3 comments about GWT in Practice.

1. GWT In Practice is an essential book for any web developer who works with or wants to work with the GWT toolkit. In addition to covering GWT fundamentals, the book really focuses on real world applications, not just Hello World type apps which are largely useless. The ample code samples throughout the book make applying GWT to solve something in your web application easy. I highly recommend this book.



2. GWT In Practice is well worth having as a reference for any developer who will be using GWT toolkit or is already using the GWT toolkit. The book makes for easy reading and not only covers the key areas of GWT but also the deployment and continuous integration of your GWT applications. The book's code samples are also very helpful in understanding the GWT concepts and usage. I highly recommend GWT In Practice!!!



3. My first thought upon reading the first few chapeters of this book was "Where was this thing when I started to use GWT a few months ago?" The authors have done an excellent job really showing how to use the Google Web Toolkit. My eternal fear when I read these books is that there won't be any content outside of what the product already ships with. Not so in this case at all.
   
   The authors cover the GWT basics, to be sure, but more importantly, they demonstrate a way to really use GWT. They hit upon one of my thoughts when first trying to get my head around GWT: GWT is not a framework; it is a platform at best. They recognize this and help you work with the power and around the limitations of GWT.
   The authors demonstrate common patterns and practices in the "language" of GWT. It was extremely satisfying to finally, with the help of this book, be able to articulate and execute all the patterns that I've been using in other systems, (e.g. MVC, PropertyListeners, etc.)
   
   The authors also demonstrate how to use GWT in a variety of environments and build system. These concepts were useful, but I found myself skimming over pages at a time to get back to the "good stuff." (This was my primary knock in not giving it five stars.)
   
   All in all, I highly recommend and I'll be ensuring that my team each learn the concepts presented.

2 comments about Alice in Action with Java.

1. This book is very well written and contains detailed, step by step, visual instructions which are easy for introductory students to follow. I used this book as a supplement in my introductory programming class. The students were able to follow and surpass the requirements for the class.



2. Off all the Alice 2.0 texts - this is, in my opinon, the best. It goes directly to Java when the (many) Alice flaws start to cause problems.

5 comments about Wicked Cool Shell Scripts.

1. WICKED COOL SHELL SCRIPTS is a collection of pre-made bash scripts for various tasks similar to one of O'Reilly's "cookbooks". All scripts here use bash--the author rejects csh because of Tom Christiansen's classic essay "Csh Programming Considered Harmful" and the Korn shell because he considers it fine for interactive use but not so good for scripting.
   
   The basic format of each entry is first the problem--what the user wants to do--then the code, followed sometimes by an explanation and advice on hacking the code. The book is not really an introduction to Bash scripting. If you want a systematic primer I'd recommend O'Reilly's LEARNING THE BASH SHELL or any of a dozen libre tutorials.
   
   Some of the scripts are useful and solve problems I've occasionally faced. For example, the GNU units program can't do temperature conversions, but a script is given here which uses bc to provide a solution. Quite elegant is a script with which the user can find the time anywhere in the world by querying in a friendly manner the system's zoneinfo files. In spite of some neat gimmicks, however, I don't think I can really recommend the book unless you're someone about to take a voyage on the south seas and won't have Internet access. Many of these scripts can be found on the Web, and far too many scripts here solve problems already long solved by available programs. The author describes a secure version of locate, when slocate is already easily installable on most *nix systems. A script for rotating log files is done when metalog and other common log programs do this automatically. Take out all these unnecessary scripts, and the amount of useful content in the book turns out to be very low indeed.



2. I have spent thousands of dollars on computer and technical references; I have a library full of them. There is one book however that sits on my office desk and has never made it to the library - Wicked Cool Shell Scripts. I have read, referenced and recommended it many times.
   
   The book is extremely informative and is written in such a way that it can be very valuable, whether your a brand new shell script programmer or are an experienced administrator looking for a better way to accomplish a task. I have used ideas and methods from the book to streamline tasks that I do regularly and to improve the scripts I already use. It has been, by far, the best investment in a reference book I have ever made and was enjoyable enough to read cover to cover.
   
