Computer Networks are a wide and fastly growing subject. Finding a textbook that covers all of the topics in a detailed way is simply impossible. Perhaps for this reason good textbook authors have, in a probably implicit way, established two possible approaches: the Engineers' and the (mostly Software) Developers'. Once again Tanenbaum has done a great job with this book (and its updated-more-than-revised 4th edition), which takes the former approach.

The book presents general issues and impacts (on technology as well on the society) of Computer Networks in the first chapter, and then move in a detailed exposition of the lower layers of a general network architecture (similar to the OSI one). The great value of the books stems from the clarity and thoroughness of the exposition. Indeed, it presents all of the most known technologies and algorithms (both today's and historical) from physical mediums to algorithms for routing, congestion and flow control and so on. Plenty of details are provided at the level of mathematical performance analysis for some algorithms like those presented in the Medium Access Sublayer chapter (e.g. ALOHA and CSMAs).

The "tone" of prof. Tanenbaum is an added values as well. He rarely becomes boring and sometimes results hilarious in his comments of famous anecdotes that led to the born of this technology or that algorithm (have you ever heard how automatic phone calls switching was born ?). I never underestimate the value of an easy exposition, as sometimes studying is already hard enough to cope also with a overwhelmingly boring book.

Enough for the lower layers/protocols so far. About the upper ones the book actually does not spend too much emphasis on network applications nor on the high level tools for building network applications (e.g. there are a very few pages for sockets, but no more). Indeed, this area is more properly in the competence of the second kind of books (Developer's) as noted at the beginning of the review. However, there's one (unsurprising but happy) exception: as already done in his "Modern Operating Systems, 2e", Tanenbaum has put a detailed and rigorous treatment of the Security issue (Network Security in this case).

About editions, the third was already a very good book. Reasons for considering the fourth edition are the inclusion of updated technologies like ADSL, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, JavaScript, XHTML or XML, etc. More than this, however, technologies like fiber optic were on the wave of great improvements in 1996 when the third edition was published (and deformation due to day-night thermal excursions were not cited) so that now the treatment is more reliable (in terms of updates, not in technicalities).

All in all, given that imho there's no serious "complete bible" (or the like) book on computer networks, this book is a full five-stars one if the Engineers' perspective is that of interest. If one is more interested in the Developers' perspective (take again the sockets example), then a good choice would be Douglas Comer's "Computer Networks". For TCP/IP fans, my best choices would be the more focused Comer's "Internetworking with TCP/IP, vol. I" (1/3 Engineer's, 2/3 Developers') or Stevens' "TCP/IP Illustrated. vol I" (1/5 Engineer's, 4/5 Developers').

First, this is certainly not an introductory text on Computer Architectures. The authors assume that people reading it have already had an introductory class or some experience. Simply put, the book is not intended to explain how cache memory works, but to present a thourough quantitative analysis to show why and when one implementation works better than another, and what improvements have been devised recently to speed this or this other measurement.
Of course, the best choice for this book would be to have it preceeded by "Computer Organization: the HW/SW interface" (aka CO-HSI), by the same authors, since it would help to better comprehend the MIPS64 and the low-level design behind it, since CO-HSI develop an older version of the MIPS itself.

This is for sure one of the most informative books I've ever encountered both as a student and as a SW engineer. It contains an overwhelming quantity of data, tips, warnings, tecniques so that the over 1100 pages seem incredibly dense. And don't be fooled the book is "only so little": there are other seven online appendixes that can be downloaded, that will add up to more than 250 pages to the book.
As experience teaches, however, quantity does not always mean quality. Yet, it seems this doesn't apply to this book, because the quality of its content is highly informative and interesting for those involved with true CA designs.

Since the first chapter it's clear that target of the book is not a survery of CAs, but a guide through the bunch of considerations and problems a design of a new CA must cope with today. I mean today because much of the data collected and presented is binded to (and updated to) the current edition and its realease date. So covered CAs for this 3ed will feature IA-64 or Sony Playstation II among the others. Nonetheless, it would be misleading to think that next year the book will become useless. Most of the considerations the authors develop and present are quite long lasting (the usage patterns of ISAs, e.g., have incurred little change since the second edition, six years ago).

