Gauging interest; new book

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about writing another book, tentatively titled “The QNX
Neutrino Cookbook – Recipes for Realtime Programmers”, and was wondering
if you could share your interest level with me for such a project.

Basically, the book would cover two major sections:
o Section 1 being a high-level kind of “philosophy” for how one
goes about architecting systems under QNX
o Section 2 would consist of the “recipes” part of the title,
consisting of a bunch of neat things that I’ve written over
the last 15 years or so, with fully functioning code and
discussions of how the code works, why it was written the
way it was, and so on.

The goal of the book is that someone could pick up not only a bunch
of “code”, but also the ideas and constraints that went into the
design of the code. I’m currently negotiating with a few places
where I’ve done contract work to see if they’ll let me borrow code
snippets, but I plan to write about the following things:

  • virtual filesystem for USENET news
  • automated testing for resource managers
  • thread fingerprint program for multi-threaded apps
  • universal control panel resource manager
  • self-starting service providers
  • resource manager managed symlinks (e.g., for things like webcams, HA, etc)
  • high availability monitoring / restarting programs
  • telephony CLID server
  • dll implementation guidelines and examples
  • security system example

I’m planning on this book being fairly big, about the same size as the
“Getting Started with QNX Neutrino 2” book (500 pages).

Any thoughts, ideas for topics, etc? Probably best to email me directly
instead of cluttering up the newsgroups :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for your help. Of course, I’ll be looking for reviewers :slight_smile:

Cheers,
-RK

[crossposted to qdn.public.qnxrtp.os qdn.cafe comp.os.qnx]

\

Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at www.parse.com.
Email my initials at parse dot com.

A couple of things I’d be interested in seeing.

-Programming distributed applications
-Using Momentics IDE / Debugging

Kit

“Robert Krten” <nospam86@parse.com> wrote in message
news:ai7jff$5qt$2@inn.qnx.com

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about writing another book, tentatively titled “The QNX
Neutrino Cookbook – Recipes for Realtime Programmers”, and was wondering
if you could share your interest level with me for such a project.

Basically, the book would cover two major sections:
o Section 1 being a high-level kind of “philosophy” for how one
goes about architecting systems under QNX
o Section 2 would consist of the “recipes” part of the title,
consisting of a bunch of neat things that I’ve written over
the last 15 years or so, with fully functioning code and
discussions of how the code works, why it was written the
way it was, and so on.

The goal of the book is that someone could pick up not only a bunch
of “code”, but also the ideas and constraints that went into the
design of the code. I’m currently negotiating with a few places
where I’ve done contract work to see if they’ll let me borrow code
snippets, but I plan to write about the following things:

  • virtual filesystem for USENET news
  • automated testing for resource managers
  • thread fingerprint program for multi-threaded apps
  • universal control panel resource manager
  • self-starting service providers
  • resource manager managed symlinks (e.g., for things like webcams, HA,
    etc)
  • high availability monitoring / restarting programs
  • telephony CLID server
  • dll implementation guidelines and examples
  • security system example

I’m planning on this book being fairly big, about the same size as the
“Getting Started with QNX Neutrino 2” book (500 pages).

Any thoughts, ideas for topics, etc? Probably best to email me directly
instead of cluttering up the newsgroups > :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for your help. Of course, I’ll be looking for reviewers
:slight_smile:

Cheers,
-RK

[crossposted to qdn.public.qnxrtp.os qdn.cafe comp.os.qnx]

\

Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at > www.parse.com> .
Email my initials at parse dot com.

Kit Plummer <kitplummer@cox.net> wrote:

A couple of things I’d be interested in seeing.

-Programming distributed applications

Ok. Any suggestions? the “distributed batch queue” system might
find its way in there – it’s currently a QNX 4 product, but hey… :slight_smile:
Raytrace? Music generation? Ideas welcome!

-Using Momentics IDE / Debugging

I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you there – my ide is a
shell, and by debugger is the printf() debugger :slight_smile: Given that kind
of “attitude” I probably wouldn’t do justice to the topics! (sorry!)

Cheers,
-RK

Kit

“Robert Krten” <> nospam86@parse.com> > wrote in message
news:ai7jff$5qt$> 2@inn.qnx.com> …

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about writing another book, tentatively titled “The QNX
Neutrino Cookbook – Recipes for Realtime Programmers”, and was wondering
if you could share your interest level with me for such a project.

Basically, the book would cover two major sections:
o Section 1 being a high-level kind of “philosophy” for how one
goes about architecting systems under QNX
o Section 2 would consist of the “recipes” part of the title,
consisting of a bunch of neat things that I’ve written over
the last 15 years or so, with fully functioning code and
discussions of how the code works, why it was written the
way it was, and so on.

