Review by Billy Barron

"Client/Server Survival Guide, 3rd Edition" by Orfali, Harkey, and Edwards (Wiley Computer Publishing; ISBN 0-471-31615-6) is a book which covers every imaginable facet of Client/Server computing. The topics include operating systems, databases, middleware, data warehoues, transaction processing, groupware, distributed objects, CORBA, COM, and the Web.

The authors keep this usually dry topic interesting and light-hearted. They present an excellent overview of each subject so it is a great first book to get your feet wet in client/server. Also, the book is incredibly up to date so if your knowledge is a little old, it will bring you up to speed on the latest developments.

The only negative I can state is that at times when the authors try to dig into technical details, they make some inaccurate statements. However, if you use this book for general concepts and overview, this will not be a problem.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is working in the client/server arena. It is extremely useful to get a wide breadth of knowledge in this area.