you're working on a small, one-person project, you might need only a programming environment such as Visual Studio, Eclipse, RAD Studio, or whatever. For larger team efforts you'll also need tools for project management, documentation (word processors), change tracking, software revision tracking, and more. And, of course, you'll need other developers to help you. This book describes these tools, but you certainly don't need them to read the book.
CONVENTIONS
To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what's happening, I've used several conventions throughout the book.
SPLENDID SIDEBARS
Sidebars such as this one contain additional information and side topics.
WARNING Boxes like this one hold important information that is directly relevant to the surrounding text. There are a lot of ways a software project can fail, so these warn you about “worst practices” that you should avoid.
NOTE These boxes indicate notes, tips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current discussion. They look like this.
As for styles in the text:
● Important words are highlighted when they are introduced.
● Keyboard strokes are shown like this: Ctrl+A. This one means you should hold down the Ctrl key (or Control or CTL or whatever it's labeled on your keyboard) and press the A key.
● This book includes little actual program code because I don't know what programming languages you use (if any). When there is code, it is formatted like the following.
(Don't worry if you can't understand the code. The text explains what it does.)
● Filenames, URLs, and the occasionally piece of code within the text are shown like this: www.csharphelper.com.
ERRATA
I've done my best to avoid errors in this book, and this book has passed through the word processors of a small army of editors and technical reviewers. However, as you'll learn several times in this book, no nontrivial project is ever completely without mistakes. The best I can hope for is that any remaining errors are small enough that they don't distract you from the meaning of the text.
If you find an error in one of my books (like a spelling mistake, broken piece of code, or something that just doesn't make sense), I would be grateful for your feedback. Sending in errata may save other readers hours of frustration. At the same time, you'll be helping me provide even higher quality information.
To find the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com/go/beginningsoftwareengineering. Then, on the book details page, click the Book Errata link. On this page you can view all the errata submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors. A complete book list including links to each book's errata is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.
If you don't spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/techsupport.shtml and complete the form there to submit the error you found. Highly trained editors will spring into action and check the information (by sending me an e-mail). If appropriate, they will then post a message to the book's errata page and fix the problem in subsequent editions of the book.
p2p.wrox.com
Another excellent way to submit feedback and ask questions about the book is through the P2P forums at p2p.wrox.com. (P2P stands for “Programmer to Programmer,” but because this book isn't just for programmers, I hereby declare that P2P stands for “Person to Person” in this context.)
These forums are a web-based system for you to post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies, and to interact with other readers, technology users, and authors (like me). The forums offer a subscription feature to e-mail you topics of interest of your choosing when new posts are made to the forums. Wrox authors, editors, other industry experts, and readers are present on these forums.
To join the forums, just follow these steps:
1. Go to p2p.wrox.com and click the Register link.
2. Read the terms of use and click Agree.
3. Complete the required information to join as well as any optional information you want to provide and click Submit.
4. You will receive an e-mail with information describing how to verify your account and complete the joining process.
JOIN THE FUN
You can read messages in the forums without joining P2P, but to post your own messages, you must join. If you join, Wrox won't spam you. (At least they never have in the past.) They just want to make sure Internet trolls don't make posts in your name.
After you join, you can post new messages and respond to messages the other readers post. You can read messages at any time on the web. If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum e-mailed to you, click the Subscribe to this Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing.
Be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to questions about how the forum software works as well as many common questions specific to P2P and Wrox books. To read the FAQs, click the FAQ link on any P2P page.
Using the P2P forums allows other readers to benefit from your questions and any answers they generate. I monitor my books' forums and respond whenever I can help.
IMPORTANT URLS
Here's a summary of important URLs related to this book:
● www.wrox.com/go/beginningsoftwareengineering– This book's web page.
● p2p.wrox.com– Wrox P2P forums.
● www.wrox.com– The Wrox website. Contains errata and other information. Search for books by title or ISBN.
● [email protected]— My e-mail address. I hope to hear from you!
● www.CSharpHelper.com– My C# website. Contains thousands of tips, tricks, and examples for C# developers.
● www.vb-helper.com– My Visual Basic website. Contains thousands of tips, tricks, and examples for Visual Basic developers.
CONTACTING THE AUTHOR
If you have questions, suggestions, comments, just want to say “Hi,” want to exchange cookie recipes, or whatever, e-mail me at [email protected]. I can't promise that I'll be able to help you with every problem, but I do promise to try.
