In the introduction to this “ultimate programmer’s guide to resources on the World Wide Web,” Renehan states that he has produced this catalog in order to provide pointers to Web sites that are informationally rich, useful, and current. Renehan identifies five characteristics that qualify a Web site as worthwhile:
A key accompanying each site listing indicates which of these characteristics the site possesses. Each of the 1001 Web sites is described in half a page and is grouped into one of 21 topics listed in the table of contents (for instance, AI programming, assembly language programming, Delphi programming, games programming, organizations and standards, and “sites too cool to pass up”). I can suggest two ways this book can be useful in pointing programmers and system designers to useful sites. For one, if a reader should want information on a specific topic--“hacking,” for example--the index at the back of the book would point him or her to programming resource site #764, which provides access to questions and comments about hacking. The accompanying key indicates that the site covers details and is open to all.
Another way to use the book is simply to browse among the sites listed in a category of interest. For example, if you were to browse under AI programming sites, you would come across a listing for the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute (#8) and read that “The Robotics Institute…was established in 1979 to conduct fundamental research in robotics technologies relevant to industrial and societal tasks.” The key also indicates that there is free software available at the site, that it is open to all, and that the site has strong content and excellent references.
The CD-ROM accompanying the book contains Internet connection software for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. It also includes a fully searchable electronic version of the book, which can be read sequentially, moving from one site to the next, or can be searched for information on specific topics. Both the printed and the electronic form of this book achieve the author’s purpose of providing a useful guide to programming resources on the World Wide Web.
