By far the best on the subject. Offers complete coverage of any aspect of concurrency with Ada, including real-time and distributed programming issues. Burns and Wellings are the acknowledged experts on this topic.

The best aspect of the book is the analysis of features and their interactions, providing a depth not available in other texts covering the entire language.

Assumes you know some Ada, but includes an introduction to the sequential part of the language.

I own quite a few books on Ada; this is the one to get if you want the details of Ada concurrency.

Ada has been one of few languages which provides facilities for concurrent programming, but readings for the feature had been limited. This book is not only the first but also an excellent guide to the capability of the new Ada standard.

It covers,

1.@The Ada Language

2.The Nature and Uses of Concurrent Programming

3.Inter-Process Communication

4.Ada Task Types and Objects

5.The Rendezvous

6.The Select Statement and the Rendezvous

7.Protected Objects and Data-Oriented Communication

8.Avoidance Synchronisation and the Requeue Facility

9.Using Protected Objects as Building Blocks

10.Exceptions, Abort and Asyncronous Transfer of Control

11.Tasking and System Programming

12.Real-Time Programming

13.Object-Oriented Programming and Tasking

14.Distributed Systems

15.Conclusion

Not only Ada programmers, but also all professonal software engineers who design real-time, embedded systems, advanced students of computer science, and even beginners should find it quite useful.

I've read the original print published in 1995, which has been out-of-print.

I am so happy to know it is now to be RE-PRINTed, and every programmers would be.

A nice collection of artists, with some great examples of what they can do. But....
Paper stock is poor and some prints are a bit blurry.

This is a great artbook, featuring many famous furry artists. I love the art, and look at it regularly. If you're a fan of Michele Light, I recommend it.

This book started my physical collection of furry publishings, and still remains the best singal pice I have. Not only is it perfectaly published, but contains excellent examples of anthropomorphic artwork. Its my personal bible.

The book is targeted at new technical writers and engineers (SMEs) who want to understand what technical writing is all about. It could also be used for preparing training courses on technical communication.

Neat presentation, large font size and simple language make the book very easy to read. But a few spelling and grammatical errors tend to put you off. More so when it is supposed to be a book on writing! Try spotting these errors when you read the book. It could be good editorial practice. Not that you don't have enough of that already.

True to its title, the book doesn't dwell too much on any of the wide range of topics it covers. But, a few sections stand out. Chapter 3, "Doc plans and outlines," and Chapter 13, "Single sourcing" are well researched and presented. The book also has a long list of references-web sites and mailing lists relevant to our profession.

Even if you don't have time to read the entire book, don't miss the cartoons and illustrations-especially the one on the back cover.

So many books on "technical writing" discuss project management that just doesn't happen in the real world. Often throughout my 15-year career as a technical communicator, I've encountered individuals with English or Journalism degrees who hadn't the first idea about what technical writing (really) involves. This book provides an excellent, realistic overview of the profession and its (very important) components -- aside from a degree -- and being a writer of sorts (fiction, for example) -- and the kind of aptitude and skill set it takes to do the job right (and love it).

I had never even heard the term "Technical Writer" until I was hired as one in 1998. Previously I had been working as a software trainer and had become very dissatisfied with off the shelf training materials. Consequently I ended up writing all of my own material, as well as take-home job aids and reference books. These books were very well received and hence a love of writing began.

After leaving the Government and moving to the USA, I no longer wanted to train but I wanted to continue writing since I had enjoyed it so much. I was later hired as a technical writer for a fortune 500 company in Oklahoma. A friend of mine back in Canada wanted to know what I was doing but I didn't know how to explain it in 20,000 words or less. Sarah rescued me by writing this book and I immediately ordered it.

Not only is the material accurate; the book is funny, immensely readable and short enough to be absorbed by a non-techie within a few hours. I sent the book to my friend and she finally understands what I do (or rather USED to do!)

Never, when I wrote "The WordPerfect 5.1 Reference Series" for the Canadian Government did I think I would be launching a satisfying lifetime career. Thank you Sarah and Alex for putting into words the details of what technical communication is all about, and how to go about much of it!

Don't get me wrong, there is some great information in MORNING RADIO. Having been a number one morning radio air personality myself for most of the past thirty years I find that most of what is here is common sense, but I suppose it's common sense I have developed over decades. This is a great and wise piece of guidance for those in the early stages of their careers. But, SEVENTY BUCKS? Come on, guys! It is a paperback containing only 205 pages with an awful lot of white space on them! A major ripoff!

One final note: though I despise anonymous criticisms I have to withold my name because I might find myself applying to one of the authors for a job, someday.

As someone who has done freelance morning radio and aspires to do it on a full time basis, I immediately had two differing reactions after finishing this book. My first was: "okay, a lot of the stuff was common sense." My second reaction was: "that's a great idea - I wish I had thought of that before." I lost interest in certain pages because the authors simply stated information that came across as common knowledge. It wasn't until the final 3 sections or so that the compelling information appeared.

Having said that, I would recommend this book. It provided some very useful organizational methods for morning radio production. And, it also made me realize how much better I could have made my previous morning radio work.

I'm always skeptical when reading a book on morning shows, but this was one I thoroughly enjoyed. Having done mornings for over 25 years at various stations in a multitude of market sizes, I wasn't sure what to expect. But these guys map it out whether you're a personality, PD or GM there are plenty of ideas on what it takes to be a "real" morning show that entertains and informs. Plus you'll learn when the team you've got isn't real and some of the warning signs.

Good stuff:

Michael Stone PD for Clear Channel of N. Co. Owner: AudioPros.Com

The Navy life of Captain Frederic Walker has been well described. Through this book you can feel en relive his unbending and relentless approach to anti-submarine warfare during the battle of the Atlantic. Anybody interested in ASW should read this book. It is also a great narritive of a too short life of an outstanding RN officer.

L.Bruin, CDRE

This book deals general issues and technical information when you design a software for an embedded system. In addition, the authors consider several real-time languages such as Ada 95, occam2 and C-POSIX interfaces instead of commercial RTOS. In particular, this book can be a good programming guide for Ada 95 users. The authors give comprehensive example source codes for suggested algorithms in Ada 95 languages. I plan to buy another book written by the authors called 'Concurrency in Ada'. Finally, if there is one flaw, many examples are given only in the text. I hope the next edition should contain much more figures to help the readers' easy understanding.

Unfortunately, When I purchased this book it was a couple of week after Quadralay (the company that produced WebWorks Publisher) released an update version i.e., WWP 7.0 - This book was written for WWP 6.0. There appears to be quite a difference in the two versions. This book was written for 6.0. Although, I did find some parts of it informative.

You need to get Scriptorium to come up with an update.

Charlie

I find this book fairly understandable, easy to follow and a bit of interesting with good pictures!