The goal of the book is that someone could pick up not only a bunch
of “code”, but also the ideas and constraints that went into the
design of the code. I’m currently negotiating with a few places
where I’ve done contract work to see if they’ll let me borrow code
snippets, but I plan to write about the following things:

  • virtual filesystem for USENET news
  • automated testing for resource managers
  • thread fingerprint program for multi-threaded apps
  • universal control panel resource manager
  • self-starting service providers
  • resource manager managed symlinks (e.g., for things like webcams, HA,
    etc)
  • high availability monitoring / restarting programs
  • telephony CLID server
  • dll implementation guidelines and examples
  • security system example

I’m planning on this book being fairly big, about the same size as the
“Getting Started with QNX Neutrino 2” book (500 pages).

Any thoughts, ideas for topics, etc? Probably best to email me directly
instead of cluttering up the newsgroups > :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for your help. Of course, I’ll be looking for reviewers
:slight_smile:

Cheers,
-RK

[crossposted to qdn.public.qnxrtp.os qdn.cafe comp.os.qnx]

\

Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at > www.parse.com> .
Email my initials at parse dot com.


Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at www.parse.com.
Email my initials at parse dot com.

No Worries. Judging from your previous books, I would have guessed such
is the case with Momentics IDE. However, maybe you could get somebody
to provide content for a chapter or two??? I have seen this in other
books. Being that there isn’t any ink anywhere else on the subject it
might just make “your” book that much more attractive to “newbies” to
QNX and Neutrino.

Can’t give you much more of a pointer, as I wouldn’t know what would be
a good “hello world distributed” application would be…

Keep up the good work…and thanks for asking.

Kit

Robert Krten wrote:

Kit Plummer <> kitplummer@cox.net> > wrote:

A couple of things I’d be interested in seeing.


-Programming distributed applications


Ok. Any suggestions? the “distributed batch queue” system might
find its way in there – it’s currently a QNX 4 product, but hey… > :slight_smile:
Raytrace? Music generation? Ideas welcome!


-Using Momentics IDE / Debugging


I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you there – my ide is a
shell, and by debugger is the printf() debugger > :slight_smile: > Given that kind
of “attitude” I probably wouldn’t do justice to the topics! (sorry!)

Cheers,
-RK


Kit


“Robert Krten” <> nospam86@parse.com> > wrote in message
news:ai7jff$5qt$> 2@inn.qnx.com> …

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about writing another book, tentatively titled “The QNX
Neutrino Cookbook – Recipes for Realtime Programmers”, and was wondering
if you could share your interest level with me for such a project.

Basically, the book would cover two major sections:
o Section 1 being a high-level kind of “philosophy” for how one
goes about architecting systems under QNX
o Section 2 would consist of the “recipes” part of the title,
consisting of a bunch of neat things that I’ve written over
the last 15 years or so, with fully functioning code and
discussions of how the code works, why it was written the
way it was, and so on.

The goal of the book is that someone could pick up not only a bunch
of “code”, but also the ideas and constraints that went into the
design of the code. I’m currently negotiating with a few places
where I’ve done contract work to see if they’ll let me borrow code
snippets, but I plan to write about the following things:

  • virtual filesystem for USENET news
  • automated testing for resource managers
  • thread fingerprint program for multi-threaded apps
  • universal control panel resource manager
  • self-starting service providers
  • resource manager managed symlinks (e.g., for things like webcams, HA,

etc)

  • high availability monitoring / restarting programs
  • telephony CLID server
  • dll implementation guidelines and examples
  • security system example

I’m planning on this book being fairly big, about the same size as the
“Getting Started with QNX Neutrino 2” book (500 pages).

Any thoughts, ideas for topics, etc? Probably best to email me directly
instead of cluttering up the newsgroups > :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for your help. Of course, I’ll be looking for reviewers

:slight_smile:

Cheers,
-RK

[crossposted to qdn.public.qnxrtp.os qdn.cafe comp.os.qnx]

\

Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at > www.parse.com> .
Email my initials at parse dot com.
\

Hi there RK,

This year I discovered QNX for the first time and am currently designing and
implimenting software to monitor and control a machining process. Being a
windows user QNX was quite a “culture shock” for me. So the first thing I
did was read the QNX system architecture guide, programming guide and your
book- Getting started with QNX neutrino…(which was a HUGE help and
possibly one of the only reasons i’m pulling this project off)
I have found that there were a plethera of unanswered questions I had about
system architechture and the “correct” way to use message passing, process
managers, etc, etc for example: designing and handing the
interface(read/write/devctl/etc) for process managers-build for speed,
traceability or functionality.

I feel your new book would be another GREAT aid for QNX developers (new and
old).

Important areas in my opinion are:

  • Architechtural design of network distributed applications, not just QNET
    but also ones with say for example: connect to a user interface in windows
    over tcp/ip, etc. In my experience many recent embedded systems only have
    user access via a network connection(LAN/WAN).
    [I’m currently attempting to use XML and sockets to communicate between Macromedia Flash 5 (GUI) and QNX (control system) over a LAN].