   If your IT reference shelf is full, throw something out and fill the space with this book.



3. Taylor does some neat stuff with shell scripts, but he doesn't spend much time explaining what goes on in them. Each is accompanied by a terse paragraph explaining "how it works", which generally only addresses one particular aspect of the script (ie, POSIX-style "variable slicing"). Shell syntax is terse and many of the reserved keywords and functions are not self-evident. If you don't know, for example, what "${#remainder}" returns, Taylor won't help you; you will have to look it up in a tutorial or a reference work elsewhere.
   
   According to the blurb on the back of the book, Taylor has an MA in education, but there is little evidence of his didactic skills in this text. On the face of it, he is more a geek than a teacher, and hence this book more useful to his fellow hackers than people new to Bash.



4. This is a collection of very basic shell scripts I found completely useless. The author presents the book in an advanced format, not giving much underlying information or hand-holding; however the information contained is very beginner level.
   
   The author David Taylor also has many bad habits in his scripting and tends to take a wordy approach. Many of the scripts Taylor advertises in his book can be compiled into a command or two on a single small line of code. For example why would you pipe a grep command to awk when awk has a more powerful search function than grep already built in?
   
   I did not find any advanced commands in his entire book. There were a couple very basic 'sed' and 'awk' commands but nothing which made me think anything about them was 'wicked cool'



5. This is a great book for learning by example, particularly as a follow-on to something more geared toward complete beginners to get you started. It provides a number of useful scripts (even though some of them duplicate functionality of common system utilities), with explanations of how and why they work, and even notes on how you might alter the code to suit your own purposes. If you're a relatively new programmer or system administrator that already has the basics of shell scripting in mind, but find yourself at loose ends wondering what to do next to help cement what you know and start learning more, this book may be exactly what you need. It's also useful for figuring out some of the basic principles of translating code to or from some other programming language, thanks to the code explanations.
   
   The scripts themselves, however, are not exactly what I would call "wicked cool". The title is an obvious marketing conceit, designed to make the book seem more enticing. Most of the scripts, in fact, are surprisingly mundane -- but that doesn't mean they aren't useful. You may actually find yourself using some of them, with minor alterations, in your day-to-day life. Just don't expect to be wowed by the scripts themselves.
   
   If you've read my review of Wicked Cool Perl Scripts, you may note that this is an almost word-for-word duplication. That was intentional: the books are very similar in quality, format, and usefulness, right down to the "wicked coolness" (or not) of the scripts.

5 comments about Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0: Programming Smart Client Data Applications with .NET (Microsoft .NET Development Series).

1. I have looked long and hard for a database and windows design book that was really useful. This is it. Lots of reusable code. Working designs. Well written - easy to read and understand. I have placed more tabs for easy reference in this book than any book of recent years. Buy it now!!



2. .
   Actually, I am only an expert at buying books about C# and DotNet, but an expert none-the-less.
   
   After seeing the author's data-binding demo on dnrtv, I came here and read the reviews about this book - the reviews couldn't have been more accurate! With only two years of C# programming under my belt, I have found that chapters 7 (Understanding Data-Binding Interfaces) and 9 (Implementing Custom Data-Bound Business Objects and Collections) are alone worth the price of this book.
   
   This book is extremely well written and easy to follow. Not really a "How To", but more of a "How To Understand How To" data-binding book IMHO.



3. Brian Noyes studied the grid thoroughly and has written a readable book which guide you in understanding the datagridview step by step. For me it is however pretty hard to understand the code Brian supplies in C#. In my opinion VB is better suited for learning purposes especially. Sometimes Brian uses tough coding which I can't grasp.



4. This book had exactly what I needed in it, how to create custom objects that are plugable into user interface controls (like data grids) and have all the event wiring etc. to make them look and act like the do with datasets. This includes sorting, etc. Excellent book from a great author.



5. Hanvind books like this one allow people to stay in touch with the internals. Data Binding is a concept that not everyone explains in such details.

5 comments about Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 24 Hours (3rd Edition) (Teach Yourself -- Hours).

