Rating: 
Summary: Inspirational book for educators
Review: I found this book very inspirational. As an educator, I am interested in bringing elementary computer programming back to the primary and secondary school curriculum. (Programming disappeared in the early to mid 1990s.)This book is for the teacher who wants to use computers to help kids (or grown-up kids-at-heart like myself) explore and understand the world around them. There is no software included with the book; rather, this is a book about the author's experiences in using the StarLOGO language to introduce children to parallel, distributed programming, a technique that enables modeling of the interaction of termites and ants, the flow of traffic, and the burn patterns of forest fires. Modeling the real world is an excellent way for kids to get excited about programming because the results are not as "abstract" as, say, simply drawing pictures on the screen or calculating monthly budgets. This is an "idea" book for educators looking for new ways to bring computing to our younger generations. The book starts slowly and is very detailed at the beginning. I like that. The author describes some of the interactions he had with the kids he was teaching. Reading about the problems the kids faced and how he guided them to a solution was fascinating. Unfortunately, as the book progresses, the author seems to be in a "hurry" to finish: the programming anecdotes become less detailed and there are fewer pictures to illustrate the projects. I would have liked to read about them in more detail. That's the one shortcoming of this book. If you're a teacher or computer-minded parent looking for ways to challenge your kids with new programming projects that model real life, this is a good book to read. It's not intended for your kids to read, nor is it a set of "canned" projects, but I think you'll find some good ideas in it.
Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating topic, but may leave you wanting more
Review: I picked up this book while browsing the Computer Science section. The first line on the back cover drew me in: "How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized?" Unfortunately, this question (and others similar) was never really answered in the book. Rather than an intellectual or philosophical discussion of how organized behaviors develop from non-centrally-controlled systems in real life, the book seems to focus on why it happens in simplified computer simulations. The book is really about looking at organized behaviors from a decentralized perspective - using computer simulations to aid in this perspective. (Termite mounds, for example, aren't created by a "seed or lead" termite, they're in fact created by the behaviors common to individual termites, and the interaction of those termites with the environment, as is demonstrated in a simplified computer simulation.) The book focuses a great deal on workings of the StarLogo programming language, which is not included but is downloadable (more on this later). The programming language allows users to simulate massively parallel systems. The book includes many code samples, programming notes and descriptions of how the simulations progress at run time. Discussions of resulting organized behaviors lie almost completely within the scope of the software simulations, but are very interesting nonetheless (although it will likely leave you wanting more). After only the first simulation (regarding slime mold), I found myself at the computer to download the software. Which brings me to my next point... You won't find the software at the location specified by the book. It appears that the original StarLogo language was written for the Mac, and was renamed MacStarLogo. (Substitute "macstarlogo" for "~starlogo" in the URL to find the software.) When you get to the Download page, you'll be able to download the software for PC and UNIX as well as for Mac. The PC version (and version 1.1 for Mac, I assume) seems to use a newer or upgraded set of commands, so you'll have some difficulty getting the code in the book to run. The new Java-based interface, though, is very cool - it allows you to place buttons, sliders and other tools to control the simulation and dynamically interact with the program in real time. Excellent for exploring these microworlds!!! The book also discusses a lot about the author's interactions with children while developing StarLogo programs. I found these discussions very interesting, but they seemed to focus on how we like to perceive organized behaviors as centrally controlled (versus individually controlled). As a result, much of the book was about why a non-centralized perspective is important rather than how organization is actually formed from non-centralized communities. Overall it is a very interesting and well-organized book. Only three stars because (1) it wasn't what I expected - perhaps the subtitle would have been more descriptive as "analyzing simple computer simulations where organized behavior results from systems with no centralized control," but I guess that would have been too wordy. And, (2) the software was not easy to find, and it was not fully compatible with the code in the book. (A version of the software compatible with the code in the book shoud be made available - even if it's since been upgraded.) And finally, (3) the book seems to be rushed toward the end. (The last chapter, for example, where the author "looks ahead" is only two pages long.) Overall, it's a great book, and it inspires a lot of thinking, but it left me wanting a bit more...
