One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

For serious developers and professionals, 17 Jul 2007
If you are serious about developing websites, webapps and other software that runs inside a browser, then you should buy and read this book. Many of the problems of 1994 and 2000 are still on the Internet.
It's up to you, the serious web professional to change this scenario and for that Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can help you, through this book.
It is a mandatory book in your bookshelf, if you're serious. If you're just an amateur then don't waste your time and money on this book.

Web usability book of the year 2006! No more excuses. Use it!, 07 Jun 2006
Ten years ago, the Web was exciting to people. Today it's routine. It's a tool. If it's convenient, they will use it; if not, they won't. Users are getting less tolerant of difficult sites, so every design flaw means lost business. Thus, usability has more more important than ever.

This is the introduction of the reviewed book and I fully agree that it is time we prioritize Web usability. Of course, we all know about the fact that usability is important, but are we only paying lip service to the issue. When we decide between great design and great us-ability issues there's is often a trade-off. How often do we accept a lower level of usability in order to show off cool design? By the way, it is not that difficult to measure: Can people use the site at all? Test it!

Author Jakob Nielsen has a world-class reputation as Web usability expert since 1995 and this book co-authored by Hoa Loranger proves that he is still going strong.

A "practice of simplicity" has always been characterizing Jakob Nielsen's approach to us-ability. A picture is worth a 1000 words and thus the authors has filled this book with new screen shots that show what design mistakes we should avoid. The authors' visualizing and keeping it simple approach makes this book very easy to digest. If you have your own Web site you probably cannot help browsing your own web site to find design mistakes.

After having read this book with a huge number of best practices, why do you still need to do your own user testing? The reason is because usability guidelines are based on three levels of research:
* general guidelines: user behaviour across most web sites
* specialized guidelines: findings about specific genres or areas of sites (such as e-commerce usability or e-government services)
* specific guidelines: detailed findings about a specific site and its customers

This book only deals with the general guidelines. They may solve 50-80% of your usability problems, but to become best-in-class you need to go all the way to the specific guide-lines.


I like Nielsen's $200 user test. It makes it accessible for anybody. No more excuses. Pick 3-4 people in your target group. Give them some specific tasks for your web site. Then observe. Discover what users actually do, not what they say they do (via questionnaires, etc.). So observe, don't survey. Discuss what you have learned and make the changes. Test again, if need be. It's simple, it is cheap, and it is fast. Use.it!

I have always been very inspired by Nielsen's manifesto for usability. But beware. He may be a little radical in his approach to usability (although seemingly less so as he matures!). For instance, I always found the design of his own Web site awful. It is very usable obvi-ously, but .... To me it just proves the fact that all Web site owners have to find their own right balance between cool design and great usability.

I also recommend Steve Krug's easy-to-read "Don't make me think", and McGovern's books on Web Content. I addition, I strongly recommend the Eisenberg brothers' book on "A call for Action", especially targeted for the e-commerce segment.

A final note: This book is about your customers and what they need, not about you. If that is of your concern, then do spend the next week in companion with this book. Ultimately, it is about you also. Once you start working actively with how people interact with your de-sign, you can make it better than your competitor's.

Peter Leerskov,

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

For serious developers and professionals, 17 Jul 2007
If you are serious about developing websites, webapps and other software that runs inside a browser, then you should buy and read this book. Many of the problems of 1994 and 2000 are still on the Internet.
It's up to you, the serious web professional to change this scenario and for that Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can help you, through this book.
It is a mandatory book in your bookshelf, if you're serious. If you're just an amateur then don't waste your time and money on this book.

Web usability book of the year 2006! No more excuses. Use it!, 07 Jun 2006
Ten years ago, the Web was exciting to people. Today it's routine. It's a tool. If it's convenient, they will use it; if not, they won't. Users are getting less tolerant of difficult sites, so every design flaw means lost business. Thus, usability has more more important than ever.

This is the introduction of the reviewed book and I fully agree that it is time we prioritize Web usability. Of course, we all know about the fact that usability is important, but are we only paying lip service to the issue. When we decide between great design and great us-ability issues there's is often a trade-off. How often do we accept a lower level of usability in order to show off cool design? By the way, it is not that difficult to measure: Can people use the site at all? Test it!

Author Jakob Nielsen has a world-class reputation as Web usability expert since 1995 and this book co-authored by Hoa Loranger proves that he is still going strong.

A "practice of simplicity" has always been characterizing Jakob Nielsen's approach to us-ability. A picture is worth a 1000 words and thus the authors has filled this book with new screen shots that show what design mistakes we should avoid. The authors' visualizing and keeping it simple approach makes this book very easy to digest. If you have your own Web site you probably cannot help browsing your own web site to find design mistakes.

After having read this book with a huge number of best practices, why do you still need to do your own user testing? The reason is because usability guidelines are based on three levels of research:
* general guidelines: user behaviour across most web sites
* specialized guidelines: findings about specific genres or areas of sites (such as e-commerce usability or e-government services)
* specific guidelines: detailed findings about a specific site and its customers

This book only deals with the general guidelines. They may solve 50-80% of your usability problems, but to become best-in-class you need to go all the way to the specific guide-lines.


I like Nielsen's $200 user test. It makes it accessible for anybody. No more excuses. Pick 3-4 people in your target group. Give them some specific tasks for your web site. Then observe. Discover what users actually do, not what they say they do (via questionnaires, etc.). So observe, don't survey. Discuss what you have learned and make the changes. Test again, if need be. It's simple, it is cheap, and it is fast. Use.it!

I have always been very inspired by Nielsen's manifesto for usability. But beware. He may be a little radical in his approach to usability (although seemingly less so as he matures!). For instance, I always found the design of his own Web site awful. It is very usable obvi-ously, but .... To me it just proves the fact that all Web site owners have to find their own right balance between cool design and great usability.

I also recommend Steve Krug's easy-to-read "Don't make me think", and McGovern's books on Web Content. I addition, I strongly recommend the Eisenberg brothers' book on "A call for Action", especially targeted for the e-commerce segment.

A final note: This book is about your customers and what they need, not about you. If that is of your concern, then do spend the next week in companion with this book. Ultimately, it is about you also. Once you start working actively with how people interact with your de-sign, you can make it better than your competitor's.

