequately thought out, and often also because their development projects were poorly managed. Chapter 1 begins "The world is currently gripped by changes more intense and rapid than those triggered by the ndustrial revolution..." : we are at once swept into the rich, complex, and dangerous life of real system development.

For Stevens, the problem in systems engineering is complexity, and its mastery is, as the subtitle implies, the key to success. The design of complex systems demands hierarchy - of organisations, of projects, of contracts, of documents. Hierarchy implies interfaces: if you split a system into three, you probably create three interfaces between the component subsystems. Interfaces in turn imply specialisation: someone develops the hardware; someone else, the software. Similarly, someone (the customer) writes the requirements specification, while someone else (the developer) tries to meet those requirements. This, like the prime contractor - subcontractor relationship, consists of a customer and a supplier: the marketplace reaches right into the core of system engineering.

The book therefore covers a startling breadth of subjects, but always with the same practical vision and with the same conceptual tools. The first few chapters broadly follow the European Space Agency's now-classical PSS-05 software engineering standard life-cycle phases: user requirements, system requirements, architectural design, integration (of subsystems) and verification, management.

(Requirements are involved in every one of these phases.) Once the reader is grounded in the basics, the next chapter discusses how to tailor the simple life-cycle just presented. A tell-tale section entitled 'smaller systems' gives the game away: the systems in the authors' minds are a great deal larger than the PC 'systems' beloved of advertising copywriters.

The second part of the book (chapter 8 onwards) starts by looking at more realistic life-cycles, based on the management of risk: when is it sensible to go ahead with something? The answer is, when success can be assured even if the bad risks materialize. That can only be guaranteed if the risks have been quantified. Concepts of requirement priority and benefit, risk, and cost loom much larger in the marketplace than technical issues.

The remaining chapters examine management in multi-level projects (hierarchy again), software and systems, prototyping (to control risk), information modeling, projects and the enterprise, a chapter on how to improve and a summary.

Each chapter consists of a double-page title/table of contents, overlaid on some crisp pencil artwork on the theme of engineering progress (from Leonardo's hang-glider to an agile jet). The text is broken up by plenty of simple flow diagrams illustrating life-cycles, trade-offs, business processes and information models, as well as short summaries of what the most important system documents should contain. Key points are highlighted or bulleted within the text. The chapters end with a page or two of realistically tricky exercises: the answers cannot be coded in C.

The helpful appendices include a list of websites: Systems Engineering comes with its own website which contains pointers to several related sites, and itself includes 'proposed' answers to the exercises which end each chapter. Students will find the glossary helpful and comprehensive. There is an extensive list of very varied references, and a detailed index. This book is a carefully worked out description of the process of developing any large, complex, and risky system. The book can also be read as a polemic: an impassioned plea for the discipline to graduate from its narrow roots, whether in academia or in quality control. The concluding paragraphs make it clear that system engineering is a human process, a 'game' in which there are losers as well as winners, something that can be played well, and that absolutely must be played better to limit the risks and losses that are still all too common....

The book will be of interest to several quite different communities: in particular development managers, clients having large systems developed, and students of system and software engineering will all find much that is of interest here. The book may also be a useful supplement (or perhaps an antidote) to the academic perspective on RE. Everyone should have access to a copy.

The Essay's presented in Richard Wright : A Collection of Critical Essays (New Century Views)are a new and exciting twist to Wiright's novels. I have read both Native Son and Black Boy, and have pondered the maning of both, not realizing many crucial elements until I read this book. Although some of the books ideas are superficial, most of the essays are in-depth and stimulating. Definately a must-read book.

Arnold has written a wonderful beginning text for the aspiring stage technician. The material is presented in easy to digest chapters with many helpful illustrations and photos.

I read the first book in the trilogy and picked up A Place Called Sweet Shrub just because the author had killed off so many characters in the first and left much unanswered that I naively thought resolution would come in the sequel. I was wrong. Lucinda had so much going for her in the West Texas hardened by encounters with Christobel and Mrs. Sully that I thought her character would continue to grow. Instead, the book was a grandiose setup for the time displaced rehash of a race riot. The ribald humor was misplaced and characters are killed off haphazardly. I knew not to expect plot resolution, but some motivation would have been appreciated.

It has been three years since Lucy Richards returned from Estelline. Taking over the family hardware store and caring for family has taken her mind off her sister's betrayal and the man she had planned to marry, perhaps too well. Lucy feels that she may be too comfortable, and that life in Bonham may not hold much for her. When Josh Arnold visits Lucy on his way to Sweet Shrub, Arkansas(where he is to read law) he makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he is still interested in Lucy, and that he won't take no for an answer. Lucy discovery that her heart is once again willing to trust combined with Josh's insistance and the impending visit of Lucy's sister and former fiancee, propells Lucy to accept his proposal. Together they move to Sweet Shrub. Just as she had faced change and adversity when she left home to teach, Lucy is faced with a whole new life to claim. She is faced by the prejudices and fears of the townfolk, and must turn to Josh and an inner strength she did not realize she had to survive. This is the second in three books, and is told in a very different way than the first. The author is very skillful in including the events of the early 1900's, impending world war, friction between races and small town dynamics to weave a wonderful story of life in Texas.

"Sweet Shrub" was such a surprise. This book looked like dripy ole' southern novel. BUT...how wrong I was. This book was deep, emotional and I loved the characters. DEEPLY. This is such a great book.....it's clear, enjoyable, and such a pleasant surprise.

This book is a quick, interesting read for a grade-school kid, but it's coverage of both the history of Mesa Verde and the Anasazi people who lived there is shallow and sheds little light on the subject. Few of the assertations in the book (for example, that the male members of the community built the cliff dwellings and that the kivas were used for ceremonial purposes) are backed up with any documentation or reasoning. The photos are just average in quality, and the reader finishes the book not knowing much more about the cliff dwellers than when she started. Even kids want more info than this!