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating topic, but may leave you wanting more
Review: I picked up this book while browsing the Computer Science section. The first line on the back cover drew me in: "How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized?" Unfortunately, this question (and others similar) was never really answered in the book. Rather than an intellectual or philosophical discussion of how organized behaviors develop from non-centrally-controlled systems in real life, the book seems to focus on why it happens in simplified computer simulations. The book is really about looking at organized behaviors from a decentralized perspective - using computer simulations to aid in this perspective. (Termite mounds, for example, aren't created by a "seed or lead" termite, they're in fact created by the behaviors common to individual termites, and the interaction of those termites with the environment, as is demonstrated in a simplified computer simulation.) The book focuses a great deal on workings of the StarLogo programming language, which is not included but is downloadable (more on this later). The programming language allows users to simulate massively parallel systems. The book includes many code samples, programming notes and descriptions of how the simulations progress at run time. Discussions of resulting organized behaviors lie almost completely within the scope of the software simulations, but are very interesting nonetheless (although it will likely leave you wanting more). After only the first simulation (regarding slime mold), I found myself at the computer to download the software. Which brings me to my next point... You won't find the software at the location specified by the book. It appears that the original StarLogo language was written for the Mac, and was renamed MacStarLogo. (Substitute "macstarlogo" for "~starlogo" in the URL to find the software.) When you get to the Download page, you'll be able to download the software for PC and UNIX as well as for Mac. The PC version (and version 1.1 for Mac, I assume) seems to use a newer or upgraded set of commands, so you'll have some difficulty getting the code in the book to run. The new Java-based interface, though, is very cool - it allows you to place buttons, sliders and other tools to control the simulation and dynamically interact with the program in real time. Excellent for exploring these microworlds!!! The book also discusses a lot about the author's interactions with children while developing StarLogo programs. I found these discussions very interesting, but they seemed to focus on how we like to perceive organized behaviors as centrally controlled (versus individually controlled). As a result, much of the book was about why a non-centralized perspective is important rather than how organization is actually formed from non-centralized communities. Overall it is a very interesting and well-organized book. Only three stars because (1) it wasn't what I expected - perhaps the subtitle would have been more descriptive as "analyzing simple computer simulations where organized behavior results from systems with no centralized control," but I guess that would have been too wordy. And, (2) the software was not easy to find, and it was not fully compatible with the code in the book. (A version of the software compatible with the code in the book shoud be made available - even if it's since been upgraded.) And finally, (3) the book seems to be rushed toward the end. (The last chapter, for example, where the author "looks ahead" is only two pages long.) Overall, it's a great book, and it inspires a lot of thinking, but it left me wanting a bit more...
Rating:
Summary: Grad student review
Review: I'm a beginning grad student in the Computer Science department of the University of Virginia and read this book in the interest of Swarm Computing, AI, and general research in computational and complex systems. My reaction to the book is that it is informative for someone looking to expand their computer science teaching curriculum on a High school level but it is by no means even a starting off point for the study of Artificial Intelligence and intelligent systems on a graduate level. I could definitely see applications for an undergraduate curriculum but all in all it was limited to a case study of several students (mostly in K-12) who have worked with the Author. The students use a language that the Author designed to get a better fundamental understanding of systems whose function is described by an interaction between many individual agents. The purpose of the book, the language, and these case studies is to educate about distributed software and how complex systems and patterns can be programmed and understood through agent based complex systems as opposed to centrally controlled systems.
Rating: 
Summary: It opens up new worlds, where all is different and the same.
Review: If you ever felt like there has to be some other explanation to the way things are organized. If you ever felt like the current societal scheme makes no sense, with leaders and followers. If you ever had any of these thoughts, but never quite could figure out how to explain it... this book will. Attacking SMP and Massively Parallel Processing from a totally new approach, with no complex jiberish, jargon, or mathemathical formulas, Mitchell Resnick manages to explain all these almost flawlessly. He has done extensive research and work in this subject, and he can really make sense out of it. It opened my eyes to see things from a different perspective. It explained many things that I felt, but could not describe. It leaves you wondering "What if", as well as looking at things from a different perspective. In one word: "Extraordinary"
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating little big book.
Review: If you're illiterate about this theme, learn easy, and pick up a new point of view - better say many points. And a new way of thinking too. If you're a knower play with these models, join the established community for more answers, and apply these models to real situations. A very helpful mate for think tanks, marketing execs as me, engineers, biologists, and anybody who need new responses for old problems. A funny, serious, and very very illustrative reading in few pages!.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating little big book.
Review: If you're illiterate about this theme, learn easy, and pick up a new point of view - better say many points. And a new way of thinking too. If you're a knower play with these models, join the established community for more answers, and apply these models to real situations. A very helpful mate for think tanks, marketing execs as me, engineers, biologists, and anybody who need new responses for old problems. A funny, serious, and very very illustrative reading in few pages!.
Rating: 
Summary: The title promised more
Review: Maybe my rating is unfair but I expected a little deeper treatment of the topics mentioned in the title. Perhaps the title should give an indication that it is a broad treatment for the layman. It is a good book for an advanced high school reader or college freshman Most of the personal explorations of the author's musings required the use of a program that would have been only fair to include with the book or made accessible via the Net.
Rating:
Summary: Challenges your centralized way of thinking
Review: The book starts off slow but quickly builds on the principles discussed. I found many chapters fascinating. The book shows how the actions of simple organisms - termites and ants, can build into systems much more complex than the sum of their parts. The decentralized way of thinking helps in understanding the actions of things such as stock markets and the economy.
Rating:
Summary: This book is an excellent intro to complex systems
Review: The study of complex systems is a little too trendy at the moment to be conducive to good science. Many of the popular books on the topic are full of entertaining speculation and little reliable information. Resnick takes a more humble and more successful tack, starting with a simple world model (parallel turtles!) and developing surprising insight into such phenomena as ant behavior and traffic jams. This book might change the way you think.
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