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I don't have a lot of formal math training, so I'm always looking out for books that can help me bolster what I consider to be a weaker subject for me. When I saw that No Starch Press had released The Manga Guide to Statistics, I was immediately drawn to the idea. As soon as I started reading it, I found myself much more interested than I ever thought I'd be in a math book. The manga setting
As promised over on Twitter, I'm blogging about one of the books I'm reading right now — Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. My scout troop has gotten really good at doing a simple evaluation called an SSC (Start, Stop, Continue) after each major activity, but we hadn't been doing much with the information. I've also been thinking that my team at work doesn't do a very good job of
I just got an early look of the first five chapters of "Concurrent Programming With Erlang/OTP" from Manning. At first glance, this looks like a great book to get started with. The book's home page claims: This hands-on guide is perfect for readers just learning Erlang or for those who want to apply their theoretical knowledge of this powerful language. You'll delve into the Erlang language
I’ve been kind of lax about doing anything to help with URUG of late, and I’m starting to feel guilty about it. Fortunately, O’Reilly and their User Group Program made it easy to do something to put off the guilt for another day. While I was on vacation, two books showed up in my mailbox: Ruby By Example and Build Your Own Ruby On Rails Web Applications. I’m more aware of the first (I was the
I may not have posted recently, but I haven’t been completely away. Besides doing another 30 or so miles of hiking with my scouts (getting ready for a three day backpacking trip next weekend) and spending a lot of energy on my day job, I’ve also been spending some time with a couple of books. The first one that I want to tell you about is The Ruby Programming Language This reworking of the
This article from New Scientist about how scientists recorded the reponses of 49 neurons in a cat's brain (the lateral geniculate nucleus, or LGN to be precise) in order to create a better bionic vision system reminds me or the sentient lobsters in Accelerando by Charles Stross.
Okay, I’m taking my reviews a bit out of order here, but for good reason. I just got a copy of Hackerteen: Internet Blackout, an ‘edutainment’ graphic novel from O’Reilly. In addition to the tech stuff I play with, I’m also a Scoutmaster, and work a lot with 12-13 year old boys, so this stuck me as something I ought to look into. Hackerteen is no Dark Knight, but that doesn’t mean it’s
Sorry I’ve not updated things in a bit, I’m hanging around the fringes of the flu and trying to play nurse for my family while they all suffer through it. In the meantime, I’ve let a lot of little things pile up and need to get them off my chest. First, I’m really excited by Gregory Brown’s new status as a Ruby Mendicant. Even better is that Ruby Central is going to match donations up to
Puppet is a great looking configuration management tool written in Ruby, from Luke Kanies at Reductive Labs. Recently, James Turnbull has written a book, Pulling Strings with Puppet, about it. I’ve interviewed both Luke and James about Ruby, Puppet, and James’ book. So, it’s only fair that I turn an eye to the book as well. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that Apress
Recently, I’ve been reading about Puppet because of James Turnbull’s excellent Pulling Strings with Puppet. James has been good enough to do a short interview with me as well. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed chatting with James (you might want to check out my interview with Luke Kanies too). I normally think of you as a Pythonista, yet Puppet comes from the land of Ruby.
It’s not often that I get up on my soapbox about ‘IP’ issues, though I did write about a copyright infringement problem I had a few years ago — that one turned out well, maybe this one will too. It’s also not often that I will write a negative review — not because I like everything that I read, just that I'd rather follow "Thumper's Rule" and just not write anything. Every once in a while
DZone digg reddit Not too long ago, I interviewed Topher Cyll about his new book, Practical Ruby Projects. Now that I’ve read through it, I wanted to share my thoughts with you. First things first, this is not a first Ruby book, but once you’ve gotten you feet wet with Ruby, this is a great book to help you get to the next level. It features eight projects in nine chapters (one per
dZone has recently introduced a set of ‘zones’ with original content, forums, and other things about specific topics to compliment their social bookmarking site. One of these is the RubyZone. I’ve been asked to work as a ‘Zone Leader’ there, writing new material and helping build the community. Even before I’d gotten there someone else had written some material, a review of the book RailsSpace
Last week I wrote about the three books that O’Reilly sent me, and reviewed Data Visualization. In that review, I promised that I’d be reviewing the other two shortly. Here’s the first of those reviews. Programming Collective Intelligence isn’t a book that lends itself well to review. Not that it’s a bad book, but because it takes a while to get through and really grok the material. This
Manning has been kind enough to offer up a free MEAP (Manning Early Access Program) copy of Ruby in Practice as a prize for this month’s blogging contest. Since Jeremy and Assaf are writing about practical Ruby use, I’d like to hear what you guys are doing with Ruby. Write up your Ruby In Practice adventures, post them on your blog, then drop a link in the comments here, and you could win. You
O’Reilly recently sent me three books to review. They’re all slightly outside my normal Ruby and Linux range, but they’re also all intriguing enough that I had to pick them up and give them a read. I’m planning on reviewing all three over the next week or so since I’m enjoying all of them. (UPDATE I've reviewed the second, Programming Collective Intelligence, here.) The one that most caught
To celebrate the close of the Holiday Practical Ruby and Rails blogging contest I wanted to post this interview with Eldon Alameda. He and I spent some time talking about his new book Practical Rails Projects and other Ruby and Rails topics. I'll be announcing the contest winners soon, until then, enjoy this interview. Why do you think Rails is a practical framework for Web development?
