Books for/about - Game Programming

Building Robots With Lego Mindstorms : The Ultimate Tool for Mindstorms Maniacs

Publisher: Syngress
Authors: Mario Ferrari Giulio Ferrari Ralph Hempel

ISBN: 1928994679
List Price: $29.95
Amazon Price: $19.77
Usually ships in 4 to 6 weeks

Buy this book
from amazon.com
or from
amazon.co.uk

Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
Reviews:
Summary: Building Robots With Lego Mindstorms : The Ultimate Tool for Mindstorms Maniacs
Great accompaniment for the Lego kit.

Summary: Nice, but support is a joke
Don't get me wrong. The models are cool. However, they usually need some tuning up before they are full functional. The majority of programs is written in NQC (as described in the book), however there is one in lego script which works only for newer RIS (2.0). I tried to contact the publishers and authors on many occasion but I've only managed to get my name on the spam list! This is not a nice way to treat a costumer.

Summary: Thorough & Inclusive
I am very impressed with the book. It addresses robotics in a broad sense then drills down to the specifics of hobbyist robotics using LEGO and the RCX. Many tips and tricks, great insights into performance challenges and remedies, and lots and lots of cool project ideas! Great Book!

Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

	Photoshop Elements 4: The Missing Manual (Missing Manual) Publisher: Pogue Press Authors: Barbara Brundage
ISBN: 0596101589 List Price: $39.95 Amazon Price: $26.37 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: Reviews: Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

	GPU Gems 2 : Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation (Gpu Gems) Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional Authors: Matt Pharr Randima Fernando
ISBN: 0321335597 List Price: $59.99 Amazon Price: $59.99 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 2 Reviews: Summary: Pretty pictures This book is targeted at people who have a good solid grasp of either OpenGL or D3D as well as a grounding in programming languages such as C/C++ or Java. While this much is obvious, the book is still painfully difficult to get anything useful out of. The problem amounts to the fact that there is no cohesion between chapters - each one is written by a different author (and clearly they have not read each other's material) - there is no reference or introduction but worst of all, no common terms. Example; What D3D calls a "pixel shader", OpenGL call "fragment shader", but there are also "vertex shader", "vertex program", "pixel program" and "fragment program"... some of these are the same thing while others are wildly different, but I found at least 4 references in this book to what I could only make sense of by substituting another term (the correct one). Each author has written their part from their own view point using their own terms. The code snippets contained rarely have any comments or even descriptions of how they work. Overall I generally felt like I was either reading someone's thesis or a marketing spiel about a particular aspect of some game. There are many pretty pictures though. Summary: A Focus on Hardware Optimization "GPU Gems 2" edited by Matt Pharr (Addison-Wesley, 2005, ISBN 0-321-33559-7) is a collection of forty-eight white papers that detail cutting edge techniques based on today's latest graphical processing units (GPU). The full color hardcover text is 784 pages and includes a CD-ROM with working demos and source for some of the articles presented in the book. The text retails for $59.99. The book is divided into six parts: geometric complexity, shading, high-quality rendering, general purpose computation on the GPU, image oriented computing, and numerical algorithms. A part has anywhere from five to twelve chapters. Each chapter is written by a different author but the format and style is consistent. The chapters have an introduction, discussion of the problem or technique, conclusion, and references. The material is presented with color illustrations and occasionally some pseudo-code or code fragments. Generally, the material is extremely current and very approachable to read. As a sequel to its well received predecessor, the text focuses on taking advantage of the computational power and features of today's high-powered GPU boards. The first part of the book, geometric complexity, emphasizes this with chapters dedicated to batch rendering, using multi-streaming, hardware occlusion, and displacement pixel-shaders. Each chapter illustrates how operations traditionally performed on the CPU can be moved into the GPU for efficiency and greater effect. The subsequent two parts on shading and rendering continue along the same theme: improved performance by using hardware functionality found on the GPU. Each topic considers the performance ramifications and GPU capabilities when discussing the problem domain of a rendering technique and factors it into the final solution. For example, chapter 10 considers irradiance environment maps for fast lighting - but with a twist - using the GPU to do the calculations in real-time. In doing so, the book's real value becomes apparent. The fourth part on general purpose GPU computation is an interesting addition to the text. The chapters illustrate methods of offloading traditional CPU tasks by exploiting the inherent parallel nature of modern GPU hardware. Since the book features Nvidia hardware, the architecture and performance capabilities largely focused on their products. In the fifth part of the book, hardware assisted image creation and analysis is considered. By using context clues from the spatial, texture, or lighting data - additional refinements can be made to a scene prior to rasterization. The topics presented in this part are further refinements of the text's main theme (using the GPU fully) and are specific solutions to uncommon problems - or approaches to rasterization. None the less as GPUs continue to evolve, the topics presented in this section will undoubtedly become more common. Finally, the sixth part of the book provides several non-traditional graphics examples to illustrate calculating data on the GPU: solving linear equations, options pricing, and numerical simulation - just to name a few. As using the raw floating point power of modern GPU is a growing trend - these sections were quite interesting and well done. The included CD-ROM contains examples to 28 of the 48 articles in the book. In most cases, the example material includes source code as well as pre-compiled binaries to help illustrate the topic presented in the text. In order to run the majority of the samples, Cg must be installed on the host computer. In addition, the CD-ROM provides access to Nvidia's software development kit, Cg toolkit, performance tools, and several helpful reference links to on-line sites. GPU Gems 2 provides a cutting edge view of the capabilities found in today's video cards. The selected articles illustrate that every part of the rendering process can be enhanced in some fashion by fully using the underlying hardware. As such, this book is essential to anyone working with modern GPUs. Summary: Another magnificent piece of work The original book was awesome. This book is just as fine of a follow on. The full color on every page, the excellent use of images, and the quality editing all add up to a very fine work indeed. If you loved the second one, buy this one. If high-end 3D graphics are your thing and you haven't read these books yet, buy both. Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