Peter Leerskov,


Not for a developer, 01 Dec 2008
As a developer interested in SOA I bought this book hoping to learn about service design and best practices. I found this book very dry and did not feel that I got much from the book. It is the first book I have bought that I have not completed. (I got 3/4 of the way before losing the will to read.)

Awful, 08 Nov 2008
This is certainly one of the worst books I've read. My main complaints are:

1) The book is incredibly slow/tedious and boring, though I should have expected that after reading some of Erl's other books.
2) The style of SOA described is, in my view, not workable for most companies. For example its focussed on upfront design and entity services with lots of reuse. A few google searches will show that this is not the only approach you can take and in my view a business oriented SOA, using agile approaches and wrapping coherent domain models is a totally valid alternative.

In any case I wouldn't recommend anyone read this, instead I'd recommend that people look at Enterprise SOA which is a far more interesting read.

A must-read for SOA practitioners, 28 Jan 2008
Great book!
Thomas Erl documents a set of guidelines for effective design decisions to make SOA real.
This book fills the gap between the pubblications that cover SOA in pure conceptual terms and those that deal with the details of web service implementations.
Each chapter cuts through the hype of SOA by giving clear definitions, guidelines, and metrics that link the conceptual, logical and physical aspects of a Service Oriented Architecture.
This series is going to become for SOA what "Design patterns" of the "Gang of Four" has been for Object Oriented design.
I am looking forward to reading the next pubblication: SOA Patterns.

Comprehensive SOA Manual, 19 Dec 2007
Thomas Erl's books are of extremely high quality, have masses of information packed within the covers but still remain readable and practical. I've undertaken a complex new SOA initiative and have relied heavily on the information within this book, from first principals through to detailed case studies the book has been my guide and I find it now in a "well-thumbed" state on my shelf. Indispensable.

Very practical guide, 27 Sep 2007
I've heard some people describe Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a 'silver bullet' that can solve all IT and business problems. Their less enthusiastic colleagues have described SOA as the IT 'flavour of the month'. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Thomas Erl gives a very practical and understandable explanation of SOA and service design as really the next evolution of good software engineering. There are many SOA buzzwords and concepts that are used rather haphazardly by people in the software industry. Erl explains them all in a precise manner that will really cement your understanding of the underlying design principles whether you have a little or a lot of experience. This is a good book to both read now and use as a reference later.

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

For serious developers and professionals, 17 Jul 2007
If you are serious about developing websites, webapps and other software that runs inside a browser, then you should buy and read this book. Many of the problems of 1994 and 2000 are still on the Internet.
It's up to you, the serious web professional to change this scenario and for that Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can help you, through this book.
It is a mandatory book in your bookshelf, if you're serious. If you're just an amateur then don't waste your time and money on this book.

Web usability book of the year 2006! No more excuses. Use it!, 07 Jun 2006
Ten years ago, the Web was exciting to people. Today it's routine. It's a tool. If it's convenient, they will use it; if not, they won't. Users are getting less tolerant of difficult sites, so every design flaw means lost business. Thus, usability has more more important than ever.

This is the introduction of the reviewed book and I fully agree that it is time we prioritize Web usability. Of course, we all know about the fact that usability is important, but are we only paying lip service to the issue. When we decide between great design and great us-ability issues there's is often a trade-off. How often do we accept a lower level of usability in order to show off cool design? By the way, it is not that difficult to measure: Can people use the site at all? Test it!

Author Jakob Nielsen has a world-class reputation as Web usability expert since 1995 and this book co-authored by Hoa Loranger proves that he is still going strong.

A "practice of simplicity" has always been characterizing Jakob Nielsen's approach to us-ability. A picture is worth a 1000 words and thus the authors has filled this book with new screen shots that show what design mistakes we should avoid. The authors' visualizing and keeping it simple approach makes this book very easy to digest. If you have your own Web site you probably cannot help browsing your own web site to find design mistakes.

After having read this book with a huge number of best practices, why do you still need to do your own user testing? The reason is because usability guidelines are based on three levels of research:
* general guidelines: user behaviour across most web sites
* specialized guidelines: findings about specific genres or areas of sites (such as e-commerce usability or e-government services)
* specific guidelines: detailed findings about a specific site and its customers

This book only deals with the general guidelines. They may solve 50-80% of your usability problems, but to become best-in-class you need to go all the way to the specific guide-lines.


I like Nielsen's $200 user test. It makes it accessible for anybody. No more excuses. Pick 3-4 people in your target group. Give them some specific tasks for your web site. Then observe. Discover what users actually do, not what they say they do (via questionnaires, etc.). So observe, don't survey. Discuss what you have learned and make the changes. Test again, if need be. It's simple, it is cheap, and it is fast. Use.it!

I have always been very inspired by Nielsen's manifesto for usability. But beware. He may be a little radical in his approach to usability (although seemingly less so as he matures!). For instance, I always found the design of his own Web site awful. It is very usable obvi-ously, but .... To me it just proves the fact that all Web site owners have to find their own right balance between cool design and great usability.

I also recommend Steve Krug's easy-to-read "Don't make me think", and McGovern's books on Web Content. I addition, I strongly recommend the Eisenberg brothers' book on "A call for Action", especially targeted for the e-commerce segment.

A final note: This book is about your customers and what they need, not about you. If that is of your concern, then do spend the next week in companion with this book. Ultimately, it is about you also. Once you start working actively with how people interact with your de-sign, you can make it better than your competitor's.

Peter Leerskov,


Not for a developer, 01 Dec 2008
As a developer interested in SOA I bought this book hoping to learn about service design and best practices. I found this book very dry and did not feel that I got much from the book. It is the first book I have bought that I have not completed. (I got 3/4 of the way before losing the will to read.)

Awful, 08 Nov 2008
This is certainly one of the worst books I've read. My main complaints are:

1) The book is incredibly slow/tedious and boring, though I should have expected that after reading some of Erl's other books.
2) The style of SOA described is, in my view, not workable for most companies. For example its focussed on upfront design and entity services with lots of reuse. A few google searches will show that this is not the only approach you can take and in my view a business oriented SOA, using agile approaches and wrapping coherent domain models is a totally valid alternative.

