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How Steam Locomotives Really Work
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P. W. B. SemmensA. J. Goldfinch;
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Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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*Amazon: £5.03
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 Customer Reviews
Excellent, 07 Mar 2008
This book explains what the title states. It is a technical description as well as practical explanations & historical notes.
An excellent reference book. Not what you might think, 12 Jun 2006
This is NOT a how-to-drive-a-steam-train, view-from-the-footplate sort of book. Instead it is a very learned work, talking about the co-efficient of friction, and telling you that the boiling-point of water rises as you apply pressure to the water. I have given this item 5 stars for there is no fault in the book : the fault lies in my expectations! A superb book for those who want to understand steam engines, 30 Dec 2004
This book covers every aspect of steam locomotive design and construction in a clear and logical fashion, with ample illustrations and diagrams. The authors are clearly masters of their subject, and their style is lucid and eminently readable. I found it absolutely fascinating and, by its end, I really did understand how steam locomotives work, and why so many aspects of them have evolved in the way they have. Other reviewers have criticised it for being overly technical but I disagree: "O" level / GCSE physics (that's 15 year old schooling for non-UK readers) more than covers it, and in fact I found myself wanting more technical detail. In particular I wished the sections on valve gear, boiler performance and superheating had contained more information. This is very much a book for those who want to know the "how" and the "why", as opposed to simply the "what", of steam locomotive design. It has increased my enjoyment of other books on steam locomotive development immeasurably since I can now understand the descriptions of valve gear, blast pipes, rocking grates, compounding, sand guns, injectors, etc. If you are prepared to make the effort to read it through you really WILL understand - in theory at least - exactly "how steam locomotives really work". It has to be by far the best book on this subject.
How Steam Locomotives Really Work, 20 Jun 2002
I found this book much more detailed than |had expected, for which I was most grateful. I had no idea how haphazardly the engineering designs for these beautiful machines evolved. Whilst the fact that the authors are from the UK, there is a surprising amount of information about non UK locomotives, I was intrigued to learn that in the 1850s, it is alleged that mummies were used for power in Egypt! I found that in a day I had read nearly half the book: however I have one caveat, which is that the authors take a knowledge of basic physics and chemistry for granted. For example words and phrases such as 'exothermy','phase transition','latent heat' and the 'angular structure of water molecules' could rapidly deter a 'steam buff' from reading much more than the first few pages without a scientific background.A box system, as used in most modern textbooks to explain scientific theories would help a lot. Otherwise this is a great read, and I now understand why these beautiful but inefficient machines have been replaced by electric locomtives,in Europe at least.
Read and enjoy..., 08 Mar 2001
This book is perhaps the best book available about "how steam locomotives work". It is not simply keeping its promise for those seeking the answer to that question but is also a pleasure to read for those who actually do know how they work. You don't have to know much physics. All you have to know is explained in a substantial but easy to understand manner. It is not a dry collection of facts; instead - as said before - it is a book you can also read to enjoy. The authors know the matter and are not leaving any issue concerning the steam locomotive. Drawings, diagrams and photos provide facts and examples for better understanding. The basic concern, when not a basic part of the locomotive or commonplace all over the world, are the concepts used in Great Britain. But the principles of such things like feed-water-heating, which were not widely spread in Britain because of the loading-gauge, are at least mentioned if not (like most of the time) described in detail (though some things may be, well, let's say a little bit inaccurate, e.g. the description to the picture of the "Baureihe 42" - a "Kriegslokomotive" of the german railways - can easily be misunderstood in such a way, that these locomotives made up the major part of the vast buildup of german locomotives during World War II; in fact they played just a minor role as there were built "just" several hundred against the thousands built of the "Baureihe 52" (the rate is about 1:10)). Well, sometimes one would wish to get a more detailed description of some constructions, but, to be honest, this is actually not of concern. The book's issue is to explain the basic principles of the steam locomotive. And this is done fabulously.
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, 07 Mar 2008
This book explains what the title states. It is a technical description as well as practical explanations & historical notes.
An excellent reference book. Not what you might think, 12 Jun 2006
This is NOT a how-to-drive-a-steam-train, view-from-the-footplate sort of book. Instead it is a very learned work, talking about the co-efficient of friction, and telling you that the boiling-point of water rises as you apply pressure to the water. I have given this item 5 stars for there is no fault in the book : the fault lies in my expectations! A superb book for those who want to understand steam engines, 30 Dec 2004
This book covers every aspect of steam locomotive design and construction in a clear and logical fashion, with ample illustrations and diagrams. The authors are clearly masters of their subject, and their style is lucid and eminently readable. I found it absolutely fascinating and, by its end, I really did understand how steam locomotives work, and why so many aspects of them have evolved in the way they have. Other reviewers have criticised it for being overly technical but I disagree: "O" level / GCSE physics (that's 15 year old schooling for non-UK readers) more than covers it, and in fact I found myself wanting more technical detail. In particular I wished the sections on valve gear, boiler performance and superheating had contained more information. This is very much a book for those who want to know the "how" and the "why", as opposed to simply the "what", of steam locomotive design. It has increased my enjoyment of other books on steam locomotive development immeasurably since I can now understand the descriptions of valve gear, blast pipes, rocking grates, compounding, sand guns, injectors, etc. If you are prepared to make the effort to read it through you really WILL understand - in theory at least - exactly "how steam locomotives really work". It has to be by far the best book on this subject.
How Steam Locomotives Really Work, 20 Jun 2002
I found this book much more detailed than |had expected, for which I was most grateful. I had no idea how haphazardly the engineering designs for these beautiful machines evolved. Whilst the fact that the authors are from the UK, there is a surprising amount of information about non UK locomotives, I was intrigued to learn that in the 1850s, it is alleged that mummies were used for power in Egypt! I found that in a day I had read nearly half the book: however I have one caveat, which is that the authors take a knowledge of basic physics and chemistry for granted. For example words and phrases such as 'exothermy','phase transition','latent heat' and the 'angular structure of water molecules' could rapidly deter a 'steam buff' from reading much more than the first few pages without a scientific background.A box system, as used in most modern textbooks to explain scientific theories would help a lot. Otherwise this is a great read, and I now understand why these beautiful but inefficient machines have been replaced by electric locomtives,in Europe at least.
Read and enjoy..., 08 Mar 2001
This book is perhaps the best book available about "how steam locomotives work". It is not simply keeping its promise for those seeking the answer to that question but is also a pleasure to read for those who actually do know how they work. You don't have to know much physics. All you have to know is explained in a substantial but easy to understand manner. It is not a dry collection of facts; instead - as said before - it is a book you can also read to enjoy. The authors know the matter and are not leaving any issue concerning the steam locomotive. Drawings, diagrams and photos provide facts and examples for better understanding. The basic concern, when not a basic part of the locomotive or commonplace all over the world, are the concepts used in Great Britain. But the principles of such things like feed-water-heating, which were not widely spread in Britain because of the loading-gauge, are at least mentioned if not (like most of the time) described in detail (though some things may be, well, let's say a little bit inaccurate, e.g. the description to the picture of the "Baureihe 42" - a "Kriegslokomotive" of the german railways - can easily be misunderstood in such a way, that these locomotives made up the major part of the vast buildup of german locomotives during World War II; in fact they played just a minor role as there were built "just" several hundred against the thousands built of the "Baureihe 52" (the rate is about 1:10)). Well, sometimes one would wish to get a more detailed description of some constructions, but, to be honest, this is actually not of concern. The book's issue is to explain the basic principles of the steam locomotive. And this is done fabulously.
More Simple Model Steam Engines, 08 Aug 2004
An excellant book that compliments the first book Simple Model Steam Engines,it has excellant and well laid out plans and drawings of differant steam engines which can easily be constructed on the small lathe.The Models are very nostalgic and once completed make excellant presents or gifts.Buy the book and add some more engines to your collection as ive done.
