Rating: 
Summary: Network programmer - This book is a must.
Review: If your intention is writing a network, concurrent application, the book is both a place to start and the best reference when trying to design your application. It explains each pattern, the context, the problems, the solutions, how to implement, why do we implement that way, examples, variants of the pattern, the advantages and the disadvantages of each pattern, how to combine the patterns together, and more. The book is very very clear and understandable (many books lacks this important feature!). One I have read the book I was able to start and implement a concurrent Server. It is very clear that without that book it was hard to do so! There is no doubt that this book makes the concurrent programming simpler for both, beginners and advanced.
Rating: 
Summary: Must have book for ACE software development
Review: It's a great topic for a book - concurrent network programming. Although the documented patterns suit server and client applications, I would have prefered to see them treated in a more general context. I would also prefer to see the patterns explained in far fewer pages. Each pattern is usually described with a heavy emphasis on a very specific example (like an HTTP server) rather than in conceptual terms.
Rating: 
Summary: Verbose and Specific
Review: It's a great topic for a book - concurrent network programming. Although the documented patterns suit server and client applications, I would have prefered to see them treated in a more general context. I would also prefer to see the patterns explained in far fewer pages. Each pattern is usually described with a heavy emphasis on a very specific example (like an HTTP server) rather than in conceptual terms.
Rating:
Summary: Nice reference book for ACE/TAO developers
Review: Subject says it all :) You'll have all the patterns in one place, easily accessible and clearly explained. Nice book to have.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: The book consists of three sections: a short introduction that outlines the problem space, a section containing a large collection of patterns, and a short final section that talks about weaving patterns into a pattern language and offers a few speculations as to the future of patterns. The first section is quite short, but covers the problem space nicely and provides the motivation for what follows. The presentation is greatly helped by a case study for applying patterns to a concurrent web server; this illustrates how individual patterns can be used to solve particular problems and provides a practical perspective for how to make use of what is in the remainder of the book. The second section constitutes the majority of the book and describes a large collection of network and concurrency patterns. Here is where the real meat of the book can be found, with 17 different patterns plus variants. There is something for everyone here, such as interceptor, reactor, acceptor-connector, etc. The patterns are presented clearly, with ample UML diagrams to support the extensive explanations. What I liked particularly is that the presentation is both complete and fair. For example, the double-checked locking pattern isn't just presented as a panacea for singleton initialization. Instead, you get explicit warnings about memory coherency issues, together with examples for how to deal with them, so you don't go and implement something and then wonder why it doesn't work... The final section of the book shows how to connect patterns into a pattern language, such that each pattern nicely fits into a larger architectural whole. There is also some speculation as to where patterns might be headed next. (According to the authors, we are nowhere near having exhausted the topic.) Overall, I was really impressed with this book. The text provides extensive references to existing literature, so if you are interested in learning about a particular topic in more detail, you'll find plenty of material for further reading. And there is an index that actually works (which is a rarity these days). While the language is lucid, the book is probably not something you want to read in a single sitting. Instead, it's the sort of book you browse through, picking up interesting things as you go, and then referring back to them when you need more detail. (I read the book over a number of weeks, digesting a chapter at a time when it suited me.) Overall, I highly recommend this book. While much of the content has been published previously, it's difficult to find elsewhere and not as up to date. Here, you get everything in one place, presented in a form that works both for learning and as a reference. If you are interested in programming distributed systems, don't miss this--there is no other book that covers the ground anywhere near as well!
Rating:
Summary: Must have book for ACE software development
Review: This book is very sepecific to ACE. It contains very good information about Reactor, Connector,Acceptor and Service patterns. It does not have much information about the ACE Task.
Worth to buy, if you are developing ACE based software.
Rating:
Summary: Reservoir of knowledge
Review: This is a unique book. Design philosophy, programming skills,technical details and use community support all come together in one formula. I get addicted to reading this book and playing with the code. The author is such a nice gentleman he would answer all your questions, silly or brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: Reservoir of knowledge
Review: This is a unique book. Design philosophy, programming skills,technical details and use community support all come together in one formula. I get addicted to reading this book and playing with the code. The author is such a nice gentleman he would answer all your questions, silly or brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: a must have book
Review: This is an excellent book on patterns and software design. The patterns are described clearly and completely. The need for the pattern and the design problem that the pattern solves is clearly described, with copious references to other important patterns and reference material. The result is not divorced into abstraction, but made real by example code (mostly C++) and discussions of real world problems and scenarios. A superlative exposition of the theory and its practical use.
Rating:
Summary: Wealth of knowledge on networked OO programming
Review: This text embodies many years of proven and ratified research borne by Professor Schmidt and his extremely bright students at Washington University, St Louis. This is a book, that the writers can be justly proud of - it is a fine compilation of some of the most valuable principles and leading edge thinking of OO based communications programming of today.
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