Review:The Essential Client/Server Survival Guide

Ranjit Mathew has sent a review of the second edition of The Essential Client/Server Survial Guide. This book, written by Robert Orfali, Dan Harkey and Jeri Edwards, has a pretty obvious point to it: trying to make sense of this gradiose world of "client/server programming". It's apparent that this is where much of programming work is heading, so click below, and read more.

The Essential Client/Server Survival Guide, Second Edition
author	Robert Orfali, Dan Harkey and Jeri Edwards
pages
publisher	John Wiley & Sons
rating	8/10
reviewer	Ranjit Mathew
ISBN	0-471-15325-7
summary	A somewhat dated yet comprehensive overview of

REVIEW: The Essential Client/Server Survival Guide, Second Edition by Robert Orfali, Dan Harkey and Jeri Edwards [John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0-471-15325-7] Nutshell Review: A somewhat dated yet comprehensive overview of the bunch of technologies collectively known as "client/server programming". A most helpful survival guide for this new, exciting and rapidly expanding field. Rating: 8/10 Review by: Ranjit Mathew

The Scenario

The term "Client/Server" has been used in recent times to refer to a range of diverse technologies including, but not limited to, remote SQL, Transaction Processing, Groupware, Distributed Objects, etc. If you have ever found yourself wondering what any of the above terms mean, then this book is just for you. According to the publishers, this is "...the best source for anyone looking to understand and make informed decisions about client/server technology". I agree. The book is written in way that makes it accessible to a wide range of readers. The language is simple enough and witty cartoons, numerous quotes and opinionated soapboxes combine to make for easy reading.

What's Good?

The book is unmatched in the range of client/server technologies that it covers. The coverage is deep enough to let one feel relatively at ease with the topics and is sufficiently up to date to cover the state of the art at the time of publication (around late 1996). The whole book is divided into parts, each covering a particular client/server technology in depth, which can be read and assimilated almost independently. The authors also include helpful advice for designing, building and deploying client/server applications. The presentation style allows for easy reading yet manages to teach a lot. Quite well written.

What's Bad?

The very nature of the subject covered makes for a very short shelf life for this book. Books of this kind get outdated even before they reach the bookstores. For example, OpenDoc hasn't quite made it the way the authors had predicted it would. Important new technologies like e-Commerce, EJB, etc. look promising yet are not there in the book. Linux has emerged as a major player in the OS market (the authors haven't even acknowledged the existence of Linux in this edition) and has made high performance client/server programming quite affordable. It is high time the authors came up with a new updated and totally revised edition of the book.

The entire book is presented as a survival guide for visiting Martians who wish to make sense of the client/server brouhaha on Earth. (The foreword has been written by a certain "Zog the Martian".) The utility of this device in making this book more approachable by the layman is doubtful and is, at times, an unnecessary distraction (there is frequent talk of intergalactic(!) networks here).

So What's In It For Me?

If you wish to keep yourself up to date with the latest in client/server technologies, this book is for you. If you wish to know where the industry in general is headed to, these guys will tell you. If you find yourself bowled over by terms like SQL, TP-Monitor, CORBA, Groupware, OLE, DCOM, MOM, BLOB, etc. this book is definitely for you. Even if you do not have any immediate use for it give it a read anyway, it doesn't hurt to know about some of the new and emerging technologies. Remember, ignorance is not bliss, not in the IT industry anyway.

Buy the book from amazon.com.

Table of Contents

1. The Big Picture
2. Clients, Servers, and Operating Systems
3. Base Middleware: Stacks and NOSs
4. SQL Database Servers
5. Client/Server Transaction Processing
6. Client/Server Groupware
7. Client/Server With Distributed Objects
8. Client/Server and the Internet
9. Distributed System Management
10. Bringing It All Together