-when/how to design a system using a heirarchy of process managers, for
abstraction and ease of testing, which are communicating with each other,
and achieving good response times and reliability. (Good software design
principles and practices for QNX or Good open system architecture for
extensibility and traceability using QNX)

These are just some of the personal questions i’ve had over the last couple
of months. Not really that experienced yet to determine whether everybody
else feels the same…

Hope it helped! Goodluck with the new book!

Best regards,
Grant Kruger



Robert Krten <nospam86@parse.com> wrote in message
news:ai7jff$5qt$2@inn.qnx.com

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about writing another book, tentatively titled “The QNX
Neutrino Cookbook – Recipes for Realtime Programmers”, and was wondering
if you could share your interest level with me for such a project.

Basically, the book would cover two major sections:
o Section 1 being a high-level kind of “philosophy” for how one
goes about architecting systems under QNX
o Section 2 would consist of the “recipes” part of the title,
consisting of a bunch of neat things that I’ve written over
the last 15 years or so, with fully functioning code and
discussions of how the code works, why it was written the
way it was, and so on.

The goal of the book is that someone could pick up not only a bunch
of “code”, but also the ideas and constraints that went into the
design of the code. I’m currently negotiating with a few places
where I’ve done contract work to see if they’ll let me borrow code
snippets, but I plan to write about the following things:

  • virtual filesystem for USENET news
  • automated testing for resource managers
  • thread fingerprint program for multi-threaded apps
  • universal control panel resource manager
  • self-starting service providers
  • resource manager managed symlinks (e.g., for things like webcams, HA,
    etc)
  • high availability monitoring / restarting programs
  • telephony CLID server
  • dll implementation guidelines and examples
  • security system example

I’m planning on this book being fairly big, about the same size as the
“Getting Started with QNX Neutrino 2” book (500 pages).

Any thoughts, ideas for topics, etc? Probably best to email me directly
instead of cluttering up the newsgroups > :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for your help. Of course, I’ll be looking for reviewers
:slight_smile:

Cheers,
-RK

[crossposted to qdn.public.qnxrtp.os qdn.cafe comp.os.qnx]

\

Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at > www.parse.com> .
Email my initials at parse dot com.

Kit Plummer <kp@sip.vme.com> wrote:

No Worries. Judging from your previous books, I would have guessed such
is the case with Momentics IDE. However, maybe you could get somebody
to provide content for a chapter or two??? I have seen this in other

Ok; I’ll consider it, but I’m also kinda sorta thinking that it might
not “fit” into the “cookbook” nature of the book; we’ll see.

Any volunteers?

books. Being that there isn’t any ink anywhere else on the subject it
might just make “your” book that much more attractive to “newbies” to
QNX and Neutrino.

Can’t give you much more of a pointer, as I wouldn’t know what would be
a good “hello world distributed” application would be…

I’ll see if I can come up with something. I’ve used the batch queue stuff
for compressing whacks of .wav → .mp3 files – makes “load balancing”
on a network of machines much easier, esp. since each machine may be
running at a different speed. Compute intensive stuff is good, as you
don’t get tied down by the speed of your network…

Cheers,
-RK

Keep up the good work…and thanks for asking.

Kit

Robert Krten wrote:
Kit Plummer <> kitplummer@cox.net> > wrote:

A couple of things I’d be interested in seeing.


-Programming distributed applications


Ok. Any suggestions? the “distributed batch queue” system might
find its way in there – it’s currently a QNX 4 product, but hey… > :slight_smile:
Raytrace? Music generation? Ideas welcome!


-Using Momentics IDE / Debugging


I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you there – my ide is a
shell, and by debugger is the printf() debugger > :slight_smile: > Given that kind
of “attitude” I probably wouldn’t do justice to the topics! (sorry!)

Cheers,
-RK


Kit


“Robert Krten” <> nospam86@parse.com> > wrote in message
news:ai7jff$5qt$> 2@inn.qnx.com> …

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about writing another book, tentatively titled “The QNX
Neutrino Cookbook – Recipes for Realtime Programmers”, and was wondering
if you could share your interest level with me for such a project.

Basically, the book would cover two major sections:
o Section 1 being a high-level kind of “philosophy” for how one
goes about architecting systems under QNX
o Section 2 would consist of the “recipes” part of the title,
consisting of a bunch of neat things that I’ve written over
the last 15 years or so, with fully functioning code and
discussions of how the code works, why it was written the
way it was, and so on.

