Full description not available
S**E
One of a kind book about the code building 'black box' view
Being a member of my company's engineering team with the longest tenure, I've been recently given a hint by my company's management toget prepared to take on the role of software architect/integrator. Never being comfortable dealing with compiler/linker issues I've started searching for anything that could help me to boost my knowledge.My more experienced friends provided a few good initial tips. First, they mentioned "Linkers and Loaders". The Drepper article was theirsecond suggestion. Finally, they mentioned a fairly recent book written by a guy named after an Italian city ("Milan something").Despite its obvious greatness, the "Linkers and Loaders" book wasn't tailored for my EE/telecom/software background. I simply lacked theinsight into many initial concepts. I've also read the Drepper article and kind of understood fair amount of it. The things that still bothered me were the looming lack of my hands-on experience and the lack of a good starting point.Finally, I've got this book. Bingo!It gave me exactly what I needed - the whole course starting with precise explanation of initial concepts, garnished with simplecode examples. The screen printouts helped me get an idea of what to expect as a result. Above all, the exquisite and sometimes funnyillustrations were powerful in explaining the concepts.The book has several qualities rarely found elsewhere:First, to the best of my knowledge, it is the only book that provides a 'black box' overview of the C/C++ building process. It does not go toofar into the depths of compiling/linking/loading, but all the explanations provide a good overview of the field.Second, it is obviously written by a professional for the professionals.The author obviously knows how the engineering hands-on developers think.He points out the most potent and the most operational details which once absorbed can keep you afloat at all times.Third, it provides a huge amounts of relevant, hard-to-find information. Some of the chapters (e.g. duplicate symbols handling) are not foundelsewhere.Finally, if for no other reason, the quick reference information in the last few chapters alone is worth having this book on the shelf.A must have for any serious professional in the field!
J**L
Maybe useful for some people, but could be better
This book was all over the map. It wasn't in depth in ways I wanted it, and provided a lot of information I didn't think belong. For example, it spends a lot of time discussing specific tools for multiple platforms (Unixes and Windows). This made this book feel more like a reference manual thank something you might want to read through. I could see some people benefiting from this approach. But I didn't like it.
J**T
Should be required reading for C/C++ programmers
A gold mine of technical information on compilers/linkers/loaders and how C/C++ affect them. Easily one of the best technical books in terms of content that I've read in probably 5 years.Despite the great content and walkthroughs, it suffers from two main issues:1. It's primarily Linux-specific, though a lot of the concepts apply to Windows.2. There are a plethora of typographical errors. There are lots of missing spaces between words in tables, missing or extra articles (like "the"). Diagrams are readable but are sometimes fuzzy, probably due to being enlarged. However, I've only found one error effecting the technical content (".bas" instead of ".bss").This book is still incredible and I would make it required reading for teams producing or consuming shared or static libraries. Already gotten my money's worth out of this book multiple times over.A second edition of this book with the above issues addressed would likely become a long-lived classic.
N**C
Practical and useful information for software engineers
This is not a computer science textbook. The material presented here is something that will be useful to real-life coders: people who build and use libraries with low level programming languages such as C and C++. If you ever got frustrated by the "undefined reference to" linker error on Linux, or its ugly cousin from Microsoft world "unresolved external symbol", this book will help you understand the magic behind construction and loading of binaries on the two popular platforms. Don't be afraid of reading some assembly language - you'll find the snippets all over the book, but they are very well explained and commented.Most of the space in the book is spent on explaining the complex but very practical concepts related to the re-use of binaries. The last few chapters are down-to earth tutorials and tool descriptions that can be used as a reference long after you will have read the book.
M**R
Quality Control and Troubleshoot Your Binaries
Each program is destined to exist as a block of binary sequences. Source code is the blueprint intent but the block of binary is the result. Quality control over the results can only go so far from the point of view of the blueprint. Sometimes you have to take a look at the end result. This book teaches the background, ways, and whys of using various tools to confirm a few aspects of binary files to address version conflicts and loading of the correct Windows DLLs or Linux Shared Objects used by a program. The book is deep and long but it is all relevant and gives you the tools necessary to understand what happened when the compiler and linker took over and created the program. You also learn how to influence that process with greater certainty.
I**E
Concrete and to the point.
This book is concrete and to the point on subject of putting together, understanding and analysing "stuff" that you get after you compile your source code.This is a book which will teach you methods of building building_blocks together. Analysing and understanding things produced after code gets compiled.This is a book that would and will recommend after one learns how to write code.
A**S
If you're a programmer, then must buy this
reading internet on about compiling and linking is not enough, this book contains more detailed stuffs, should definitely read this, great and excellent ebook, thanks to the author
Trustpilot
3 weeks ago
1 month ago