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Author Topic: Some useful books  (Read 16977 times)

TurboRascal

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Some useful books
« on: September 07, 2012, 10:36:19 pm »
There are many great books on Delphi and Pascal which can be of use for Lazarus/FPC programmers. The great thing is, some of those books are dirt cheap today because nobody wants to read about Delphi 5, 6, 7 etc. today, but those books are possibly more useful to us than newer ones. For example, the newer the books, the more of the MS stuff they describe (ActiveX, then OLE, then .NET etc.), while to us are more important ways to use just LCL (ok, VCL) and Pascal. So here goes the list, roughly sorted by age:

Sedgewick: Algorithms - this one is a classic, and a great computer science book in general. In the original edition the examples are in Pascal which is a great news for us. Later editions were in C++ (and IIRC Java), and those books are valued more on the market, while the old ones (the ones we need) are considered deprecated and are practically given away. I've recently found a few of them from England on eBay with the price of less than 1 (one!) pound!

Tomes of Delphi: Win32 Database Developer's Guide - this book is a strange one, some might find it useful, while some would say it's useless. It could be useful for database beginners (including programmers which worked in other areas), covers database basics, relation algebra basics, normalizations and SQL. It also contains  references to Delphi's data-aware controls, datasets etc. which might be helpful to anyone. The only thing which is definitely useless and obsolete is the content of two chapters which specifically deal with BDE. I'm not quite sure which Delphi version this book was written for, it looks to me it could be any one from 3 to 6.

Delphi 4 in 21 Days - this nice book covers many different aspects of Delphi programming, and most of the examples are easily adapted to Lazarus. The only downside is that the author frequently uses Windows API where VCL might have been used. I'm not sure if it's because VCL4 was too limited or simply because author was used to Windows programming in other ways. But all in all, I'd say it is an interesting reading with some tricks which could be helpful in areas he/she normally doesn't work on. It's also a light and interesting read. And the price, I've also found those for one pound, so I'd say it's worth it even if you intend to just skim the content and then use it for lighting a barbecue ;)

Ray Lischer: Delphi in a Nutshell - I'd say this book is mostly useful. The writing style is dry, but it's packed with information. The first few chapters describe some background theory like the object model used, concurrent programming techniques etc. Most of the book is composed of various keyword an identifier references, but most of them are also present in Lazarus and FPC (except for Windows and VCL specific stuff), so it could be quite helpful. The book is written for Delphi 5.

Essential Pascal and Essential Delphi by Marco Cantù - these two booklets are FREE, they are made for introducing Pascal and Delphi, but they work perfectly for Lazarus too (except for the IDE interface stuff in Essential Delphi, of course). They can be downloaded for free, the links for them are on the author's site.

Marco Cantù: Mastering Delphi series - good books covering several programming areas, and as always the OLDER ones are more useful for us - Delphi 7 book added .NET stuff, Delphi 6 one COM/ADO etc. I'm not sure what the Delphi 5 books was about, but perhaps that one is the cleanest . They are also the cheapest to buy :)

Julian Bucknall: Tomes of Delphi: Algorithms and Data Structures - another one on algorithms implementation, I think there is no need for further explanations ;) This book is not too cheap to get though.

Steve McConnell: Code Complete - this one is not about Delphi programming at all, but it's a GREAT book on software construction. Examples are given in several languages, including (a great deal of) Pascal. As a generally useful book, it's also not so cheap.

That's what I've found so far. Additions to the list are welcome, as are corrections of possible errors I've made. I'd also love to hear some recommendations for good books on database programming... ;)
Regards, ArNy the Turbo Rascal
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mas steindorff

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2012, 04:05:35 am »
windows 10 &11, Ubuntu 21+ - fpc 3.0.4, IDE 2.0 general releases

BigChimp

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2012, 08:59:05 am »
What Max said ;)
Want quicker answers to your questions? Read http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Faq#What_is_the_correct_way_to_ask_questions_in_the_forum.3F

Open source including papertiger OCR/PDF scanning:
https://bitbucket.org/reiniero

