Scatter-gather approach

Patience is a virtue, Avatar. You'll need a good deal of patience while reading this book. While there is an enormous amount of valuable information in the text, I'm not sure that the book itself was actually edited. Several of the descriptions seem to drag on continuously, while a fair amount of bird walking is done in other places. I don't fault the authors with this, though. As I understand it, one of the editor's jobs is to make sure a book is grammatically correct and easy to read.

Another problem that I've noticed involves incorrect chapter references. For example, the SO_CONNECT_TIME referenced in chapter 7 (p. 205) refers you to chapter 6 (p. 177) for an explanation. Chapter 6 refers you to chapter 5. Are these guys doctors? Will my insurance cover this? :)

Programming in C# minor. 12 pages here. There really is a chapter 13. Don't flip too fast; you might miss it. Now, granted, I'm not a C# programmer, so I haven't thoroughly looked at the contents of the chapter. However, judging from the skimpiness alone, I imagine that a lot more could have been covered.

In fairness chapters 5 - 12 are packed with some very useful information, and the C# chapter was probably just icing. So, overall I would recommend this book. However, the book's organization and overall appearance (no shading of code samples, tables, etc.) are lacking considerably. These issues and the poor editing earn a generous 3 stars.

Other Reviews

• Not too bad, but there is better out there
• Bad source code
• Scatter-gather approach
• Two Stars. Not a Fraction More.
• Great! But be careful.