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VoIP Telephony with Asterisk Review by D. Lewis
Disorganized, incomplete
Reading some of the positive reviews about this book, it's hard to believe it's the same one I bought.
I have 15+ years experience in the IT field. Whenever I install a new technology, I like to go find the best book I can on the subject and just start reading. Paul Mahler's book is the only one I could find on Asterisk so it's the one I chose, :-) Reading it straight through wasn't too bad: there's a lot of information in there. That's why it gets 2 stars.
Here's why it doesn't get more than 2.
It's very disorganized. Some sections appear to just be dropped in at the end of unrelated chapters. Advanced coverage of some topics occurs early in the book, then later he goes back and covers some of the basics. You're left bewildered early on, then later it's "Oh! Well why didn't he tell me that FIRST??"
The index, while it appears good at a glance, leaves much to be desired. Want to read about the Playback command? The index tells you to go to page 100, where you will find a one line example of the syntax. No explanation of the command, no description. Fortunately, more info is available elsewhere in the book but good luck finding it in the index.
I was reading one section and I knew I'd read it before. I googled for it and, sure enough, found it verbatim in the wikipedia. Large portions of this book appear to have been copied verbatim from the wiki at voip-info.org. Perhaps he wrote a lot of that site as well, I don't know, but it does explain some of the disorganization. It's like he found a good tidbit on the wiki, cut it and pasted it in at the end of whatever chapter was convenient.
And the typos. Not a biggie, but sometimes it can be confusing when there are glaring typos in technical data. And, in this book, there are a number of them.
All in all, I really wish there was an alternative out there. But there isn't and if you're like me and you've got to have the manual handy for the new technology you're supporting, maybe you should buy Mahler's book. Frankly, you can find information quicker through google and the wiki. But if you have the time and want to read it straight through it can be helpful.