UPDATE: If you like this review, and want to learn more, check out interview with author, Russ Olsen. The Professional Ruby Series from Addison-Wesley is rapidly becoming a heavyweight in Ruby book circles. I just received a complimentary copy of Russ Olsen’s Design Patterns In Ruby from them, and it looks like a great addition to their, already solid, line-up of books. Russ breaks the
Topher Cyll, author of Practical Ruby Projects and I have traded a couple of emails since his book was released by Apress. Here's what we talked about: What makes a Ruby project ‘practical’? Topher Good question! I think the first requirement for a “practical project” is that you actually want to do it! Whether you do it for work, enjoyment, or just to learn doesn’t really mater. All the
Philippe Hanrigou has written an excellent ‘shortcut’ for Addison-Wesley’s Professional Ruby Series. This is a really different kind of Ruby book, and one that’s long overdue. Troubleshooting Ruby Processes takes a quick look at some of the Rubyland tools that developers can use to find problems, then dives into three (unix) system tools that aren’t as well known (or used) as they should
The last book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, today. My wife and I picked up a copy in Ontario, Oregon on our way back from a month spent with my parents in Weiser, Idaho (my hometown). Actually, my wife and daughter spent that month with them, I was traveling on business trips for half of that time.
As with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (year 6), we are reading it together. We’ve only gotten into chapter 7 so far, as I had to leave on another business trip (to Ohio) 10 hours after we got home and she left on another Women’s Trip (like most years her side of the family does). So, we’re on pause right now and both itching to continue the book.
On a side note, I did get the chance to see the 5th Harry Potter movie this week one evening in Ohio. I’ll probably write a short little review of that experience, soon.
Today, the newest installment in the Harry Potter book series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince“, was released. My wife had previously reserved a copy at Barnes & Nobel, which we picked up, this afternoon. However, since she will be leaving town tomorrow evening an a road trip with a friend and her friend’s three children to California (including a day at Disneyland, and I will be gone for the next two weeks on business trips (UPDATE: the second trip was rescheduled), it will be a couple of weeks before we can start reading it.
To date, we have read each of the Harry Potter books, together. It is a wonderful thing to spend time with your spouse reading a good book. It is one of the things that helps us grow closer together in our marriage. If you are married and haven’t read a book together, I would highly recommend the experience. Of course, do not be afraid to try a genre of book that your spouse enjoys, but which you have not had any (good?) experience with. You may find something that you can really enjoy, together.
Although it is not written yet, I am going to put up descriptions and “reviews” of books that I have read. My wife is planning on doing the same, maintaining a list of most every book she has read.
As for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I am looking forward to reading it. Once, we have finished it, my wife and I will both be posting reviews. If you have not read any of the Harry Potter books, I would recommend that you go down to your favorite book store and purchase the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, either in print form or on CD. If you enjoy it, then purchase a set of books (the least expensive way to do so) and give you superfluous copy of the first book to a friend or family member.
Each of the Harry Potter books is good fun for all ages. Sounds like marking copy, doesn’t it? Well, it’s true; children and adults of all ages will thoroughly enjoy each book. So, go out and get yourself a copy of your own and start reading.
With the publication of the first four chapters of their new book, “Ruby In Practice”, through the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP). Assaf Arkin and Jeremy McAnally have been kind enough to answer some questions about the book, Ruby, and themselves. You’re welcome to join our discussion here, or you can buy the book and join the Manning Forum for Ruby in Practice and discuss the book there.