1. As with the other titles in the Sam's Teach Yourself xxx in 24 Hours series, this book aims at quickly arming you with enough knowledge of Perl to start programming in the language in no time. If you are a complete newbie to programming, this book is not for you, because it takes a "focus on the trees, ignore the forest" approach. In other words, you are thrown into coding right away. There's no high-level discussion of data structures and programming gotchas, etc. There's a lot of stuff crammed into each lesson, and some of the lessons will likely take more than an hour (and more than one pass) to understand. While this is not a reference at all, and many subtle details are omitted (which is actually a bad thing in the long run because Perl is such a complicated language), the book does get you started quickly. A lot of practical examples are given to show you how the language works, and many of the snippets included can be used in your actual programming endeavors. For example, you can take the code to find unique elements in a list as is and use it without any modification (save for using your own variable names).
   
   If you already have some programming background and need just one book to learn Perl quickly, this is the book for you. After this, I'd recommend the "camel book", i.e., "Programming Perl" published by O'Reilly, which gives a forest-over-trees treatment to the language, plus it contains a useful reference on the language.



2. [A review of the 3RD EDITION 2005.]
   
   Pierce gives an updated introduction for Perl, describing the latest version 5.8. Though realistically, if you are new to Perl, you'd be doing fine even if the book didn't reach up to that version. Perl is a very stable, mature language, which is probably what you want.
   
   If you already know another language, then many or all of the concepts in this book will be familiar. It just becomes a question of plowing through the chapters, to learn the Perl syntax.
   
   In Pierce's presentation, he quickly takes you to what Perl calls a "hash". In Java, the corresponding class is a Hashtable. Regardless of terminology, the idea is a very useful one, and if you intend to be a proficient Perl programmer, you need to have this down pat. Earlier material in the text, like scalars and arrays, are pretty trivial to understand and use. The hash table is trickier, but Pierce does a good job in conveying its usage. He avoids the maths theory behind this, but points out that it gives you quick access to a value associated with a key, where this access is not proportional [ie. linear] to the number of keys in the table. He doesn't actually say it's logarithmic, which it is. [For the theory, Cf. Knuth "Art of Computer Programming" vol 3.]
   
   Learn the hash. Experienced programmers [in any language] already know its value. In all of the book, it is the best glimpse into advanced algorithmic coding.



3. As someone that knew very little about computer programming bar some Fortran classes about 15 years ago, this is a great book. It takes you step by step through the aspects of Perl and explains the different computer language terminology to idiots like myself (e.g. arrays, scalers etc).
   However, one thing I would say is that each chapter is not one hour.
   If you work on each one properly (take notes, do the exercises etc) its more like 2 hours per chapter.



4. I spent about 2000 hours learning Perl. I think PERL is a great scripting language which can teach you advanced programming techniques versus what you may have learned in basic or visual basic. It is easier than other languages like C to make simple or complex scripts which accomplish something useful without getting bogged down in writing a lot of extra code that might be the case in C.
   
   I looked at this and other similar 24 hour computer books. I already knew how to program in basic so I understood the basics. My problem with this book is a false idea that a person with little or no programming ability could pick this book and learn the basics of Perl or any other advanced programming language in just 24 hours. Programming requires understanding and time and a great deal of practice. I think a book like this sets the reader up for failure by trying to achieve a realistic goal in an unrealistic time frame . I myself settled on a different book by Simon Cozens called Beginning Perl. The book uses PERL to teach programming basics chapter by chapter letting the reader set their own pace. If you want to learn programming know that it takes a lot of time and is very intimidating at times. The knowledge comes from a little reading and a tons of practice. If you want to learn programming do it for the love of the subject and not with the idea of making a lot of money as a programmer which is a long shot these days.



5. Perl is probably one of the best languages to learn if you just want to have a programming language in your toolkit and this book is a great resource for learning Perl.
   If you're new to programming Perl introduces many of the concepts that you'll need to master while allowing a lot of flexibility.
   I don't know if 24 hours is quite enough to complete this book, but the short focused lessons make learning fun.

1 comments about Foundation Website Creation with CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript (Foundation).