In any case I wouldn't recommend anyone read this, instead I'd recommend that people look at Enterprise SOA which is a far more interesting read.

A must-read for SOA practitioners, 28 Jan 2008
Great book!
Thomas Erl documents a set of guidelines for effective design decisions to make SOA real.
This book fills the gap between the pubblications that cover SOA in pure conceptual terms and those that deal with the details of web service implementations.
Each chapter cuts through the hype of SOA by giving clear definitions, guidelines, and metrics that link the conceptual, logical and physical aspects of a Service Oriented Architecture.
This series is going to become for SOA what "Design patterns" of the "Gang of Four" has been for Object Oriented design.
I am looking forward to reading the next pubblication: SOA Patterns.

Comprehensive SOA Manual, 19 Dec 2007
Thomas Erl's books are of extremely high quality, have masses of information packed within the covers but still remain readable and practical. I've undertaken a complex new SOA initiative and have relied heavily on the information within this book, from first principals through to detailed case studies the book has been my guide and I find it now in a "well-thumbed" state on my shelf. Indispensable.

Very practical guide, 27 Sep 2007
I've heard some people describe Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a 'silver bullet' that can solve all IT and business problems. Their less enthusiastic colleagues have described SOA as the IT 'flavour of the month'. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Thomas Erl gives a very practical and understandable explanation of SOA and service design as really the next evolution of good software engineering. There are many SOA buzzwords and concepts that are used rather haphazardly by people in the software industry. Erl explains them all in a precise manner that will really cement your understanding of the underlying design principles whether you have a little or a lot of experience. This is a good book to both read now and use as a reference later.


Nice Introduction - but not complete, 15 Sep 2008
I liked the book for its extensive use of step-by-step tutorials but was disappointed to find nothing about data-mining, which is very much present in of Microsoft's official SSAS basic 3 day course, moc2791.

An excellent 'how to' guide, 22 Jun 2006
This book delivers exactly what the title suggests it does, it is an excellent step by step guide, there is lots of 'how to' exercises throughout each chapter. Within 3 days of reading I had an understanding of the fundemental principals of an OLAP database and how AS 2005 fits that model, and within 5 days was able to start bringing together that knowledge to work with some degree of confidence with AS 2005 and the Business Intelligence Studio. If you're new to AS2005 and OLAP I would consider this as required reading. If you're just new to AS 2005 it proves as a very good guide as to what is where in the tool set.

A good beginners guide, 21 May 2006
This book is a good beginners guide to SSAS 2005. It covers the key elements of the software and how to use them. It has a nice tutorial set to demonstrate the features that the book describes. The only downside is that the book isn't very indepth. Many of the features need greater description and detail. But as a beginners guide it is very good.

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

For serious developers and professionals, 17 Jul 2007
If you are serious about developing websites, webapps and other software that runs inside a browser, then you should buy and read this book. Many of the problems of 1994 and 2000 are still on the Internet.
It's up to you, the serious web professional to change this scenario and for that Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can help you, through this book.
It is a mandatory book in your bookshelf, if you're serious. If you're just an amateur then don't waste your time and money on this book.

Web usability book of the year 2006! No more excuses. Use it!, 07 Jun 2006
Ten years ago, the Web was exciting to people. Today it's routine. It's a tool. If it's convenient, they will use it; if not, they won't. Users are getting less tolerant of difficult sites, so every design flaw means lost business. Thus, usability has more more important than ever.

This is the introduction of the reviewed book and I fully agree that it is time we prioritize Web usability. Of course, we all know about the fact that usability is important, but are we only paying lip service to the issue. When we decide between great design and great us-ability issues there's is often a trade-off. How often do we accept a lower level of usability in order to show off cool design? By the way, it is not that difficult to measure: Can people use the site at all? Test it!

Author Jakob Nielsen has a world-class reputation as Web usability expert since 1995 and this book co-authored by Hoa Loranger proves that he is still going strong.

A "practice of simplicity" has always been characterizing Jakob Nielsen's approach to us-ability. A picture is worth a 1000 words and thus the authors has filled this book with new screen shots that show what design mistakes we should avoid. The authors' visualizing and keeping it simple approach makes this book very easy to digest. If you have your own Web site you probably cannot help browsing your own web site to find design mistakes.

After having read this book with a huge number of best practices, why do you still need to do your own user testing? The reason is because usability guidelines are based on three levels of research:
* general guidelines: user behaviour across most web sites
* specialized guidelines: findings about specific genres or areas of sites (such as e-commerce usability or e-government services)
* specific guidelines: detailed findings about a specific site and its customers

This book only deals with the general guidelines. They may solve 50-80% of your usability problems, but to become best-in-class you need to go all the way to the specific guide-lines.


I like Nielsen's $200 user test. It makes it accessible for anybody. No more excuses. Pick 3-4 people in your target group. Give them some specific tasks for your web site. Then observe. Discover what users actually do, not what they say they do (via questionnaires, etc.). So observe, don't survey. Discuss what you have learned and make the changes. Test again, if need be. It's simple, it is cheap, and it is fast. Use.it!

I have always been very inspired by Nielsen's manifesto for usability. But beware. He may be a little radical in his approach to usability (although seemingly less so as he matures!). For instance, I always found the design of his own Web site awful. It is very usable obvi-ously, but .... To me it just proves the fact that all Web site owners have to find their own right balance between cool design and great usability.

I also recommend Steve Krug's easy-to-read "Don't make me think", and McGovern's books on Web Content. I addition, I strongly recommend the Eisenberg brothers' book on "A call for Action", especially targeted for the e-commerce segment.

A final note: This book is about your customers and what they need, not about you. If that is of your concern, then do spend the next week in companion with this book. Ultimately, it is about you also. Once you start working actively with how people interact with your de-sign, you can make it better than your competitor's.

Peter Leerskov,


Not for a developer, 01 Dec 2008
As a developer interested in SOA I bought this book hoping to learn about service design and best practices. I found this book very dry and did not feel that I got much from the book. It is the first book I have bought that I have not completed. (I got 3/4 of the way before losing the will to read.)