The goal of the book is that someone could pick up not only a bunch
of “code”, but also the ideas and constraints that went into the
design of the code. I’m currently negotiating with a few places
where I’ve done contract work to see if they’ll let me borrow code
snippets, but I plan to write about the following things:

  • virtual filesystem for USENET news
  • automated testing for resource managers
  • thread fingerprint program for multi-threaded apps
  • universal control panel resource manager
  • self-starting service providers
  • resource manager managed symlinks (e.g., for things like webcams, HA,

etc)

  • high availability monitoring / restarting programs
  • telephony CLID server
  • dll implementation guidelines and examples
  • security system example

I’m planning on this book being fairly big, about the same size as the
“Getting Started with QNX Neutrino 2” book (500 pages).

Any thoughts, ideas for topics, etc? Probably best to email me directly
instead of cluttering up the newsgroups > :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for your help. Of course, I’ll be looking for reviewers

:slight_smile:

Cheers,
-RK

[crossposted to qdn.public.qnxrtp.os qdn.cafe comp.os.qnx]

\

Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at > www.parse.com> .
Email my initials at parse dot com.

\


Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at www.parse.com.
Email my initials at parse dot com.

grant kruger <a@b.c> wrote:

Hi there RK,

Hi Grant,

thanks for the excellent suggestions. Some of the hierarchy stuff will
definitely be in the first section; the tradeoffs between resmgr speed
and “raw” message passing speed are a good idea too. If you like, we
can go back and forth on this via email (I would expect a@b.c to not
work :slight_smile: you can email me using the above nospam address)

Cheers,
-RK

This year I discovered QNX for the first time and am currently designing and
implimenting software to monitor and control a machining process. Being a
windows user QNX was quite a “culture shock” for me. So the first thing I
did was read the QNX system architecture guide, programming guide and your
book- Getting started with QNX neutrino…(which was a HUGE help and
possibly one of the only reasons i’m pulling this project off)
I have found that there were a plethera of unanswered questions I had about
system architechture and the “correct” way to use message passing, process
managers, etc, etc for example: designing and handing the
interface(read/write/devctl/etc) for process managers-build for speed,
traceability or functionality.

I feel your new book would be another GREAT aid for QNX developers (new and
old).

Important areas in my opinion are:

  • Architechtural design of network distributed applications, not just QNET
    but also ones with say for example: connect to a user interface in windows
    over tcp/ip, etc. In my experience many recent embedded systems only have
    user access via a network connection(LAN/WAN).
    [I’m currently attempting to use XML and sockets to communicate between Macromedia Flash 5 (GUI) and QNX (control system) over a LAN].

-when/how to design a system using a heirarchy of process managers, for
abstraction and ease of testing, which are communicating with each other,
and achieving good response times and reliability. (Good software design
principles and practices for QNX or Good open system architecture for
extensibility and traceability using QNX)

These are just some of the personal questions i’ve had over the last couple
of months. Not really that experienced yet to determine whether everybody
else feels the same…

Hope it helped! Goodluck with the new book!

Best regards,
Grant Kruger



Robert Krten <> nospam86@parse.com> > wrote in message
news:ai7jff$5qt$> 2@inn.qnx.com> …

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about writing another book, tentatively titled “The QNX
Neutrino Cookbook – Recipes for Realtime Programmers”, and was wondering
if you could share your interest level with me for such a project.

Basically, the book would cover two major sections:
o Section 1 being a high-level kind of “philosophy” for how one
goes about architecting systems under QNX
o Section 2 would consist of the “recipes” part of the title,
consisting of a bunch of neat things that I’ve written over
the last 15 years or so, with fully functioning code and
discussions of how the code works, why it was written the
way it was, and so on.

The goal of the book is that someone could pick up not only a bunch
of “code”, but also the ideas and constraints that went into the
design of the code. I’m currently negotiating with a few places
where I’ve done contract work to see if they’ll let me borrow code
snippets, but I plan to write about the following things:

  • virtual filesystem for USENET news
  • automated testing for resource managers
  • thread fingerprint program for multi-threaded apps
  • universal control panel resource manager
  • self-starting service providers
  • resource manager managed symlinks (e.g., for things like webcams, HA,
    etc)
  • high availability monitoring / restarting programs
  • telephony CLID server
  • dll implementation guidelines and examples
  • security system example

I’m planning on this book being fairly big, about the same size as the
“Getting Started with QNX Neutrino 2” book (500 pages).

Any thoughts, ideas for topics, etc? Probably best to email me directly
instead of cluttering up the newsgroups > :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for your help. Of course, I’ll be looking for reviewers
:slight_smile:

Cheers,
-RK

[crossposted to qdn.public.qnxrtp.os qdn.cafe comp.os.qnx]

\

Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at > www.parse.com> .
Email my initials at parse dot com.


Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices +1 613 599 8316.
Realtime Systems Architecture, Books, Video-based and Instructor-led
Training and Consulting at www.parse.com.
Email my initials at parse dot com.