1. I purchase most CSS books that appear to have a different slant on the use of CSS. This book, although well written and authoritative, was less than I anticipated. It is, however, an excellent resource for those just now learning (X)HTML and CSS, et al. My complaint is simply that I overestimated its content. The writing style is clear and easily understandable and should be so to beginners as well. If considering a first book to learn these disciplines, this book is a good choice.

5 comments about Ruby on Rails: Up and Running.

1. I read through this in an afternoon in a bookstore. I'm wondering... Why would you get this book when for several dollars more you could get the bible of Ruby on Rails: "Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)?"
   
   Where this book is overly terse and covers the bare minimum of subjects, AWDwR has lots of details and examples. Get that book and the companion Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition and you're all set for some fun evenings.
   
   Tate has a habit of rushing books out (e.g., Spring: A Developer's Notebook) and this is another one of those. It occurs to me that this book should have been in that "Developer's Notebook" series...
   
   Tate has been ringing the death knell of Java for several years now and extolling the virtues of THE NEXT BIG THING (in this case, Ruby on Rails). He oughta slow down and figure out at least one of these technologies before he attempts to write about it.
   
   Ironically, the next paradigm shift from Java to RoR will probably happen in spite of Mr. Tate's exposition. Stick to AWDwR, you won't be sorry.



2. This is a great book, and I recommend you consider it, but for a couple reasons you might not want to buy it.
   
   First, it's a great *short* overview of the process of developing Ruby on Rails apps. I found that I understand all the things I've read elsewhere but it's sometimes hard to put it all together and remember all the steps in a logical sequence. Because of the magic of Rails (and its use of metaprogramming and code generation and other groovyamazing stuff, you have to learn to THINK DIFFERENTly about development. While you're in the process of making the mental shift, both conceptually and syntactically, it's good to have cheatsheets to simply REMEMBER what works, and which magical incantation does which thing. There are plenty of cheatsheets for Rails and Ruby, but none that I've seen that are like this: all the basics, in sequence, with clear explanation.
   
   Think of it as a stepping stone between DHH's screencast and his Agile Web Develpment with Rails (written mostly by Dave Thomas), which is a little on the long side for a first book. (It's much better to get a firmer grasp of the big picture before focusing in on details. Sorry about the mixed metaphor.)
   
   However, you should note that it is now quite old and in need of updating. It is also frustratingly full of errors: spelling, grammatical, factual, and technical. So be forewarned. If you can put up with all that, however, it's very useful, and clearly written. O'Reilly just needs to fire all their proofreaders.



3. I definitely will avoid both authors in the future.
   
   I can't fathom how O'reilly "approved" these authors to write such book with so many ridiculous errors from typos to just blatant errors.
   
   I supposed O'reilly is also declining in terms of quality (See my "Learning Ruby", "Learning JavaScript" review as well).
   
   Bad:
   1) Too many errors
   2) Outdated (Rails is 2.0, the book, rushed, is using 1.1)
   3) Too pricey
   4) Bruce A. Tate always jumped shipped form one language to another with no deep interest/experience in each of the "new languages"
   5) You're building the examples based on "scaffolding" auto-generation
   
   Good:
   1) That I told you not to buy this book.
   2) That Bruce is no longer writing more books (yet)
   3) That others also echoed the same complains



4. This book made use of an earlier version of Rails, but if you aren't totally clueless and have the wisdom to read warnings from IDEs, generation scripts and the server, you can actually get the code running.
   
   BTW, 99% of the code works without warnings/errors at all. FWIW, I switched to Mac OS X to do this (from Dell using XP), so I was fighting a lot of other differences besides having a more modern Rails, and I actually got through it all. Also, I am an old Java/C++ programmer... so if somebody younger than me cannot get this stuff, maybe they should think carefully about whether programming is for them (Rails development is still programming).
   
   This is a hands-on, bottom up book. I did wrestle a bit with reading the chat about the code *then* coding or coding the code and *then* reading the explanations. It was *fun* to use this book and I really enjoyed using this book for getting a visual, and (for me) potentially useful application running.
   
   Best of all, IMO... the core material is under 150 pages! Hard to find such terse and useful books these days. If anyone remembers the power and elegance of K&R's C book, you'll appreciate this fact.
   