Awful, 08 Nov 2008
This is certainly one of the worst books I've read. My main complaints are:

1) The book is incredibly slow/tedious and boring, though I should have expected that after reading some of Erl's other books.
2) The style of SOA described is, in my view, not workable for most companies. For example its focussed on upfront design and entity services with lots of reuse. A few google searches will show that this is not the only approach you can take and in my view a business oriented SOA, using agile approaches and wrapping coherent domain models is a totally valid alternative.

In any case I wouldn't recommend anyone read this, instead I'd recommend that people look at Enterprise SOA which is a far more interesting read.

A must-read for SOA practitioners, 28 Jan 2008
Great book!
Thomas Erl documents a set of guidelines for effective design decisions to make SOA real.
This book fills the gap between the pubblications that cover SOA in pure conceptual terms and those that deal with the details of web service implementations.
Each chapter cuts through the hype of SOA by giving clear definitions, guidelines, and metrics that link the conceptual, logical and physical aspects of a Service Oriented Architecture.
This series is going to become for SOA what "Design patterns" of the "Gang of Four" has been for Object Oriented design.
I am looking forward to reading the next pubblication: SOA Patterns.

Comprehensive SOA Manual, 19 Dec 2007
Thomas Erl's books are of extremely high quality, have masses of information packed within the covers but still remain readable and practical. I've undertaken a complex new SOA initiative and have relied heavily on the information within this book, from first principals through to detailed case studies the book has been my guide and I find it now in a "well-thumbed" state on my shelf. Indispensable.

Very practical guide, 27 Sep 2007
I've heard some people describe Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a 'silver bullet' that can solve all IT and business problems. Their less enthusiastic colleagues have described SOA as the IT 'flavour of the month'. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Thomas Erl gives a very practical and understandable explanation of SOA and service design as really the next evolution of good software engineering. There are many SOA buzzwords and concepts that are used rather haphazardly by people in the software industry. Erl explains them all in a precise manner that will really cement your understanding of the underlying design principles whether you have a little or a lot of experience. This is a good book to both read now and use as a reference later.


Nice Introduction - but not complete, 15 Sep 2008
I liked the book for its extensive use of step-by-step tutorials but was disappointed to find nothing about data-mining, which is very much present in of Microsoft's official SSAS basic 3 day course, moc2791.

An excellent 'how to' guide, 22 Jun 2006
This book delivers exactly what the title suggests it does, it is an excellent step by step guide, there is lots of 'how to' exercises throughout each chapter. Within 3 days of reading I had an understanding of the fundemental principals of an OLAP database and how AS 2005 fits that model, and within 5 days was able to start bringing together that knowledge to work with some degree of confidence with AS 2005 and the Business Intelligence Studio. If you're new to AS2005 and OLAP I would consider this as required reading. If you're just new to AS 2005 it proves as a very good guide as to what is where in the tool set.

A good beginners guide, 21 May 2006
This book is a good beginners guide to SSAS 2005. It covers the key elements of the software and how to use them. It has a nice tutorial set to demonstrate the features that the book describes. The only downside is that the book isn't very indepth. Many of the features need greater description and detail. But as a beginners guide it is very good.

Awful, 16 Nov 2008
Really appalling introduction to SOA and for my money if you want to learn about SOA then Enterprise SOA (Dirk Krafzig, Karl Banke, Dirk Slama) is far better.

I also question the whole approach to SOA that Erl takes, the enterprise services approach with lots of upfront design is not a style of SOA that I think can work in many places. I'd therefore recommend that if you do read this book you actively seek out other opinions, including searching for views on "entity services" and how SOA can be used within an agile process.

SOA explained, without the hype, 28 Nov 2006
This is a great book on SOA. It's the first book I found that really explained the concepts in a clear and concise way. It gives an overview of what SOA really is and what not and then goes on to explain how to design an SOA.

This book is especially helpful for those who have been wrestling with Web services (SOAP) as a technique, but haven't seen any of the SOA promises yet. Thomas Erl can probably explain to you, where you've gone wrong.

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

For serious developers and professionals, 17 Jul 2007
If you are serious about developing websites, webapps and other software that runs inside a browser, then you should buy and read this book. Many of the problems of 1994 and 2000 are still on the Internet.
It's up to you, the serious web professional to change this scenario and for that Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can help you, through this book.
It is a mandatory book in your bookshelf, if you're serious. If you're just an amateur then don't waste your time and money on this book.

Web usability book of the year 2006! No more excuses. Use it!, 07 Jun 2006
Ten years ago, the Web was exciting to people. Today it's routine. It's a tool. If it's convenient, they will use it; if not, they won't. Users are getting less tolerant of difficult sites, so every design flaw means lost business. Thus, usability has more more important than ever.

This is the introduction of the reviewed book and I fully agree that it is time we prioritize Web usability. Of course, we all know about the fact that usability is important, but are we only paying lip service to the issue. When we decide between great design and great us-ability issues there's is often a trade-off. How often do we accept a lower level of usability in order to show off cool design? By the way, it is not that difficult to measure: Can people use the site at all? Test it!

Author Jakob Nielsen has a world-class reputation as Web usability expert since 1995 and this book co-authored by Hoa Loranger proves that he is still going strong.

A "practice of simplicity" has always been characterizing Jakob Nielsen's approach to us-ability. A picture is worth a 1000 words and thus the authors has filled this book with new screen shots that show what design mistakes we should avoid. The authors' visualizing and keeping it simple approach makes this book very easy to digest. If you have your own Web site you probably cannot help browsing your own web site to find design mistakes.

After having read this book with a huge number of best practices, why do you still need to do your own user testing? The reason is because usability guidelines are based on three levels of research:
* general guidelines: user behaviour across most web sites
* specialized guidelines: findings about specific genres or areas of sites (such as e-commerce usability or e-government services)
* specific guidelines: detailed findings about a specific site and its customers

This book only deals with the general guidelines. They may solve 50-80% of your usability problems, but to become best-in-class you need to go all the way to the specific guide-lines.


I like Nielsen's $200 user test. It makes it accessible for anybody. No more excuses. Pick 3-4 people in your target group. Give them some specific tasks for your web site. Then observe. Discover what users actually do, not what they say they do (via questionnaires, etc.). So observe, don't survey. Discuss what you have learned and make the changes. Test again, if need be. It's simple, it is cheap, and it is fast. Use.it!