Excellent book for beginners, 22 Oct 2001
I love the writing style and humour of Tubal Cain. The book is a good introduction for anyone wanting to build steam engines. If you are a raw beginner in Model Engineering some parts can be a little hard to understand, but you don't have to be a pro to get enjoyment from the book. Some of the designs use castings which might not be available any more. However, the parts could be machined instead. A very enjoyable read.
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, 07 Mar 2008
This book explains what the title states. It is a technical description as well as practical explanations & historical notes.
An excellent reference book. Not what you might think, 12 Jun 2006
This is NOT a how-to-drive-a-steam-train, view-from-the-footplate sort of book. Instead it is a very learned work, talking about the co-efficient of friction, and telling you that the boiling-point of water rises as you apply pressure to the water. I have given this item 5 stars for there is no fault in the book : the fault lies in my expectations! A superb book for those who want to understand steam engines, 30 Dec 2004
This book covers every aspect of steam locomotive design and construction in a clear and logical fashion, with ample illustrations and diagrams. The authors are clearly masters of their subject, and their style is lucid and eminently readable. I found it absolutely fascinating and, by its end, I really did understand how steam locomotives work, and why so many aspects of them have evolved in the way they have. Other reviewers have criticised it for being overly technical but I disagree: "O" level / GCSE physics (that's 15 year old schooling for non-UK readers) more than covers it, and in fact I found myself wanting more technical detail. In particular I wished the sections on valve gear, boiler performance and superheating had contained more information. This is very much a book for those who want to know the "how" and the "why", as opposed to simply the "what", of steam locomotive design. It has increased my enjoyment of other books on steam locomotive development immeasurably since I can now understand the descriptions of valve gear, blast pipes, rocking grates, compounding, sand guns, injectors, etc. If you are prepared to make the effort to read it through you really WILL understand - in theory at least - exactly "how steam locomotives really work". It has to be by far the best book on this subject.
How Steam Locomotives Really Work, 20 Jun 2002
I found this book much more detailed than |had expected, for which I was most grateful. I had no idea how haphazardly the engineering designs for these beautiful machines evolved. Whilst the fact that the authors are from the UK, there is a surprising amount of information about non UK locomotives, I was intrigued to learn that in the 1850s, it is alleged that mummies were used for power in Egypt! I found that in a day I had read nearly half the book: however I have one caveat, which is that the authors take a knowledge of basic physics and chemistry for granted. For example words and phrases such as 'exothermy','phase transition','latent heat' and the 'angular structure of water molecules' could rapidly deter a 'steam buff' from reading much more than the first few pages without a scientific background.A box system, as used in most modern textbooks to explain scientific theories would help a lot. Otherwise this is a great read, and I now understand why these beautiful but inefficient machines have been replaced by electric locomtives,in Europe at least.
Read and enjoy..., 08 Mar 2001
This book is perhaps the best book available about "how steam locomotives work". It is not simply keeping its promise for those seeking the answer to that question but is also a pleasure to read for those who actually do know how they work. You don't have to know much physics. All you have to know is explained in a substantial but easy to understand manner. It is not a dry collection of facts; instead - as said before - it is a book you can also read to enjoy. The authors know the matter and are not leaving any issue concerning the steam locomotive. Drawings, diagrams and photos provide facts and examples for better understanding. The basic concern, when not a basic part of the locomotive or commonplace all over the world, are the concepts used in Great Britain. But the principles of such things like feed-water-heating, which were not widely spread in Britain because of the loading-gauge, are at least mentioned if not (like most of the time) described in detail (though some things may be, well, let's say a little bit inaccurate, e.g. the description to the picture of the "Baureihe 42" - a "Kriegslokomotive" of the german railways - can easily be misunderstood in such a way, that these locomotives made up the major part of the vast buildup of german locomotives during World War II; in fact they played just a minor role as there were built "just" several hundred against the thousands built of the "Baureihe 52" (the rate is about 1:10)). Well, sometimes one would wish to get a more detailed description of some constructions, but, to be honest, this is actually not of concern. The book's issue is to explain the basic principles of the steam locomotive. And this is done fabulously.
More Simple Model Steam Engines, 08 Aug 2004
An excellant book that compliments the first book Simple Model Steam Engines,it has excellant and well laid out plans and drawings of differant steam engines which can easily be constructed on the small lathe.The Models are very nostalgic and once completed make excellant presents or gifts.Buy the book and add some more engines to your collection as ive done.
Excellent book for beginners, 22 Oct 2001
I love the writing style and humour of Tubal Cain. The book is a good introduction for anyone wanting to build steam engines. If you are a raw beginner in Model Engineering some parts can be a little hard to understand, but you don't have to be a pro to get enjoyment from the book. Some of the designs use castings which might not be available any more. However, the parts could be machined instead. A very enjoyable read.
Teaches Ruby using Rails, 26 Jan 2008
Approaching this book, I wasn't quite sure where the emphasis lay, and who this was aimed at. To be clear then, I recommend this book to an intermediate Ruby programmer, who is interested in using examples from Rails to help cement their learning. It would also probably help to have the vaguest idea of what Rails is, and the sorts of web apps it's useful for. If you're an existing Rails developer, this is a great way to get a better understanding of what's going on, but it's not a tutorial on Rails for a complete newbie, nor does it provide advanced Rails practices.
Unlike many programming books, which focus on procedural programming before building up to classes, RfR is admirably object oriented in focus from the word go. It's quite impressive that conditionals aren't introduced until about 200 pages in. Also notable is the chapter on metaprogramming, which is very good. If you felt a bit short-changed by the coverage of this subject in The Pickaxe, this is much better.
Material on Rails top and tail the book: the first part introduces Rails by building a simple web app, and the final chapters rejig it with enhanced models, views and controllers, based on the Ruby material in the middle.
In short, this is more of a Ruby book than a Rails book, and I was very happy with that. This is well worth getting even if you have no interest in web apps.
A useful tutorial, but not wholly great., 01 Feb 2007
I'm an experienced Perl and Python programmer and this is the first book on Ruby + Rails that I've picked up. I have to say that I found part 1 of the book (the first 90 of 475 pages) excellent, demonstrating clearly the amount of coding that is avoided by using the Rails framework.
But from then on until part 4 (near to the end) it felt like wading through increasingly thickening treacle with the book making very slow yet unthorough progress through the more common general purpose programming features with frequently repeated bad examples and a awful lot of superfluous "chit-chat"; I can only assume that the author had a hard time fleshing out the main contents to meet the required page count! Here's one of many possible examples from the text that illustrates the point:
"From now on, when you see this notation (in this book or elsewhere), you'll know what it means. (The second example (class method reference using a dot) looks the same as a call to the method, but you'll know from the context whether it's a method call or a reference to a method in a discussion.) // Objects come from classes. If classes are objects, that implies that they, too, come from a class. A class can be created with a call to the class method new of its class. // And what is the class of a class? It's a class called Class. Yes, there's a bit of "Who's on first?" here, but the concept is by no means impenetrable..."
Thankfully, the Rails focused contents toward the end of the book goes a long way towards redeeming the dire middle, and make for quite stimulating reading.
As a Ruby tutorial it is poor. As a Ruby or Rails reference it is also quite poor. But as a Rails tutorial it shines.
A must buy, 26 Oct 2006
The book Ruby for Rails closes the gap between Ruby as a language and Rails as a framework. Each chapter deepens your Ruby knowledge and shows you how it connects to Rails. Every Ruby concept is clearly explained. It is a must .
Good introduction, 21 Oct 2006
This is probably the best starting point for anyone considering using Ruby on Rails. David Black introduces both the language and the framework, starting from the beginning. At times his approach can seem pedantic (for example the section "introducing object-oriented programming' on page 97). However, it's probably a good idea for even experienced programmers to read it all, as Ruby differs in some subtle but fundamental respects from other more familiar languages (a class IS an object; objects don't "have methods" they "respond to messages", operators are just "syntactic sugar" for messages, etc.).
