general

I have lived with this book on my shelf for five years, and during that time have gone back to it a number of times, though I have never read it all the way through for reasons the other reviews will surely explain. I have gone back to it because it is wide ranging and the languages it picks are interesting.

Reading it is like having a row of pearls in front of you. Each is clear and self contained, and they are arranged like a necklace would be. The thread between the sentences is missing however, and you have to work hard to supply it yourself.

Some of the examples (e.g. the quilt example in the functional programming section) elucidate the nature of the programming style and this is good. When moving into the specifics of a language however, the pearl trick happens and I don't get what I am looking for. When reading a book like this I want to garner the spirit of a language. If I want syntax I download a language reference.

I noticed that Amazon is ordering more copies of this book. How very sad.... Like smallpox, this book could be eradicated if we all got together and decided to do something about it. What Ravi really needed during the writing of this horrific pile of miscommunication were several humans to have attempted to read the book before its publication. In words: an editor. He also might simply consider not using the construct "In Words:". The fact that Ravi must alert the reader ahead of time that he is going to use words to describe something should give you a fairly good idea as to the delightful cadence and pacing he executes throughout. I wish I could post an example of his [his majesty ravi] prose style; but, alas, I think I lit the book on fire along with some old underwear.

This is a good book, and the section on Functional Programming is especially interesting. Almost every other book in this area omits FP. (The Pratt book comes to mind as one guilty of this omission.)

Having said that, I don't believe that I would pay $100+ for this text. Buy it used!