Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not $100 good
Review: are the words that describe this book. I am studying for a test right now and I can't bear to read even one more page. I'm not just saying this because its a school book and school is boring...this book is really excruciatingly repetitive and horribly worded. I gotta read alot of the stuff multiple times just to understand what this [guy] is trying to say. He could have simplified the book so it's half the length that it is. Ravi Sethi, the author, sounds like a [conceited person] who thinks he's so smart...He should be fined for writing this book and making poor college students like me read it. This book is causing me much mental anguish.
Rating: 
Summary: Dreadful, horrible, repetitive, terrible...
Review: are the words that describe this book. I am studying for a test right now and I can't bear to read even one more page. I'm not just saying this because its a school book and school is boring...this book is really excruciatingly repetitive and horribly worded. I gotta read alot of the stuff multiple times just to understand what this [guy] is trying to say. He could have simplified the book so it's half the length that it is. Ravi Sethi, the author, sounds like a [conceited person] who thinks he's so smart...He should be fined for writing this book and making poor college students like me read it. This book is causing me much mental anguish.
Rating:
Summary: The most worthless computer science book I've read
Review: Considering that this book is an inch thick, it really has surprisingly little valuable content. The author does mention a decent number of topics, but usually only in one sentence or excercise; it never seems to be enough to actually learn anything valuable about the topic at hand. It just seems like the information density of the book is too low. Trying to learn from it is like squeezing blood from a turnip. If you want to learn this material, read Programming Language Pragmatics by Michael L. Scott instead--it's far better!
Rating:
Summary: very hard to understand and
Review: I am currently reading this book for a senior level course. This book was definitely not written with college students in mind. The author doesn't give any good examples of what he is talking about, and instead chooses make frequent references to snippets of code/pseudocode to try and get his point across. Since he does not give any explanation on how those snippets relates to what he is talking about, it just becomes even harder to understand. Even worse, all of the examples are given in pascal, so if you started out in C/C++ like me, they become even more difficult to follow. Last but not least, there is not a single mention of Java in this book
Rating:
Summary: A substantially bland book.
Review: I believe that the book covers topics in a superficial way. There is a lack of examples, and there aren't solutions to any of the problems in the back of it. The author seems to concentrate on using big words and never reaching the point of his explanations. His descriptions are as abstract as the English language. Two thumbs down.
Rating: 
Summary: Just because it's challenging doesn't mean it's bad
Review: I hated this book when it was the assigned text in my programming languages course. But having just graduated with a BS in CS, I went back and looked thru this book after seeing the negative reviews here. After taking courses like compiler and multi-threaded programming, I feel the book does an excellent job of showing how programming languages evolved, and why. Some of the examples are a little abstract(i agree that the quilt example is too hard to follow, and is spread over too many pages), but for a book that is trying to show the reasons languages evolved it does a good job.
Rating:
Summary: missing thread
Review: I have lived with this book on my shelf for five years, and during that time have gone back to it a number of times, though I have never read it all the way through for reasons the other reviews will surely explain. I have gone back to it because it is wide ranging and the languages it picks are interesting.Reading it is like having a row of pearls in front of you. Each is clear and self contained, and they are arranged like a necklace would be. The thread between the sentences is missing however, and you have to work hard to supply it yourself. Some of the examples (e.g. the quilt example in the functional programming section) elucidate the nature of the programming style and this is good. When moving into the specifics of a language however, the pearl trick happens and I don't get what I am looking for. When reading a book like this I want to garner the spirit of a language. If I want syntax I download a language reference.
Rating:
Summary: Dazed and Confused
Review: I have to read this book for a course i'm currently taking. It's tough to understand, very disorganized. Many times you wonder to yourself, "where is Sethi going now? " His examples are not always related to what he does, and his explanations do not always cover what he should. The book has alot of Pascal and pseudo Pascal stuff in it. If you need a headache, this is the book for you. To give Sethi a little credit though, some of the book is written okay, but this is not nearly enough to conteract all the other problems. Basically this book is like trying to catch a little guppy without a net... real tough. I wouldn't necessarily say don't buy it, but if you can find anything even a little better, avoid this one like the plague, if you can. :)
Rating:
Summary: In words: awful
Review: I noticed that Amazon is ordering more copies of this book. How very sad.... Like smallpox, this book could be eradicated if we all got together and decided to do something about it. What Ravi really needed during the writing of this horrific pile of miscommunication were several humans to have attempted to read the book before its publication. In words: an editor. He also might simply consider not using the construct "In Words:". The fact that Ravi must alert the reader ahead of time that he is going to use words to describe something should give you a fairly good idea as to the delightful cadence and pacing he executes throughout. I wish I could post an example of his [his majesty ravi] prose style; but, alas, I think I lit the book on fire along with some old underwear.
Rating:
Summary: In words: awful
Review: I noticed that Amazon is ordering more copies of this book. How very sad.... Like smallpox, this book could be eradicated if we all got together and decided to do something about it. What Ravi really needed during the writing of this horrific pile of miscommunication were several humans to have attempted to read the book before its publication. In words: an editor. He also might simply consider not using the construct "In Words:". The fact that Ravi must alert the reader ahead of time that he is going to use words to describe something should give you a fairly good idea as to the delightful cadence and pacing he executes throughout. I wish I could post an example of his [his majesty ravi] prose style; but, alas, I think I lit the book on fire along with some old underwear.
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