With Ola Bini’s JRuby book out, I thought that I should take some time to talk to him about it. Read on to see what Ola has to say about JRuby, JRuby books, and other languages. You’ve written the first JRuby book. Obviously, it couldn’t cover everything, so what JRuby books are you hoping to see come out over the next year or so? Ola Well, there
I’ve had a long standing goal to read SICP, but it keeps conflicting with other goals, like mastering Ruby or learning Erlang (to name a couple of geeky ones). Recently I learned of a project to ‘translate’ SICP into Erlang (and other languages). “Great! I can use this to help with both learning Erlang and reading SICP”, I thought and went to take a look at it. It turns out they also have
Have you ever picked up a book on the assumption that you were going to need it, only to find out that a) it’s a great book and b) you’re not going to need it? This is just what happened to me with Leonard Richardson and Sam Ruby’s RESTful Web Services. I really liked Leonard’s Ruby Cookbook (shoot I even did an interview with Leonard about it), so when I was looking at doing
Ola’s new book, Practical JRuby on Rails, is out sooner than I expected. I’m not going to write a review of it since I was a technical reviewer, but let me recommend it to you. This is the first book out there about JRuby, it’s got great coverage of integrating Ruby and Java in enterprise settings, and it’s by one of the core JRuby developers. What more could you ask for? It’s too early
I just finished reading Ike: An American Hero, Michael Korda's biography of Eisenhower. I'm a sucker for biographies, particularly US Presidents and I'd not read one of Ike before, although I'd had Steve Ambrose's two-volumn set on my list for a while. I saw this a few weeks ago while I was in DC and picked it up. I wasn't disappointed. Korda delivers a book that tells a great tale by focusing on what made Ike and made him great rather than getting lost in details that most readers won't care about.
I came away with a newfound appreciation for Eisenhower. He was president when I was born and had a great role in shaping the world I grew up in. Still, other than a few facts, I knew hardly anything about him. For example, I hadn't realized how fast Ike was promoted after WWII began--moving from Colonel to four-star general in a matter of a few years. Buy he had been marvelously prepared and mentored by the likes of Pershing, MacArthur, and Marshall.
Korda is clearly an Eisenhower fan and that helps make the book what it is. If you like critical biographies that rip the subject to shreds, you won't enjoy this one. Still, Korda isn't shy when it comes to deeply exploring Ike's relationship with Kay Summersby, perhaps the most controversial aspect of his personal life or the steep learning curve he faced as Supremem Allied Commander.
Korda's writing is clear and brings Ike to life. I found I couldn't wait to get back to it--more like a good novel than a dry biography. I recommend it.
This is exactly why I will never start another "unfinished" book series. "Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan dies":http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070917/ap_en_ot/obit_jordan Yes, I am one of those who with each book release has re-read the whole Wheel of Time series, and was more than eagerly awaiting the last book. It's long been said he's had the end written, it's all the stuff in the middle he's been working on. Now hopefully we'll get someone to finish up the last bit of work on this darn series.
Apress has been putting out a number of solid Ruby books of late, and Practical Ruby for System Administration by André Ben Hamou is one of two great additions to their catalog. André has a easy to read writing style, and covers a lot of ground in this book. The book contains a number of good examples, and would make a great book for a sys admin who’s looking into Ruby.
Since last summer (at OSCon), I’ve been talking to No Starch Press about Ruby. At that point, they had a promising looking proposal for a book called ‘Wicked Cool Ruby’ from Kevin Baird. I ended up as the tech reviewer for the book, which ended up with the title: Ruby By Example. I’m obviously a bit biased, but I really like this book. It’s not really a beginners book on
The last month at work (and at home) has been a killer. We just crossed our big deadline, and things look good for a production release in a month or so. I’ve been involved in a Prom (for my daughter); 3 campouts and two hikes (with the scouts); starting an Erlang group here in Provo; rediscovering my love of soccer (or futbol); and fielding a contact from a TV studio about a possible project.
I’ve been reading Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper. I’m really impressed. The forward (a comic by why the lucky stiff) grabs you immediately, and sets a great Ruby tone for the rest of the book. While Peter doesn’t hit the level of controlled insanity that Why carries off, as a member of the Ruby community he’s able stick to the same high level of “Rubyness”. There
I recently picked up a beta copy of Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World to go along with my (paper) copy of Programming in Haskell. I figured if I had both books, I could make quick runs through them as I try to decide between Haskell and Erlang as the FP language I'm going to focus on this summer. What follows isn't really a review of either book, just a few first impressions.