Software Engineering: (Update) (8th Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)I used this book as the text in my software engineering class in the spring semester of 2008. When I was evaluating it for potential adoption, I did not read through it in detail, I looked over the chapter titles and subtitles, read the first few chapters and examined the exercises at the end of the first few chapters. As the semester progressed, I found myself wishing I had read further into the text.
As I moved through the chapters, I found myself mentally noting over and over again that topics are repeated. When the class was over, I asked the students their opinion of the book and they were unanimous, with no prompting from me, in saying that there is a great deal of repetition after the first chapters.
I have no complaint about the quality of exposition or the coverage of software engineering in this book. My reason for not continuing to use it in future classes is solely due to my belief that the size could have been reduced from the current 840 pages to around 600 pages with no real loss of content of flow.


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THE most current Software Engineering text in the market– quality trusted coverage, practical case studies, strong lecturer support.

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Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science and Personalities (EDN Series for Design Engineers) Review

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(More customer reviews)Analysis is a science: there's a right answer out there, and we can all agree when it's found. Troubleshooting is the same way: when the broken bit is found and fixed, the circuit starts working properly.
Design, on the other hand, is an art; there's always more than one way to do it, and the individuality of the designer has a strong influence on the way the design turns out: hence "Art, Science, and Personalities".
This isn't to say that a good designer does unusual things without a good reason, or adds expensive bells and whistles because he happens to like them. What it means is that for designs that are not routine, the designer's personality has a lot to do with how it comes out.
To become an expert designer, you need a well-developed technical taste. Once you have a design that works at some level, it's that sour feeling in the back of your mouth that will tell you that it isn't right yet, that it can be simpler, cheaper, or more reliable. There aren't a lot of other sources of that information.
Arts are taught by apprenticeship. But where are you going to go to get taught this stuff nowadays? EE departments are going more and more to software, as shown by the vast number of graduate EEs who don't know which end of a soldering iron to hold. Jim Williams can't be everybody's mentor, but in this informal (and sometimes whimsical) book, he and his friends show us how the best analogue designers in the business go about things. You know what? One of the most important elements in the art of design is *play*.
Maybe listening in on these guys playing at being analogue designers isn't quite the same as sitting elbow-to-elbow with them, but it's as close as most of us are going to get, and it's terrifically valuable. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to become a better analogue designer, and who is not easily put off by whimsy in technical writing. (I find it refreshing and fun, myself.) I've owned this book for 6 or 7 years, and it's about ready to fall apart from rereading.

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This book is far more than just another tutorial or reference guide - it's a tour through the world of analog design, combining theory and applications with the philosophies behind the design process. Readers will learn how leading analog circuit designers approach problems and how they think about solutions to those problems. They'll also learn about the `analog way' - a broad, flexible method of thinking about analog design tasks.A comprehensive and useful guide to analog theory and applications. Covers visualizing the operation of analog circuits. Looks at how to rapidly determine workable approximations of analog circuit parameters.

