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From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Book REview
Date: 1996/05/07
Message-ID: <4mofpl$e21@felix.seas.gwu.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 153570106
references: <4mk0vc$opp@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>
organization: George Washington University
keywords: textbook, cs1, review
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-05-07T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <4mk0vc$opp@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
Richard A. O'Keefe <ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> wrote:

[snip]

>Now, regular readers of comp.lang.ada will need no introduction to
>Dr Feldman.  He's just about at the top of the list that people like
>Rev. <deleted to avoid lawsuits" are at the bottom of.  From his
>postings and from another of his books, I had the very hightest
>expectations for this book.
>
>Well, there's good news and there's bad news.
>
>The book is intended to be used as a CS 1 text.  All of the examples
>(some 200) are available over the net.  There is an _excellent_ range
>of topics, and much good advice.

That was the intention; glad it succeeded in that regard.

>
>Now for the bad news.
>I should make it clear that I started by reading chapter 14 (picked
>haphazardly; that's where the book fell open), and then sampled
>chapter 8 to confirm my findings.  I have not studied the whole book
>in detail.

Well, from the list below [snipped to save bandwidth], you've caught
a helluva lot of typos and a few "cultural errors" that seem to imposed
an American bias on some of the discussion.

These typos, and other reported ones, will be fixed at reprint time.
Whether the "cultural bias" stuff can be repaired remains to be seen.
It is true that this stuff escaped both the reviewers (all profs like
yourself) and the proofreaders. I am creating an errata sheet and
will put it online in a short while.

I take full credit for the errors as well as the good stuff. I've gotten
into the habit of paying students $1.00 for the first report of each 
error. Be sure that I will scour your list carefully; where do I send
the check?:-)

[snip]

>Another cultural matter:  what the heck is a GPA?  It's assumed without
>explanation (or at any rate without _nearby_ explanation).  I know what
>a CPA and a GPF and a GAP are, but a GPA?

US bias. Grade Point Average.:-)
>
>The index is incomplete.  For example, chapter 14 introduces subunits
>and separate compilation, and neither "subunit" nor "separate" appears
>in the index.  In fact, they don't appear table 14.1 either.

[details snipped]

>The description of big-O notation on p419 is cursory and rather poor.
>One must understand that teaching big-oh notation is not a goal of the
>book.  Even so, I think it might have been better to leave it out
>entirely than to include the present text on the matter.

I agree with you on this one.
>
>And so it goes.
>
>The pity of it all is that my _overall impression_ is that this is a
>really good book.  If this were a _draft_ I had been sent for review,
>I would be saying "wonderful, let's use it next year".  Thanks to the
>sloppy proof-reading, I'm actually saying "I _wish_ we could use this
>book but we cannot in good conscience recommend it to students without
>an errata booklet."

When do you need that errata booklet?

[details snipped]

Don't blame Koffman - I take full credit and blame.:-)

Mike Feldman