   Here are some things to keep in mind:
   
   [1] Uses Rake for migrations and yes on a modern Rails (pre 2.0) you will see deprecation notices that tell you what you need to do... either way it works.
   
   [2] Uses some deprecated start_forms_tag but guess what, if you have the internet you google around and you figure it out. And you know what then? You own what you learn and are not just spoon fed the code.
   
   [3] Does not go deep into theory.
   
   [4] You best try your hand at Ruby first just so you can read Rails code... ummmm it uses Ruby ya know.
   
   [5] Is not TDD or BDD... so you are coding the evil, old fashioned way. Unless you are Donald Knuth (who claims to have no need for unit testing).
   
   [6] Be careful during the DB migrations section, I screwed up the order of some things, I don't think the book misled me. I also figured my way out of it while also learning how to get around SQLite3's command shell. No whining from those spoiled by pushbutton IDEs please.
   
   [7] This book will not make you a Rails guru, it opens the door and gives you working code base to head down that road. You'll still have other books, blogs, and Wikis ahead of you.
   
   Buy it for pre Rails 2, I assume it is still largely applicable to Rails 2, which came out last year (end of).
   
   While this book does not require it, I found using NetBeans IDE with Ruby/Rails support helped me get the coding done much faster than using VIM or TextEdit. I did not use it to generate the application and the components. For that I used the Rails command line scripts per the book.



5. For a newbie following the examples closely is generally a must; however, there are some "trivial" steps left out of the book ... that turn out to be necessary to get the sample projects moving. Given the brevity of the content, the inaccuracies of the samples, and the high price ... my suggestion is to look elsewhere.

3 comments about Beginning DotNetNuke 4.0 Website Creation in VB 2005 with Visual Web Developer 2005 Express: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional).

1. It's not for the complete novice and it won't teach you how to code. But it will get you up and going with VWD and DNN. Well written with good screenshots. He also takes you through the process of creating modules. It's a good primer and was what I was looking for.



2. This is a very good introduction to DotNetNuke. It will help you install DNN on you own machine and guide you through building a simple website.
   
   If you know a little about programming in VB and know something about HTML and CSS, this book will show you how to write your own DNN modules and create your own DNN skins and containers. You won't learn how to write complex modules or elaborate skins but you'll learn the basics.
   
   If you already know how to install DNN and how to create DNN modules and skins, this book is not for you.
   
   If you know nothing about programming in VB and know nothing about HTML, then you should probably learn about them before you tackle this book.



3. This book will take you from absolutely no knowledge of DotnetNuke and get you well on your way. Simple to follow. Like any good intro book it will help you to understand how DNN works and gives you enough information to know where to go to learn more. For example after you are shown what a skin is and how to use it you are then shown how to make one of your own. You should then understand where you want to go from there. My experience level is 1.5 years as an ASP.net, VB and C# Developer with SQL server 2005. I have no previous knowledge of DNN. It will be very helpful if you know a bit about Visual Web developer, Light Coding, CSS, XML and some graphics program knowledge such as Fireworks or Photoshop. However, this book will get even the non programmer where he needs to be to use DNN. In short - if you are new, Start here.

5 comments about HTML and XHTML Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft)).

1. A beginner will go from nothing to intermediate very quickly. I've been working with web pages at work for a year, and decided I needed some better grounding in html
   I am using Visual Studio to make web pages and have been doing quite well, but I realized "something was missing" in my knowledge, as I was running into "walls". So I picked up this book. As the author says, "but you will be a much better Web designer--and understand what is going on in Word or FrontPage much better--if you tough it out with Notepad in the beginning.". Visual Studio is great, but I needed to "fill in the holes" in my knowledge of what' going on underneath and how I can manipulate that.
   This book works for learning and also as a reference. I hope this author continues to write other books in this manner - I will be looking for books by her.
   It's what the "Step by Step" books should be like.



2. Very good book for beginners who know very little about HTML and XHTML.



3. This is a good starting point for learning the basics. I especially like the instructive exercises. I have only one caveat: there are some typos, one of which gave me some minor grief trying to get my first web page validated at one of the online validation sites. In chapter 2 the author explains how the opening tag should look in an XHTML document, but transposes two of the letters (xlmns should read xmlns). The same mistake is repeated in the instructional exercise (step 8 of the first exercise in chapter 2).
   