Both Ruby (the language) and Rails (the framework) are substantial things, and this book does not cover either in detail. There's no mention of testing, for example, nor of real world deployment, nor Rake nor RDoc. You'll need to spend a lot of time with the online documentation [...] and or get the big books (0974514055 and 097669400X).
There are too many misprints. Not a lot, but each one is annoying. The actual Ruby text is error-free, as it was pasted from a live irb (interactive ruby) session, but occasionally the explanatory text does not match the code. The index is OK but not brilliant, and I kept finding things missing ("flatten", for example, or "//" or "|"). The other annoyance is the author's tendency to keep telling us that, to use Rails, you really OUGHT to learn Ruby. That would be fine in the preface, but he's still preaching the message in later chapters. We don't need to be told; that's why we bought the book! But these are all relatively minor flaws, and I can certainly recommend the book. It offers a solid grounding on which to build your expertise.
Have Your Cake .... And Eat It!, 31 Aug 2006
This book is excellent. It helps to teach not only rails but the ruby language that underpins it. Rather than treating them as two separate topics, the book focuses on showing how ruby and rails work together (rails is written in ruby after all...) This helps you to learn the ruby language with a focus on rails development.
It is written in a tutorial format and David Black has a very authorative writing style that is a little dry (i.e. doesn't have any of those silly 'jokes' that many tech authors use).
It starts with the basics of installing ruby and rails and walks you through a small rails application before going into the nuts and bolts of the ruby language. Most of the ruby parts are centered around rails with lots of references to how rails works in the background. This helps to give you a good grounding in Ruby but also helps you to understand rails in depth.
Be aware that it is not a reference book and you would probably be better with Agile Web Development With Rails by the two Davids for Rails reference and The Ruby Pickaxe book by the one David for Ruby reference. Learn to Program by Chris Pine is also worth reading if you have little programming experience and would like to learn Ruby from the start.
I would highly recommend this book to anybody who is starting to develop in rails.
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, 07 Mar 2008
This book explains what the title states. It is a technical description as well as practical explanations & historical notes.
An excellent reference book. Not what you might think, 12 Jun 2006
This is NOT a how-to-drive-a-steam-train, view-from-the-footplate sort of book. Instead it is a very learned work, talking about the co-efficient of friction, and telling you that the boiling-point of water rises as you apply pressure to the water. I have given this item 5 stars for there is no fault in the book : the fault lies in my expectations! A superb book for those who want to understand steam engines, 30 Dec 2004
This book covers every aspect of steam locomotive design and construction in a clear and logical fashion, with ample illustrations and diagrams. The authors are clearly masters of their subject, and their style is lucid and eminently readable. I found it absolutely fascinating and, by its end, I really did understand how steam locomotives work, and why so many aspects of them have evolved in the way they have. Other reviewers have criticised it for being overly technical but I disagree: "O" level / GCSE physics (that's 15 year old schooling for non-UK readers) more than covers it, and in fact I found myself wanting more technical detail. In particular I wished the sections on valve gear, boiler performance and superheating had contained more information. This is very much a book for those who want to know the "how" and the "why", as opposed to simply the "what", of steam locomotive design. It has increased my enjoyment of other books on steam locomotive development immeasurably since I can now understand the descriptions of valve gear, blast pipes, rocking grates, compounding, sand guns, injectors, etc. If you are prepared to make the effort to read it through you really WILL understand - in theory at least - exactly "how steam locomotives really work". It has to be by far the best book on this subject.
How Steam Locomotives Really Work, 20 Jun 2002
I found this book much more detailed than |had expected, for which I was most grateful. I had no idea how haphazardly the engineering designs for these beautiful machines evolved. Whilst the fact that the authors are from the UK, there is a surprising amount of information about non UK locomotives, I was intrigued to learn that in the 1850s, it is alleged that mummies were used for power in Egypt! I found that in a day I had read nearly half the book: however I have one caveat, which is that the authors take a knowledge of basic physics and chemistry for granted. For example words and phrases such as 'exothermy','phase transition','latent heat' and the 'angular structure of water molecules' could rapidly deter a 'steam buff' from reading much more than the first few pages without a scientific background.A box system, as used in most modern textbooks to explain scientific theories would help a lot. Otherwise this is a great read, and I now understand why these beautiful but inefficient machines have been replaced by electric locomtives,in Europe at least.
Read and enjoy..., 08 Mar 2001
This book is perhaps the best book available about "how steam locomotives work". It is not simply keeping its promise for those seeking the answer to that question but is also a pleasure to read for those who actually do know how they work. You don't have to know much physics. All you have to know is explained in a substantial but easy to understand manner. It is not a dry collection of facts; instead - as said before - it is a book you can also read to enjoy. The authors know the matter and are not leaving any issue concerning the steam locomotive. Drawings, diagrams and photos provide facts and examples for better understanding. The basic concern, when not a basic part of the locomotive or commonplace all over the world, are the concepts used in Great Britain. But the principles of such things like feed-water-heating, which were not widely spread in Britain because of the loading-gauge, are at least mentioned if not (like most of the time) described in detail (though some things may be, well, let's say a little bit inaccurate, e.g. the description to the picture of the "Baureihe 42" - a "Kriegslokomotive" of the german railways - can easily be misunderstood in such a way, that these locomotives made up the major part of the vast buildup of german locomotives during World War II; in fact they played just a minor role as there were built "just" several hundred against the thousands built of the "Baureihe 52" (the rate is about 1:10)). Well, sometimes one would wish to get a more detailed description of some constructions, but, to be honest, this is actually not of concern. The book's issue is to explain the basic principles of the steam locomotive. And this is done fabulously.
More Simple Model Steam Engines, 08 Aug 2004
An excellant book that compliments the first book Simple Model Steam Engines,it has excellant and well laid out plans and drawings of differant steam engines which can easily be constructed on the small lathe.The Models are very nostalgic and once completed make excellant presents or gifts.Buy the book and add some more engines to your collection as ive done.
Excellent book for beginners, 22 Oct 2001
I love the writing style and humour of Tubal Cain. The book is a good introduction for anyone wanting to build steam engines. If you are a raw beginner in Model Engineering some parts can be a little hard to understand, but you don't have to be a pro to get enjoyment from the book. Some of the designs use castings which might not be available any more. However, the parts could be machined instead. A very enjoyable read.
Teaches Ruby using Rails, 26 Jan 2008
Approaching this book, I wasn't quite sure where the emphasis lay, and who this was aimed at. To be clear then, I recommend this book to an intermediate Ruby programmer, who is interested in using examples from Rails to help cement their learning. It would also probably help to have the vaguest idea of what Rails is, and the sorts of web apps it's useful for. If you're an existing Rails developer, this is a great way to get a better understanding of what's going on, but it's not a tutorial on Rails for a complete newbie, nor does it provide advanced Rails practices.
Unlike many programming books, which focus on procedural programming before building up to classes, RfR is admirably object oriented in focus from the word go. It's quite impressive that conditionals aren't introduced until about 200 pages in. Also notable is the chapter on metaprogramming, which is very good. If you felt a bit short-changed by the coverage of this subject in The Pickaxe, this is much better.
Material on Rails top and tail the book: the first part introduces Rails by building a simple web app, and the final chapters rejig it with enhanced models, views and controllers, based on the Ruby material in the middle.
In short, this is more of a Ruby book than a Rails book, and I was very happy with that. This is well worth getting even if you have no interest in web apps.
A useful tutorial, but not wholly great., 01 Feb 2007
I'm an experienced Perl and Python programmer and this is the first book on Ruby + Rails that I've picked up. I have to say that I found part 1 of the book (the first 90 of 475 pages) excellent, demonstrating clearly the amount of coding that is avoided by using the Rails framework.
