These days it seems hard to find enough time to read a book from cover to cover - more often I read - skim - read - skim until I'm finished. Part of the reason is that in a developers job it seems that every three months or so I have to learn a whole new set of technologies for the next project. That said, some books were good enough to read all the way through, they held their own against the need for skimming. Of those here are some reviews:
Perl Testing: A Developers Notebook (chromatic & Langworth)
Turned out to be a very good and up to date book on Perl testing. This book covers everything under the sun about testing with Perl. But beyond that all the techniques are generally applicable for testing in any language, and from that point of view this book is probably the most compete book on testing that I have ever read. Top marks for this book and I strongly recommend it for people who are coding in Perl.
Getting Started With Grails (Davis & Rudolph)
I really like Groovy and I picked this up because I was looking into Google App Engine and I wanted to see what I could do with GAE and Groovy. Grails turned out to be a pretty good framework. I worked through this book in a weekend and my reaction was "Wow, I'm getting a lot of functionality and I'm not writing hardly any code." This book is one, well written tutorial to Grails. Its also free as a download from Infoq. A very good resource.
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (Schell)
This book came across the me as a cross between New Age Philosphy and Software Development. I'm looking at the table of contents right now and here are some of the chapter sections "Dissect Your Feelings", "All That's Real is What You Feel". Well, I dont like my tech books to be too touchy feely but I was able to put that aside and get something out of pretty much every chapter in this book. This is a good book if your looking for a tech book that you dont have to read with a computer handy, to write code along with. Try it on your next plane trip.
Programming Clojure (Halloway)
The pragmatic programmer books are always good quality and this was no exception. This is a good solid introduction to Clojure. I would recommend it for anyone starting out with the language.
The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Abelson, Sussman & Sussman)
I am working through this implementing everything in Clojure instead of Scheme as I go through. I haven't finished yet - Im near the end of chapter 4 of 5 chapters. This is a book that one has to spend some time with. And after one spends the time one will have to put a bit more time aside to digest. For people who are interested in languages and lisps in general this is a good book to start a journey towards deeper understanding of CS fundamentals.
Object Oriented Software Construction (Meyer)
I have this on my kindle and I have pulled this out and read a chapter here and there at different points this year. But I have probably read each chapter in this book twice since I first found it about 3 years ago. This book is a classic. I can pick any chapter in this book and always discover something new to think about, or better ideas to add to my tool box. If you are writing software you owe it to yourself to read this book.
And.....Lastly a few non tech books
Solo Guitar Playing (Noad)
Excellent, Excellent, Excellent. For those interested in classical guitar, I cant say enough good things about this book.
Inner Work (Johnson)
I'm very partial to books with a Jungian bent. This is a good practical discussion of active imagination. I've never read a book where active imagination was well explained; this one is very thorough. Highly recommended.
Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Henderson)
I read this through all in one sitting and occasionally I find myself going back for rereads of particular chapters. People who take an interest in economics will have extra appreciation for this book.
So, there you are, some reading possibilities depending on you interests....For 2011 lets continue to expand our horizons:)
Marco
Perl Testing: A Developers Notebook (chromatic & Langworth)
Turned out to be a very good and up to date book on Perl testing. This book covers everything under the sun about testing with Perl. But beyond that all the techniques are generally applicable for testing in any language, and from that point of view this book is probably the most compete book on testing that I have ever read. Top marks for this book and I strongly recommend it for people who are coding in Perl.
Getting Started With Grails (Davis & Rudolph)
I really like Groovy and I picked this up because I was looking into Google App Engine and I wanted to see what I could do with GAE and Groovy. Grails turned out to be a pretty good framework. I worked through this book in a weekend and my reaction was "Wow, I'm getting a lot of functionality and I'm not writing hardly any code." This book is one, well written tutorial to Grails. Its also free as a download from Infoq. A very good resource.
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (Schell)
This book came across the me as a cross between New Age Philosphy and Software Development. I'm looking at the table of contents right now and here are some of the chapter sections "Dissect Your Feelings", "All That's Real is What You Feel". Well, I dont like my tech books to be too touchy feely but I was able to put that aside and get something out of pretty much every chapter in this book. This is a good book if your looking for a tech book that you dont have to read with a computer handy, to write code along with. Try it on your next plane trip.
Programming Clojure (Halloway)
The pragmatic programmer books are always good quality and this was no exception. This is a good solid introduction to Clojure. I would recommend it for anyone starting out with the language.
The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Abelson, Sussman & Sussman)
I am working through this implementing everything in Clojure instead of Scheme as I go through. I haven't finished yet - Im near the end of chapter 4 of 5 chapters. This is a book that one has to spend some time with. And after one spends the time one will have to put a bit more time aside to digest. For people who are interested in languages and lisps in general this is a good book to start a journey towards deeper understanding of CS fundamentals.
Object Oriented Software Construction (Meyer)
I have this on my kindle and I have pulled this out and read a chapter here and there at different points this year. But I have probably read each chapter in this book twice since I first found it about 3 years ago. This book is a classic. I can pick any chapter in this book and always discover something new to think about, or better ideas to add to my tool box. If you are writing software you owe it to yourself to read this book.
And.....Lastly a few non tech books
Solo Guitar Playing (Noad)
Excellent, Excellent, Excellent. For those interested in classical guitar, I cant say enough good things about this book.
Inner Work (Johnson)
I'm very partial to books with a Jungian bent. This is a good practical discussion of active imagination. I've never read a book where active imagination was well explained; this one is very thorough. Highly recommended.
Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Henderson)
I read this through all in one sitting and occasionally I find myself going back for rereads of particular chapters. People who take an interest in economics will have extra appreciation for this book.
So, there you are, some reading possibilities depending on you interests....For 2011 lets continue to expand our horizons:)
Marco
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