A good introduction to systems theory. It's well laid out, has diagrams in all the right places, deals with the subject matter chapter by chapter, and even has footnotes and callout sections to detail information. This book does only cover the introductions, and so is not the compendium of odd and counterintuitive cases that say, "Systemantics" covers, nor does it have any math involvement. Although the author has a background in ecology, this is not a biased book in any way, shape, or form.

I think this book should be a requirement for anyone who is starting out as a programmer, or even in college period -- I think that anyone planning to be a manager or a software architect should know systems theory by heart, one way or another.