But from then on until part 4 (near to the end) it felt like wading through increasingly thickening treacle with the book making very slow yet unthorough progress through the more common general purpose programming features with frequently repeated bad examples and a awful lot of superfluous "chit-chat"; I can only assume that the author had a hard time fleshing out the main contents to meet the required page count! Here's one of many possible examples from the text that illustrates the point:
"From now on, when you see this notation (in this book or elsewhere), you'll know what it means. (The second example (class method reference using a dot) looks the same as a call to the method, but you'll know from the context whether it's a method call or a reference to a method in a discussion.) // Objects come from classes. If classes are objects, that implies that they, too, come from a class. A class can be created with a call to the class method new of its class. // And what is the class of a class? It's a class called Class. Yes, there's a bit of "Who's on first?" here, but the concept is by no means impenetrable..."
Thankfully, the Rails focused contents toward the end of the book goes a long way towards redeeming the dire middle, and make for quite stimulating reading.
As a Ruby tutorial it is poor. As a Ruby or Rails reference it is also quite poor. But as a Rails tutorial it shines.
A must buy, 26 Oct 2006
The book Ruby for Rails closes the gap between Ruby as a language and Rails as a framework. Each chapter deepens your Ruby knowledge and shows you how it connects to Rails. Every Ruby concept is clearly explained. It is a must .
Good introduction, 21 Oct 2006
This is probably the best starting point for anyone considering using Ruby on Rails. David Black introduces both the language and the framework, starting from the beginning. At times his approach can seem pedantic (for example the section "introducing object-oriented programming' on page 97). However, it's probably a good idea for even experienced programmers to read it all, as Ruby differs in some subtle but fundamental respects from other more familiar languages (a class IS an object; objects don't "have methods" they "respond to messages", operators are just "syntactic sugar" for messages, etc.).
Both Ruby (the language) and Rails (the framework) are substantial things, and this book does not cover either in detail. There's no mention of testing, for example, nor of real world deployment, nor Rake nor RDoc. You'll need to spend a lot of time with the online documentation [...] and or get the big books (0974514055 and 097669400X).
There are too many misprints. Not a lot, but each one is annoying. The actual Ruby text is error-free, as it was pasted from a live irb (interactive ruby) session, but occasionally the explanatory text does not match the code. The index is OK but not brilliant, and I kept finding things missing ("flatten", for example, or "//" or "|"). The other annoyance is the author's tendency to keep telling us that, to use Rails, you really OUGHT to learn Ruby. That would be fine in the preface, but he's still preaching the message in later chapters. We don't need to be told; that's why we bought the book! But these are all relatively minor flaws, and I can certainly recommend the book. It offers a solid grounding on which to build your expertise.
Have Your Cake .... And Eat It!, 31 Aug 2006
This book is excellent. It helps to teach not only rails but the ruby language that underpins it. Rather than treating them as two separate topics, the book focuses on showing how ruby and rails work together (rails is written in ruby after all...) This helps you to learn the ruby language with a focus on rails development.
It is written in a tutorial format and David Black has a very authorative writing style that is a little dry (i.e. doesn't have any of those silly 'jokes' that many tech authors use).
It starts with the basics of installing ruby and rails and walks you through a small rails application before going into the nuts and bolts of the ruby language. Most of the ruby parts are centered around rails with lots of references to how rails works in the background. This helps to give you a good grounding in Ruby but also helps you to understand rails in depth.
Be aware that it is not a reference book and you would probably be better with Agile Web Development With Rails by the two Davids for Rails reference and The Ruby Pickaxe book by the one David for Ruby reference. Learn to Program by Chris Pine is also worth reading if you have little programming experience and would like to learn Ruby from the start.
I would highly recommend this book to anybody who is starting to develop in rails.
Excitement and intruige!, 15 Jan 2008
I wholeheartedly disagree with the other review i'm afraid, this is a wonderful book, which while unearthing new theories and evidence to support its claims, verges on reading like a novel. Albeit with a pleasant tone in dry wit. McKean makes a fascinating read and this book makes a fabulous addition to any collection especially if one has the previous book, 'The Scottish Chateau' which was equally as fascinating and provocative of debate. While not discounting the points made by the good Dr above (or below depending on where this appears), perhaps he should approach the author directly to help calm his concerns as the book does answer these points, but having had the pleasure of meeting the author in the past, i can say i am sure he would be more then happy to deal with each of these accusations against his theory/discovery in an equally informative, enjoyable and affable way as he does in his literature.
Roll on the next one!
house of cards, 20 Aug 2007
The Tay bridge disaster of 1879 was a turning point in the development of the railways in late Victorian Britain. It changed the public perception of engineers and engineering projects, and much had to be done to reassure the travelling public that they could travel safely by train. The accident was the worst ever to afflict the UK railway system, and still remains the worst structural disaster in Britain. It is thus an important subject for historical analysis, and one which has been tackled by many authors over the years. The modern phase of analysis starts with Prebble's book of 1955 (The High Girders), followed by John Thomas (New Light on the Tragedy, 1972), David Swinfen (Fall of the Tay Bridge, 1994) and Lewis (Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, 2004). In tackling the topc, McKean adopts a different approach to earlier authors by examining the history of the competition between the Caledonian and North British Railways, and does a fair job of summarising the main conflicts between the two companies. It was a cut-throat business in capturing Scottish railway travellers, and costs were too frequently pared to the bone in new projects. The Tay bridge represents the culmination of that competition, a project to cross the 2 mile estuary of the Tay in one bound. While much of this new book is well researched, the chapter on the Tay bridge disaster lacks such an approach because the evidence from the accident itself has not been considered thoroughly. Indeed the blurb on the back cover proudly announces a "new" theory, that the train derailed and so brought the bridge down. It is not new at all, and was in fact put forward by Bouch (the bridge engineer) himself at the subsequent inquiry. It was rejected by the inquiry, and has few proponents in the modern analysis of the structural failure. Witness statements not seen by the inquiry were unearthed by Thomas in 1972, who discussed the evidence of a faulty twisted rail in the high girder section at some length in his book. Mckean also indicts the chair of the inquiry, Henry Rothery, for not conducting it fairly. The evidence for this assertion is weak, Bouch being given ample opportunities to defend himself. The inquiry showed that the design and construction were indeed faulty, Bouch himself admitting many of the design faults (such as the notorious coned lugs). Careful examination of the surviving evidence shows that the high girder section was swaying from side-to-side during the months before the accident, and that the structure had deteriorated to a very dangerous condition well before the final collapse. It is unfortunate that McKean fails to consider all the recent evidence of the accident, marring an otherwise good account of the disaster. Instead, we are given a fanciful theory about the train striking the side of the bridge, and so bringing half-a-mile of bridge down. If derailment did occur, the bridge must have been in a parlous state to have collapsed like a house of cards.
troubledwaters, 13 Aug 2006
The Tay bridge disaster of 1879 was a turning point in the development of the railways in late Victorian Britain. It changed the public perception of engineers and engineering projects, and much had to be done to reassure the travelling public that they could travel safely by train. The accident was the worst ever to afflict the UK railway system, and still remains the worst structural disaster in Britain. It is thus an important subject for historical analysis, and one which has been tackled by many authors over the years. The modern phase of analysis starts with Prebble's book of 1955 (The High Girders), followed by John Thomas (New Light on the Tragedy, 1972), David Swinfen (Fall of the Tay Bridge, 1994) and Lewis (Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, 2004). In tackling the topc, McKean adopts a dfferent approach to earlier authors by examining the history of the competition between the Caledonian and North British Railways, and does a fair job of summarising the main conflicts between the two companies. It was a cut-throat business in capturing Scottish railway travellers, and costs were too frequently pared to the bone in new projects. The Tay brdge represents the culmination of that competition, a project to cross the 2 mile estuary of the Tay in one bound. While much of this new book is well researched, the chapter on the Tay bridge disaster lacks such an approach because the evidence from the accident itself has not been considered thoroughly. Indeed the blurb on the back cover proudly announces a "new" theory, that the train derailed and so brought the bridge down. It is not new at all, and was in fact put forward by Bouch (the bridge engineer) himself at the subsequent inquiry. It was rejected by the inquiry, and has few proponents in the modern analysis of the structural failure. Witness statements not seen by the inquiry were unearthed by Thomas in 1972, who discussed the evidence of a faulty twisted rail in the high girder secton at some length in his book. Mckean also indicts the chair of the inquiry, Henry Rothery, for not conductng it fairly. The evidence for this assertion is weak, Bouch being gven ample opportunities to defend himself. The inquiry showed that the design and construction were indeed faulty, Bouch himself admitting many of the design faults (such as the notorious coned lugs). Careful examnation of the survivng evidence shows that the high girder section was swaying from side-to-side during the months before the accident, and that the structure had deteriorated to a very dangerous condition well before the final collapse. It is unfortunate that McKean fails to consider all the recent evdence of the accident, marring an otherwise good account of the disaster.
