Book List

book list
july 4, 2001

Well i decided that i might add a book list to my site.
Since i *do* read a lot of books, i thought that it would be in the good of the community if i gave you my *opinions* on the books which i read.
note: if you are an author and i gave you a *bad* review which you thought that you do not deserve, please contact me, and i will tell you why i feel that way.
maybe i can review the book which you are working on and give you some insights. This is not in alphabetical order. I am just pulling them of the floor, research table, living room, book shelf and the bed =)
Yes, I do sleep reading as well.
And another thing to note, not *all* of these are graphics related. they range from mfc, win32 programming, life, theory, game related programming, as well as a few reviews of some research papers (expect these later, not enough time today).
damn, i just took a look at all the books i have, this is going to take a while ;)
I wonder if they have something called book insurance.

Advanced Renderman
Very well written book.
If you want to learn about renderman and writing your own shaders pick this one up.

3D Game Engine Design, by David H. Eberly
If you are an implementor then buy this book, very helpful.
i wrote a review for amazon for this book..
link

Windows Assembly Language and Systems Programming. by Barry Kauler
In my totally honesty i feel that this author is way to stuck up to code anything other than asm. He thinks he is so smart and *expects* you to retain all previous knowledge before proceding to the next chapter. This is a book you can pass on. trust me. if you are system designer it would be an okay buy, but there are so many books which are better than this one on the topic of assembly.

Real-Time Rendering by: Tomas Moller and Eric Haines.
This is one of those must have books. It explains *a lot* of techniques having to do with real time 3d graphics. IT ranges from portal culling all the way to the design and architecture of the infinite reality system. I use this book everywhere, i take it to class with me, read it over and over again. The authors seem to be pretty cool and also assume that the author is human and understand that harder topics need good illustration and more time has to be allocated on that discussion.
buy this!! It has my approval.

OpenGL Programming Guide. Third edition. By: Mason Woo, Jackie Neider, Tom Davis , Dave Shreiner
let's just say this. IF you want to *program* 3d graphics with the opengl library, you are going to *NEED* this book. This book does not show you certain algorithms but is just a guide to the library.
Buy this if you want to code OpenGL.

Jamsa's C/C++ Programming Bible. By: Kris Jamsa, Ph.D , Lars Klander
Heh. this book has a funny story in my room. The book is extremely large. I think it weighs in at around 10 pounds. So as i used it more and more the book broke into two pieces. one side is c , the other side is c++. If you use msdn a lot then there really is no point for it, but the authors are pretty cool at explaining the languages.

Tricks of the WINDOWS Game Programming Gurus.2nd one. by: the one and only Andre Lamothe
Lamothe is awesome, he is a cool guy and his books rock. even if you are a seasoned guru with a few commercial titles behind your back just the way andre describes the techniques which we use will make you want to relearn them.
buy this book.

3D Computer Graphics . Third Edition. Alan Watt.
Save your self the money and don't buy this book. If you buy real time rendering that will be fine.But there is some interesting stuff he writes about but it's pointless to buy since durand covered a lot of these at his website (check my links).
sorry alan, but this one just didn't want me to read it again.

Mathematics for the Computer Graphics Applications. by: M.E Mortenson
buy this book. Even if you are a 3d whiz you will enjoy reading about what you know . at least i do ;)

Windows Sockets Network Programming. by: Bob Quinn, Dave Shute
If you are network programmer or you want to code network based application, you are going to *want* this on your shelf. Trust me.

The C programming Language. By the one and only Brian K, and Dennis Ritchie
BUY THIS BOOK!! . i don't care if you know c. it's a classic ;)
it taught me how to program, and the style of writing just encouraged my need to learn and want to program more. It does not use any of the complicated terminology that bogs down stroustop's books.

Computer Graphics Principles and Practice. by : Foley, van Dam, Feiner, Hughes
I think the name of the title pretty much sums it up. If you want to learn about the grunt behind all the neato effects and what makes computer graphics ticks then this is your book. It gives *very breif* explanation on the many rendering techniques it talks about.
it's more like
if(poly)
splitpoly(poly)
etc..
really general. but i guess that was the approach they where taking when writing this book. I really can't recommend this book or give it a bad rating cause it's totally dependent on what kind of person you are. I know i liked it. I like grunt work ;) in practice too =)

Unix System V Release 4 An Introduction. second edition. written by Experts at Bell Labs.
Awesome book. I was so inspired by this book, that it lead me to read this book at least a 3 times (page to page) before i even touched a unix workstation ;)
Buy it ;)
It's a classic imho =)

C++ programming language 3rd edition, by: Bjarne Stroustrup
simple put it. if you want to learn c++ you are going to want this book. This is not an easy read, but if you must learn c++ you are going to have to get this book. imho.
This is one of those *NEEDS* on a software programmers book list.
right next to msdn, petzold, and prosise.

Texturing and Modeling. by: Ebert, Musgrave, Peachey, Perlin and Worley.
To tell you the truth i have not read this entire book word for word, so i don't want to give it a review.
sorry. it just that i was never really inclined to jump onto the procedural way just yet ;) Well for some stuff it's cool. but not with my mind of thought.