I have always been very inspired by Nielsen's manifesto for usability. But beware. He may be a little radical in his approach to usability (although seemingly less so as he matures!). For instance, I always found the design of his own Web site awful. It is very usable obvi-ously, but .... To me it just proves the fact that all Web site owners have to find their own right balance between cool design and great usability.

I also recommend Steve Krug's easy-to-read "Don't make me think", and McGovern's books on Web Content. I addition, I strongly recommend the Eisenberg brothers' book on "A call for Action", especially targeted for the e-commerce segment.

A final note: This book is about your customers and what they need, not about you. If that is of your concern, then do spend the next week in companion with this book. Ultimately, it is about you also. Once you start working actively with how people interact with your de-sign, you can make it better than your competitor's.

Peter Leerskov,


Not for a developer, 01 Dec 2008
As a developer interested in SOA I bought this book hoping to learn about service design and best practices. I found this book very dry and did not feel that I got much from the book. It is the first book I have bought that I have not completed. (I got 3/4 of the way before losing the will to read.)

Awful, 08 Nov 2008
This is certainly one of the worst books I've read. My main complaints are:

1) The book is incredibly slow/tedious and boring, though I should have expected that after reading some of Erl's other books.
2) The style of SOA described is, in my view, not workable for most companies. For example its focussed on upfront design and entity services with lots of reuse. A few google searches will show that this is not the only approach you can take and in my view a business oriented SOA, using agile approaches and wrapping coherent domain models is a totally valid alternative.

In any case I wouldn't recommend anyone read this, instead I'd recommend that people look at Enterprise SOA which is a far more interesting read.

A must-read for SOA practitioners, 28 Jan 2008
Great book!
Thomas Erl documents a set of guidelines for effective design decisions to make SOA real.
This book fills the gap between the pubblications that cover SOA in pure conceptual terms and those that deal with the details of web service implementations.
Each chapter cuts through the hype of SOA by giving clear definitions, guidelines, and metrics that link the conceptual, logical and physical aspects of a Service Oriented Architecture.
This series is going to become for SOA what "Design patterns" of the "Gang of Four" has been for Object Oriented design.
I am looking forward to reading the next pubblication: SOA Patterns.

Comprehensive SOA Manual, 19 Dec 2007
Thomas Erl's books are of extremely high quality, have masses of information packed within the covers but still remain readable and practical. I've undertaken a complex new SOA initiative and have relied heavily on the information within this book, from first principals through to detailed case studies the book has been my guide and I find it now in a "well-thumbed" state on my shelf. Indispensable.

Very practical guide, 27 Sep 2007
I've heard some people describe Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a 'silver bullet' that can solve all IT and business problems. Their less enthusiastic colleagues have described SOA as the IT 'flavour of the month'. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Thomas Erl gives a very practical and understandable explanation of SOA and service design as really the next evolution of good software engineering. There are many SOA buzzwords and concepts that are used rather haphazardly by people in the software industry. Erl explains them all in a precise manner that will really cement your understanding of the underlying design principles whether you have a little or a lot of experience. This is a good book to both read now and use as a reference later.


Nice Introduction - but not complete, 15 Sep 2008
I liked the book for its extensive use of step-by-step tutorials but was disappointed to find nothing about data-mining, which is very much present in of Microsoft's official SSAS basic 3 day course, moc2791.

An excellent 'how to' guide, 22 Jun 2006
This book delivers exactly what the title suggests it does, it is an excellent step by step guide, there is lots of 'how to' exercises throughout each chapter. Within 3 days of reading I had an understanding of the fundemental principals of an OLAP database and how AS 2005 fits that model, and within 5 days was able to start bringing together that knowledge to work with some degree of confidence with AS 2005 and the Business Intelligence Studio. If you're new to AS2005 and OLAP I would consider this as required reading. If you're just new to AS 2005 it proves as a very good guide as to what is where in the tool set.

A good beginners guide, 21 May 2006
This book is a good beginners guide to SSAS 2005. It covers the key elements of the software and how to use them. It has a nice tutorial set to demonstrate the features that the book describes. The only downside is that the book isn't very indepth. Many of the features need greater description and detail. But as a beginners guide it is very good.

Awful, 16 Nov 2008
Really appalling introduction to SOA and for my money if you want to learn about SOA then Enterprise SOA (Dirk Krafzig, Karl Banke, Dirk Slama) is far better.

I also question the whole approach to SOA that Erl takes, the enterprise services approach with lots of upfront design is not a style of SOA that I think can work in many places. I'd therefore recommend that if you do read this book you actively seek out other opinions, including searching for views on "entity services" and how SOA can be used within an agile process.

SOA explained, without the hype, 28 Nov 2006
This is a great book on SOA. It's the first book I found that really explained the concepts in a clear and concise way. It gives an overview of what SOA really is and what not and then goes on to explain how to design an SOA.

This book is especially helpful for those who have been wrestling with Web services (SOAP) as a technique, but haven't seen any of the SOA promises yet. Thomas Erl can probably explain to you, where you've gone wrong.



Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin, 14 May 2008
A few pages past the table of contents, I had solved two issues that had been bugging me since my last install. It was pretty minor stuff, but could I as heck find the answers online. It just shows what research, presentation, and quality control can achieve. So, another score for books over bytes.

The layout is uncluttered, and you can usually get the gist without reading through pages of preamble and exposition. The examples are practical and adaptable (no long and complex routines found on some sites) so they can almost be cut and pasted into your own applications. As your applications develop, there's always something else you can add.

The only downside is that it's a book - a few mods to MySQL and you might have to fork out for the next revision. Still, I should have got my money's worth by then.

Teaches you SQL, 31 Mar 2006
Explains by example so many common queries you'll be able to solve a wide variety of problems instantly. SQL is a deceptively deep language and getting to grips with this small army of queries gives you the basics to build on.

Easy reading and sensible examples. Some omissions (insert) but it's not the complex stuff - that part is really taught well.

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

For serious developers and professionals, 17 Jul 2007
If you are serious about developing websites, webapps and other software that runs inside a browser, then you should buy and read this book. Many of the problems of 1994 and 2000 are still on the Internet.
It's up to you, the serious web professional to change this scenario and for that Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can help you, through this book.
It is a mandatory book in your bookshelf, if you're serious. If you're just an amateur then don't waste your time and money on this book.

