I just finished reading your book and I have to say I only started to get excited at page 250 or so. You have to admit that's where "the good stuff" starts.

BUT...I think there is an important point here - I was READING the book!!

Had I been using the book as a reference guide - which I plan to do in the future - the entire book would be useful.

I think your reviewer is just looking for juicy tips to a better understanding of ISO, not a reference manual for doing actual ISO work. My guess anyway...

BTW, I think your doubly linked list code example is broken in the book (have you heard this a million times?). You aren't updating the previous ref on the tail item when you add a node, so it always points at the head...

(You need a line like head->next->prev = node; )

(Ok, ya got me! I work in QA.)

Dash Zero
Credits: Fast Attack - Software Sorcery

Edited by - DashZero on June 27, 2001 3:07:29 PM

i dont doubt that the linked list code is broken, whether by my own ommission of something, something slipping by my tech editor, or some formatting issue. it wasn''t actually meant to work, since it isnt actually used. its supposed to give the reader an idea of how linked lists work before going in and using the STL list template. i haven''t actually written real linked list code since the DOS days.

quote:

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Original post by TANSTAAFL ...the linked list code...wasn''t actually meant to work, since it isnt actually used.

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Ouch! I understand that the initial description was just a lead in to the Linked List Template, but aren''t you worried you might have led some new coders into confusion?

Not an attack or anything, but shouldn''t the code be right? Maybe even more so since it is for training/familiarization?

BTW, I added a review to Amazon... ****



Dash Zero
Credits: Fast Attack - Software Sorcery - Published by Sierra 1996

Ok .. Tanstaafl, I have to say something ... especially since your the reason I''m not tanstaafl on this forum (this was actually the first forum i joined where tanstaafl was taken .. can you believe it).

I ... like the reviewer ... hate the fact that almost all programming books cover the elementary ground over and over ... I am the proud owner of over 4 dozen programming books, and nearly 2 dozen related to some facet of C/C++ ... and you can imaging how much it must annoy someone to go to the bookstore looking for a good book on Borland C++ Builder 5, and find that the first 55% is general C/C++ coding .. and that this is true of the 2 books I have on Visual C++, etc etc ... I don''t begrudge a well rounded book, I begrude the fact that ALL books are forced into that mold ... what I REALLY REALLY want ... as a hopefull future author ... is for a publisher to publish a SERIES of books .. each with a well defined purpose ... and each with clearly identified prerequisites and follow up books ... hopefull listed and summarized on the publishers web page ... this way i NEVER EVER need to read the lines "feel free to skim this section if you are already familiar with the STL" ... instead ... just have a footnote like academic journals ... with a reference to the publishers other books .. and a one sentence expanation of why.

But ... I will say this .. his statement about the web ... it''s just silly ... who cares ... you can get ANYTHING you want on the web ... but that''s not why I buy books .. I can''t read the web in bed ... i can''t skim through the web while watching seinfeild ... and I certainly can''t continue to work through a web tutorial systematically during my 15 minute breaks, and whenever the mood strikes me. So HE may prefer to do web research .. but then why review a book .. you should only be judged against what''s available IN-PRINT ..cause that is your only fair competition. The MSDN is THE source for info on DirectX development .. but I still had a hard time learning it until I got the book "Inside DirectX" - now it''s easy.

As for the linked-list code ... I find it distressing that you would dismiss it as unimportant ... acuracy is important for many reasons ... besides just your credability (remember how so many people started hating Herbert Schildt becaue his early books were filled with silly errors), there is also your audience to think about ... they don''t know there''s an error ... and they can easily waste many hours trying something with code you never meant to be used ... so I would suggest you immediately test and fix the error, and ask your publisher to make the errata available online at once. If you care too, I would be glad to look over the code as well - just email it to me at: rationalmonkey27@yahoo.com. Fundamental data structures are one of my favorite things (currently working on an STL like tree class with preorder, postorder, breadth-first, etc ... iterators .. and assorted functions) ...

best of luck to you ... and i find your post here to be first order reading

its not that i''m dismissing the linked list error (if indeed there is one. i haven''t actually checked yet... what page is it on?), but there are a number of factors that make this error a pretty low priority:

A) this is the first i''ve heard of the error. this could mean several things. people may not be reading that section very carefully. the section DOES give a decent overview of the workings of a linked list, even if some of my code is in error.

B) every techinical book ever written has technical errors in it. dozens of people are involved in getting a book published. things get missed. around five thousand copies of my book have sold, so if there is an error, it is repeated 5000 times worldwide.

C) there is very little i can do about it. the most i can do is put a post on isohex.net in the "errata" section. of course, few people will ever read this post.

D) i just dont see the error. i''ve looked at my code carefully.

after looking at it for a while, i finally spotted the problem. i had to actually draw it out on paper before i realized what was happening. i will post an errata item on isohex.net, which is really all i can do at this point.

Hey TANSTAAFL...

First off, Congratz on going through it all and finishing a book.

I remember you back from those gpmega days, and it''s nice to see you''re still kicking.

