Customer Reviews

The Boost Graph Library: User Guide and Reference Manual

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The first part of this book applies the algorithms of the Boost Graph Library (BGL) in fun ways. For example, it solves the problem of Make-style file dependency checking using BGL. And it explores everybody's favorite pastime, "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" and similar problems. These real-life examples greatly spice up an otherwise very boring topic.

BGL uses concept checking and property maps and a few other Boost approaches that aren't very well explored in the text. Granted, it's not a book about C++ programming in general (like "Modern C++ Design") but a bit more coverage of these key ideas would have been nice. Also, unlike the STL, several of the alogirithms are named by their canonical names instead of simply specifying their behavior and performance (e.g. names like dijkstra_visitor and bellman_visitor vs. list and map) . This means that library users may need to refer back to the text to figure out which algorithm they desire.

The choice to typeset all code in bold italic text was very unfortunate, but the use of C-Web to explain larger routines more than makes up for this.

The latter part of the book is a dry reference to BGL. More of the exploratory material would have been preferrable.

Overall, a great addition to my C++ library.

The boost graph library extends the STL tool box of containers into graph containers. Wished for a general purpose graph? This is the place. Never studied graph's in a CS course, but know basic data structures like lists, hashes and trees? This is a fine place to start. The book goes from basic, what is a graph good for, (solving search, and routing problems) to what are the various drawbacks to the different approaches.

If you are used to using the C++ STL library you will feel right at home using this. (BTW this library works with MSVC 6.5)

I really like the BGL book!

What strikes me the most is the accessibility - the introductions hit the right key immediately, so there's really no need to keep reference material at hand. The samples are equally good, and they're the right size to be easily transformed into solutions to related problems. The book currently rests on my bedside table, and only my favorites make it there...
The Boost Graph Library is powerful, and the BGL book is an excellent companion for graph-related studies or real-world graph problem solving.

Room for improvements:
* The index
* Even more samples (maybe not so elaborate in the text, could be on the CD)

Finally: I like the book a lot, and even if you're not "a graph person", chances are that you will be after reading the BGL book.

I highly recommend it!

Its amazing what is possible to do. Note to the wise: if you think something is impossible, you might be wrong. Often the limitations you face are not in the external reality, but are within your own mind.

This is one of those books which has expanded the limits of what was considered possible. For decades, nobody believed it was possible to write a fully generic, reusable graph library which didn't make some compromises in runtime or memory. After all, the graph abstraction is very general: anything from a toaster to a town could be a node in some graph--and each object has its own most effiicient representations. How could one library really deal with any arbitrary graph no matter what data structures were used to represent it?

Well, it can be done, and here, really for the first time in history, it has been done. Amazing. What's the catch?

Well, the catch is that its damn hard to learn how to use, especially for busy, middle-aged programmers who don't have as much time to keep current as they used to have in their 20's. The effort it takes to master these techniques is roughly equivalent to learning how to differentiate and integrate polynomials and trig functions. Expect to spend several 40-hour weeks reading this book if you really want to "get" it.

That being said, once you "get" it, a whole new wonderland of programming will be opened up for you. You'll never have to write another DFS algorithm or MST algorithm again--its already been done for you. The initial down payment is very steep, but programming at a higher level really does pay dividents in increased productivity and effectiveness. So buy this book, get partner to watch the kids for several weekends, and dig in.

And keep in mind--whatever impossible problem you're currently facing--it might not be as impossible as it seems.

I have expected that the book (1) will be much more informative and easy to understand than the BGL documentation on the web (2) I will be able to refere to the book and easily apply algorithm I just need for my project (3) all functions/concepts used in examples are well documented and it is easy to find what they mean.
It is not that way.
I wanted to use some simple algorithm in my project. I have read first chapters introducing basic concepts and then I went to references for the algorithm. I can easily copy and past the example to my code and it works but it is difficult to understand how can I change it, since even the most basic functions used are sometimes not documented at all and I have to guess what they do. If they are documented I usually have to look at five different places in the book to find some fragments of informations, then look at examples and guess what it could be. Well, sometimes I also create such a documentation, usually when I do not spent enough time on making things clear. I doubt that anybody not familiar with BGL was asked to read the book before publication.
Some paragraphs are just copy of the documentation available on the web (and a lot of examples). The book looks as the authors put in it what they already had prepared for other ocasions and added some 'decorative' elements.
I belive that spending much more time on making the material more organized could make the book definitely easier to use.

clearly these guys do NOT know how to write a book, or they do not have the time to do it. this can not be called a book, only some printed pages filled with cryptic information that you can pull off the boost web sites for free.

to be fair, c++ code that uses a library with generic programming and excessive type synthesis can be ugly and hard to explain. but hey, if you are given a few hundred pages to explain what going on in ONE library, you should be able to start from the basic and gradually get into the involved details. apparently this is not the case here, everything is thrown at the reader without much explanation.

I installed the CD, but the 'VC++ Projects' folder is empty. It should include Allexamples.dsw and all the sample files as stated in Readme.txt.

This book is all wonderful, but my copy comes with no CD (reason for 3 stars). It refers me to the publisher web site, where I could not find the electronic version either. Being able to search the text and print out certain pages are real benefits for me, why do they decide to stop the CD? Anybody knows how to get the electronic version?