Web usability book of the year 2006! No more excuses. Use it!, 07 Jun 2006
Ten years ago, the Web was exciting to people. Today it's routine. It's a tool. If it's convenient, they will use it; if not, they won't. Users are getting less tolerant of difficult sites, so every design flaw means lost business. Thus, usability has more more important than ever.

This is the introduction of the reviewed book and I fully agree that it is time we prioritize Web usability. Of course, we all know about the fact that usability is important, but are we only paying lip service to the issue. When we decide between great design and great us-ability issues there's is often a trade-off. How often do we accept a lower level of usability in order to show off cool design? By the way, it is not that difficult to measure: Can people use the site at all? Test it!

Author Jakob Nielsen has a world-class reputation as Web usability expert since 1995 and this book co-authored by Hoa Loranger proves that he is still going strong.

A "practice of simplicity" has always been characterizing Jakob Nielsen's approach to us-ability. A picture is worth a 1000 words and thus the authors has filled this book with new screen shots that show what design mistakes we should avoid. The authors' visualizing and keeping it simple approach makes this book very easy to digest. If you have your own Web site you probably cannot help browsing your own web site to find design mistakes.

After having read this book with a huge number of best practices, why do you still need to do your own user testing? The reason is because usability guidelines are based on three levels of research:
* general guidelines: user behaviour across most web sites
* specialized guidelines: findings about specific genres or areas of sites (such as e-commerce usability or e-government services)
* specific guidelines: detailed findings about a specific site and its customers

This book only deals with the general guidelines. They may solve 50-80% of your usability problems, but to become best-in-class you need to go all the way to the specific guide-lines.


I like Nielsen's $200 user test. It makes it accessible for anybody. No more excuses. Pick 3-4 people in your target group. Give them some specific tasks for your web site. Then observe. Discover what users actually do, not what they say they do (via questionnaires, etc.). So observe, don't survey. Discuss what you have learned and make the changes. Test again, if need be. It's simple, it is cheap, and it is fast. Use.it!

I have always been very inspired by Nielsen's manifesto for usability. But beware. He may be a little radical in his approach to usability (although seemingly less so as he matures!). For instance, I always found the design of his own Web site awful. It is very usable obvi-ously, but .... To me it just proves the fact that all Web site owners have to find their own right balance between cool design and great usability.

I also recommend Steve Krug's easy-to-read "Don't make me think", and McGovern's books on Web Content. I addition, I strongly recommend the Eisenberg brothers' book on "A call for Action", especially targeted for the e-commerce segment.

A final note: This book is about your customers and what they need, not about you. If that is of your concern, then do spend the next week in companion with this book. Ultimately, it is about you also. Once you start working actively with how people interact with your de-sign, you can make it better than your competitor's.

Peter Leerskov,


Not for a developer, 01 Dec 2008
As a developer interested in SOA I bought this book hoping to learn about service design and best practices. I found this book very dry and did not feel that I got much from the book. It is the first book I have bought that I have not completed. (I got 3/4 of the way before losing the will to read.)

Awful, 08 Nov 2008
This is certainly one of the worst books I've read. My main complaints are:

1) The book is incredibly slow/tedious and boring, though I should have expected that after reading some of Erl's other books.
2) The style of SOA described is, in my view, not workable for most companies. For example its focussed on upfront design and entity services with lots of reuse. A few google searches will show that this is not the only approach you can take and in my view a business oriented SOA, using agile approaches and wrapping coherent domain models is a totally valid alternative.

In any case I wouldn't recommend anyone read this, instead I'd recommend that people look at Enterprise SOA which is a far more interesting read.

A must-read for SOA practitioners, 28 Jan 2008
Great book!
Thomas Erl documents a set of guidelines for effective design decisions to make SOA real.
This book fills the gap between the pubblications that cover SOA in pure conceptual terms and those that deal with the details of web service implementations.
Each chapter cuts through the hype of SOA by giving clear definitions, guidelines, and metrics that link the conceptual, logical and physical aspects of a Service Oriented Architecture.
This series is going to become for SOA what "Design patterns" of the "Gang of Four" has been for Object Oriented design.
I am looking forward to reading the next pubblication: SOA Patterns.

Comprehensive SOA Manual, 19 Dec 2007
Thomas Erl's books are of extremely high quality, have masses of information packed within the covers but still remain readable and practical. I've undertaken a complex new SOA initiative and have relied heavily on the information within this book, from first principals through to detailed case studies the book has been my guide and I find it now in a "well-thumbed" state on my shelf. Indispensable.

Very practical guide, 27 Sep 2007
I've heard some people describe Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a 'silver bullet' that can solve all IT and business problems. Their less enthusiastic colleagues have described SOA as the IT 'flavour of the month'. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Thomas Erl gives a very practical and understandable explanation of SOA and service design as really the next evolution of good software engineering. There are many SOA buzzwords and concepts that are used rather haphazardly by people in the software industry. Erl explains them all in a precise manner that will really cement your understanding of the underlying design principles whether you have a little or a lot of experience. This is a good book to both read now and use as a reference later.


Nice Introduction - but not complete, 15 Sep 2008
I liked the book for its extensive use of step-by-step tutorials but was disappointed to find nothing about data-mining, which is very much present in of Microsoft's official SSAS basic 3 day course, moc2791.

An excellent 'how to' guide, 22 Jun 2006
This book delivers exactly what the title suggests it does, it is an excellent step by step guide, there is lots of 'how to' exercises throughout each chapter. Within 3 days of reading I had an understanding of the fundemental principals of an OLAP database and how AS 2005 fits that model, and within 5 days was able to start bringing together that knowledge to work with some degree of confidence with AS 2005 and the Business Intelligence Studio. If you're new to AS2005 and OLAP I would consider this as required reading. If you're just new to AS 2005 it proves as a very good guide as to what is where in the tool set.

A good beginners guide, 21 May 2006
This book is a good beginners guide to SSAS 2005. It covers the key elements of the software and how to use them. It has a nice tutorial set to demonstrate the features that the book describes. The only downside is that the book isn't very indepth. Many of the features need greater description and detail. But as a beginners guide it is very good.

