Chronologically this IS the last adventures of Conan. He's an old man now, and after this adventure he doesn't return to his homeland; prefering to let his son Conn rule Aquilonia.

A decent read, and better than most crappy Conan-novels not written by Robert E. Howard, though still lacking that certain pulp feeling.

The book starts extremely well with one of the best scenes ever written about Conan (The tavern scene). It's forever burned into my brain. Burn it into yours. The second half lags a bit but over all it's very entertaining. The Isles is an important book in the Conan series because it's the last Conan story. Conan shows that even at 60+ he's still got more than it takes. Great ending.

Back in the mid-60's, when Lancer Books reissued the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard, they enlisted the aid of L. Sprague DeCamp and Lin Carter to polish Howard's grammar, soften his more "politically incorrect" statements, and fill out the saga with pastiches. This, the last of the stories, is 100% pastiche, but it still has the flavor of Howard's barbarian. I first read it as a teenager, but now that I have passed the half century mark, the story has new resonance. In this adventure Conan anticipates George Foreman by several millenia. He may be old; he may not be the man he once was; but he can still outmuscle most foes, and those he can't outmuscle, he can outfox. At the conclusion of the book you might just get a little misty-eyed when Conan ends his adventure and sails off into the mists of time, never to be heard from again.

Every professional and commercial software development organization spends a great deal of time in the testing and validation of their software. The testing process, driven either by legal or financial requirements, can be expensive and may thwart the planned deployment of the application. Many studies indicate that the testing process can even take three times as long as the actual coding itself. Indeed, software development done under the ISO 9000 or FDA auspices can be extremely time intensive.

This book gives a lengthy and fairly comprehensive overview of software testing that emphasizes formal models for testing. In the introduction, the author gives a general overview of the testing process and the reasons and goals for testing. He carefully distinguishes between testing and debugging, and advocates these as separate activities. Testing according to the author is done to find bugs; whereas debugging is done to find the origin of the bugs and fix them. The author characterizes testing as either functional or structural. Functional testing treats the program from the user's point of view, with inputs given to the program, and then the outputs are checked for conformance to a specified reference. Structural testing examines how the program is implemented, in terms of programming style, design, etc. The notion of an oracle is defined as any program or process that specifies the expected outcome of a collection of tests. The author clearly identifies and characterizes the different types of tests that arise in development organizations, such as unit testing, regression testing, stress testing, and integration testing.

In chapter 2, the author classifies the different types of bugs that could arise in program development. Bugs are classified according to functional, structural, data, coding, system, and design and test bugs. He stresses the need to not have a religious attitude about bugs, namely that all software will have them to some degree, and therefore it is the quality measure of the software that is important in deploying the application. If a minor bug requires a major software rewrite for example, it would not be advantageous to fix this bug.

Chapter 3 takes up the notion of path testing, which, according to the author, is based on the use of the program's flow control. The tester selects a set of test paths through the program with the goal of executing every statement and branch of the program at least once. The author summarizes well the flowgraph and process block techniques used to implement path testing.

In chapter 4, the author introduces the concept of a transaction flow as a representation of a system's processing. The flowgraphs developed in chapter 3 are used here to create a transaction flowgraph for functional testing. The transaction flow representation gives a way to model the system's behavior. The author's treatment here is very detailed, and he gives several useful tips on how to conduct this kind of testing.

The next chapter covers the topic of data-flow testing, where again flowgraphs are used, but this time the focus is on exploring the things that can happen to data. Data objects should be initialized prior to program execution, and selecting paths to insure this is the goal of data testing. The author does a good job of defining and characterizing data anomalies, and the strategies employed in static and dynamic anomaly detection. This is followed by a good overview of domain testing in chapter 6. This kind of testing, more mathematical in nature than others, attempts to test whether the inputs to programs are fulfilling some prior classification or specification. The author uses concepts from vector spaces and convex geometry to describe domain testing.