This edition presents noticeable changes, even if there's no doubt the core is that of CA-AQA 2ed. To mention a few, the first chapter is of course almost totally new since it's the most time-bounded of the book. The elder chapter four (Advanced Pipelining and Instruction Level Parallellism) has been expanded into two chapters, one dealing with Hardware approaches and one with Software approaches (and both with hybrid ones). This goes into great benefit for the reader since it seems we never get enough details on modern CAs and their complexity otherwise.
However, changes has been done even in the way of reductions, and that's especially true for the elder chapter three (Pipelining). It was a full 100 pages chapter, featuring an astonishing treatment of the topic, that has been fundamental in my class of CA II. In the 3ed edition, this chapter has been moved to a shorter appendix at the end, and I think this appendix can't compare with its predecessor (even if some of the "cut" topics have been then spread through chapters 3-4 in the 3ed).

About the exposition of the topics, the authors have built a solid way to make things clear for students and not, beginners and not on quantitative analysis. The book is full of figures, graph, citation and feature a wide bibliography at the end of the book and a reasoned set of references at the end of each chapter.

The only difficulties reading this book will arise only because of the complexity of the topics, who themselves require a fair amount of attention, not because of the language which keeps always clear and straightforward.

This said, I think the book is a fully deserved 5 stars one, with no concurrents on its kind, scope and utility. That's probabily why it has been worlwide used since its first edition.

This book is quite a strange case. For sure, it is the most widely used around the world for intro courses on Computer Architecturs (CAs). Could it be because Hennessy and Patterson are, at present and since a long time, two of the most prominent researchers in the field, Hennessy being now also President of Stanford University, Patterson a professor at Berkeley. But it would be too reductive to limit the view to this only. So we should move inside the book and try to understand the real (or other) reasons.

As an introductory text on CA, the approach is different than the somewhat classical one.

Those who'd expect a few introductory chapters on logic design (as, e.g., Mano & Kime's chapters or Murdocca's long appendixes) will find instead a short appendix that describes basic components (gates, registers, clocks and so on) at a high level (never mention digital abstracion & co.).

The path then is not a survey of general concepts & principles of CA with eventually some real examples as application. Instead, the process is a strictly step-by-step constructive one: they build from scratch a new system funding the design with plenty of considerations and tips, even with warnings on most common "fallacies and pitfalls". All this done through a very straightforward and clear language and with lots of figures, well paced and presented. As a result, coping with the topics is pretty an easy task, and the most likely result is a thourough understanding of what they present.

So what they present ? Substantially, the MIPS, a well known (thanks to this book and their authors too, of course) and widely sold (thanks to its true qualities) RISC processor. The authors have been leaders in the development of the RISC architecture, which admittedly is by now the only good choice for CPU designs since even Intel in its newest architectures reduce all down to the execution of RISC instructions. Anyway, the attention is not only on RISC (and MIPS) architectures: it's "mostly" on these, but there's space for short disgressions in the PowerPC, 80x86 and Pentium Pro (the book is dated 1997) field. This is done through a section named "Real stuff" in each chapter, where after they've extensively developed the subpart of the MIPS (be it the ISA, the ALU or Datapath & Control, the Pipeline and so on), they summarily look at how the same concepts have been developed by PowerPC and 80x86 or Pentium.

All in all, if the book has been assigned as a textbook for a course, little integration is needed to understand it and made it useful for the course; or if it is used a self first introduction to computer architectures and especially RISC architecture, the book will prove a very good choice. And this happens simply because the transfer of knowledge is effective as probably the authors have intended it to be.
If what is needed is a reference, then perhaps the step-by-step approach would suggest other choices (e.g. Tanenbaum, Murdocca, Stallings or Mano & Kime).

As many readers have pointed out below, after listening this soundtrack is natural to ask why we didn't heard about Klaus Badelt before, I wish I had. As a collaborator of Hans Zimmer we only have heard his influence on other soundtracks, last being the Pearl Harbor.
With this own soundtrack Badelt enter the circle of the greats: Williams, Horner, Zimmer, Doyle and so on. And, indeed, he carries influences of some of them.

