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Rating: 
Summary: Way closer to the facts
Review: As the author of " EDFAs : principles and applications", I have been dismayed by a courageous anonymous statement "Way better than Desurvire's tome", recently posted under the form of a review of the Becker-Olsson-Simpson book. My goal is not to review the book, which I find to be an excellent introduction to the field. It is to respond to some statements made by the critic, which have little to do with facts and history. Concerning first the "invention" of the EDFA, it is wiser to leave the debate to international awards committees and foundations, and to stay away from outsiders' gossips. Addressing the issue of co-authorship is much easier. During the so-called EDFA-pioneering period,1987-90, Bell Labs has released 52 papers (*). Accordingly, 52 investigators have been " first authors ", with the following breakdown : Desurvire (24), Giles (11), Zyskind (7), Olsson (4), Simpson (2) and Becker (2). In terms of global authorship, combining first and co-author contributions, the numbers are : Desurvire (38), Simpson (38), Giles (22), Zyskind (18), Becker (14) and Olsson (13). The high number of publications for J.R.Simpson reflects the fact that he has co-authored 29 papers with myself as first author, including the very first one. I leave it to analysts to conclude from the above data as to wherever the action was happening during these important years. The second folder of the critic is about noise figure definition and development. Here again, the critic exhibits ignorance. The work from the Bell labs core team, as sketched from the above statistics, rapidly led to an optimal EDFA design, which was transferred to the submarine-cable area, for a success that is over-documented. Actually, the floppy-disk EDFA model offered in the B-O-S book is based upon the theory developped by C.R.Giles and myself. It is also extensively used in amplifier simulation software by suppliers and compagnies worlwide, as being generic and accurate. The critic gives me credit for the noise figure definition, which has since become a standard. It is brought to his kind attention that the issue, after all these years yet, is important enough to mobilize top MIT experts with possible consequences for standards in the technology. As a conclusion to help re-orienting the critic's future, I will say first that you cannot create a start-up from the integration of any book's knowledge (no matter how good, accurate and applied, no matter how many books), because this is not what is expected from start-up " entrepreneurs ". Second, actual expertise in optical communications requires sweat mind work, not sweet talking at job-interview time. Finally, short of experience and appreciation, please keep respect to the generations of enginers at Bell Labs, and elsewhere in Europe and Japan, who paved the way to the Internet technology with their combined touch and visions.---- (*) source : " H.R.D.Sunak, Bibliography on EDFAs : 19987 to 1990, EDFA consultants publisher, Kingston, RI, 1991 ", p.163.
Rating: 
Summary: Desurvire versus Becker et al.
Review: As the author of " EDFAs : principles and applications", I have been dismayed by a courageous anonymous statement "Way better than Desurvire's tome", recently posted under the form of a review of the Becker-Olsson-Simpson book. My goal is not to review the book, which I find to be an excellent introduction to the field. It is to respond to some statements made by the critic, which have little to do with facts and history. Concerning first the "invention" of the EDFA, it is wiser to leave the debate to international awards committees and foundations, and to stay away from outsiders' gossips. Addressing the issue of co-authorship is much easier. During the so-called EDFA-pioneering period,1987-90, Bell Labs has released 52 papers (*). Accordingly, 52 investigators have been " first authors ", with the following breakdown : Desurvire (24), Giles (11), Zyskind (7), Olsson (4), Simpson (2) and Becker (2). In terms of global authorship, combining first and co-author contributions, the numbers are : Desurvire (38), Simpson (38), Giles (22), Zyskind (18), Becker (14) and Olsson (13). The high number of publications for J.R.Simpson reflects the fact that he has co-authored 29 papers with myself as first author, including the very first one. I leave it to analysts to conclude from the above data as to wherever the action was happening during these important years. The second folder of the critic is about noise figure definition and development. Here again, the critic exhibits ignorance. The work from the Bell labs core team, as sketched from the above statistics, rapidly led to an optimal EDFA design, which was transferred to the submarine-cable area, for a success that is over-documented. Actually, the floppy-disk EDFA model offered in the B-O-S book is based upon the theory developped by C.R.Giles and myself. It is also extensively used in amplifier simulation software by suppliers and compagnies worlwide, as being generic and accurate. The critic gives me credit for the noise figure definition, which has since become a standard. It is brought to his kind attention that the issue, after all these years yet, is important enough to mobilize top MIT experts with possible consequences for standards in the technology. As a conclusion to help re-orienting the critic's future, I will say first that you cannot create a start-up from the integration of any book's knowledge (no matter how good, accurate and applied, no matter how many books), because this is not what is expected from start-up " entrepreneurs ". Second, actual expertise in optical communications requires sweat mind work, not sweet talking at job-interview time. Finally, short of experience and appreciation, please keep respect to the generations of enginers at Bell Labs, and elsewhere in Europe and Japan, who paved the way to the Internet technology with their combined touch and visions.---- (*) source : " H.R.D.Sunak, Bibliography on EDFAs : 19987 to 1990, EDFA consultants publisher, Kingston, RI, 1991 ", p.163.
Rating: 
Summary: Becker et. al. v.s Desurvire
Review: Evaluating a book often is strongly dependent on the level of expertise and experience of the reviewer, especially in a new field like this. Speaking as one who has been in other areas of science and technology for decades but who has been recently trying to learn this new subject, it is safe to say that both Desurvire's and Becker's book have merit and they complement each other. I found Becker's book much easier reading and a pleasant respite from Desurvire's sometimes incredible density (did he really write that whole thing by himself?), but there are portions of several chapters in Desurvire that are enlightening and reasonably clear even to a novice. The technology of optical amplifiers is probably still maturing and as time goes on new texts on optical amplifiers will be written and they will draw on and improve on these two books both in content and style but for the present these two appear to be necessary for workers in the field. If you are beginner, you might want to start with Becker.
Rating:
Summary: not a very rigorous approach but still useful
Review: I found this book useful to catch up with the current issues in EDFA design. It gives a fair idea of the subject. The approach taken for optical communication link issues is not rigorous and is oversimplified. The book gives good introduction to OASIX package for EDFA design.Probably good for someone who is not interested in detailed theory of EDFA. Desurvire remains 'The Bible' for serious EDFA scientists and Engineers alike.
Rating: 
Summary: BEST IN CLASS
Review: most up-to-date, fewest mistakes (by far), clearest, most-well-thought-out-treatment
Rating:
Summary: A book with brief theory and a lot of pratical examples
Review: The book covers the most issue of EDFA, from components used in EDFA to optical system, even simulation software (I have used the software, but it is not easy to learn and not flexible for EDFA design). It seems to me, the authors have deep experienced working background in this field. There are a lot of practical examples. It is a very good reference book to my work (optical fiber system engineer). The authors give a brief and clear theoretical description, just to reminder your knowledge. It is toll; I like this style and would like to recommend it as the best book.
Rating:
Summary: BEST IN CLASS
Review: This book is ok. It's a nice compliment to Desurvire's book to fill in the blanks left by Desurvire. It's a little easier to read and a bit better organized and certainly less dense. It gives a decent overview and lists the really important aspects of the design. It includes a fairly uninformative section on codoped fibers. It reminds me of Koechner's Solid State Laser engineering but less complete. The software is useless except maybe to beginning students. For those comparing it to Desurvire's book, it's for the quick and dirty reference. If you are doing research into novel fibers amplifiers this isn't the book for you. However, if you are a designer of commercial amplifiers it's much more convenient and concise than Desurvire. And BTW who CARES who invented the damn thing anyway. All that matters is that none of you dopes did. So shut your mouth.
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