Programming Game AI by Example

Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Authors: Mat Buckland

ISBN: 1556220782
List Price: $49.95
Amazon Price: $32.97
Usually ships in 24 hours

Buy this book
from amazon.com
or from
amazon.co.uk

Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
Reviews:
Summary: Excellent book
Although I have been writing code for a few years, this was my first foray into AI programming. I find the examples easy to understand. Everything is very well written and the example code is well documented. I could not have asked for a better book.

Summary: OK
It is as the title says, Programming Game AI by Example. Reading it, I felt that going more deeply into concepts rather than showing short snippets of code would have been more useful to me. I also felt that the code shown in the book was shallow at some points and really quite useless without the source code that the book provides a link to on the web. I learned more going through each class of the source code and seeing what each function actually did, rather than just seeing a few function calls in the example code in the book. Which may seem obvious enough, but the example code could have been left out entirely in my opinion and just referenced. However, it is all brought together quite nicely in the final game where the focus of each chapter is shown in a final product.
An entire chapter on HOW to script in lua could have been done away with (thats what tutorials are for) and instead been used for concepts of how it can be used. Plus I felt it was slightly out of place as I do not recall it being used in the final game either.
I am trying to code a game in flash actionscript and for that this book was not very helpful as I do not have all the libraries that the author uses in his source code and would have appreciated a book with a broader application. Personally I thought the book was merely OK, but realizing that because I didn't find it useful doesn't necessarily mean its bad, I'm giving it a 4.

Summary: none of the typical Bravo Sierra
This book has a very high signal to noise ratio. No patsy italicization and explanations of simple concepts like inheritance and polymorphism, and no wasted space towards their explanation. And none of the tired dogma about how important design and washing hands after picking nose is. A book that doesn't try to address everybody on planet Earth...what a concept. Don't know what a singleton object is? The book politely refers to the internet, and moves on to provide game application for a multitude of the concepts typically learned during undergraduate CS work. Concepts like FSMs (agents!), Graph Theory (paths, obstacles), Fuzzy Logic, and more with the perfect mix of theory and reality (mostly reality, thankfully. I got a game to write). If you are comfortable with your C++ coding this book will throw light sometimes on even old, familiar concepts spun in a new gaming application that will have you going like `whoa...how cool and what a piece of cake!'. Its one of those cornerstone books, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became a classic in the game community some day. Maybe. Who knows. A million stars but alas, Amazon limits me to five. p.s. I hope you dont get the impression from me that you need a CS degree to understand this book. No way! All you need are your excellent coding skills.

Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

Game Programming Gems (Game Programming Gems Series)

Publisher: Charles River Media
Authors: Mark DeLoura

ISBN: 1584500492
List Price: $69.95
Amazon Price: $44.07
Usually ships in 24 hours

Buy this book
from amazon.com
or from
amazon.co.uk

Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
Reviews:
Summary: Throw your other books away.
I swear, this series is like programming crack. Succinct, no extra "learning how to program" garbage, no extra commentary. Code. That works. Well. Quickly.