   To repeat: it is a good starting point to learn the basics and the exercises provide clarity, but be aware of the typos and get a good reference work to go with it. I bought HTML & XHTML: The Complete Reference (Osborne Complete Reference Series) to go with it, and am satisfied that these two books will put me on the path to competence in creating web pages.



4. This book was extremely easy to follow and relate my personal informattion. I built an entire 13 page website within two days using only html codes.



5. I am new to programming and was afraid to get discouraged quickly because I don't understand material. Beauty of this book is that you get to create site just by following simple steps and learning along the way.
   I need tell you that this book gave me wings and made me to believe that I can do anything! It showed me the logic behind the screen. I am very grateful to the writer and wish there were more books like this on the market.

5 comments about Agile Database Techniques: Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer (Wiley Application Development).

1. The book was well written and very easy to use. I found many insightfull thoughts as to the purpose of Agile development. If you are looking for a great book to guide you into AGILE development, this will do it.
   Drawbacks or missed points, yes this book has two flaws that I have to list. 1. the repeated use of the word Legacy and the very negative congnitation of the word. Older database will have many flaws, and we need to identify them. They will also have many objects and data patterns that are valid and efficient and should not be abandoned because its not todays effort.
   2. Agile and refactoring of tables does not address, production, zero down time, large volume databases. How do you refactor a table with 2 terabites of data and can not allow downtime. (medical)



2. This is very well written, enjoyable book, with few (if any) competitors. Given its agile sensitivities, it's perfect for a programmer looking for an overview of the whole data modelling she-bang, from use cases to impedance mismatch. Despite clocking in at 400 pages of fairly dense type, interspersed with various tables and UML diagrams, it's a breeze to read. It assumes a bit of knowledge of database technologies, but you don't need anything more than a nodding familiarity with SQL and basic concepts like normalisation.
   
   This book deals with a lot of issues related to using databases as part of agile modelling. The main message is that agile application developers need to think about persistence issues, and database admins need to understand agile development. The differences between data-driven and object-driven models are clearly laid out, and there's an excellent section on refactoring databases.
   
   The important thing about this book is not so much offering you specific solutions to problems, but alerting you to potential problems you might not even know exist, and explaining that you do have options in solving them. As well as introducing agile methods like TDD and refactoring, it also covers database issues like transactions, security, concurrency and object-relational mapping.
   
   Additionally, there is an emphasis on the organisational and political issues you might face in transitioning to agile methodologies, and it's very pragmatic in pointing out that some things that might be considered the preserve of an application developer, could be done in the database itself. The issues are presented at the same level of detail as those presented in the likes of The Pragmatic Programmer (but a different subject, of course). For more specifics, you will need to turn to the likes of Martin Fowler's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, or to see specific technologies being used, Chris Richardson's POJOs in Action. I would definitely recommend this book before reading those.
   
   As someone with little knowledge of databases, I found this an excellent and unique resource to join up the dots when it comes to persistence and agile.



3. Database refactoring is the harder part of development and this book give great information about how to deal with change.
   I personally recommend it.



4. To be fair, the book title suggests that it is for the software developer, and not a database administrator. I thought that it had a good overview of agile related items. Although it was probably not as useful for software developers who might have more exposure to the agile methods. From a DBA point of view, I thought it was a nice overview because agile is not typically used in DBA teams.
   
   As far as specifics relating to databases, I thought it could have had more real-life scenarios and suggestions on how to deal with them. Some of the ideas presented were just too unrealistic for my liking.
   
   That being said, there are a few good ideas in this book. It was a quick read too. So if you are a DBA who has no idea of agile, it might be something to start with.



5. If you are an application developer that has ever worked with a system that is difficult and convoluted because of fear of touching the Database then you owe it to yourself to read this book. This book will provide you with the insight and techniques to make changes to your Database with confidence.
   
   I also recommend Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design (The Addison-Wesley Signature Series) for those who seek details on how to implement the topics discussed in "Agile Database Techniques"