Customer Reviews

Systems Architecture

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

 

 

this is not a book on *SYSTEMS* architecture.

Like that book on Enterprise (SIC) architecture that was all about LANs and not the entire enterprise , this book has too narrow a viewpoint.

The title should be changed so it is not misleading. The author's perspective may be *his* system but to most of us this stuff is at best a subsystem, or merely a component, or otehr lower level item.

if you want to know about SYSTEMS architecture the key book is rechtin and maier. there may be a recent handbook of SA that covers a number of topics but eb and mark have the only real systems architecture book that I have verified.

this book is not the book the title claims.

Contrary to what some of the other reviewers believe, this book was not intended for graduate studies, as is expressly stated in the first sentence of the preface. Binary representation, CPU operation, etc. are not subjects for graduate study. This text was used in a first year, county college computer architecture course, and as such, the book is nearly worthless. Burd so obviously has no idea of the difference between telling or listing information, and presenting didactically, i.e. teaching. Do not use this book unless you have no choice. And this is from someone who is pulling an A in the course.

The information is the book is too basic. A quick read of the end of chapter review questions attests to this. For example: chapter 14 question 6, "What is a monitor?". Are you kidding me? I paid for this? The content is merely a repeat of information from various Computer Based Tutorials CBT) and introductory training material I've seen over the 25 years. Stephen D. Burd does state in the beginning of the book that it is not intended for graduate studies. My problem is that this is the required book for my graduate level Systems Architecture class. I cannot identify a purpose that this book serves well except as a refresher for the semantics necessary to complete my course exams.

I have read/studied the 4th edition of this book. I thought it was excellent, and I consider myself as a serious informed practitioner of Computer Science and Software Engineering. While I respect the comments of other reviewers of this book, my considered opinion of this book (4th edition, softcover) is as per above. I have not yet purchased/read the most current version of this book, although I intend to do so in the near future.

Painful, boring, and essentially worthless textbook. It describes simple terms so badly that definitions blend together and add serious confusion when examining critically. Those experienced with the topic could barely sort out this jumbled mess, and beginners will simply be lost.

I've been a professional software engineer for over 20 years and recently took a grad course that used this book. I can honestly say I was somewhat dismayed when I read the 2 previous reviews and had to plunk down the cash to buy the book just the same.

Overall, I thought the author's style was easy to read and understand and I thought the book flowed well. The content was, for me, a nice review of topics that I haven't encountered in quite a while in my day to day activities.

Unlike the other reviewers, I don't have any clever one liners that I want to see in print next to my name or want to trash the whole book because of one or two shortcomings.

The book is not "great" but, IMHO, it is pretty good for classroom work. The author does get a little loose with terminology and, at times, you'll encounter some ambiguous content that you have to work a little to get through.

As I said previously, it was a fairly easy read which counts for a lot with me. A lot of these text books are technically accurate but are also a royal pain to try and read while staying awake.

The author (apparently) has a teaching tool available to instructors only that generates test questions. Some of the questions are ambiguous but that generated classroom discussions on the how/why they were ambiguous so we learned more that way as well.

For me, this book was definitely worth it but, then again, I wanted to learn -- not just write a clever and scathing review.

I had to use this book for a sophomore class in college and let me tell you, this is the worst book ever written. Every time I would read this book, I would immediately fall asleep within 10 minutes. Then, I would wake up and try to read some more and fall back asleep. This book threw my whole sleep schedule off and I'm not exaggerating. First, the book is hard to follow. Second, when the author tries to describe something or use an analogy, it makes no sense whatsoever. Some of the vocabulary exercises at the end of each chapter aren't even covered in the chapter. Luckily, I already knew 90% of the topics covered in this book and still got an "A" in the class, but I would suggest buying a different book unless this book is required in one of your college courses.

Worst text book I have ever bought. Downright PAINFUL to read. It was so bad I had to also buy the eBook just so I could search for the gibberish inside more effectively without compromising my grade. Nice...

If you purchase this book, you will want to take the time to properly break in the book binding (see [...]), otherwise you will have a book with one large crease down the center. The book's pages are very thick, and the binding isn't strong enough (or loose enough) to support it.

I found the book's content timely and informative.

Who knew? These computer macheines have many parts that all have to work together just right to make them work. It has all kinds of parts that don't just go left and right but do all kind of things that are kind of like magic. I am just amazed and shocked by all the fancy things inside this thing called a computer.