Summary: Very useful.
I've found this book to be very useful in game programming. The variety of articles an concepts covered is very vast. In fact, that is probably the cause for its only (in my opinion) shortcomming - that many of the articles aren't long or complete enough. An excellent book if you're looking for an introduction to many different concepts.

Summary: Do NOT buy this book without actually reading a chapter or
two -- very carefully -- in a bookstore. I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. You will be tempted to buy it at first because the book is well made -- it's cute to look at, printed on acid-free, thick paper, font selection is very good, pleasing and clear. Don't fall for these mechanical attractions! Evaluate the contents.

It's truly not a book; it's more of a collection of perfunctory commentary to some source code on the disk (of unknown quality and/or usefulness.) The writing is mostly abhorrent (with the exception of the sections written by LaMothe and another guy whose name escapes me at the moment; Lamothe is good and can write, not only program); a lot of stuff is simply not explicated, the selection of the actually printed code is haphazard and unhelpful vis-a-vis the text. Since the quality and usefulness of the stuff on the disk is anyone's guess as well (and based on the text, it's nothing awesome), I don't think this book deserves the acclaim that it seems to get.

Several chapters are wasted on annoying bs about hungarian notation, development process (a la Code Complete), absolute banalities about using STL (very superficial, w/o any linkup with games programming -- just buy an STL book if you need to learn it, you won't get anything out of the Gems book itself.) There's a section on templates where the writers seemed more concerned with hugely impressing the reader with the supposedly latest-and-greatest template tricks than offering something useful (look for matrix classes -- they propose the stuff as some kind of generic mechanism (thus, templates), yet what they do will be totally useless for more than 3x3 matrices, and those can be simply coded manually if you need this kind of optimization, which is inlining and unrolling, really -- and keep in mind that it's only small loops that can be gainfully unrolled coz if it doesn't fit in the cache... you know where I'm getting to... moreover, with branch prediction, normal loops may perform better than when unrolled; at any rate, a regular, less-fashionable approach could result in simpler code; but they gotta show off their templatizing skill, wow, I'm impressed, another piece of pompous nonsense suitable for the C++ Report... too bad it's useless practically for 4-and-above dimensional matrices. Generality that doesn't apply generally... an overdesigned particular case, that's what it is.)

Most other chapters are written in a very typical halting, disjointed, and ungrammatical geeky-speak, and I don't mean terminology or technicalities, I mean an irritating inability of most contributors to organize and articulate their thoughts. Like I've already mentioned, it's printed on thick paper, if printed on normal paper, it'd be half the size. The binding is not good, my copy has already fallen apart, and it's not that I use it all the time.

The only potentially fruitful side of this book is bibiography; iow, you can use it as an catalogue of diverse methods used in programming, and when you're interested in something, follow the bibliography in order to really learn about the topic. The bibliography is fairly extensive, obviously recent; includes many web-sites with papers, etc. So that's good of course.

Overall though, the book is mediocre and too expensive for what it is. I would't buy it for more than $. 'course I've already bought it for more, but you don't have to. My opinion is, it's a clear thumbs down.

Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

	Mastering Unreal Technology : The Art of Level Design Publisher: Sams Authors: Jason Busby Zak Parrish Joel VanEenwyk
ISBN: 0672326922 List Price: $49.99 Amazon Price: $35.60 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: Table of Contents I hate it when they don't even give you the Table of Contents. So here it is from the publisher's website. Contents Introduction. I. THE UNREAL UNIVERSE. 1. Unreal Technology: The Big Picture. Unreal and Its History The Unreal Engine Introduction to the Unreal Engine The Components Overview of Component Interaction Engineering New Worlds with the Unreal Engine Game Assets The Tools Summary 2. The Process of Game Development. Building Your Foundation: Before Production Developing Your Idea The Player's Perspective Gathering the Team Refining Your Ideas with the Team Creating a Production Schedule Beginning Construction: During Production Maintaining the Schedule Dealing with Delays Bringing It Together Testing and Acquiring Feedback Internal Testing: Alpha External Testing: Beta Remodeling and Closing: Ending Production What to Do with Beta Test Info When to Stop Beta Testing Finalizing and Releasing Summary 3. Creating Your First Level with UnrealEd. What Is UnrealEd? The Subtractive Method of Level Creation Rebuilding The Anatomy of an Unreal Level World Geometry Actors Some Assembly Required A Quick Tour Around the User Interface The Main Menu Bar The Toolbar The Toolbox The Viewports The Console Bar The Browsers Property Windows Working in 3D Space 2D Versus 3D Positive and Negative Directions Creating Your First Room Subtracting Out Space: How Tall? Brushes in Depth Navigation in UnrealEd Moving Actors Creating Your First Map Subtracting the First Room Adding Textures Texture Fitting Making the Level Functional Expanding the Level: Creating Objects and Adding Lights The Window and Hangar Adding Detail: Static Meshes The Static Mesh Browser Placing Static Meshes Decorating with Static Meshes Summary 4. Advanced Brush Techniques. BSP Theory Polygons BSP Trees Brushes from Other Brushes The Intersect Tool The De-Intersect Tool Brush Manipulation Vertex Editing Face Dragging Brush Clipping (2D and 3D) Freehand Polygon Drawing The 2D Shape Editor User Interface Overview Shape Editing Using the 2D Shape Editor to Create a Simple Level Brush Solidity Solid Brushes Semi-Solid Brushes Non-Solid Brushes Saving Brushes (u3d Files) Importing/Exporting Brushes Summary 5. Terrain. What Is Terrain? The Components of Terrain Terrain Zoning with the ZoneInfo Actor Using the TerrainInfo Actor Controlling Terrain with the Height Map Layers DecoLayers Altering Terrain with the Terrain Editing Dialog Lighting Terrains with Sunlight The Skybox What Are Skyboxes? How Does a Skybox Work? A Closer Look at Terrain Editing Terrain Editing User Interface Height Map Editing Tools The Select Tool Applying the Terrain Editing Tools TerrainInfo Properties Texture Layer Editing Tools Painting Smoothing Noise Tex Pan Tex Rotate Tex Scale Editing Terrain Texture DecoLayers Summary 6. Working with Volumes. Concept of Volumes Basic Volume Volume Properties DecoList BlockingVolume PhysicsVolume WaterVolume LavaVolume XfallingVolume LadderVolume Summary 7. Lighting in Unreal. Light Concepts Light Maps Light Placement Light Classification Static Lights Dynamic Lights Light Properties Light Color Light Radius Light Type and Light Effects Directional Lights Lighting Workflow Light Creation Viewing Lights Working with Light Effects Rebuilding Lights Light Map Size Lighting Surfaces World Geometry Static Meshes, Meshes, and Movers Terrain Particles Advanced Lighting Effects Scaling Lights Using SpecialLit Ambient Lighting Emitting Light from Other Actors Coronas Using a TriggerLight Projectors Using Projectors Common Lighting Pitfalls Summary 8. Creating Materials in Unreal. Textures Creating a Texture Importing a Texture The Texture Properties Window Texture Properties Shaders Diffuse and Specularity Maps Opacity Maps Self-Illumination Maps Other Properties Modifiers The Color Modifier The TexOscillator Modifier The TexPanner Modifier The TexRotator Modifier The TexScaler Modifier The Combiner Modifier Creating Reflective Surfaces with Cubemaps and TexEnvMaps Final Blend Material Using a ScriptedTexture Summary 9. Interactive Elements. Movers Creating the First Door Introduction to Triggers Creating a MessageTrigger Elevators A Simple Elevator: UseTrigger Complex Elevator Overview Jump Pads Teleporters Summary II. ADVANCED DESIGN TECHNIQUES. 10. Creating Particle Effects. Particle Theory Emitter Types SpriteEmitter SparkEmitter MeshEmitter BeamEmitter TrailEmitter Summary 11. The Karma Physics Engine. Karma Theory General Karma Properties Karma Collision Primitives Constraints KBSJoint KconeLimit Khinge Ragdolls The Karma Authoring Tool (KAT) The KAT Interface Workspaces Viewports Summary 12. Advanced Bot/AI Navigation. Basics of Bot Navigation Design Considerations Tools for Debugging Diagnosing Problems with the Map Check Dialog Box Console Commands Pathing Jump Pads and Teleporters Jump Spots Doors Lifts Ladders Advanced Pathing AssaultPaths Defense Points and Sniping Points Vehicle Navigation Summary 13. Matinee: Creating Custom Cinematics. Introduction to the World of Machinima Overview of the Matinee System The Matinee Interface The Scenes Tab The Actions Tab The Sub Actions Tab The Tools Tab Creating a Simple Matinee Sequence Working with the Scene Manager Triggering the Matinee Sequence Controlling the Camera Path Creating Camera Pauses and Camera Cuts A Closer Look at Sub Actions Setting Camera Orientation Introducing Fades Using Matinee to Control Actors Adding Text to Your Cutscenes Adding a More Cinematic Feel Automatically Launching the Movie Changing Levels with Matinee Summary 14. Creating Scripted Sequences. Using an Actions List Using Latent and Non-latent Actions Controlling xPawns Logical Conditions Summary 15. Level Optimization (Zoning) and Distribution. Introduction to Level Optimization Zoning Antiportals Distance Fog Terrain Optimization Profiling and Debugging Viewport Display Modes Console Commands Summary 16. Gametypes. Setting Level Properties Deathmatch-Style Gametypes Adding Weapons Deathmatch Design Considerations Capture the Flag (CTF) CTF Design Considerations Double Domination Design Considerations for Double Domination Bombing Run Design Considerations for Bombing Run Onslaught Design Considerations for Onslaught Assault Summary III. EXTERNAL DESIGN. 