I had a somewhat personal question though. I was approached by a guy at Prima a while back to do a book, but I ended up turning it down because I didn''t have the time and they didn''t seem interested in paying much for the work, so I was wondering how much you made from the whole ordeal, and what kind of work you had to put in for it. I realize, as a starting author, you''re underappreciated from a publisher, and they use that to suck up their huge percentages, but I''m curious, nonetheless.

G''luck,
-Alamar

quote:

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Original post by TANSTAAFL ...i had to actually draw it out on paper before i realized what was happening.

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Hehe. I had to write it out on a piece of paper, too!

Thanks for taking the time to look at this...



Dash Zero
Credits: Fast Attack - Software Sorcery - Published by Sierra 1996

Alamar:

while authoring is not exactly a "high pay" endeavor, i got a $10,000 advance for writing the book, and a $1,500 bonus for finishing on time. Since at the time i did not know what the going rate for royalties was, i asked for 5% (Note to everyone: the going rate is around 10-12%). The book costs $60 to a retail customer. The 5% is not based on this number. It is based on the wholesale price, which is half of the retail price, in my case $30, so i get about $1.50 per copy sold.
However, before I start getting royalty checks, i first have to pay off my advance. My advance consists of the $11,500 i was given, as well as the money paid to the indexer (which is $2/page for 707 pages or $1,414) for a grand total of $12,914 dollars that my royalties go to pay off before i will get another check. So, to pay off this money, 8,610 copies have to be sold. Already, 4,825 copies have been sold worldwide. I stand a pretty good chance of paying off my advance and getting some residuals by the end of the year.
now, before saying that $1.50 per copy sold sucks, and that i should get much more, there are a few realities of publishing books(and other things like video games) that i should talk about. if i had written my book, and published it myself and shipped it myself, then yes, i would probably make around $15-$20 a copy. However, my ability to sell books is tiny compared to the abilities of prima. If i were to self-publish, i would be doing a lot more work shipping the book and so on for a greater per-book profit, but i would sell maybe 2-3% of what prima can sell because they have marketing machinery. so, if they can sell at least 10-15 times as many books as i could on my own, it is well worth having a publisher. Since i would not have ever been able to sell 1/10th of 4,825 copies, i consider it to be worth it. The per-copy rate for various types of media put off a lot of people who would be interested in getting published. Don''t let it. Look at the bigger picture. For example, i''ve sold around 5,000 copies in three months. In a year that''s 20,000 copies(hopefully), which is $30,000 for me.

Xai:

I, too, am not a fan of the introductory subject matter found in all books. In my future books (oh, yes... there will be future books), I will be putting the introductory subject matter onto the CD in the form of HTML or PDF files, leaving the book for the actual meat of the subject matter. This will make for a shorter, cheaper book which will sell better ($60 for a book is pricey, i know). Unfortunately, i could write 10 pages of introductory subject matter or 1,000 pages of introductory subject matter, and either way... it doesn''t count. I get exactly ZERO credit for putting something on the CD-ROM. Nada, Nothing, Null. The only thing that counts as far as the publisher is concerned is how many pages i generate that will be actual pages in the book. Also, a page of a pdf file on the CD and a page thats actually in the book takes the same amount of time to generate (i generally write around 1,000 to 1,500 words per hour), but i only get paid for the printed pages. So, this leaves me in a quandary. Do i put ALL of the introductory subject matter onto the CD-ROM, which is really where it should be but i don''t get paid for it and it sucks up my time that i could spend actually generating printed pages? or do i put the introductory subject matter into the book itself, get paid for it, and get slammed for it on amazon and elsewhere? to complicate matters, there is always the time issue. they will only give me around six to eight months to generate a book. i can only effectively write around 2000-3000 words a day (including code examples, which i dont get credit for unless i put some of the code in the text itself). fortunately, i''m self employed, so i don''t have a job to worry about, but its still a pretty good trick to get everything done on time.

over a year ago, andre lamothe called me on the phone (he got voicemail... i was out), and said "welcome to the world of publishing." i now know what all he meant by that.

I have been buying directx for a long time, I saw this book on the web and I bought it. When I get it I took a look at it, and I said: ohh another Directx book. What do I mean with that, a book that doesnt have anything really good at all. After a week I started reading it, and I realiaced that this books was really good. Offcourse it has some missing things. but what do u want.
Name a book that teach Directx better than this one. The reviews that you are doing are pointless. Ok there is an error, which books doesnt have an error? I believe that the autor made a really easy to read book, and the best DirectX book so fare made.

The book could be perfect if it would had Collision detection and a big plus a couple of more advanced demos.

The spanish dude, said that this book was not good enought for him, but after looking your engine I believe that you are drawing everything every frame. This book teach you how to solve that.

Im not kissing Tans ass but what Im trying to make clear is this. First you never are going to make everybody happy, people complain for every dumb error that your book could have.

And as I said before name a better Directx book, please name it.
If you cant, dont complain this book at all.

PD sorry for the the bad english, im spanish too, hehe