Rating: 
Summary: Garbage
Review: A typical CMP quick hack job: deceptively titled, poorly written, irrelevant, arbitrary, unnecessary, pompous, disjointed -- these are the qualifiers that readily come to mind. The book contains a seemingly random selection of whatever the author could probably think of, just so the overall volume adds up to the book length...
The title is deceptive: even though it suggests statecharts, there's no unifying theme here -- only the first quarter (if that much) is about statecharts; the rest is a seemingly random selection of absolutely trivial, uninteresting pieces, consisting of very poorly written text commingled with very poorly written code. And all of this is over a subject matter that's trivial and overhyped to begin with -- the fact which can't be obscured by the book's overall pomposity and proliferation of magic words ("patterns", "eXtreme" programming, quantum physics, guons, gang-of-four blah-blah, affected "scientificity", and the rest of the typical bs-mongering that usually comes from those who got nothing to say).
All right, I feel I'm punished enough having wasted my time reading it and don't want to go page by page; all I'm gonna say is this: if you want to avoid disappointment, don't buy this book sight unseen: go to a bookstore and check it out very carefully first. No thumbing through: sit down and carefully read a chapter. As for me, I'm sending it back -- not only without any trace of guilt, but vengefully. This hasn't been my first encounter with R&D/CMP books; over the years I've bought quite a few -- and it's enough; this was the last time I looked at a CMP product. R&D were inconsistent and never outstanding, but at CMP, they seem to have fixed that: they're consistently bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a very productive Book!
Review: I bought this book in mind, that it will guide you with the smooth transition of fsm/fsa to modern UML based state-charts. providing practical examples in C/C++ as the title is
"Practical Statecharts in C/C++" that means guide you from design of state-charts to implementations, it lacks in that too. not a very exciting and practical examples.. My expectations were very high for this book, i thought this is it, we have some good additions in fsm category. little bit disappointed. Good points are the Quantum programming discussion is very well written and does a great deal of job there! There is nothing new or well written for state-machines. for that you you have to really look for other books.... allrighty, thanks
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent book
Review: I found this book looking for something else and found it to be amazing. Within the first couple of chapters I ordered 3 more copies for the rest of the design team. I'm sure that it will change the way I write embedded code from now on.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting book opening a whole new world!
Review: I noticed the first version of the hierarchical statemachine framework from Samek in ESP magazine August 2000. It seemed interesting and very efficient but on this book Samek has improved the framework a lot. Multitasking is included for example.
In addition the book gives good examples and instructions to use the framework in embedded systems software projects.
If you think you should re-think your architectural design in your embedded project read the article in ESP magazine ...
Rating:
Summary: Thank you Miro Samek.
Review: I seldom write reviews. This book changed my life, and I've been developing embedded software for twenty-five years. Samek's nested finite state machines, which he calls Hierarchical State Machines (HSMs) give the embedded software architect a framework arguably as fundamental as an RTOS. If you are creating event-driven embedded software where objects have member variables representing their state at any given time, this book is required reading.For those of you unfamiliar with state machines, the book gets you up to speed in a hurry. For those of you unfamiliar with the advantages of state machines, especially HSMs, permit me to summarize. They allow you to create design diagrams (the book uses UML-plus) that map directly and clearly to code, they let you keep the code and diagrams in sync more easily, they allow you to create better designs because you are thinking in terms of events, states, and transitions as well as in terms of objects, they allow you to have more effective reviews, and they allow you to create more testable code since events serve as inputs and states serve as outputs. To some degree, object-oriented design without HSMs provides those benefits, but state machines let you define the complete set of events and state transitions so you can test more rigorously and more completely - and more automatically. By the way, the book does read well and read quickly. After your first read, as you begin using HSMs to design software, you will reference sections of the book and begin acquiring a more in-depth understanding of the details. You'll find yourself talking with your peers about the book, and then they'll read it. Soon you'll be enjoying collaborative design based on use cases that spawn statecharts, classes (each HSM is an object), and real-time constraints. Read the book, use the book, and enjoy a new level of software engineering. Other books I recommend highly: Bloch - Effective Java, Brooks - Mythical Man Month, DeMarco and Lister - Peopleware, Howlett - Visual Interface Design for Windows, Kaner - Lessons Learned in Software Testing, Kaner - Testing Computer Software, McConnell - Rapid Development, McConnell - Code Complete, McGuire - Debugging the Development Process, Meyers - Effective C++, Microsoft, Windows User Experience (reference book), Norman - The Design of Everyday Things, Riel - Object-Oriented Design Heuristics (Want to learn OO? Read this), Strunk and White - Elements of Style, Vermeulen - The Elements of Java Style
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book
Review: I think the title is a little misleading.
It is more a introduction to state machines and implementing them on embedded systems. It fact it is more about developing on embedded systems!