17. Overview of Maya. Y-Up Versus Z-Up Maya Theory Nodes and Connections Construction History Overview of the User Interface The Viewports The Main Menu Bar and Menu Sets The Status Line The Shelf The Channel Box and Layer Editor The Attribute Editor The Time and Range Sliders The Toolbox and Layout Selection The Hotbox The Hypershade The Hypergraph Object Manipulation Object Mode Component Mode Summary 18. Polygonal Modeling Tools. Modeling Terminology Modeling Methods Box Modeling Polygon Creation Understanding the Tool Options and Display Settings in Maya Polygon Modeling in Maya Creating Polygons Adding to Existing Polygons Combining Objects Using Booleans Mirroring Smoothing Versus Averaging Vertices Triangulation Cleaning Up Your Polygons Editing Polygons Subdividing Polygons Splitting Polygons Extrusions Chamfering Vertices and Beveling Edges Cutting Faces Wedging Faces Merging Vertices Flipping Triangle Edges Adjusting Surfaces and Hard Edges Summary 19. The Art of Texturing in Maya. UVs and the UV Coordinate System The UV Texture Editor The Menu Bar The Toolbar The Viewport Mapping Uvs Mapping Methods Creating UV Layouts Creating Textures from UV Layouts UV Layouts for Characters Considerations for UV Layouts Summary 20. Static Meshes. The Importance of Static Meshes Preparing to Model Adjusting the Grid Creating a Project Modeling the Catwalks Creating the Base Catwalk Constructing the Straight Catwalk Making a Ramp Making a Turn Building a T-Intersection Building a Four-Way Intersection Collision Models Exporting Models to UnrealEd Texturing Your Static Meshes in UnrealEd Summary 21. Character Modeling. Preparation Concept Art Image Planes The Modeling Process Modeling and Animation The Character Modeling the Torso Modeling the Legs Modeling the Arms Modeling the Feet Modeling the Hand Modeling the Head Summary 22. Importing Characters into UnrealEd. What Are Skeletons? Introduction to Maya Joints Parenting Joints and Parenting Joints and Rotation Using the Joint Tool Joints and Local Rotation Axes Manipulating Joints Binding a Character to a Skeleton: Skinning Introduction to Smooth Bind Adjusting Joint Influence Importing a Character Without Custom Animation Importing a Skeleton Skinning a Character Adjusting the Skin Weights Exporting the Character Getting the Character Ready for Gameplay Creating the Character's Portrait The UPL File and Testing the Character In-game Summary 23. Character Animation. Introduction to Animation Popular Animation Methods in Maya Keyframes Reactive Animation Animation Choices-FK Versus IK IK Solvers Single Chain IK Solvers Rotate Plane IK Solvers IK Spline Solvers Constraints Selection Handles Character Rigs: What They Are and Why We Need Them Creating the Character Rig Skinning the Character Animating the Character Pose-to-Pose Animation Creating Custom Animation Cycles Exporting Custom Animations into UnrealEd Summary APPENDIX A. The UnrealEd Manual. The Main Menu Bar The Toolbar File Options Undo and Redo Search for Actor Browsers Editors Properties Building Play Level Help The Toolbox Camera and Utilities Area Brush Clipping Area Brush Primitives Area CSG Operations Area Selections and Movement Area Mirroring and Miscellaneous Area The Viewports Viewport Controls Viewport Control Bar Viewport Control Bar Context Menu The Console Bar The Text Field The Log Window Lock Selections Vertex Snap Drag Grid Rotation Grid Maximize Viewport DrawScale3D Browsers The Actor Class Browser The Group Browser The Music Browser The Sound Browser The Textures Browser The Mesh Browser The Prefab Browser The Static Mesh Browser The Animation Browser Editor Windows Search for Actors The 2D Shape Editor The UnrealScript Editor Property Windows Actor Properties Surface Properties INDEX. Summary: Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design My son's studying computer science at URI. His professor saw this on his desk last week and asked where he got it. He held it to the rest of the class and referred to this book as "the bible for computer science", an excellent book, and recommended that all the students should get one. If they were to have a required textbook, THIS would be it, he said. Tells all and answers all. Extremely helpful, especially for college level computer courses. Summary: great book & great reference I read this book cover to cover; it is the best way to start creating levels. UnrealEd is a level editor aimed towards artists, the info within this book is the best coverage of a level editor that I have seen. You don't need to know scripting or any programming to create your own levels. The book starts by giving you some generals about game development, goes on to basic UnrealEd, then into more complicated UnrealEd. The last third of the book is basic Maya 5 PLE tutorials, which I found helpful because I hadn't used Maya before. !!! You need to own a copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 in order to follow along with the tutorials in this book !!! UT2004 Level Editors - This book is aimed at you. If you are already playing UT2004, you have everything you need and this book will help you find out how they made all those cool things you see in the game. Architecture Visualizing - This book will definitely help you find out how you can take your ideas into a real-time render engine to show your clients. You could get by with the Unreal Runtime engine that comes on the CD with the book. However, in order to fully understand the tutorials, I believe you would need to pick up a copy of UT2004 with this book. 3D Artists & Game Developers - If you are already working with other game engines or a 3D animation package and want to look into Unreal, this is the ticket. Like I said before, you do need a copy of UT2004. There were a couple of errors in the book, however they have all been addressed at [...]. Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

