Some time has passed since i last blogged about my friends, the books.
Computing books
Ajax the definitive guide : what was i thinking ? I’ve always been convinced that if you know and understand the theory, the practice follows. This is usually true, but not in the case of Ajax. The theory of Ajax takes about two lines.
So the rest of the book is code examples … in PHP … and explanations about what XHTML, CSS, XSLT, a web frameworks really are. That’s one third of the book. The rest, fortunately, looks slightly more interesting, but still, i’m not sure i made a good buy there. I can already tell it’s not very inspired writing.
Practical JRuby on Rails: the first part is interesting from a Rails point of view, because Ola Bini obviously knows his Ruby. So he goes code magic. The second part is mostly how to make Java interact with Ruby in all kinds of combinations (as a EJB, using Java web service frameworks, etc).
Two downsides: the guy writes like an expert, i.e. not a lot of explanation. “The code speaks for itself” kind of book. The second issue is that making Java work with Ruby and the opposite is far from trivial. In other words, it looks Java-horrific. This kind of weirdness might beg for wrappers/adapter classes.
The Art of Agile Development: by an experienced XP coach who’s not averse to borrowing from Scrum once in a while. I’ve observed Scrum teams from afar, and have read an article here and there, but this is the first book i read about it. It’s a good introduction, and i’m looking forward to applying it.
Fiction
Matter by Iain Banks: i like. Sometimes his books are easy reading, but they are never trivial or stupid. In his science fiction books he mixes optimism and cynicism in equal measures. This book had a bit of an abrupt ending, but mixed the feel of Ringworld books with his usual Culture novels. I regret missing the book signing at Sterling Books in february.
Darwin’s Children by Greg Bear: i must have missed the first opus of this series. About a generation of children that are born mutated as the result of a virus, and the interplay of society around them. It’s interesting, in that his mutated children are neither super children nor deformed mutants, but a different species. Unfortunately, the book strays into the common defect of this kind of science fiction: too many characters, so you end up caring for none.
Kafka Am Strand by Haruki Murakami: i throw in a book in german once in a while, to keep up my vocabulary (since i don’t practice at all). Japanese magic-realism by Murakami, dreamy and very materialistic at the same time.
Stephany Plum novels (2): chick lit. It’s not very subtle nor intelligent, but good fun after a long day. If you mixed Bridget Jones with Dirty Harry, you’d more or less get this.
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