JavaRanch: Book Reviews

Emergent Design by Scot

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:31:12 MDT

Author/s� : Scott L. BainPublisher : Addison WesleyCategory� : Project management, Process and Best Practices Design Patterns, UML, and Refactoring (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/Process.jsp#0321509366)Review by : Ulf DittmerRating��� : 9 horseshoes

The author states in the preface that he'd like to push software development as a profession forward by promoting a set of methodologies that are universally recognized as beneficial. This reviewer thinks he achieves this goal admirably and wishes he had had access to a book like this when he first started out with object-oriented software development professionally.A number of what might be called best practices are examined as to why they're us...

Murach's C# 2008 by Joel Murach

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:53:05 MDT

Author/s� : Joel MurachPublisher : MurachCategory� : Other (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/Other.jsp#1890774464)Review by : Jeanne BoyarskyRating��� : 9 horseshoes

"Murach's C# 2008" follows the Murach style where there are two books in one.� The even numbered pages contain text.� The odd numbered pages contain related diagrams, tables and bulleted lists.The book targets beginners to experienced developers in Java/C++/VB/.NET along with being useful for training and reference.� I'm a little skeptical when a book tries to be all things to all people, but the author does a great job with this.� The "paired page" format really helps with this because you can read the most appropriate one (or bot...

FXRuby -- Create Lean and Mean GUIs with Ruby by Lyle Johnson

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:49:05 MDT

Author/s : Lyle Johnson
Publisher : The Pragmatic Programmers
Category : Other (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/Other.jsp#1934356077)
Review by : Jesper de Jong
Rating : 8 horseshoes

This book is about FXRuby, a library for developing GUIs with Ruby. It's a Ruby binding to the FOX toolkit. The book consists of two parts. The first part (chapters 1 to 6) is a gentle introduction to FXRuby, in which you build a simple photobook application step by step. The second part (chapters 7 to 14) is a more thorough overview of how FXRuby works and how to use all the different available widgets to build a GUI. Some advanced topics, such as FXRuby's support for OpenGL graphic...

Adobe AIR for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide by Mike Chambers, Daniel Dura, Kevin

Tue, 6 May 2008 11:26:50 MDT

Author/s� : Mike Chambers, Daniel Dura, Kevin Hoyt, Dragos GeorgitaPublisher : O'ReillyCategory� : Web design, HTML and JavaScript (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/HTML.jsp#0596518374)Review by : Balaji LoganathanRating��� : 8 horseshoes

I was trying to learn Adobe AIR and was looking for some good set of learning resources. I found the book "Adobe AIR for Javascript Developers" from O'Reilly by and started reading it online. A cool book, the authors have done great job on presenting the topics as an easilit readable pocket guide. Soon after reading this book, i felt i got the right resource i want for now.
��

I found this book a bit more than a usual pocket guide.

Java Fundamentals I and II (Video Training) by Deitel and Associates Inc.

Sat, 3 May 2008 13:16:32 MDT

Author/s : Deitel and Associates Inc.
Publisher : Prentice Hall
Category : Beginning Java DVDs (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/Beginning.jsp#0137131135)
Review by : Marc Peabody
Rating : 6 horseshoes

First off, this didn't work in my DVD player. I had to play it from the computer. Small bummer.

This was basically fourteen hours of staring at code already written in a NetBeans editor while a faceless (and somewhat monotone) voice explained how the code works. The mouse pointer moves around or highlights some text to point out a particular area of code, the lessons sometimes shift to JavaDoc or a diagram, and you see Paul's face while he gives the intr...

Service Oriented Java Business Integration by Binildas C. A.

Sat, 3 May 2008 13:14:32 MDT

Author/s : Binildas C. A.
Publisher : PACKT Publishing
Category : Web Services and SOAP (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/SOAP.jsp#1847194400)
Review by : Marc Peabody
Rating : 5 horseshoes

I was hoping to simply learn more about Java Business Integration. The first 70 pages are a decent start on this. Following that, however, ServiceMix component tutorials abound, and not in an entertaining cover-to-cover read kind of way.

The writing is often wordy and grammar and spelling slips are fairly common. Most books I set down to thoughtfully consider interesting points but more often I wondered why the author boasted working with many desperate systems (lat...

Ajax - The Complete Reference by Thomas A. Powell

Sat, 3 May 2008 13:12:32 MDT

 Author/s : Thomas A. Powell
Publisher : Mc-Graw Hill
Category : Web design, HTML and JavaScript (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/HTML.jsp#007149216X)
Review by : Jesper de Jong
Rating : 9 horseshoes

This book is about writing Ajax web applications. It consists of four parts: Core Ideas, Applied Ajax, Advanced Topics and appendices.The first part explains what Ajax is and describes different ways of implementing Ajax in considerable detail. It describes some pre-Ajax techniques for implementing dynamic web applications, discusses the XMLHttpRequest object, data formats such as XML and JSON and goes quite deep into the issues that you will encounter when using t...

jQuery in Action by Bear Bibeault, Yehuda Katz

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:50:24 MDT

 Author/s : Bear Bibeault, Yehuda Katz
Publisher : Manning
Category : Web design, HTML and JavaScript (http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/HTML.jsp#1933988355)
Review by : Ernest J. Friedman-Hill
Rating : 10 horseshoes

jQuery is a Javascript framework that aims to let you think structurally and conceptually, rather than worrying about syntax and other details. In that largely succeeds, and so does this remarkable book.

Every technical book should be like this one; having written a few myself, I know that's a tall order. "jQuery in Action" is concise but clear, humorous but not silly, and answers all the questions it raises, quickly. The reader is never le...