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, 07 Mar 2008
This book explains what the title states. It is a technical description as well as practical explanations & historical notes.
An excellent reference book. Not what you might think, 12 Jun 2006
This is NOT a how-to-drive-a-steam-train, view-from-the-footplate sort of book. Instead it is a very learned work, talking about the co-efficient of friction, and telling you that the boiling-point of water rises as you apply pressure to the water. I have given this item 5 stars for there is no fault in the book : the fault lies in my expectations! A superb book for those who want to understand steam engines, 30 Dec 2004
This book covers every aspect of steam locomotive design and construction in a clear and logical fashion, with ample illustrations and diagrams. The authors are clearly masters of their subject, and their style is lucid and eminently readable. I found it absolutely fascinating and, by its end, I really did understand how steam locomotives work, and why so many aspects of them have evolved in the way they have. Other reviewers have criticised it for being overly technical but I disagree: "O" level / GCSE physics (that's 15 year old schooling for non-UK readers) more than covers it, and in fact I found myself wanting more technical detail. In particular I wished the sections on valve gear, boiler performance and superheating had contained more information. This is very much a book for those who want to know the "how" and the "why", as opposed to simply the "what", of steam locomotive design. It has increased my enjoyment of other books on steam locomotive development immeasurably since I can now understand the descriptions of valve gear, blast pipes, rocking grates, compounding, sand guns, injectors, etc. If you are prepared to make the effort to read it through you really WILL understand - in theory at least - exactly "how steam locomotives really work". It has to be by far the best book on this subject.
How Steam Locomotives Really Work, 20 Jun 2002
I found this book much more detailed than |had expected, for which I was most grateful. I had no idea how haphazardly the engineering designs for these beautiful machines evolved. Whilst the fact that the authors are from the UK, there is a surprising amount of information about non UK locomotives, I was intrigued to learn that in the 1850s, it is alleged that mummies were used for power in Egypt! I found that in a day I had read nearly half the book: however I have one caveat, which is that the authors take a knowledge of basic physics and chemistry for granted. For example words and phrases such as 'exothermy','phase transition','latent heat' and the 'angular structure of water molecules' could rapidly deter a 'steam buff' from reading much more than the first few pages without a scientific background.A box system, as used in most modern textbooks to explain scientific theories would help a lot. Otherwise this is a great read, and I now understand why these beautiful but inefficient machines have been replaced by electric locomtives,in Europe at least.
Read and enjoy..., 08 Mar 2001
This book is perhaps the best book available about "how steam locomotives work". It is not simply keeping its promise for those seeking the answer to that question but is also a pleasure to read for those who actually do know how they work. You don't have to know much physics. All you have to know is explained in a substantial but easy to understand manner. It is not a dry collection of facts; instead - as said before - it is a book you can also read to enjoy. The authors know the matter and are not leaving any issue concerning the steam locomotive. Drawings, diagrams and photos provide facts and examples for better understanding. The basic concern, when not a basic part of the locomotive or commonplace all over the world, are the concepts used in Great Britain. But the principles of such things like feed-water-heating, which were not widely spread in Britain because of the loading-gauge, are at least mentioned if not (like most of the time) described in detail (though some things may be, well, let's say a little bit inaccurate, e.g. the description to the picture of the "Baureihe 42" - a "Kriegslokomotive" of the german railways - can easily be misunderstood in such a way, that these locomotives made up the major part of the vast buildup of german locomotives during World War II; in fact they played just a minor role as there were built "just" several hundred against the thousands built of the "Baureihe 52" (the rate is about 1:10)). Well, sometimes one would wish to get a more detailed description of some constructions, but, to be honest, this is actually not of concern. The book's issue is to explain the basic principles of the steam locomotive. And this is done fabulously.
More Simple Model Steam Engines, 08 Aug 2004
An excellant book that compliments the first book Simple Model Steam Engines,it has excellant and well laid out plans and drawings of differant steam engines which can easily be constructed on the small lathe.The Models are very nostalgic and once completed make excellant presents or gifts.Buy the book and add some more engines to your collection as ive done.
Excellent book for beginners, 22 Oct 2001
I love the writing style and humour of Tubal Cain. The book is a good introduction for anyone wanting to build steam engines. If you are a raw beginner in Model Engineering some parts can be a little hard to understand, but you don't have to be a pro to get enjoyment from the book. Some of the designs use castings which might not be available any more. However, the parts could be machined instead. A very enjoyable read.
Teaches Ruby using Rails, 26 Jan 2008
Approaching this book, I wasn't quite sure where the emphasis lay, and who this was aimed at. To be clear then, I recommend this book to an intermediate Ruby programmer, who is interested in using examples from Rails to help cement their learning. It would also probably help to have the vaguest idea of what Rails is, and the sorts of web apps it's useful for. If you're an existing Rails developer, this is a great way to get a better understanding of what's going on, but it's not a tutorial on Rails for a complete newbie, nor does it provide advanced Rails practices.
Unlike many programming books, which focus on procedural programming before building up to classes, RfR is admirably object oriented in focus from the word go. It's quite impressive that conditionals aren't introduced until about 200 pages in. Also notable is the chapter on metaprogramming, which is very good. If you felt a bit short-changed by the coverage of this subject in The Pickaxe, this is much better.
Material on Rails top and tail the book: the first part introduces Rails by building a simple web app, and the final chapters rejig it with enhanced models, views and controllers, based on the Ruby material in the middle.
In short, this is more of a Ruby book than a Rails book, and I was very happy with that. This is well worth getting even if you have no interest in web apps.
A useful tutorial, but not wholly great., 01 Feb 2007
I'm an experienced Perl and Python programmer and this is the first book on Ruby + Rails that I've picked up. I have to say that I found part 1 of the book (the first 90 of 475 pages) excellent, demonstrating clearly the amount of coding that is avoided by using the Rails framework.
But from then on until part 4 (near to the end) it felt like wading through increasingly thickening treacle with the book making very slow yet unthorough progress through the more common general purpose programming features with frequently repeated bad examples and a awful lot of superfluous "chit-chat"; I can only assume that the author had a hard time fleshing out the main contents to meet the required page count! Here's one of many possible examples from the text that illustrates the point:
"From now on, when you see this notation (in this book or elsewhere), you'll know what it means. (The second example (class method reference using a dot) looks the same as a call to the method, but you'll know from the context whether it's a method call or a reference to a method in a discussion.) // Objects come from classes. If classes are objects, that implies that they, too, come from a class. A class can be created with a call to the class method new of its class. // And what is the class of a class? It's a class called Class. Yes, there's a bit of "Who's on first?" here, but the concept is by no means impenetrable..."
Thankfully, the Rails focused contents toward the end of the book goes a long way towards redeeming the dire middle, and make for quite stimulating reading.
As a Ruby tutorial it is poor. As a Ruby or Rails reference it is also quite poor. But as a Rails tutorial it shines.