Java(TM) Puzzlers : Traps, Pitfalls, and Corner Cases

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Joshua Bloch Neal Gafter

ISBN: 032133678X
List Price: $39.99
Amazon Price: $23.99
Usually ships in 24 hours

Buy this book
from amazon.com
or from
amazon.co.uk

Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
Reviews:
Summary: Ooh. Ow. Ouch. Eek. Argh. ... Aha.
My wife popped this book open after dinner. Big mistake -- we had planned to spend the night watching Firefly on DVD. She read the first puzzle. We went to the blackboard (yes, we're so geeky and our NY apartment's so small that there's a blackboard in the dining nook). Between us, we had half a dozen possible answers about what a three-line program was going to do. We found at least four boundary conditions and were pretty sure about two of them. For the record, the first puzzle she opened to involved the compound XOR assignment statement x^=y^=x^=y. They're not all that bit-fiddly; some of the other puzzles include class and method mazes, integer or double arithmetic oddities, unexpected exception/initialization interactions, string/charset twistiness, etc.

I thought I'd be good at this kind of puzzle. As an academic, I wrote about programming languages. I read Bloch's "Effective Java" book. Twice. I follow its advice religously and make my coworkers read it. I've read most of the source code for String, StringBuffer and the collections framework and I/O streams. I just came off a week-long coding project where I did exclusively bit-level I/O with all the shifts and masks you could ask for. I was wrong. I got about 1/5 of the puzzles right if I give myself partial credit for diagnosing the boundary condition in the question and having the right answer be in my top two or three guesses.

Unless you've written the bit fiddling parts of a JVM implementation, or are the kind of person who can remember minute details of the specification, you'll most likely suffer. And love it. Then you can relate the puzzles at gatherings of geeks and look on with a smug grin as they twist in the wind. These would be perfect interview questions for a sadistic HR person.

Overall, this book's a jaw-dropping, eye-opening, brain-melting overview of the kind of boundary conditions you can run into with very simple constructions. Most of the puzzles seem to involve implicit conversions done by the JVM, some involve 1.5 features, some involve class inheritance, others exceptions. Almost all of the puzzles contain links to the boundary-condition definition in the Java language spec.

I'll do better next time. Really.