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Mastering MATLAB 7 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been using a copy of this reference since I got started with Matlab about a year and a half ago. It is very good for beginners who need to look up how to do general tasks such as write a function using variable arguments, perform plotting, or figure out how to shoe-horn a problem into Matlab that doesn't really seem to fit the Matlab paradigm of everything being a matrix. I also particularly like the chapter on using Matlab with Java. Of course, if you are a more advanced user, this book will seem too simplistic. Even now, though, it's the first book I go to when I have a question that does not involve one of the specialized Matlab toolboxes. The table of contents is not shown by Amazon, so I show it here for the purpose of completeness:
1 GETTING STARTED
Introduction; Typographical Conventions; What's New in MATLAB 7; What's in Mastering MATLAB 7
2 BASIC FEATURES
Simple Math; The MATLAB Workspace; About Variables; Comments, Punctuation, and Aborting Execution; Complex Numbers;Floating-Point Arithmetic;Mathematical Functions
3 THE MATLAB DESKTOP
MATLAB Windows; Managing the MATLAB Workspace; Memory Management; Number Display Formats; Keeping a Session Log;System Information; The MATLAB Search Path
4 SCRIPT M-FILES
Script M-file Use; Block Comments and Code Cells; Setting Execution Time; Startup and Finish
5 ARRAYS AND ARRAY OPERATIONS
Simple Arrays; Array Addressing or Indexing; Array Construction; Array Orientation; Scalar-Array Mathematics; Array-Array Mathematics; Standard Arrays; Array Manipulation; Array Sorting; Subarray Searching; Array Manipulation Functions; Array Size; Arrays and Memory Utilization
6 MULTIDIMENSIONAL ARRAYS
Array Construction; Array Mathematics and Manipulation; Array Size
7 NUMERIC DATA TYPES
Integer Data Types; Floating Point Data Types; Summary
8 CELL ARRAYS AND STRUCTURES
Cell Array Creation; Cell Array Manipulation; Retrieving Cell Array Content; Comma-Separated Lists; Cell Functions; Cell Arrays of Strings; Structure Creation; Structure Manipulation; Retrieving Structure Content; Comma-Separated Lists (Again); Structure Functions; Summary
9 CHARACTER STRINGS
String Construction; Numbers to Strings to Numbers; String Evaluation; String Functions; Cell Arrays of Strings; Searching Using Regular Expressions
10 RELATIONAL AND LOGICAL OPERATIONS
Relational Operators; Logical Operators; Operator Precedence; Relational and Logical Functions; NaNs and Empty Arrays
11 CONTROL FLOW
For Loops; While Loops; If-Else-End Constructions; Switch-Case Constructions; Try-Catch Blocks
12 FUNCTIONS
M-file Function Construction Rules; Input and Output Arguments; Function Workspaces; Functions and the MATLAB Search Path; Creating Your Own Toolbox; Command-Function Duality; Function Handles and Anonymous Functions; Nested Functions;
13 M-FILE DEBUGGING AND PROFILING
Debugging Tools; Syntax Checking and File Dependencies; Profiling M-files
14 FILE AND DIRECTORY MANAGEMENT
Native Data Files; Data Import and Export; Low-Level File I/O; Directory Management; FTP File Operations
15 SET, BIT, AND BASE FUNCTIONS
Set Functions; Bit Functions; Base Conversions
16 TIME COMPUTATIONS
Current Date and Time; Date Format Conversions; Date Functions; Timing Functions; Plot Labels
17 MATRIX ALGEBRA
Sets of Linear Equations; Matrix Functions; Special Matrices; Sparse Matrices; Sparse Matrix Functions
18 DATA ANALYSIS
Basic Statistical Analysis; Basic Data Analysis; Data Analysis and Statistical Functions
19 DATA INTERPOLATION
One-Dimensional Interpolation; Two-Dimensional Interpolation; Triangulation and Scattered Data; Summary
20 POLYNOMIALS
Roots; Multiplication; Addition; Division; Derivatives and Integrals; Evaluation; Rational Polynomials; Curve Fitting
21 CUBIC SPLINES
Basic Features; Piecewise Polynomials; Cubic Hermite Polynomials; Integration; Differentiation; Spline Interpolation on a Plane
22 FOURIER ANALYSIS
Discrete Fourier Transform; Fourier Series
23 OPTIMIZATION
Zero Finding; Minimization in One Dimension; Minimization in Higher Dimensions; Practical Issues
24 INTEGRATION AND DIFFERENTIATION
Integration; Differentiation
25 DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
IVP Format; ODE Suite Solvers; Basic Use; Setting Options; BVPs, PDEs and DDEs
26 TWO-DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICS
The plot Function; Linestyles, Markers, and Colors; Plot Grids, Axes Box, and Labels; Customizing Plot Axes; Multiple Plots; Multiple Figures; Subplots Interactive Plotting Tools; Screen Updates; Specialized 2-D Plots; Easy Plotting; Text Formatting; Summary
27 THREE-DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICS
Line Plots; Scalar Functions of Two Variables; Mesh Plots; Surface Plots; Mesh and Surface Plots of Irregular Data; Changing Viewpoints; Camera Control; Contour Plots; Specialized 3-D Plots; Volume Visualization; Easy Plotting; Summary
28 USING COLOR AND LIGHT
Understanding Colormaps; Using Colormaps; Displaying Colormaps; Creating and Altering Colormaps; Using Color to Describe a Fourth Dimension; Lighting Models; Summary
29 IMAGES, MOVIES, AND SOUND
Images; Image Formats; Image Files; Movies; Image Utilities; Sound; Summary
30 PRINTING AND EXPORTING GRAPHICS
Printing and Exporting Using Menus; Command Line Printing and Exporting; Printers and Export File Formats; PostScript Support; Choosing a Renderer; Handle Graphics Properties; Setting Defaults; Summary
31 HANDLE GRAPHICS
Objects; Object Handles;Object Properties; get and set; Finding Objects; Selecting Objects with the Mouse; Position and Units; Default Properties; Common Properties Plot Objects Group Objects; Annotation Axes; Linking Objects; New Plots; Rendering Speed; Callbacks; M-file Examples; Summary
32 GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACES
What's a GUI?; Predefined Dialog Boxes; M-file Dialog Boxes; Dialog Box Summary; GUI Object Hierarchy; GUI Creation Fundamentals; GUI Object Size and Position; Capturing Mouse Actions; The Event Queue; Callback Programming M-file Examples; GUIDE; Summary
33 MATLAB CLASSES AND OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING
Overloading; Class Creation; Subscripts; Converter Functions; Precedence, Inheritance, and Aggregation
34 MATLAB PROGRAMMING INTERFACES
Accessing MATLAB Arrays; Calling C or FORTRAN from MATLAB; Calling MATLAB from C or FORTRAN; Exchanging Data with MAT-files; Shared Libraries; Serial Communications; Source Code Control Systems; Summary
35 EXTENDING MATLAB WITH JAVA
Java Overview; Java Classes; Java Objects; Java Methods; Object Properties; Data Exchange; Java Arrays; Java Functions; Examples; Summary
36 WINDOWS APPLICATION INTEGRATION
COM Objects: Client/Server Communication; Dynamic Data Exchange; MATLAB Notebook; MATLAB COM-related Toolboxes; Summary
37 GETTING HELP
Command Window Help; The Help Browser; Internet Resources; Mastering MATLAB 7 Help; Summary
38 EXAMPLES, EXAMPLES, EXAMPLES
Vectorization; JIT-Acceleration; Up-Down Sequence; Vandermonde Matrix; Repeated Value Creation and Counting; Differential Sums; Structure Manipulation; Inverse Interpolation; Polynomial Fitting; Nonlinear Curve Fitting; Picture-in-a-Picture Zoom


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This book covers all essential aspects of MATLAB presented within an easy-to-follow "learn while doing" tutorial format. Discussees all new features of the latest release of MATLAB. Discusses integration of MATLAB with C, FORTRAN, AND Java; increases MATLAB's power and flexibility in dealing with external algorithms, datasets, and operating system capabilities. Offers thorough coverage of indexing, vectorizing, and linear algebra. Features abundant examples throughout and includes a chapter that specifically covers extensive examples. Includes a comprehensive index. A useful reference for engineers or anyone who uses MATLAB.

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