This book was great. I was looking for a book that would give me a familiarity with the past-present-future of distributed computing and that is exactly what I found. I'm a somewhat seasoned programmer, but I have not had much experience with NDC, so I felt I needed a high level introduction to the theory and practice of NDC before I started getting into the nitty gritty details of programming. That said, you won't find any code to cut and paste into your projects. However, the distance from the "nitty-gritty" allows one to see how one could implement Goff's ideas (or not implement them if you consider the "eight classic fallicies" he discusses) in any language. I finished the book in just a few days - Goff's writing is very clear - and now I feel ready to tackle the subject.