The book is good introduction to PDF but has left lots of details away. One can get a good understanding of 1.3 or 1.4 but PDF specification gets more complex after 1.5. So some of those parts must make it to the book. I prefer Developing with PDF for more advanced concepts though. Liked this book for the hand editable examples that are very useful to explain someone about PDF.
Being in Safari Online collection this book adds a lot of value to customers.
I normally do not write commentary on technical books as they are kind of associated with a period and as technology moves on new technology shows up. The books get outdated too soon. This one is about a technology that has almost seen maturity. PDF specification is pretty much a mature specification. Post release of the ISO-32000-1 published in 2008, the pace of development in PDF spect has become really slow. The PDF 2.0 spec is more of minor updates and not a major rewrite. The book is published in 2013. So very much current in that respect. The good part about this book is, it covers the high level features of most of the PDF specification. Text, Graphics, Optional Content etc. There are only countable books on PDF specification as such. Many books are available on the libraries that can be used to read and modify PDF specification documents. But purely a book that speaks of file specification is only countable few. From that perspective the book has lots of information look forward to. Secondly, being part of the Safari Online collection of Oreilly, most technical libraries will have access to the book.
If you are looking forward to working on PDFs then this is a important book to keep. For advanced users of PDF specification is the book to refer to.
Enigma was the German crypto system that has been decoded by the allied forces surreptitiously to win over the axis powers' every secret move. Fermat's last theorem is in a sense a similar puzzle that baffled the mathematical community over 350 years. The books is written for common understanding without dabbling into mathematical details and hence very useful. The first part is about the development of mathematical system and development of scientific temperament from Pythogoras to Fermat. The last part is about development of systems and how Andrew Wiles managed to tackle the problem. The book has a few interesting puzzles talked about as well. The game theoretic truel is particularly interesting one.
What is there in Fermat's theorem? x^n + y^n = z^n does not have any integral solution for n > 2.
Fermat in a margin note has teased to the mathematical community that he had a proof for the same but too long to be mentioned in the margin notes. It's called the last conjecture not because it's the last one he mentioned but it's the last one that mathematical community proved. With several attempts taken to solve the conjecture it was established the theorem has relations to:
1. Elliptical equations
2. Modular computations
3. Galois groups
While Andrew Wiles approach was to relate between several of these seemingly unrelated mathematical islands and bring home a 20th century solution to a 17th century puzzle. Skeptics are still engaged in finding out further solution to the 17th century solution for the 17th century puzzle. As much as Andrew Wiles was responsible for the solution of the theorem who eventually proved a dual Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, the Japanese scientists Taniyama and Shimura cannot be discounted for their efforts in establishing a dual of the Fermat's Last Theorem.
Simon Singh has done an excellent job in keeping things simple for a complex problem and ensuring common man can appreciate the mathematical hard work. But do not expect any mathematical details in the book.
