From: holliday@cse.unl.edu (david holliday)
Subject: SUMMARY: Opinions on O'Reilly Volume Six
Organization: University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 15:28:44 GMT

Wow! I never thought I would receive this many comments about the book.
I went back to the bookstore after reading all the favorable comments.
Alas, someone had already bought the book :-( Looks like I'll have to order
the book now.

Here are the responses I received after asking for opinions about a book in
the O'Reilly series (Volume 6: Motif). Comments that follow were edited
slightly for brevity.

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I would by far, recommend any and all of O'Reillys works.
The important thing is they cover the material COMPLETELY and offer
many examples of what they say.  Volume 6 has been a godsend for me.

I consider it the Bible as far as Motif books go.  I don't know of any
others that attemp to be as complete, if you do let me know.

For me, a novice Motif programmer, I have found this
book to be a life-saver!  I was struggling along with
the Berlage book at first, getting essentially nowhere.
The O'Reilly book is well written (easy to understand),
has good, complete examples (and the code is available).
I would strongly recommend this book!!!!!

Volume 6 can be long winded in places, but there's a lot of information
in it; more than you'll find anywhere else.  The reference appendices
are a lot more useful (to me, anyway) than the OSF reference manual
because they are a lot more compact and readable.  The Motif 1.2 edition
is going to press shortly, but it will be wintertime before it is
available.

Personally, I've found Vol.6 to be absolutely essential.  It's very
readable, the code samples are clear and useful in a real-world sense.
Someone I know calls it the "Oh, Pascal" of Motif.

We use both Douglas Young's book with source code and Dan Heller's and Adrian
Nye's books from O'Reilly.  I rave about volumne six to our programmers at 
Texaco because it continues to be so useful to me. Good index and clear examples
to demonstrate the concepts.  I look forward to the update for Motif 1.2

has lots of good examples.  sometimes it's hard to find exactly what
you want but it's definitely worth having.
also, osf's programmer's reference book (prentice hall) is a "must have".
(be sure to get the revision level that matches your motif release).

As a general introduction/get-up-and-running sort of book , it's perfectly OK.
The introduction ( which is a sizeable portion of the book) is pretty useless , 
even to the relatively new X user because it's rather simple. The examples
given on each widget are fairly clear. The author presents a balanced and
experienced view of the widget set.

Dan Heller's book "Motif Programming Manual" :
I  have found this book excellent and comprehensive. It covers not only the
elementary usage but also the pitfalls in advanced usage of Motif
structures. I've found it a valuable guide and I feel its worth the money.

I swear by the O'Reilly books.  The examples are very well done.  Most X
books I see, deal with basics and introductory topics.  The Motif book deals
with really ugly stuff, like handling multiple event loops, etc.  I 
recommend them highly.

IMHO, Dan Heller's book is far and away the best book
on Motif around.  It's even more comprehensive than the OSF/Motif
Programmer's guide, and is written in a *much* more accessible
style. There is a lot of *useful* example source code.
Overall, it's an excellent tutorial, and is still comprehensive 
enough to be used as a reference. O'Reilly volume 6 is a must.

The Dan Heller book (vol 6) is great ... AND you can get the source
for all the examples off the net. I had never even looked at a MOTIF
program til i got his book. Couple of weeks later my first app
is nearly complete. I have looked up the solution to a good many of
the questions asked on this forum. I have a lot of money invested
in O'Reilly books. You get your money's worth and then some.

I happen to really like the O'Reilly Vol 6 -- in fact everyone who picked
it up at my group here has gone out and bought it -- it gives much more indepth
descriptions of how/why things work -- but remember we're still novices (<1yr)
here so if you are looking for a true reference book it won't do -- and it's
expensive too.

Thanks to:

Adrian		adrian@ora.com
John		stone@osl.csc.ncsu.edu
Dan Heller	argv@z-code.z-code.com
David Flanagan	david@ora.com
Barb Eberlin	eberlin@engvax.picker.com
Joe English	english@alicudi.usc.edu
Kevin Smith	kevin@modcomp.com
Kurt E. Huhner	khuhner@eng.auburn.edu
Michael Chase	nuchat.sccsi.COM!texhrc!mec
Ray Shea 	cs.utexas.edu!unisql!ray
S. Rmakrishnan	ramakris@csgrad.cs.vt.edu
Steve		sdy@bcstec.ca.boeing.com
Tse Huong Choo	thc2@doc.ic.ac.uk
Todd Stevenson	todds@code3.code3.com
Wendy Powley	wendy@qucis.queensu.ca

Dave Holliday
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Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif,comp.windows.x