It's not only Zimmer's influence in the horner's theme introduced on the first track (Professor Alexander Hartdegen) which could be natural since their long cooperation. The way Badelt brings the orchestra to its full sound on this theme on the sixth track (I don't belong here) is completely a product of this friendship. Or listen to the short, whispered choir passage (and the following strings) on the thirteenth track (The Master) to recall some Pearl Harbors choirs and structures.

James Horner, too, appears clearly present. Just listen to the ninth track (Good night): both the main theme played by the flute and the accompanying piano with the doubled chromes figures (much in the Titanic style) recalls the californian composer. We can find this coupling spread along the score, ending up in the wonderful last track (Godspeed) which they open.

These influences, however, do not subtract anything to the fine art Badelt uses interwining piano, strings, flute, hornes, african ethnic (both orchestral and choral) single themes. Indeed, this highly varied score is astonishing in scope and in variations of themes, as pointed in the FilmTracks.com review. Not to mention its perfect match with the movie itself, which alone is already a great achievement.

After this first soundtrack, I think many people (myself included) will be left with the hope to hear soon again Klaus Badelt.

Excluding Knuth's opera (another dimension), this (AHU) is about the other and only renowned classic algorithms book, deseverdly I'd say, together with Cormen-Leiserson-Rivest's (CLR) "Introduction to Algorithms". With the difference that the first and only edition of AHU has been written 16 years before the first (of the two) editions of CLR.

The two books are quite different in the language and formalism used: more formal and mathematical inclined AHU with respect to CLR. I'd say, the very classic style of his authors who have made history in the CS literature with their books (particularly 2 on algorithms and data structures, 2 on Computer Theory, 2 on Compilers, 1 on CS foundations): as these books have been used in most universities around the world for decades, they've proved to be real milestones in the education of thousands of students.

The books differ also in scope, since AHU is certainly not an encyclopedic collection as CLR does, with his roughly 500 pages against 1000. In spite of this, I'd point out the following: my textbook on Algorithms was CLR, but when we got to Complexity Classes (P-NP and theory behind) we "had" to switch to AHU for the simple reason that CLR did not almost mention at all Turing Machines nor Space Complexity, without which is certainly possible to learn e.g. about NP-TIME completeness, but without which, such a path would equally certainly miss some foundamental topics of Complexity Theory.

All in all, then, imo the book truly deserves 5 stars (and perhaps it would deserve a second, updated, edition too ... possibly, imho, through a bit less revolutionary revision job than they did with "Introduction to Automata Theory, Language and Computation").

As a final note, those looking for a more applicative and self-reference than an educational introductory text, could have a look at the two-volumes opera by the former Knuth's pupil, Robert Sedgewick (possibly the more consolidated C or C++ versions).

One could buy this book for different reasons: interests in combinatorial optimization, of course; interests in what Papadimitriou has to say, since his thoughts on this subject are definitely invaluable; perhaps the price is a good reason alone.
Whatever the reason, however, I think that would be a rare event to remain duped.

I was preparing my exam in Computability and Complexity when I first used it. I've been wonderfully surprised by the amount of definitions, algorithms, concepts I've found in this book. I think one could use this book for a simple course on Algorithms, on Computability and/or Complexity, on the whole Combinatorial Optimization, and the book would be always and costantly useful.

The chapters on algorithms and complexity, or those on NP completeness have proved to be gems. The chapters on Approximation and Local Search are great, and they feature a bunch of detailed and excellent quality stuff (e.g. there is a detailed treatment of Christofides' algorithm to approximate the TSP, that is quite an idiosyncratic topic).

All in all, a very great book, with a value exponentially greater than the very insignificant price.

The first violin concerto of Paganini's has been recorded by the best violinists (and more) by now, and sometime more than once by the same. Fortunately, this give us a wide choice of good recordings, each of which can be singled out for some different feature. However, reading reviews about this concert will reveal that almost always a comparison with this Accardo's recording is present. And the reason is quite simple: this is the best overall recording.