A must buy, 26 Oct 2006
The book Ruby for Rails closes the gap between Ruby as a language and Rails as a framework. Each chapter deepens your Ruby knowledge and shows you how it connects to Rails. Every Ruby concept is clearly explained. It is a must .
Good introduction, 21 Oct 2006
This is probably the best starting point for anyone considering using Ruby on Rails. David Black introduces both the language and the framework, starting from the beginning. At times his approach can seem pedantic (for example the section "introducing object-oriented programming' on page 97). However, it's probably a good idea for even experienced programmers to read it all, as Ruby differs in some subtle but fundamental respects from other more familiar languages (a class IS an object; objects don't "have methods" they "respond to messages", operators are just "syntactic sugar" for messages, etc.).
Both Ruby (the language) and Rails (the framework) are substantial things, and this book does not cover either in detail. There's no mention of testing, for example, nor of real world deployment, nor Rake nor RDoc. You'll need to spend a lot of time with the online documentation [...] and or get the big books (0974514055 and 097669400X).
There are too many misprints. Not a lot, but each one is annoying. The actual Ruby text is error-free, as it was pasted from a live irb (interactive ruby) session, but occasionally the explanatory text does not match the code. The index is OK but not brilliant, and I kept finding things missing ("flatten", for example, or "//" or "|"). The other annoyance is the author's tendency to keep telling us that, to use Rails, you really OUGHT to learn Ruby. That would be fine in the preface, but he's still preaching the message in later chapters. We don't need to be told; that's why we bought the book! But these are all relatively minor flaws, and I can certainly recommend the book. It offers a solid grounding on which to build your expertise.
Have Your Cake .... And Eat It!, 31 Aug 2006
This book is excellent. It helps to teach not only rails but the ruby language that underpins it. Rather than treating them as two separate topics, the book focuses on showing how ruby and rails work together (rails is written in ruby after all...) This helps you to learn the ruby language with a focus on rails development.
It is written in a tutorial format and David Black has a very authorative writing style that is a little dry (i.e. doesn't have any of those silly 'jokes' that many tech authors use).
It starts with the basics of installing ruby and rails and walks you through a small rails application before going into the nuts and bolts of the ruby language. Most of the ruby parts are centered around rails with lots of references to how rails works in the background. This helps to give you a good grounding in Ruby but also helps you to understand rails in depth.
Be aware that it is not a reference book and you would probably be better with Agile Web Development With Rails by the two Davids for Rails reference and The Ruby Pickaxe book by the one David for Ruby reference. Learn to Program by Chris Pine is also worth reading if you have little programming experience and would like to learn Ruby from the start.
I would highly recommend this book to anybody who is starting to develop in rails.
Excitement and intruige!, 15 Jan 2008
I wholeheartedly disagree with the other review i'm afraid, this is a wonderful book, which while unearthing new theories and evidence to support its claims, verges on reading like a novel. Albeit with a pleasant tone in dry wit. McKean makes a fascinating read and this book makes a fabulous addition to any collection especially if one has the previous book, 'The Scottish Chateau' which was equally as fascinating and provocative of debate. While not discounting the points made by the good Dr above (or below depending on where this appears), perhaps he should approach the author directly to help calm his concerns as the book does answer these points, but having had the pleasure of meeting the author in the past, i can say i am sure he would be more then happy to deal with each of these accusations against his theory/discovery in an equally informative, enjoyable and affable way as he does in his literature.
Roll on the next one!
house of cards, 20 Aug 2007
The Tay bridge disaster of 1879 was a turning point in the development of the railways in late Victorian Britain. It changed the public perception of engineers and engineering projects, and much had to be done to reassure the travelling public that they could travel safely by train. The accident was the worst ever to afflict the UK railway system, and still remains the worst structural disaster in Britain. It is thus an important subject for historical analysis, and one which has been tackled by many authors over the years. The modern phase of analysis starts with Prebble's book of 1955 (The High Girders), followed by John Thomas (New Light on the Tragedy, 1972), David Swinfen (Fall of the Tay Bridge, 1994) and Lewis (Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, 2004). In tackling the topc, McKean adopts a different approach to earlier authors by examining the history of the competition between the Caledonian and North British Railways, and does a fair job of summarising the main conflicts between the two companies. It was a cut-throat business in capturing Scottish railway travellers, and costs were too frequently pared to the bone in new projects. The Tay bridge represents the culmination of that competition, a project to cross the 2 mile estuary of the Tay in one bound. While much of this new book is well researched, the chapter on the Tay bridge disaster lacks such an approach because the evidence from the accident itself has not been considered thoroughly. Indeed the blurb on the back cover proudly announces a "new" theory, that the train derailed and so brought the bridge down. It is not new at all, and was in fact put forward by Bouch (the bridge engineer) himself at the subsequent inquiry. It was rejected by the inquiry, and has few proponents in the modern analysis of the structural failure. Witness statements not seen by the inquiry were unearthed by Thomas in 1972, who discussed the evidence of a faulty twisted rail in the high girder section at some length in his book. Mckean also indicts the chair of the inquiry, Henry Rothery, for not conducting it fairly. The evidence for this assertion is weak, Bouch being given ample opportunities to defend himself. The inquiry showed that the design and construction were indeed faulty, Bouch himself admitting many of the design faults (such as the notorious coned lugs). Careful examination of the surviving evidence shows that the high girder section was swaying from side-to-side during the months before the accident, and that the structure had deteriorated to a very dangerous condition well before the final collapse. It is unfortunate that McKean fails to consider all the recent evidence of the accident, marring an otherwise good account of the disaster. Instead, we are given a fanciful theory about the train striking the side of the bridge, and so bringing half-a-mile of bridge down. If derailment did occur, the bridge must have been in a parlous state to have collapsed like a house of cards.
troubledwaters, 13 Aug 2006
The Tay bridge disaster of 1879 was a turning point in the development of the railways in late Victorian Britain. It changed the public perception of engineers and engineering projects, and much had to be done to reassure the travelling public that they could travel safely by train. The accident was the worst ever to afflict the UK railway system, and still remains the worst structural disaster in Britain. It is thus an important subject for historical analysis, and one which has been tackled by many authors over the years. The modern phase of analysis starts with Prebble's book of 1955 (The High Girders), followed by John Thomas (New Light on the Tragedy, 1972), David Swinfen (Fall of the Tay Bridge, 1994) and Lewis (Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, 2004). In tackling the topc, McKean adopts a dfferent approach to earlier authors by examining the history of the competition between the Caledonian and North British Railways, and does a fair job of summarising the main conflicts between the two companies. It was a cut-throat business in capturing Scottish railway travellers, and costs were too frequently pared to the bone in new projects. The Tay brdge represents the culmination of that competition, a project to cross the 2 mile estuary of the Tay in one bound. While much of this new book is well researched, the chapter on the Tay bridge disaster lacks such an approach because the evidence from the accident itself has not been considered thoroughly. Indeed the blurb on the back cover proudly announces a "new" theory, that the train derailed and so brought the bridge down. It is not new at all, and was in fact put forward by Bouch (the bridge engineer) himself at the subsequent inquiry. It was rejected by the inquiry, and has few proponents in the modern analysis of the structural failure. Witness statements not seen by the inquiry were unearthed by Thomas in 1972, who discussed the evidence of a faulty twisted rail in the high girder secton at some length in his book. Mckean also indicts the chair of the inquiry, Henry Rothery, for not conductng it fairly. The evidence for this assertion is weak, Bouch being gven ample opportunities to defend himself. The inquiry showed that the design and construction were indeed faulty, Bouch himself admitting many of the design faults (such as the notorious coned lugs). Careful examnation of the survivng evidence shows that the high girder section was swaying from side-to-side during the months before the accident, and that the structure had deteriorated to a very dangerous condition well before the final collapse. It is unfortunate that McKean fails to consider all the recent evdence of the accident, marring an otherwise good account of the disaster.
