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Rating: 
Summary: A must have for GTK+/Gnome developers!
Review: I got this book about a week ago, have managed to read about 1/4, and all I can say is that it's GREAT! My priority is in GTK+ development and not in Gnome, but fortunately this book is not only for Gnome hackers. Chapters 1-3 give good information about GLib, GObject and GTK+, can't wait to read the Glade chapter!One small minus is that page numbers in Index are unaccurate, showing two pages bigger value where the content can actually be found.. Not a big problem, with this book and API documentation GTK+/Gnome development becomes much easier than before!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent intro
Review: I'm more of a command line kind of guy, but there are things better done in a graphical treatment. When this is true, I often resort to HTML, but that isn't always suitable either. Most of what I've read about GUI programming has left me feeling daunted by the learning curve, and the writing itself has mostly been difficult to read and unsatisfying This book was a delightful exception. As its introduction promises, the content "lies somewhere between a tutorial and a reference". The code examples are often just the kind of things you would write yourself to test-drive your understanding; no unnecessary fluff. There are complete programs also, and these are downloadable from the No Starch web site. Matthias Warkus has a real knack for explaining complex subjects. I particularly liked his way of explaining object inheritance, which is completely upside down from the way it is usually presented, and thereby makes a much more understandable case for using OO code. The first chapter is an overview of GLib capabilies. I was quite surprised at the things GLib includes: I come from the days when you needed to buy commercial libraries to get features like memory management, linked lists, B-trees, etc. The second chapter covers GObject, which adds Object Oriented capability to standard C programming. That's an important aspect of Gnome: it is plain vanilla C with the OO stuff added on through the GObject library. For those of us who have yet to be entranced by C++, that's important. Chapters three and four explain GTK+ and the Gnome libraries, the overlap between them, and hen you'd use either. Chapter five is a lucid introduction to Glade, the interactive development tool for Gnome. I was interested to note that Glade produces XML files that your programs references through calls to Glade libraries. The rest of the book is miscellaneous coverage that wasn't covered elsewhere; compiling issues, configuration helpers like Gconf. I had ben previously unaware of the GnomeVFS discussed in chapter eight which allows your program to transparently access remote web servers and archive formats like PKzipped files. All in all, this looks like a very good intro to Gnome GUI development.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I've been using gtk+ since 1.2 and ever since the leep to 2.0 have found it at times lacking in a comprehensive explanation of how certain components function. This book, however, does an excellent job of filling in the missing gaps in the gtk+ api. With this book and the exisiting online documentation there is no reason developers of gtk+ applications will not be able to master gtk+ as well as expand their horizon by learning more about other gnome libraries. I'm esspecially happy with the sections covering libglade and libgnomeui. This book will be an enabler for me and other to really get into developing proper gnome applications for inclusion in the gnome desktop environment.
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