The basic thesis of this book is that it would be a major advance in the field of software if end users could easily modify application packages to meet their specific needs, while taking advantage of the industry-structured framework offered by the packages. In their preface, the authors compare today’s application software as being identical to hiring a very experienced assistant, who is completely familiar with your industry but knows nothing of your specific company or customers, and who is rigidly and unalterably set in his ways. How long would this human assistant last if he insisted at each disagreement that you change your processes and procedures to do it his way?

The book’s editors have collected 21 essays on how to overcome this limitation. Each essay has a long list of references, and, from the dates of these references, I judge that the essays give an overview of the state of the art, circa 2004-2005. With the exception of one Japanese co-contributor, the essay authors are all from the US and Western Europe. That’s a wide selection, but another entire book could probably be compiled describing the work being done in Japan and Korea on graphical methods of end-user development, especially work being done using gaming and console interfaces. And I don’t know, but I would be very curious to learn about what’s happening in this area in China and India, both obviously rapidly growing hot beds of computing needs and progress, and both drawing on cultural foundations far different from those described in this book.

The book is easy to navigate. Each essay has an introductory abstract, and the book includes an excellent index that helps readers find the essays that cover topics of cross-essay interest, such as components, maintenance, or security.

Inherently, books of technical essays age quickly and offer a smorgasbord of possibilities that can be as confusing as they are helpful. But anyone doing work in this field will find this a handy reference for checking out what others are doing, for doing due diligence about various approaches, and, most importantly, for having names and references for further contact. All of the essay authors have provided their email addresses, and those addresses may be the most valuable part of the entire text.