Excellent piece of storytelling and description, 06 Dec 2006
I bought this book for my granddad who used to work on steam engines and ended up reading it myself. I had no idea what he used to have to put up with but this book has answered all my questions. It is also very readable and even a technical illiterate like me was able to follow what was going on. I recommend this as a good read and a wonderful story about recent times. I have bought more for other members of the family.
Excellent resource for school projects, 06 Dec 2006
I am a lecturer in Social and Industrial History and this book was recommended to me by one of my students. I have now included it in our reading list. It is one of the finest, and most readable contemporary accounts of industrial working life I have ever read. The author has a very readable style and my students commented on his powers of expression and how he explained even complex matters clearly. A great resource for school and college projects on 'steam trains' and an outstanding piece of historical narrative
Excellent book for the curious, serious enthusiasts and schoolchildren with projects., 28 Nov 2006
If you want to know what it was really like to be on the footplate of an British express train in the days of steam, you won't find a better description than you have here anywhere else - this is marvellous! As a young freelance technical writer the author had obtained Footplate Passes in 1961 to ride on the footplates of a steam train, a diesel-hauled one, and a DMU, and the diesel article appeared at the time. The notes of his steam journey were lost for some 45 years before reappearing, and form the basis of this book. The journey was on the footplate of Castle Class No. 4037 "The South Wales Borderers" during the glorious June of 1961, as this locomotive hauled a summer SW to NW express from Bristol to Shrewsbury, via the Severn Tunnel and Hereford, heavily loaded to 14 coaches. Author James Barry has his description `spot-on' - the text is 106 pages of very accurate recounting, which is a delight to read. Plus 10 pages of photos, map and gradient diagrams. Buy this book!
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, 07 Mar 2008
This book explains what the title states. It is a technical description as well as practical explanations & historical notes.
An excellent reference book. Not what you might think, 12 Jun 2006
This is NOT a how-to-drive-a-steam-train, view-from-the-footplate sort of book. Instead it is a very learned work, talking about the co-efficient of friction, and telling you that the boiling-point of water rises as you apply pressure to the water. I have given this item 5 stars for there is no fault in the book : the fault lies in my expectations! A superb book for those who want to understand steam engines, 30 Dec 2004
This book covers every aspect of steam locomotive design and construction in a clear and logical fashion, with ample illustrations and diagrams. The authors are clearly masters of their subject, and their style is lucid and eminently readable. I found it absolutely fascinating and, by its end, I really did understand how steam locomotives work, and why so many aspects of them have evolved in the way they have. Other reviewers have criticised it for being overly technical but I disagree: "O" level / GCSE physics (that's 15 year old schooling for non-UK readers) more than covers it, and in fact I found myself wanting more technical detail. In particular I wished the sections on valve gear, boiler performance and superheating had contained more information. This is very much a book for those who want to know the "how" and the "why", as opposed to simply the "what", of steam locomotive design. It has increased my enjoyment of other books on steam locomotive development immeasurably since I can now understand the descriptions of valve gear, blast pipes, rocking grates, compounding, sand guns, injectors, etc. If you are prepared to make the effort to read it through you really WILL understand - in theory at least - exactly "how steam locomotives really work". It has to be by far the best book on this subject.
How Steam Locomotives Really Work, 20 Jun 2002
I found this book much more detailed than |had expected, for which I was most grateful. I had no idea how haphazardly the engineering designs for these beautiful machines evolved. Whilst the fact that the authors are from the UK, there is a surprising amount of information about non UK locomotives, I was intrigued to learn that in the 1850s, it is alleged that mummies were used for power in Egypt! I found that in a day I had read nearly half the book: however I have one caveat, which is that the authors take a knowledge of basic physics and chemistry for granted. For example words and phrases such as 'exothermy','phase transition','latent heat' and the 'angular structure of water molecules' could rapidly deter a 'steam buff' from reading much more than the first few pages without a scientific background.A box system, as used in most modern textbooks to explain scientific theories would help a lot. Otherwise this is a great read, and I now understand why these beautiful but inefficient machines have been replaced by electric locomtives,in Europe at least.
Read and enjoy..., 08 Mar 2001
This book is perhaps the best book available about "how steam locomotives work". It is not simply keeping its promise for those seeking the answer to that question but is also a pleasure to read for those who actually do know how they work. You don't have to know much physics. All you have to know is explained in a substantial but easy to understand manner. It is not a dry collection of facts; instead - as said before - it is a book you can also read to enjoy. The authors know the matter and are not leaving any issue concerning the steam locomotive. Drawings, diagrams and photos provide facts and examples for better understanding. The basic concern, when not a basic part of the locomotive or commonplace all over the world, are the concepts used in Great Britain. But the principles of such things like feed-water-heating, which were not widely spread in Britain because of the loading-gauge, are at least mentioned if not (like most of the time) described in detail (though some things may be, well, let's say a little bit inaccurate, e.g. the description to the picture of the "Baureihe 42" - a "Kriegslokomotive" of the german railways - can easily be misunderstood in such a way, that these locomotives made up the major part of the vast buildup of german locomotives during World War II; in fact they played just a minor role as there were built "just" several hundred against the thousands built of the "Baureihe 52" (the rate is about 1:10)). Well, sometimes one would wish to get a more detailed description of some constructions, but, to be honest, this is actually not of concern. The book's issue is to explain the basic principles of the steam locomotive. And this is done fabulously.
More Simple Model Steam Engines, 08 Aug 2004
An excellant book that compliments the first book Simple Model Steam Engines,it has excellant and well laid out plans and drawings of differant steam engines which can easily be constructed on the small lathe.The Models are very nostalgic and once completed make excellant presents or gifts.Buy the book and add some more engines to your collection as ive done.
Excellent book for beginners, 22 Oct 2001
I love the writing style and humour of Tubal Cain. The book is a good introduction for anyone wanting to build steam engines. If you are a raw beginner in Model Engineering some parts can be a little hard to understand, but you don't have to be a pro to get enjoyment from the book. Some of the designs use castings which might not be available any more. However, the parts could be machined instead. A very enjoyable read.
Teaches Ruby using Rails, 26 Jan 2008
Approaching this book, I wasn't quite sure where the emphasis lay, and who this was aimed at. To be clear then, I recommend this book to an intermediate Ruby programmer, who is interested in using examples from Rails to help cement their learning. It would also probably help to have the vaguest idea of what Rails is, and the sorts of web apps it's useful for. If you're an existing Rails developer, this is a great way to get a better understanding of what's going on, but it's not a tutorial on Rails for a complete newbie, nor does it provide advanced Rails practices.
Unlike many programming books, which focus on procedural programming before building up to classes, RfR is admirably object oriented in focus from the word go. It's quite impressive that conditionals aren't introduced until about 200 pages in. Also notable is the chapter on metaprogramming, which is very good. If you felt a bit short-changed by the coverage of this subject in The Pickaxe, this is much better.
Material on Rails top and tail the book: the first part introduces Rails by building a simple web app, and the final chapters rejig it with enhanced models, views and controllers, based on the Ruby material in the middle.
In short, this is more of a Ruby book than a Rails book, and I was very happy with that. This is well worth getting even if you have no interest in web apps.
A useful tutorial, but not wholly great., 01 Feb 2007
I'm an experienced Perl and Python programmer and this is the first book on Ruby + Rails that I've picked up. I have to say that I found part 1 of the book (the first 90 of 475 pages) excellent, demonstrating clearly the amount of coding that is avoided by using the Rails framework.