In chapter 7, several attempts are discussed to quantify program complexity, such as Halstead's metrics and token counts. This chapter is somewhat more theoretical at first glance, but a lot of these ideas have found practical application in development, particularly the measures for subroutine nesting. This is followed in the next two chapters by more abstract discussion involving paths, regular expression, and syntax testing. The discussion however is useful, for it trains the reader about how to think about a program in more general, linguistic terms. Such thinking is always useful when attempting to show a particular program is acting in ways other than that which it was designed for.

Logic-based testing, via Boolean algebra, is the topic of chapter 10. The author uses Karnaugh-Veitch charts to reduce the algebraic manipulations to a useful graphical representation. Finite-state machines, so useful in all areas of software engineering, are the topic of chapter 11. The concepts are presented very effectively by the author, and the reader should take away an appreciation of how these constructions are employed in software testing.

The next chapter reads like one straight out of a book on discrete geometry, wherein graph matrices are employed to give matrix representations in software. Linked lists are used to represent the graphs in a computer, and it is shown how testing problems can be represented as a graph problem.

The last chapter discusses how to implement software testing based on the strategies discussed in the book. The three-phase test scenario is described, namely unit, integration, and system testing. An overview of commercial testing tools is also given, with CASE mentioned, but the author chooses not to review the actual packages, citing the dynamic nature of the commercial situation. However he does give a useful discussion of the different characteristics of current testing tools.

If a foreigner taking English as a second language could easily catch what author wanna present , then you should treat this book as a textbook for new entry . This book covers all the basic topics of software testing .

Software Testing Techniques by Boris Beizer is an absolute must for anyone who has a serious interest in software testing. This 549-page book covers nearly every aspect of the process of finding errors in computer programs, moving from basic definitions and terminology through detailed and easy-to-understand explanations of most testing strategies in use today, finishing with a chapter on implementing testing strategies in a development organization.

This book is written with the practitioner in mind, but can equally well be used by students in software engineering curriculums. It presents both theory and practice in a thorough and clear manner, illustrating both concepts and practical techinqes with numerous realistic examples.

All in all, in this reviewers mind, this is a very good book on software testing, in particular for the active practicioner, but could definitely be used by students of software engineering.

Just finished reading this book. Although it is obvioulsy written from Yeltsin's point of view, and he thinks quiet well of himself, it is nevertheless extremely interesting to understand some of the inner workings of the USSR government.

The politics are rough and tumble, and not without some intrique.

I would definetly recommend this to any one who has the remotest interest in this field.

When Boris Yeltsin stepped down as president of Russia a few weeks ago, it caught me by surprise. Despite his growing unpopularity, I had expected Yeltsin to hang on until the end of his term. My reason for doing so is my understanding of his character as revealed in Against the Grain. Since it is an autobioagraphy, one would expect Yeltsin to present himself in the best possible light, and certainly some of his problems (like his drinking) are dealt with "once over lightly." Still, this work will definitely enable the reader to understand Yeltsin, at least as he wants to present himself to the West. (Which, in turn, will help readers to understand why the West has been so supportive through Yeltsin's somewhat erratic administration.)

Recomended for any student of Biological sciences. During my first degree (Biochemistry & Mol. Biology), this was one of the best and most user-friendly of textbooks. Placed next to Stryer and Voet & Voet. Though still relevant, it is begining to date and I would encourage the authors do a revised edition covering the past twenty years.

Can be understood by nonscientists. This book is best appreciated by aspiring biologist. Book lacks most current information concerning genetics, i.e. Gene Cloning and the Human Genome Project. Overall is an outstanding easy read that accurately covers many important concepts in genetics.

Some parts are not clear enough especially the chapters on dynamic phenomena in ferroelectrics. Furthermore, I found some obvious printing mistakes. But totaly I would say not a bad book.