Mastering Algorithms with C. by: Kyle Loudon.
although i knew practically everything in this book. i still use it just to relearn all the stuff which fades my memory. get this book. very good. I think the title speaks for its self

Maximum Security, by : anonymous
yes. I went through a hacker stage. sue me. heh. i did get a law suit slapped on me ;(.
well besides that. it is a pretty general security book. You are going to have a lot better luck like i did just by hacking the kernel.

an Eternal Golden Braid, by: Douglas R. Hofstadter
If you want to have the same thinking as me, and same way to view the world and my style of writing (see about (the whole "mu" concept comes is stemmed from this book) ).
then you want to get this book. It challenges the way your mind works and interprets things.
Good book.

Using MsDos 6.2 , by: QUE
dont' get it. luckily i did not pay for this book, stolen from my uncle =) he's in one of those book clubs, so it's not like he even reads it.

The Practice of Programming, by: brian K, rob Pike.
this book is pretty cool. it gives you the insight of the stuff *those* guys have run into . and the way they handled there *large scale * problems. It's kind of fun to read, but after reading it once that will probably the last time, unless you want to site one of the tests they did on who's code implementation is faster. I liked how long it took them to do the whole mail spammer machine ;)

C++ for dummies. 3rd edition. by: Stephen R. Davis.
yes i am guilty. j/k. i "got it as a gift" (alan cox). heh. well it's a pretty good book. the author has some neat analogies. nachos, football, cheese, microwaves. I never thought they had any connection with object oriented programming until i read this ;)
heh.
never thought i would see that in a c++ book. pretty good book. worth the money

Visual Basic 6 from the ground up. by: Gary Cornell
yes, i am again guilty. i went through a vb phase. well the only good that came out of it was me knowing one more language ;) i am mulitlanguage =)
pretty good book, but there are better vb books out. check out the red one. you will see what i am talking about when you search it at amazon.

Differential Equations with Applications and Historical Notes (special edition). George F. Simmons
Well the thing is i have not read this word for word. it's like a book ,where you need an answer and you go look into this book and it's there. All that is left is for you to apply the technique into software code. the line between finite and infinite worlds is so large but so small ;)

Dynamics (Engineering Mechanics)by: Anthony Bedford, Wallance Fowler.
i went through this book just cause i wanted too =) get ready to pull out a hell of a lot of paper, pencils and calculators ,coffee, at least i did, my goal was to prove the authors equations wrong (also learn about dynamics, the best way to learn imho is cracking it at your own, and trying to prove something wrong) =)
i seem to be doing this a lot.

C O D E, by Petzold.
uhh. i didn't like this book. I guess i am not one of those people that like to analyze how gates work. I did learn about basic interpretation of bits and the way the cpu works. it gave me a better understanding on what i was doing when i was writing some asm stuff.
metal to the pedal ;) did i get that right? another thing i realized when reading this book , was that petzold was actually human ;) in his other books he sounds like the sdk talking in a human form (no feelings or humor). That all changes in this book ;) It's kind of scary =)

Programming Windows, Fifth Edition. by: Charles Petzold
Get This book, and that's the bottom line. If you are going to be coding win32, you are going to _NEED_ this book. the sdk is not always so through as petzold.

Matrices and linear Transformations, by: Charles Cullen
Don't be tricked by the name, this book sucks. you are way better of with real time rendering.

OpenGL Superbible 1st edition. Richard Wright. micheal sweet.
the authors are good guys, but the book just didn't plan out like they wanted. i was the second person to recognize a serious flaw in one of the functions in his book.It was a few years after the book was released. It really makes you wonder if people are *really* reading these books seeing that the books sold a few thousand copies ;)
check the opengl gamedev archives.
you will see what i am talking about.
But, if you are a beginner with OpenGL and don't have enough money to buy a 3d book and an api book then this is your one. so then buy it.

Assembly Language . Step-by-Step. by: Jeff dunteman.
If you want to *learn*, *brush up*, *laugh* about assembler then get this book.
End of Story.

Real-Time Strategy, Game Programming Using MS directx 6.0. by: Mickey Kawick
Can i say feature bloat??
it brings up some cool stuff, but it's pretty pointless. you are way better of with andre's line of books.

Beginning Linux Programming, by: Richard Stones, Neil Matthew
if you want to program linux then get this book.
if you are seasoned veteran and have been running linux for a few years you are still going to want to get this book. it offers some new stuff on threads. It also has come cool memory routines to just play around with. But i didn't run through the entire book so i can't really give you a "buy" or "don't buy" on it. But i read a few big chunks of the book and it's a "buy book".

Programming Windows with MFC. Second Edition. by: Jeff Prosise
hmm. how can i sum this book up ;)
this is the petzold for the mfc programmer. did that come out right ;)

damn you guys. now all my books are laying out on the floor. if only i had a digital camera. i could show you the *new* mess i have created ;)