But from then on until part 4 (near to the end) it felt like wading through increasingly thickening treacle with the book making very slow yet unthorough progress through the more common general purpose programming features with frequently repeated bad examples and a awful lot of superfluous "chit-chat"; I can only assume that the author had a hard time fleshing out the main contents to meet the required page count! Here's one of many possible examples from the text that illustrates the point:
"From now on, when you see this notation (in this book or elsewhere), you'll know what it means. (The second example (class method reference using a dot) looks the same as a call to the method, but you'll know from the context whether it's a method call or a reference to a method in a discussion.) // Objects come from classes. If classes are objects, that implies that they, too, come from a class. A class can be created with a call to the class method new of its class. // And what is the class of a class? It's a class called Class. Yes, there's a bit of "Who's on first?" here, but the concept is by no means impenetrable..."
Thankfully, the Rails focused contents toward the end of the book goes a long way towards redeeming the dire middle, and make for quite stimulating reading.
As a Ruby tutorial it is poor. As a Ruby or Rails reference it is also quite poor. But as a Rails tutorial it shines.
A must buy, 26 Oct 2006
The book Ruby for Rails closes the gap between Ruby as a language and Rails as a framework. Each chapter deepens your Ruby knowledge and shows you how it connects to Rails. Every Ruby concept is clearly explained. It is a must .
Good introduction, 21 Oct 2006
This is probably the best starting point for anyone considering using Ruby on Rails. David Black introduces both the language and the framework, starting from the beginning. At times his approach can seem pedantic (for example the section "introducing object-oriented programming' on page 97). However, it's probably a good idea for even experienced programmers to read it all, as Ruby differs in some subtle but fundamental respects from other more familiar languages (a class IS an object; objects don't "have methods" they "respond to messages", operators are just "syntactic sugar" for messages, etc.).
Both Ruby (the language) and Rails (the framework) are substantial things, and this book does not cover either in detail. There's no mention of testing, for example, nor of real world deployment, nor Rake nor RDoc. You'll need to spend a lot of time with the online documentation [...] and or get the big books (0974514055 and 097669400X).
There are too many misprints. Not a lot, but each one is annoying. The actual Ruby text is error-free, as it was pasted from a live irb (interactive ruby) session, but occasionally the explanatory text does not match the code. The index is OK but not brilliant, and I kept finding things missing ("flatten", for example, or "//" or "|"). The other annoyance is the author's tendency to keep telling us that, to use Rails, you really OUGHT to learn Ruby. That would be fine in the preface, but he's still preaching the message in later chapters. We don't need to be told; that's why we bought the book! But these are all relatively minor flaws, and I can certainly recommend the book. It offers a solid grounding on which to build your expertise.
Have Your Cake .... And Eat It!, 31 Aug 2006
This book is excellent. It helps to teach not only rails but the ruby language that underpins it. Rather than treating them as two separate topics, the book focuses on showing how ruby and rails work together (rails is written in ruby after all...) This helps you to learn the ruby language with a focus on rails development.
It is written in a tutorial format and David Black has a very authorative writing style that is a little dry (i.e. doesn't have any of those silly 'jokes' that many tech authors use).
It starts with the basics of installing ruby and rails and walks you through a small rails application before going into the nuts and bolts of the ruby language. Most of the ruby parts are centered around rails with lots of references to how rails works in the background. This helps to give you a good grounding in Ruby but also helps you to understand rails in depth.
Be aware that it is not a reference book and you would probably be better with Agile Web Development With Rails by the two Davids for Rails reference and The Ruby Pickaxe book by the one David for Ruby reference. Learn to Program by Chris Pine is also worth reading if you have little programming experience and would like to learn Ruby from the start.
I would highly recommend this book to anybody who is starting to develop in rails.
Excitement and intruige!, 15 Jan 2008
I wholeheartedly disagree with the other review i'm afraid, this is a wonderful book, which while unearthing new theories and evidence to support its claims, verges on reading like a novel. Albeit with a pleasant tone in dry wit. McKean makes a fascinating read and this book makes a fabulous addition to any collection especially if one has the previous book, 'The Scottish Chateau' which was equally as fascinating and provocative of debate. While not discounting the points made by the good Dr above (or below depending on where this appears), perhaps he should approach the author directly to help calm his concerns as the book does answer these points, but having had the pleasure of meeting the author in the past, i can say i am sure he would be more then happy to deal with each of these accusations against his theory/discovery in an equally informative, enjoyable and affable way as he does in his literature.
Roll on the next one!
house of cards, 20 Aug 2007
The Tay bridge disaster of 1879 was a turning point in the development of the railways in late Victorian Britain. It changed the public perception of engineers and engineering projects, and much had to be done to reassure the travelling public that they could travel safely by train. The accident was the worst ever to afflict the UK railway system, and still remains the worst structural disaster in Britain. It is thus an important subject for historical analysis, and one which has been tackled by many authors over the years. The modern phase of analysis starts with Prebble's book of 1955 (The High Girders), followed by John Thomas (New Light on the Tragedy, 1972), David Swinfen (Fall of the Tay Bridge, 1994) and Lewis (Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, 2004). In tackling the topc, McKean adopts a different approach to earlier authors by examining the history of the competition between the Caledonian and North British Railways, and does a fair job of summarising the main conflicts between the two companies. It was a cut-throat business in capturing Scottish railway travellers, and costs were too frequently pared to the bone in new projects. The Tay bridge represents the culmination of that competition, a project to cross the 2 mile estuary of the Tay in one bound. While much of this new book is well researched, the chapter on the Tay bridge disaster lacks such an approach because the evidence from the accident itself has not been considered thoroughly. Indeed the blurb on the back cover proudly announces a "new" theory, that the train derailed and so brought the bridge down. It is not new at all, and was in fact put forward by Bouch (the bridge engineer) himself at the subsequent inquiry. It was rejected by the inquiry, and has few proponents in the modern analysis of the structural failure. Witness statements not seen by the inquiry were unearthed by Thomas in 1972, who discussed the evidence of a faulty twisted rail in the high girder section at some length in his book. Mckean also indicts the chair of the inquiry, Henry Rothery, for not conducting it fairly. The evidence for this assertion is weak, Bouch being given ample opportunities to defend himself. The inquiry showed that the design and construction were indeed faulty, Bouch himself admitting many of the design faults (such as the notorious coned lugs). Careful examination of the surviving evidence shows that the high girder section was swaying from side-to-side during the months before the accident, and that the structure had deteriorated to a very dangerous condition well before the final collapse. It is unfortunate that McKean fails to consider all the recent evidence of the accident, marring an otherwise good account of the disaster. Instead, we are given a fanciful theory about the train striking the side of the bridge, and so bringing half-a-mile of bridge down. If derailment did occur, the bridge must have been in a parlous state to have collapsed like a house of cards.
troubledwaters, 13 Aug 2006
The Tay bridge disaster of 1879 was a turning point in the development of the railways in late Victorian Britain. It changed the public perception of engineers and engineering projects, and much had to be done to reassure the travelling public that they could travel safely by train. The accident was the worst ever to afflict the UK railway system, and still remains the worst structural disaster in Britain. It is thus an important subject for historical analysis, and one which has been tackled by many authors over the years. The modern phase of analysis starts with Prebble's book of 1955 (The High Girders), followed by John Thomas (New Light on the Tragedy, 1972), David Swinfen (Fall of the Tay Bridge, 1994) and Lewis (Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, 2004). In tackling the topc, McKean adopts a dfferent approach to earlier authors by examining the history of the competition between the Caledonian and North British Railways, and does a fair job of summarising the main conflicts between the two companies. It was a cut-throat business in capturing Scottish railway travellers, and costs were too frequently pared to the bone in new projects. The Tay brdge represents the culmination of that competition, a project to cross the 2 mile estuary of the Tay in one bound. While much of this new book is well researched, the chapter on the Tay bridge disaster lacks such an approach because the evidence from the accident itself has not been considered thoroughly. Indeed the blurb on the back cover proudly announces a "new" theory, that the train derailed and so brought the bridge down. It is not new at all, and was in fact put forward by Bouch (the bridge engineer) himself at the subsequent inquiry. It was reje | | |