Awful, 16 Nov 2008
Really appalling introduction to SOA and for my money if you want to learn about SOA then Enterprise SOA (Dirk Krafzig, Karl Banke, Dirk Slama) is far better.

I also question the whole approach to SOA that Erl takes, the enterprise services approach with lots of upfront design is not a style of SOA that I think can work in many places. I'd therefore recommend that if you do read this book you actively seek out other opinions, including searching for views on "entity services" and how SOA can be used within an agile process.

SOA explained, without the hype, 28 Nov 2006
This is a great book on SOA. It's the first book I found that really explained the concepts in a clear and concise way. It gives an overview of what SOA really is and what not and then goes on to explain how to design an SOA.

This book is especially helpful for those who have been wrestling with Web services (SOAP) as a technique, but haven't seen any of the SOA promises yet. Thomas Erl can probably explain to you, where you've gone wrong.



Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin, 14 May 2008
A few pages past the table of contents, I had solved two issues that had been bugging me since my last install. It was pretty minor stuff, but could I as heck find the answers online. It just shows what research, presentation, and quality control can achieve. So, another score for books over bytes.

The layout is uncluttered, and you can usually get the gist without reading through pages of preamble and exposition. The examples are practical and adaptable (no long and complex routines found on some sites) so they can almost be cut and pasted into your own applications. As your applications develop, there's always something else you can add.

The only downside is that it's a book - a few mods to MySQL and you might have to fork out for the next revision. Still, I should have got my money's worth by then.

Teaches you SQL, 31 Mar 2006
Explains by example so many common queries you'll be able to solve a wide variety of problems instantly. SQL is a deceptively deep language and getting to grips with this small army of queries gives you the basics to build on.

Easy reading and sensible examples. Some omissions (insert) but it's not the complex stuff - that part is really taught well.

Covers all the major deployment and automation issues, 11 Aug 2007
Continuous Integration refers to the practice of automating the build, testing and deployment of your software, so that producing a finished executable (and the related artifacts) can be done at the touch of a button, and is ideally carried out several times a day.

If this seems like a nice to have feature of your own development, but less of a core practice when compared to version control and comprehensive tests (both of which are requirements for doing CI), this book does a pretty good job of advocating CI as being just as important.

First, the book introduces the core practices of CI (regular builds, tests, and deployment), then goes on to demonstrate how it facilitates other, more advanced practices, which gain value when automated, such as enforcing code style, and recording code metrics.

It does not assume any particular platform, although most of the code uses Java and C# (and associated XML configuration). As a result, it will appeal most to those who want general guidance about why CI is a good idea, what to put under CI, how often to integrate, how long to allow the build to take, what to do if builds are too slow, etc. There's clearly no one-size-fits-all answer to this and this not a step-by-step tutorial book, so you'll need to adapt the code samples given in this book for your own ends.

Therefore, if you're completely new to the idea of CI, then maybe you might want to check out Mike Clark's Pragmatic Project Automation first, which covers a lot of the same ground as the first part of this book, but goes into a lot more detail about the mechanics of using Ant and JUnit with Cruise Control.

Apart from being more language agnostic, what takes this book beyond the Pragmatic tome is the second part, which demonstrates the more advanced processes that CI makes possible: including a chapter on how to integrate databases into CI, which touches on some cultural issues (e.g. the DBA being separate from the rest of the coding team) and providing sandboxes for each developer. Additionally, there's material on how to include reporting and analysis, e.g. code duplication, code coverage and static analysis tools such as Java's FindBugs.

It's also a quick and easy read (less than 300 pages), while still having a pretty wide purview. I don't think this is a subject that would benefit from an enormous tome, and you'll still come away with a much clearer idea of your project's automation and scheduling needs, although you might have to do a bit of digging in online documentation of the various tools mentioned in the book to find your exact solution.

The only bad thing I have to say about this book is that there are some very brief developer dialogues sprinkled throughout, used as examples to highlight suboptimal practices. As ever, these are cringe-inducing and artificial.

Out of the core agile practices of unit testing, version control, and project automation, the latter has the least amount of material available to read. Fortunately, this is a readable, persuasive and helpful book for curing the big bang integration blues.

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date., 29 Jan 2008
For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

A bit outdated..., 01 Aug 2007
Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

Orinal text is brilliant, 03 Apr 2007
The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

The "absolute must read" in software engineering, 29 Aug 2006
I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work, 17 Dec 2004
One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.

For serious developers and professionals, 17 Jul 2007
If you are serious about developing websites, webapps and other software that runs inside a browser, then you should buy and read this book. Many of the problems of 1994 and 2000 are still on the Internet.
It's up to you, the serious web professional to change this scenario and for that Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can help you, through this book.
It is a mandatory book in your bookshelf, if you're serious. If you're just an amateur then don't waste your time and money on this book.

Web usability book of the year 2006! No more excuses. Use it!, 07 Jun 2006
Ten years ago, the Web was exciting to people. Today it's routine. It's a tool. If it's convenient, they will use it; if not, they won't. Users are getting less tolerant of difficult sites, so every design flaw means lost business. Thus, usability has more more important than ever.

This is the introduction of the reviewed book and I fully agree that it is time we prioritize Web usability. Of course, we all know about the fact that usability is important, but are we only paying lip service to the issue. When we decide between great design and great us-ability issues there's is often a trade-off. How often do we accept a lower level of usability in order to show off cool design? By the way, it is not that difficult to measure: Can people use the site at all? Test it!

Author Jakob Nielsen has a world-class reputation as Web usability expert since 1995 and this book co-authored by Hoa Loranger proves that he is still going strong.

A "practice of simplicity" has always been characterizing Jakob Nielsen's approach to us-ability. A picture is worth a 1000 words and thus the authors has filled this book with new screen shots that show what design mistakes we should avoid. The authors' visualizing and keeping it simple approach makes this book very easy to digest. If you have your own Web site you probably cannot help browsing your own web site to find design mistakes.

After having read this book with a huge number of best practices, why do you still need to do your own user testing? The reason is because usability guidelines are based on three levels of research:
* general guidelines: user behaviour across most web sites
* specialized guidelines: findings about specific genres or areas of sites (such as e-commerce usability or e-government services)
* specific guidelines: detailed findings about a specific site and its customers

This book only deals with the general guidelines. They may solve 50-80% of your usability problems, but to become best-in-class you need to go all the way to the specific guide-lines.


