|
The Tomes of Delphi: Algorithms and Data Structures
 |
Author: Julian Bucknall, Jullan Bucknall
List Price: $59.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1556227361
Publisher: Wordware Publishing (May, 2001)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 33,267
Average Customer Rating: 4.89 out of 5
|
Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
The bar has been raised on advanced Delphi books
Wow. Bucknall has raised the bar on advanced Delphi books. This books coverage of Algorithms and Data Structures is suburb. This book should be required reading for all Delphi developers. No one can call themselves an expert level Delphi developer with out understanding the concepts taught in this book. Bucknall's knowledge of Algorithms and related concepts places him in a category with Knuth & Sedgewick.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Surprisingly very readable, and useable day to day
I still think of myself as being a beginning programmer, although that's not totally true, having messed around for about ten years with CAD macro's and dbase add-ons and turned them into full-blown applications that finally became fairly complex. However, I never had a decent IT training beyond some basics in Fortran and Algol, and know next to nothing about OOP.I first thought Bucknall's book would not be for me, as I was afraid of landing into high level topics and getting lost in jargon. On the contrary, I hardly can stop reading the book, which finally provides a very practical approach to Delphi/Kylix programming, giving light to many abstract topics you will not find in most books : the trade-off between speed and memory efficiency, how data structures and the mix you make of them in your application affect your program's speed and reliability, easy steps that make debugging and testing more efficient,... Once you've got the hang of using the VCL within Delphi and know how to place controls on a form, you can immensely benefit from this book, that can be used as a reference into many algorithms and their Delphi implementation, or can be read chapter by chapter as an introduction to analyse the merits of several ways to sort/search/hash or use various data structures to solve a problem you face as a programmer. Julian Bucknall's text is very understandable, even to non english native speakers, stays close to the topic while providing you with a wide scope of insights into related subjects. He's also keen on giving you all the tips he can coming from his personal practice as a programmer that make you understand why some theoretical topics matter to your program's quality. It's nearly like having him looking over your shoulder and helping you making the best choices. The book provides you with a real simple alternative to searching the web multiple times or trying to translate C coded algorithms into a Delphi equivalent, hence it will be a time saver to many Delphi user's, even a casual one like me. This book is a must have, as a complement to a good Delphi / Pascal reference.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Worth the wait!
This is a book that I've been waiting for for a long time (according to the acknowledgements, Julian has worked on it from April 1999 until February 2001, probably even longer). But it has been worth it, because it's an excellent book about algorithms and data structures implemented in Delphi (and Kylix) - usually version independent. The book consists of 12 chapters. But even before the first chapter Julian takes on the question of "why a book on Delphi algorithms?" in the introduction. He explains that a number of Computer Science algorithms books are hardly practical, and the practical books are mainly for C, C++, or Java. This is a book about algorithms and data structures using Delphi (for Windows, but also Kylix for Linux), with a lot of focus on practical and useful techniques that make sense. A great plus is that the code in the book works for every version of Delphi and Kylix (and probably also in C++Builder), and I'm fairly confident it will remain working in the next version(s) of Delphi and Kylix to come. A bonus point is the syntax high-lighting in the source code listings. A small effort for the author/publisher, but a great help for the reader who sees the source code for the first time.
Similar Products
· Mastering Delphi 7
· Programming and Problem Solving with Delphi
· Delphi in a Nutshell
· Tomes of Delphi: WIn32 Shell API Windows 2000 Edition
· Delphi 6 Developer's Guide (With CD-ROM)
|
