Reader reviews

Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

I was looking for something that would bridge the gap between tutorials and proper reference material, and this does that well. The chapters on javascript are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. Four stars, and I suspect a second edition could easily push it to five.

Outstanding. I kept finding reasons to come back to it.

This is the third book I have read on game design this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. The explanations are careful without being condescending, which is a difficult balance to strike. The index and cross-references are surprisingly good, which matters for a book I will come back to. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.

Finally, a book that treats software development with the care it deserves.

This is the third book I have read on software development this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. Some terminology is introduced without much ceremony; I had to look a few things up along the way. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. Some of the diagrams are dense and I had to reread a few sections, though that may just be me. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with software development.

Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. A few of the examples could be more realistic, but the underlying points come across clearly. I appreciated the honesty about what the book does not cover — it saved me from expecting things that were not there. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. Good value for the price and worth the time it takes to work through properly.

Exactly the book I needed. Straight to the point and genuinely useful.

I was looking for something that would bridge the gap between tutorials and proper reference material, and this does that well. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. Worth the money and the reading time, without hesitation.

Better than I expected. Rare to find a technical book this well judged.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. I found myself making notes in the margins, which is always a good sign. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with 3d graphics.