I like Nielsen's $200 user test. It makes it accessible for anybody. No more excuses. Pick 3-4 people in your target group. Give them some specific tasks for your web site. Then observe. Discover what users actually do, not what they say they do (via questionnaires, etc.). So observe, don't survey. Discuss what you have learned and make the changes. Test again, if need be. It's simple, it is cheap, and it is fast. Use.it!

I have always been very inspired by Nielsen's manifesto for usability. But beware. He may be a little radical in his approach to usability (although seemingly less so as he matures!). For instance, I always found the design of his own Web site awful. It is very usable obvi-ously, but .... To me it just proves the fact that all Web site owners have to find their own right balance between cool design and great usability.

I also recommend Steve Krug's easy-to-read "Don't make me think", and McGovern's books on Web Content. I addition, I strongly recommend the Eisenberg brothers' book on "A call for Action", especially targeted for the e-commerce segment.

A final note: This book is about your customers and what they need, not about you. If that is of your concern, then do spend the next week in companion with this book. Ultimately, it is about you also. Once you start working actively with how people interact with your de-sign, you can make it better than your competitor's.

Peter Leerskov,


Not for a developer, 01 Dec 2008
As a developer interested in SOA I bought this book hoping to learn about service design and best practices. I found this book very dry and did not feel that I got much from the book. It is the first book I have bought that I have not completed. (I got 3/4 of the way before losing the will to read.)

Awful, 08 Nov 2008
This is certainly one of the worst books I've read. My main complaints are:

1) The book is incredibly slow/tedious and boring, though I should have expected that after reading some of Erl's other books.
2) The style of SOA described is, in my view, not workable for most companies. For example its focussed on upfront design and entity services with lots of reuse. A few google searches will show that this is not the only approach you can take and in my view a business oriented SOA, using agile approaches and wrapping coherent domain models is a totally valid alternative.

In any case I wouldn't recommend anyone read this, instead I'd recommend that people look at Enterprise SOA which is a far more interesting read.

A must-read for SOA practitioners, 28 Jan 2008
Great book!
Thomas Erl documents a set of guidelines for effective design decisions to make SOA real.
This book fills the gap between the pubblications that cover SOA in pure conceptual terms and those that deal with the details of web service implementations.
Each chapter cuts through the hype of SOA by giving clear definitions, guidelines, and metrics that link the conceptual, logical and physical aspects of a Service Oriented Architecture.
This series is going to become for SOA what "Design patterns" of the "Gang of Four" has been for Object Oriented design.
I am looking forward to reading the next pubblication: SOA Patterns.

Comprehensive SOA Manual, 19 Dec 2007
Thomas Erl's books are of extremely high quality, have masses of information packed within the covers but still remain readable and practical. I've undertaken a complex new SOA initiative and have relied heavily on the information within this book, from first principals through to detailed case studies the book has been my guide and I find it now in a "well-thumbed" state on my shelf. Indispensable.

Very practical guide, 27 Sep 2007
I've heard some people describe Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a 'silver bullet' that can solve all IT and business problems. Their less enthusiastic colleagues have described SOA as the IT 'flavour of the month'. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Thomas Erl gives a very practical and understandable explanation of SOA and service design as really the next evolution of good software engineering. There are many SOA buzzwords and concepts that are used rather haphazardly by people in the software industry. Erl explains them all in a precise manner that will really cement your understanding of the underlying design principles whether you have a little or a lot of experience. This is a good book to both read now and use as a reference later.


Nice Introduction - but not complete, 15 Sep 2008
I liked the book for its extensive use of step-by-step tutorials but was disappointed to find nothing about data-mining, which is very much present in of Microsoft's official SSAS basic 3 day course, moc2791.

An excellent 'how to' guide, 22 Jun 2006
This book delivers exactly what the title suggests it does, it is an excellent step by step guide, there is lots of 'how to' exercises throughout each chapter. Within 3 days of reading I had an understanding of the fundemental principals of an OLAP database and how AS 2005 fits that model, and within 5 days was able to start bringing together that knowledge to work with some degree of confidence with AS 2005 and the Business Intelligence Studio. If you're new to AS2005 and OLAP I would consider this as required reading. If you're just new to AS 2005 it proves as a very good guide as to what is where in the tool set.

A good beginners guide, 21 May 2006
This book is a good beginners guide to SSAS 2005. It covers the key elements of the software and how to use them. It has a nice tutorial set to demonstrate the features that the book describes. The only downside is that the book isn't very indepth. Many of the features need greater description and detail. But as a beginners guide it is very good.

Awful, 16 Nov 2008
Really appalling introduction to SOA and for my money if you want to learn about SOA then Enterprise SOA (Dirk Krafzig, Karl Banke, Dirk Slama) is far better.

I also question the whole approach to SOA that Erl takes, the enterprise services approach with lots of upfront design is not a style of SOA that I think can work in many places. I'd therefore recommend that if you do read this book you actively seek out other opinions, including searching for views on "entity services" and how SOA can be used within an agile process.

SOA explained, without the hype, 28 Nov 2006
This is a great book on SOA. It's the first book I found that really explained the concepts in a clear and concise way. It gives an overview of what SOA really is and what not and then goes on to explain how to design an SOA.

This book is especially helpful for those who have been wrestling with Web services (SOAP) as a technique, but haven't seen any of the SOA promises yet. Thomas Erl can probably explain to you, where you've gone wrong.



Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin, 14 May 2008
A few pages past the table of contents, I had solved two issues that had been bugging me since my last install. It was pretty minor stuff, but could I as heck find the answers online. It just shows what research, presentation, and quality control can achieve. So, another score for books over bytes.

The layout is uncluttered, and you can usually get the gist without reading through pages of preamble and exposition. The examples are practical and adaptable (no long and complex routines found on some sites) so they can almost be cut and pasted into your own applications. As your applications develop, there's always something else you can add.

The only downside is that it's a book - a few mods to MySQL and you might have to fork out for the next revision. Still, I should have got my money's worth by then.

Teaches you SQL, 31 Mar 2006
Explains by example so many common queries you'll be able to solve a wide variety of problems instantly. SQL is a d