Customer Reviews

Professional Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first got the book a few months ago, I had a hard time getting into it in large part because I could not readily build the sample codes associated with the earlier chapters. All the codes, as downloaded from the book's companion website, seemed to have reference and path issues. I was also using VC# Express along with MRDS Express at the time, so I could not avail myself of some of the helpful hints given in the book. Since then, I have switched over to Visual Studio Professional along with MRDS Professional, and having now figured out how to resolve those reference issues in the sample codes (easily done), I must say I have a new found appreciation for what the authors have accomplished with this tome. They obviously know their stuff, and for me, starting with Chapter 6 which details the creation of the Corobot robot in the simulation engine, the book truly becomes invaluable. Indeed, I now find myself referring back to the earlier chapters as well with great relish. Like a fine wine, this books apparently just needs to be given a bit of time to 'breathe' in one's mind in order to reach its full potency. So I want to amend my earlier two-star rating to five stars. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is using MRDS.

(Note: The two-star rating as shown is based on my earlier review filed in April 2009. For some reason, Amazon only allows me to edit the text of my earlier review, but not the star rating.)

This is not an intro book, but is the book you want if you want in depth knowledge. Very good book, but you'll likely use it as a reference rather than a tutorial as the topics are pretty targeted.

I have not yet completed reading this book though I have read the first few chapters.

My first impression is that although this book is fairly thorough and comprehensive, it's not the easiest material to get through.

The authors start with the CCR (Concurrency and Coordination Run-Time) and discuss it in such a way that it has nothing to do with robotics. Obviously, it makes sense as to why you would have a specialized set of components to handle concurrency, etc., but it helps to know how it fits in the big picture of robotics programming.

Anyway, I don't regret having purchased this book, but I wish it was laid out more in the context of robotics rather than just the individual components of the Microsoft Robotics Studio.

Of the two textbooks available, Professional MRDS is an excellent reference book for those who need guidance with MRDS. The textbook has a plethora of examples that are easy to grasp and has an excellent code library (available from the website at no cost). In addition, the hands-on attitude of the authors make MRDS a pleasurable experience.

I got this book one year ago, and found the discordant, inconsistent, and out of tune. The MSRDS had upgrade to version 3. But the code in this book is for version 2. It is quite difficult for a newbie.

This is not an actual review of the book since I am still waiting for it to arrive. I wanted to post the Table of Contents here to help out others since I did not see one from Amazon...

Foreword.
Introduction.

Part I: Robotics Developer Studio Fundamentals.

Chapter 1: Exploring Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio.

Chapter 2: Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR).

Chapter 3: Decentralized Software Services (DSS).

Chapter 4: Advanced Service Concepts.

Part II: Simulations.

Chapter 5: The MRDS Visual Simulation Environment.

Chapter 6: Extending the MRDS Visual Simulation Environment.

Chapter 7: Using Orchestration Services to Build a Simulation Scenario.

Chapter 8: Simulating Articulated Entities.

Chapter 9: Adventures in Simulation.

Part III: Visual Programming Language.

Chapter 10: Microsoft Visual Programming Language Basics.

Chapter 11: Visually Programming Robots.

Chapter 12: Visual Programming Examples.

Part IV: Robotics Hardware.

Chapter 13: Using MRDS with Robotics Hardware.

Chapter 14: Remotely Controlling a Mobile Robot.

Chapter 15: Using a Robotic Arm.

Chapter 16: Autonomous Robots.

Chapter 17: Writing New Hardware Services.

Index.