Finally the ferroelectrics community in particular, and the solid state society in general has a textbook on ferroelectricity! The book by Professor Levanyuk is absolutely written in a very elegant manner. It is a pleasure to read. Not only the phenomenon of ferroelectricity is described rigorously and logically but also in a "self-contained" form. It is self-contained in a sense that, although elements from the broader fields of phase transformations and statistical mechanincs are employed, the reader does not need to read many other books in "parallel" in order to understand the concepts presented in the book. That, unfortunately, has been the situation (in my experience) reading books such as the one by Lines & Glass (I still think their book is a good one...yet though to read). Macroscopic and microscopic models of ferroelectricity are presented and discussed in a complementary fashion and continuity is effectively maintained throughout the treatment. Eventhough the book is specifically written on ferroelectricity, the reader is exposed to the principles of phase transformations (first and secons order), statistical mechanics as well as lattice dynamics in a clear and thorough style. In short, with a great pleasure I give this book 5 *'s and highly recommend it. It would certainly make a perfect textbook for a graduate course in Materials Science, Solid State Chemistry, Solid State Physics and all allied disciplines.

This book, which won the 1928 Newbery Medal for best contribution to American children's literature, is the story of a carrier pigeon raised in India who is used by a Bengal Regiment in France during World War I. Some aspects of the book appear illogical and I doubt that I would have cared for the book had I read it when I was young. But, I am probably in the minority.

Being a bird lover, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. It was a little far-fetched, which added to the romance. There was adventure, some excitement, and wonderful insights on bird and animal behavior given by way of the yarn. The author uses English in such an artistic manner that you aren't aware that he wrote especially for young readers. He gives a wonderful perspective on the Great War and life as he knew it as a boy in India. A slant you don't get from history books or tourists. I finished the book with a sense of wishing I had known the author. Now I am going to order the other books he wrote!

This is one of the first books I've bought for MAX. I was impressed that it is essentially a book of 5 long tutorials (projects) that lead the reader from start to finish. This is helpful to us users that want to "get our hands dirty" doing something rather than just reading a reference book that shows all the nifty gizmos but not how to really use them.

As a new user to MAX I found that this book is a perfect way to see how the tools are actually used to create a scene. A couple other books I've purchased had either short tutorials that just showed a tool's application or just an explanation of the various MAX 4 functions.

The projects themselves are fairly detailed and although at a glance the book looks simplistic, it is extreme in depth for a novice. The pictures are sometimes hard to see what's going on. The text sometimes can be a little confusing but with persistance I've been able to figure out most of it. Some steps are missing in areas that to a beginner seem crucial but the fact that just about every step is explained in a simple to follow manner makes this still one of the best learning tools I've found.

I do recommend this book (along with a "reference" type book when you need a bit more explanation about a tool or function) as a way to learn step by step through hands-on for the non-experienced user.

this book presents a theory of control systems clearly and lucidly and presents the matlab simulation of control systems in a way which is most needed for brush-up in the eleventh hour. the author has taken keen interest in presenting the subject right from the grassroot level and a gradual development of the concepts is presented in the easy-to-use tool like way. i firmly believe that this should be in the bag of all engineers working on simulation of control systems.

Esta es la primera de la serie de novelas que tienen como personaje central a Erast Petrovich Fandorin, un joven de veinte años con extraordinarias dotes para descifrar misterios y desentrañar ausntos policiacos.

En esta novela el autor narra los antecedentes familiares y profesionales del joven detective y después se concentra en describir los pormenores de su primer caso importante. La acción transcurre en la Rusia y Europa del último cuarto del siglo XIX.

Un cliché de las contraportadas de muchos libros puede describir la lectura de esta novela: una vez que has leido la primera página no podrás dejar de leer hasta llegar al final.

La estructura narrativa es relativamente sencilla y sigue un perfecto orden cronológico. El estilo es directo y los personajes están muy bien dibujados. En particular no es posible no sentir una gran simpatía por Erast.

En resumen, El angel Caído, es una buena novela detectivesca, que mantiene el interés del lector de principio a fin y que promete varias horas de una lectura fluida y particularmente amena.

Recommended reading if you are interested in Spanish - US relations between 1945-1953. Otherwise I suggest you stick to your usual reading list.