Effective C++, Third Edition Scott Meyers Addison-Wesley, 2005 I was really excited when I found out that Scott Meyers was releasing a new edition of Effective C++. The first edition provided a major step on the path for many of us from writing code in C++ to actually programming in the language. What surprised me… Read More »
Perl 6 Now: The Core Ideas Illustrated with Perl 5 Scott Waters Apress, 2005 I had mixed feelings about reading this book caused by my current views of Perl 6. Some of what I have heard about Perl 6 is exciting and I really can’t wait. Other things I have heard fill me with dread.… Read More »
C++ Primer (Fourth Edition) Stanley B. Lippman, Josée Lajorie, and Barbara E. Moo. Addison -Wesley, 2005. Every now and then, someone asks me to recommend a book for learning the C++ programming language. Until very recently, I didn’t have a good answer. The book I learned C++ from went out of print years ago (and… Read More »
Eric Meyer on CSS Eric A. Meyer New Riders, 2003 Styling web pages with CSS allows for a very good separation of structure and presentation. In this book, Eric Meyer focuses on the design aspects of using CSS. Many other books describe individual features of CSS and even show how to generate particular effects with… Read More »
Hardening Linux James Turnbull Apress, 2005. I’ve read several books over the years focused on increasing the security of a Linux system. I think Hardening Linux may be the best example I’ve seen of a practical book on the subject. Turnbull walks through a number of potential security vulnerabilities and gives specific advice on locking… Read More »
Randal Schwartz’s Perls of Wisdom Randal L. Schwartz Apress, 2005 Randal Schwartz has been writing about Perl since the first edition of the Camel Book. This book collects articles that he has written for a number of magazines into one place, organized (loosely) by topic. These articles span almost a decade of writing on the… Read More »
Code Complete Steve McConnell Microsoft Press, 2004 Ever since I learned that a new edition of Code Complete was to be released, I have been looking forward to it. The first edition has been one of the most comprehensive books on the actual practice of writing code. We see a large number of books on… Read More »
Software Exorcism Bill Blunden Apress, 2003 I was really looking forward to this book, having spent a fair number of years maintaining legacy code in different languages and environments. This made the disappointment even more acute when the book did not live up to its subtitle: A Handbook for Debugging and Optimizing Legacy Code. The… Read More »
Practical Subversion Garrett Rooney Apress, 2005 I have worked with several version control systems over the years. But my system of choice for the last decade has been CVS. For the last year, I’ve been looking at Subversion and I like a lot of what I’ve seen. I’ve read the book Version Control with Subversion,… Read More »
Hackers & Painters Paul Graham O’Reilly, 2004 I was really looking forward to reading this book. I had read a few of Graham’s essays in the past and found his ideas to be thought-provoking. I expected some to find more of the same. Instead, this book ranged over a lot of topics, not all of… Read More »