AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: The Dylan Reference Manual: The Definitive Guide to the New Object-Oriented Dynamic Language by Andrew Shalit, David Moon, Orca Starbuck ISBN: 0-201-44211-6 Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company Pub. Date: 11 September, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $44.99

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Indespensible; but not always an easy reference to read
Comment: Anyone who will create more than the most trivial program in Dylan must have this reference (hereinafter referred to as the DRM). The author and contributors have no want of status for the Dylan community: Andrew Shalit (principle inventor of the language), David Moon (a luminary in advanced OO research, one of the board members for the Common Lisp Object System specification), and Orca Starbuck (who helped write the first book on Java: _Hooked on Java_ (a delightful work)). They have produced an authoritative work. I will discuss what this book is not (very briefly), its organization, where it fails and where it succeeds.

This book is, rightfully, not an introduction to the language. Study, instead, _Dylan Programming_ by Feinberg, Keene, Mathews, and Withington before you move onto this book.

The first 10 chapters are descriptive in nature. The organization goes from simple topics (program organization and program control flow, e.g. if statements) to more complex ones (conditions, collections, sealing, and macros). Then, chapter 11 and on are canonical reference material (the built-in (provided) classes, functions, macros and exported names).

This book is exhaustive, but it fails in two areas: choosing terseness at the expense of explanation, and assuming the whole is sufficiently described by its parts. First example (terseness), the reference section lists the (e.g.) functions, their inputs and outputs and has a brief description. Sometimes, these functions have an applicable example. Some of the advanced functions (such as mapping functions, iteration protocol functions, and higher-order functions) lack such examples, and I thirsted for some illumination by example, and, in fact, have avoided using some of the advanced Dylan functionality because I have not found suitable explanation. (A minor issue for C/C++/Java programmers: the DRM chooses a function signature familiar to the Functional programming community (e.g. Lisp), it will take some getting used to, as it is not as exacting with syntax as described in your reference materials). Second example (terseness), chapter 3 (program structure) gives a total of a scant 6 pages to modules and to libraries. I went to that chapter looking for how to build executables and libraries from multiple source (e.g.) files, and, at the same time, how to protect names in my code from clashing with names in the predefined Dylan system. Modules and libraries address both concerns, but after I read that chapter, I was still lacking the concepts and techniques to deliver my system. Third example (sum is not parts alone), I then turned to chapter 12 (built-in macros) and walked through the definitions of defining libraries and modules. The explanation of each element of the module and library definitions was complete, but I still failed to grasp how (particularly) modules and libraries work hand-in-hand to create advanced namespaces that put other, more popular, languages' namespace systems to shame. Overall, the DRM is a thorough, researched document, but these two areas of terseness and lacking comprehension of parts make reading it sometimes difficult.

Even though the DRM has its faults, it succeeds wonderfully as a reference manual for Dylan, as well as an explanation of the marriage of Functional and Object-oriented programming. Every day that I build systems in Dylan, I consult the DRM. And, every day that I consult the DRM, I get answers that help me toward delivering a finished product. Not only that, the DRM also provides novel problem-solving approaches. I often consult the DRM to solve one issue and start reading about techniques on three other implementation strategies and techniques.

A complement to this book is that I have worn it out because of daily (sometimes hourly) consultation. Many people have shown their regret of purchases by the uncracked book bindings. If you build systems in Dylan, you cannot regret this purchase.