Summary: Stretch your mind and question your assumptions...
This is the type of book I'd like to see more of in the marketplace... Java Puzzlers - Traps, Pitfalls, and Corner Cases by Joshua Bloch and Neal Gafter. Extremely well-done...

Contents: Introduction; Expressive Puzzlers; Puzzlers with Character; Loopy Puzzlers; Exceptional Puzzlers; Classy Puzzlers; Library Puzzlers; Classier Puzzlers; More Library Puzzlers; Advanced Puzzlers; Catalog of Traps and Pitfalls; Notes on the Illusions; References; Index

What Bloch and Gafter have done here is provide the Java coder with some educational opportunities unlike others. They've taken code blocks that look like they should do one thing, but actually do something entirely different. It's the job of the reader to figure out what they *really* do, why they behave that way, and how you'd change the code to get the result you were probably after. The material covers the gamut of normal Java scenarios, including string concatenation, looping, class definitions, and others. The code is available for download from a website, so you don't have to type in anything to get started. And of course, they *do* provide answers... :) Couple all this great material with a humorous writing style and fun optical illusions, and you've got a book that works very well.

The reason I like this book so much is that most programming language books stick to the core material. We all know there are exceptions and quirks, but you normally don't find out about those unless you find a magazine article series that someone has written. Even then, you're getting one or two gems every month, and it's hard to keep the momentum. Having 95 of these puzzlers all in one place means that you can dive in and start wracking your brain at your own pace. I'd like to see this type of book for many other languages...

Most definitely recommended if you're a Java coder with any level of experience. You'll be forced to question things you've assumed in the past, and you'll come away a much better developer...

Summary: Geek fun!
First, let's get this out of the way: you're not as smart as you think you are. Seriously. You don't know everything about Java. It's possible, however, that these authors do.

"Java Puzzlers" shows you more tricky corners of the Java language than you ever expected could exist. Not odd behaviors of obscure API classes, not failings of a particular implementation, but known consequences of the language specification itself. Each puzzler, written in an engaging and often humorous style, gives you a chance to figure things out for yourself before lowering the boom to let you know that, once again... you're wrong.

If you read this book and take its message to heart, you'll learn to avoid the dark alleys of Java, making sure your programs will never inadvertently become puzzlers for you or those who come after you.

Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

Game Programming Gems 4 (Game Programming Gems Series) (Game Programming Gems Series)

Publisher: Charles River Media
Authors: Andrew Kirmse

ISBN: 1584502959
List Price: $69.95
Amazon Price: $44.07
Usually ships in 24 hours

Buy this book
from amazon.com
or from
amazon.co.uk

Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
Reviews:
Summary: True Gems of Programming Wisdom
Intended for the intermediate to advanced game programmer, this is a book that will literally have something for everyone. It contains sixty-two 'gems' that is, articles on how to some particular aspect of game programming. Sophisticated game programming is probably the most complex programming there is. And this book goes into some pretty sophisticated programming details. It is written by a collection of the best in the business today.

For instance:

3.1 - Ten Fingers of Deaty: Algorithms for Combat Killing
5.11 - Heat and Haze Post-Processing Effects
7.2 - A Simple Real-Time Lip-Synching System

There is no question that the main driving force for faster computers is to make for more realistic gaming. And the faster computers allow more sophisticated programming to be done to make the grass wave realistically.

This is probably not a book you're going to sit down and read from cover to cover. You'll probably scan through and read the ones that are applicable to just what you need to do next. But then in a couple of weeks, in a couple of months....

Summary: A "must-have" compendium
Featuring contributions from expert, professional game developers, Game Programming Gems 4 is an in-depth and recommended reference and resource filled cover to cover with essays, each covering everything from general programming and debugging to mathematics, physics, aritifical intelligence issues, graphics, network and multiplayer concerns, audio, and so much more. Game Programming Gems 4 is not a standard instructional textbook; rather, it is a supplementary guide packed with the latest cutting-edge insights to creating quality games - most code is written in C++, but some Java and Python are also represented. A "must-have" compendium of insight, discoveries, tips, tricks, and techniques for every serious game programmer's library. An accompanying Windows CD-ROM contains source code, listings, and demos to complement the articles and essays.

Summary: A Great Resource to add to your collection
This book contains a lot of really useful tidbits that are helpful to anyone in the game programming or simulation fields. It should be on everyones shelf as a reference.

Summary:

search for Game+Programming at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, google.com

Computers and Electronics Books || Automotive Books || Misc Books

| home |