The performance by Accardo is simply flawless. He keeps is known style of simplicity and clarity. For example he doesn't use any doubling of voice where others like Perlman does, or he prefer the pizzicato where some others stick with a staccato. Anyway, in my personal view of the Paganini stile's, I think that Accardo's is the closest I've heard.
As a note he plays an elaboration of the full cadenza by Emile Sauret while virtually all the others (Perlman and Vengerov with them) use the abbreviated Sauret. This result in a much longer first movement: more than 22 minutes instead of the average of 19-20 (the rhythm is quite the same in most respected recordings).

This recording benefits too from a wonderful performance by the LPO directed by Charles Dutoit. Differently from other concertos like Beethoven's, the Paganinian idea of a violin concerto was to place the violin over everything else, and the LPO perfectly respect this idea playing a secondary but perfect role. They have played the integrale of Paganini's violin concertos with Dutoit and Accardo, and the overall feeling is so evident.

The coupling with the second violin concerto is a classic, but for me always good choice. Paganini has his idiosyncratic style and it's not so simple to couple it with other concerts. Another good coulping, too, is the one with the "Carmen Fantasy" by Sarasate, in the EMI Perlman's recording.

The disc is an ADD, and the difference with better and more modern DDD is not so hidden, especially in the "tutti". Anyway, among the ADD this is surely one of the good ones, in this DG has done a good work.

Of the many Paganini's first violin concerto recordings, this Perlam surely deserves a special note.
This is the only other recording I would compare with Accardo's DG one, which is considered the best overall recording considering the soloist and the orchestra.

Perlman and Accardo have different styles, and considering different points of the concerto this recording could be preferred to the other because of the special Perlman's sound and tone, especially in the highest violin registers.

Coupling the violin concerto with the Sarasate's Carmen Fantay may definitely bias the judgement in favor of Perlam: his performance in this piece is stunning and a pure gem. Initially I bought this disc only for this performance in the Carmen Fantasy which simply has no competitors in my opionion.

The orchestras sound is stronger in this recording, and more ... present (sometime a bit too much). Anyway, there's a good balance between the orchestra and the soloist, and one can best appreciate in the tic-tac clock-rythm in the third movement of the concerto.

This disc too is an ADD, and this too is one of the best ADDs ever, and would be even better than the Accardo's DG ADD if we could exclude the cymbals that sometime appear somewhat disturbing with their high frequencies at a too high volume in my opinion.

There's not so much to say about this disc, and that has not yet been said by the finest listeners.

I've approached this disc because it's one of the "Gramophone Classical 100", i.e. one of the 100 best classical recordings of all the times (reviewed by Gramophone). Just listen to it to agree: Richter is not a surprise (my greatest sadness comes from the consciousness that we won't have any other recording from him). He has performed many concertos together with Kondrashin, and their feeling comes up at once from the firsts seconds.

Furthermore, the coupling with the Sonata S178 has been, in my opinion, a very happy choice.

The only drawback to be kept in account is the recording quality. The disc is an ADD, and not one of the best ones. The piano is not bad, but the orchestra's sound is thin and a bit confused. Fortunately for the disc, the loose in recording quality weights much lesser than the artistic quality.

I think Parsons had an intelligent idea in writing this book. Without originality claims (as he point out in the preface) the book is intended to the audience of novices, with the clear target of explaining in great details compilers principles. As he says in the preface, the objective is to prepare the reader for more advanced lectures, and he explicitly mention the reference book as an example: Aho-Sethi-Ullman's "Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools", a.k.a the Dragon book.

The approach is quite theoretical and principles-centered, just as the Dragon book is. But Parsons departs from this in the writing style: It is definitely straightforward. He sacrifices the scope of the book in favor of clarity: he took the core of books like the Dragon, and expanded this core to a well appreaciable extent. It comes over and over again on more awkward concepts with detailed examples.
Reading the Dragon is not extremely difficult, but requires time. No question that doing it after Parsons' is another thing, absolutely. In this, he succeeded perfectly in its objective.

The price is definitely not exaggerated (especially for the paperback version), and adding this to the book's quality, should not let think twice in buying it.