Having said that it does it very, very well. I would even reccomend it to non-embedded developers,particularly the sections on multi-threading issues and Active objects. I'm not sure who the audience is though. A lot of embedded developers are unfamiliar with C++, UML while non-embedded developers may not even think that state machines could be useful to them. I appreciate the quantum physics analogies, but I don't think they needed so much space. The section on implementing O-O in C is good, but once again,is it relevant to a book on state-machines and active objects. The framework looks good, butI would tweak the C++ version to get rid of all those macro's and function pointers! Particularly if you wanted to port it to java. Excellent book but change the title!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on Embedded Framework
Review: I want to congratulate Miro Samek for his book. The book is well structured. The UML Statecharts are well introduced. The Actives Objects approach and the related Framework are very attractive. With the Framework (QF) for embedded real-time systems included, you are really able to use it for your application. You can then focus on your application objects and no more on the "glue" around them. You have a common strategy for all your applications. The best book on UML for embedded system from a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on embedded programming architecture!!
Review: Most of the embedded books I've read mainly focus discussion on basic assembly language (such as interrupt subroutine) and simple hardware interfacing (for instance, keypad, debouncing). I've been looking for book discuss on larger embedded program. If you have mastered the basic skill on microcontroller, this book will definitely enhance your knowledge on the embedded software architecture .
I used to put a lot of flag in my program to indicate the state. This will eventually become confusing as program grow larger. The knowledge on statechart that I learn from this book greatly tidy up my code, even I have only finished reading a few chapters. The concept is well-explained with the aid of chart diagram and codes. Furthermore, this books is platform independent, you can use it on any microcontroller. I highly recommend this book to intermediate and advanced embedded programmer!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, thoughtful and technical treatise on statecharts
Review: Since I am not from the embedded system world, I was a bit apprehensive about approaching this book. While I can see that author Miro Samek has a directed target for his audience, I strongly feel that this book is a "must read" for technical developers in all areas who want to improve their program design abilities or developers who want to understand the philosophy, use, and implementation of statecharts intimately. As the title indicates, this book brings the topic of statecharts from the realm of expensive design tools to the PRACTICAL realm, illustrating its points with full examples and extensive commentary. Essentially Samek postulates that the slow adoption by developers of best practices by statechart design is due to lack of understanding of the fundamental nature of statecharts and how it is perceived as requiring expensive tools to use well. Samek insightfully discusses how statecharts as a best practice embody "behavioral inheritance" as a fundamental design concept that stands as a peer alongside the conventional pillars of object-oriented programming, namely inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism. The book is very technical and written in an academic style, with ample references to original sources as well as detailed code reviews and many reader exercises. I would caution anyone from approaching this book as a quick or light read. For me, it took a seriousness and good understanding of C and C++ to follow Samek's examples and achieve the "a-ha", which was always worth it in the end. The two basic parts of the text are (1) an explanation of statecharts and their methodological implications, and (2) a description of how to apply statecharts as a data structure in real applications, namely embedded as control strategies for "active objects." In several places in the text, Samek makes an analogy between statechart (and active object) semantics and quantum mechanics. This parallel was an interesting philosophical argument, but didn't add much for me in terms of accepting his "quantum framework" as a best practice -- I was sold by his methodological arguments he had presented already. Speaking from experience in writing a book about using statecharts to build simulations, I can say Samek is a visionary who extended my perception of statecharts several steps. I know I will be quoting from it and referring to it in my work to come. This book has earned a prominent place on my bookshelf, and I would heartily recommend it to any other developer who wants to create correct, verifiable, scaleable, and solid designs (which should be ALL developers!).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, thoughtful and technical treatise on statecharts
Review: Since I am not from the embedded system world, I was a bit apprehensive about approaching this book. While I can see that author Miro Samek has a directed target for his audience, I strongly feel that this book is a "must read" for technical developers in all areas who want to improve their program design abilities or developers who want to understand the philosophy, use, and implementation of statecharts intimately. As the title indicates, this book brings the topic of statecharts from the realm of expensive design tools to the PRACTICAL realm, illustrating its points with full examples and extensive commentary. Essentially Samek postulates that the slow adoption by developers of best practices by statechart design is due to lack of understanding of the fundamental nature of statecharts and how it is perceived as requiring expensive tools to use well. Samek insightfully discusses how statecharts as a best practice embody "behavioral inheritance" as a fundamental design concept that stands as a peer alongside the conventional pillars of object-oriented programming, namely inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism. The book is very technical and written in an academic style, with ample references to original sources as well as detailed code reviews and many reader exercises. I would caution anyone from approaching this book as a quick or light read. For me, it took a seriousness and good understanding of C and C++ to follow Samek's examples and achieve the "a-ha", which was always worth it in the end. The two basic parts of the text are (1) an explanation of statecharts and their methodological implications, and (2) a description of how to apply statecharts as a data structure in real applications, namely embedded as control strategies for "active objects." In several places in the text, Samek makes an analogy between statechart (and active object) semantics and quantum mechanics. This parallel was an interesting philosophical argument, but didn't add much for me in terms of accepting his "quantum framework" as a best practice -- I was sold by his methodological arguments he had presented already. Speaking from experience in writing a book about using statecharts to build simulations, I can say Samek is a visionary who extended my perception of statecharts several steps. I know I will be quoting from it and referring to it in my work to come. This book has earned a prominent place on my bookshelf, and I would heartily recommend it to any other developer who wants to create correct, verifiable, scaleable, and solid designs (which should be ALL developers!).
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