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TurboRascal

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2012, 08:44:31 pm »
I planned that from the start ;)

I thought I'd wait for possible corrections and/or additions to my review list first...
Regards, ArNy the Turbo Rascal
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"The secret is to give them what they need, not what they want." - Scotty, STTNG:Relics

ojn

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2012, 10:30:25 am »
Ray Lischer: Delphi in a Nutshell - I'd say this book is mostly useful. The writing style is dry, but it's packed with information. The first few chapters describe some background theory like the object model used, concurrent programming techniques etc. Most of the book is composed of various keyword an identifier references, but most of them are also present in Lazarus and FPC (except for Windows and VCL specific stuff), so it could be quite helpful. The book is written for Delphi 5.

Essential Pascal and Essential Delphi by Marco Cantù - these two booklets are FREE, they are made for introducing Pascal and Delphi, but they work perfectly for Lazarus too (except for the IDE interface stuff in Essential Delphi, of course). They can be downloaded for free, the links for them are on the author's site.

I was able to pick up a used copy of "Delphi in a Nutshell" in very good condition a couple of months ago for only $1.05 plus S&H on eBay. Good buys on Delphi/ObjectPascal books are out there.

Thank for the pointing out that free copies of "Essential Pascal" and "Essential Delphi" are available at the authors web site!

ojn

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2012, 11:10:19 am »
Essential Pascal and Essential Delphi by Marco Cantù - these two booklets are FREE, they are made for introducing Pascal and Delphi, but they work perfectly for Lazarus too (except for the IDE interface stuff in Essential Delphi, of course). They can be downloaded for free, the links for them are on the author's site.

I found that the download link on the author's web site for the "Essential Pascal" book works fine, but he has a link to his Google Group for the download of the "Essential Delphi" file "Essential Delphi_103.zip", which no longer works. I found and was able to download the Delphi file at: http://www.computer-books.us/delphi_3.php .

marcov

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2012, 11:36:40 am »
I was able to pick up a used copy of "Delphi in a Nutshell" in very good condition a couple of months ago for only $1.05 plus S&H on eBay. Good buys on Delphi/ObjectPascal books are out there.

Then you are lucky. I think I paid in the vicinity of Eur 40 a few years ago, (admitted, nearly half that was shipping it to Europe).  I got it mostly because of the COM/activeX related chapters.
 

TurboRascal

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2012, 01:46:09 pm »
I've just checked, it seems to hold its price on eBay... There are several in UK, but they are 40-50€ apiece; found one cheaply in the US, less than 5€, but the P&P is hefty if you're in Europe - about 30€. OTOH, there are a few used ones on the UK Amazon, starting from 4 GBP, and the P&P is much less for Europe...

@ojn's find was certainly a good one for that price, especially if the postage wasn't much...
Regards, ArNy the Turbo Rascal
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cdbc

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2012, 02:44:40 pm »
Hi everybody
Julian Bucknall's book is available as an e-book (pdf) here:
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/142043/The_Tomes_Of_Delphi_Algorithms_And_Data_Structures.pdf

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TurboRascal

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2012, 04:43:32 pm »
@cdbc: Is that a legal download? If it is not, I could have provided illegal ones for all the books I mentioned, too! I did no such thing, it's not good for the forum's reputation if it provides links to illegal downloads.
Regards, ArNy the Turbo Rascal
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JanRoza

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2012, 05:56:36 pm »
Sometimes it's useful to check out Amazon and look for the "used" version of a book. Often they are as good as new and only a fraction of the price.
I do this often and have never regretted a secondhand buy yet.

Jan

 
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kapibara

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2014, 01:33:19 am »
Tomes of Delphi WIN32 Database Developer's Guide - mentioned and reviewed above, can be bought new with CD at a bargain price (14.99$) at Amazon right now. (Shipping within US only)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1556226632/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&sr=8-1&qid=1406157712
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marcov

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Re: Some useful books
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2014, 10:50:32 am »
If you want to do anything system level Unix (and even more so if related to networking), Richard W Stevens'  Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment and the two "sockets" books (one of which is about IPC) are also important.

 

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