In the course of our Delphi and AI development, we have bought and read a number of
books. This page is a collection of the most helpful books we have read
and can recommend. This is a preliminary list and will grow. Note
that this list is a little top-heavy for intermediate to advanced books as these
are the books we need and read.
Delphi Books
Mastering Delphi 7/Mastering Delphi 2005
By Marco Cantu
Sybex
ISBN 078214201X
In the
beginning (way back in the Delphi 1 stone age :-) ), there were books like
Delphi Unleashed, Delphi Developers Guide, and Mastering Delphi. Great
books at the time for those new to Delphi. However, while every new
version of Delphi spawned a new version of these books, these books did not grow
with you. They stayed stuck talking to beginners only - once you bought
one, you never needed another. Happily, Marco Cantu broke from the mold
with his latest Mastering Book. Experts and Intermediate Delphi Users will
both find nuggets of gold in this book. It was a treat to find a widely
ranging Delphi book that did not just cover the basics but also covered advanced
topics in a informative and interesting way. Recommended highly.
Secrets of Delphi 2
By Ray Lischner
Waite Group Press
ISBN 1-57169-026-3
(http://www.tempest-sw.com/secrets/) Out of print
This book is out of print and seemingly out of date (after all, the title even
says Delphi 2). However, this book is easily the most used book in our
library. Where some books tackle the easy problems and leave the rest
"to the reader", this book works on the hard problems.
Especially for the component writer but even for every Delphi programmer, this
book is a must have.
Delphi in a Nutshell
By Ray Lischner
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc
ISBN 1-56592-659-5
Another invaluable book from Ray Lischner. This book should probably come
with every copy of Delphi. It is an excellent reference to the object Pascal
language. The only complaint I have about this book is the cover, it curls
badly and is already coming unbound.
Ready-To-Run Delphi 3.0 Algorithms
By Rod Stephens, Kenneth R. Stephens
John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0471254002
A weakness of the delivered Delphi product is the lack of data structures: TList
and TStringList are pretty much all you get. Many times, to efficiently
code a component or program, you need other data structures such as heaps, hash
tables, or trees. It is up to you to code these up; worse, the VCL only
uses these classes and their derivatives so any inefficiencies are built into
the VCL. This book provides many different data structures for Delphi (I
only wish I had this book when I was coding up all my structures). This
book fills a gap in making Delphi programs faster, not just easier
to program.
Developing Custom Delphi 3 Components (Visual Developer Magazine)
By Ray Konopka
ASIN: 1576101126
This is an excellent book to developing Delphi components. The writing
style is clear and the examples (and provided components) are first
rate. The author is obviously knowledgeable and professional. His
support
of the book is also excellent. Combine this book with "Secrets of
Delphi
2" and almost no component is too hard to make.
Fundamentals of Data Structures in Pascal
By Ellis Horowitz, Sartaj Sahni
W H Freeman & Co.
ISBN: 0716782634
Before Ready-to-run came out, this was our reference for data structures (using
the second edition). Now in its fourth edition, this book is a valuable
addition to any Delphi programmers library.
Artificial Intelligence Books
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
By Stuart J. Russell, Peter Norvig
Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0131038052
An excellent introductory text to artificial intelligence. It is very
general and the examples are not in an object oriented language (sometimes
making them hard to adapt), but a good book overall. We are eagerly
awaiting the second edition to this book (due late 2000), which should also
be using Java for the examples.
Expert Systems : Principles and Programming
By Joseph Giarratano, Gary Riley
Pws Pub Co
ISBN: 0534950531
A good book about expert systems with plenty of examples. The second half
of the book is devoted to CLIPS (which the Inference Engine Component Suite
is based on) and gives great examples on the design and development of
expert systems.
The Fuzzy Systems Handbook
By Earl Cox
AP Professional
ISBN: 0121942708
A great text for fuzzy logic and fuzzy systems. The author does a good
job of explaining the advantages for fuzzy logic, and also what it can't do.
The code is in C++ but the Fuzzy Logic of the
Inference Engine provides the capabilities described in the book.
AI Application Programming
By M. Tim Jones
Charles River Media
ISBN: 1584504218
If Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach is for the scientists
(theorists), this book would be for the engineers. This book's strength is
that it gets its hands dirty and shows how to program and use different AI
techniques.
Game Programming Books
Game Programming Gems
By Mark Deloura (Editor)
Charles River Media
ISBN: 1584500492
Finally! A book I can really recommend about game programming! The
only caveat I have is that the examples are all in C++ but otherwise this is an
excellent game programming resource. Like the title says, as you delve
deep into this book you are rewarded with nuggets of information that solve real
game programming problems.
Real-Time Strategy Game Programming Using MS DirectX 6.0
By Mickey Kawick
Wordware Publishing
ISBN: 1556226446
A good book for introductory game programming in the Real-Time Strategy
genre. Unlike most game development books, the author deals with strategy
game issues, which makes this book valuable despite some issues. The AI
section is weak (there is a better pathfinder on our Downloads
page) and he concentrates solely on 2D strategy games. Also, all examples
are in C++. Apparently, there is supposed to be an updated version for
later versions of DirectX.
