Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tag 'Books'

Book review: Code, the hidden language of computer hardware and software

luisabreu — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

One of the books I’ve read during my vacations was Code: the Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, by famous author Charles Petzold. Even though this is a 2000 book, it was only in 2009 that I did find some time to read it. And let me tell you right away: it was worth it!

Anyone can read this book and end up understanding how computers work (at least, at a high level). Notice that Petzold doesn’t only talk about computers…no, he goes all the way back and talks about several inventions which contributed, in one way or another, to the construction of the modern computer. I really enjoyed reading this book and that’s why I’m giving it a 9/10.

Generic collections - relegate to an appendix?

skeet — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

(I tweeted a brief version of this suggestion and the results have been overwhelmingly positive so far, but I thought it would be worth fleshing out anyway.)

I'm currently editing chapter 3 of C# in Depth. In the first edition, it's nearly 48 pages long - the longest in the book, and longer than I want it to be.

One of the sections in there (only 6 pages, admittedly) is a description of various .NET 2.0 collections. However, it's mostly comparing them with the nongeneric collections from .NET 1.0, which probably isn't relevant any more. I suspect my readership has now moved on from "I only know C# 1" to "I've used C# 2 and I'm reasonably familiar with the framework, but I want to know the details of the language."

I propose moving the collections into an appendix. This will mean:

I'll cover all versions of .NET, not just 2.0
It will all be done in a fairly summary form, like the current appendix. (An appendix doesn't need as much of a narrative structure as a main chapter, IMO.)
I'll cover the interfaces as well as the classes - possibly even with pictures (type hierarchies)!
Chapter 3 can be a bit slimmer (although I've been adding a little bit here and there, so I'm not going to save a massive amount)
It will be easier to find as a quick reference (and I'll write it in a way which makes it easy to use as a reference too, hopefully)
I don't have to edit it right now :)

Does this sound like a plan? I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but I think it's the right move. In particular, it's in-keeping with the LINQ operator coverage in the existing appendix.

Book review: Portugal, que futuro?

luisabreu — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Generally, I tend to review English written books in this blog. However, and since we’re on the verge of choosing a new PM for the next four years, I’m reviewing this fantastic book here and I’ll do it in Portuguese. In practice, this means that if you don’t understand Portuguese, you can safely skip this post.

O último livro de Medina Carreira (escrito em parceria com Eduardo Dâmaso) é explosivo! Eu comprei-o ontem (19 de Setembro) e consegui terminá-lo hoje (20 de Setembro). A introdução consiste na compilação de vários “ensaios” da autoria do Prof. Medina Carreira e o posfácio é totalmente escrito por Eduardo Dâmaso. Todo o restante livro é escrito em modo de entrevista, onde Medina Carreira responde a várias questões colocadas por Eduardo Dâmaso.

Medina Carreira analisa vários temas “quentes” da actualidade política Portuguesa. No seu tom “corrosivo”, identifica vários problemas que têm vindo a minar Portugal e que levaram à estaganação em que nos encontramos. O livro não fala só de economia, apesar de essa ser uma área essencial que serve de suporte a todos os direitos e “benesses” que temos vindo a ter nos últimos anos.

Por exemplo, no capítulo dedicado à educação (apropriadamente intitulado de ‘Educação: “Magalhães” e mais o quê?’), apresenta uma análise detalhada sobre vários pontos incompreensíveis do nosso sistema educativo. Tal como Medina Carreira, também penso que a introdução de “Magalhães” nas nossas escolas não passa de espectáculo político! Ninguém nega a importância das novas tecnologias, mas eu tenho muitas dúvidas em relação a fornecer computadores a miúdos que ainda não sabem escrever nem contar direito. Existem ainda outras coisas mal explicadas…as tão apregoadas “Novas Oportunidades”…alguém acredita na formação que é dada nestes cursos? E as reformas da educação? Quem é que sai beneficiado com a tal “escola inclusiva”? Serão os alunos? Os Pais? E o estatuto dos alunos? Enfim, tudo áreas que contribuem para o aumento do descrédito do nosso ensino nos últimos anos…

Na minha opinião, capítulo mais importante será, provavelmente, o capítulo V. Nesse capítulo, Medina Carreira desmistifica completamente o mito do “keynesianismo” e explica porque é que esse modelo não tem qualquer interesse nos dias de hoje para um país como Portugal. Depois de ler a resposta à pergunta da página 95, onde apresenta os principais princípios dessa doutrina, torna-se impossível não rir às gargalhadas quando ouvimos o nosso PM a justificar as grandes obras (como por exemplo, o TGV) com a doutrina de Keynes.

Antes de dar a nota final, aproveito para recomendar este livro a todos aqueles que se interessam com o estado da Nação. A minha nota para este excelente livro: 9.5/10.

Book review: JavaScript, the good parts

luisabreu — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

I’ve just finished reading Douglas Crockford’s book and I can tell you that is a fantastic book. Notice that the book concentrates on the language itself, so don’t buy this book and expect to find a good reference for learning DHTML. The book is full of small nuggets which will guide you through the most important concepts of the language. Besides doing that, the author also gives you his opinion on which features you should use for writing good JavaScript code (the best part is that he explains why and he also presents a list with the features you shouldn’t use – notice that I’ve been writing on this stuff lately. This books goes even farther and will give you much more details on several topics I’ve mentioned in the JavaScript series posts).

I guess that the best thing I can say about this book is that it should have been out a few years ago when I started writing JavaScript code: it would have saved me lots of time! I’m giving it 9/10 and I’m recommending it to anyone that wants to have a better understanding of JavaScript.

Book review: How would you move Mount Fuji

luisabreu — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This was another of the books I’ve managed to read during my last vacations. It’s an interesting book which presents several puzzles (supposedly) used by Microsoft during their hiring process. Besides presenting the answers to the puzzles, author William Poundstone adds a couple of “extra” chapters which try to “justify” the reasons associated with the use of this kind of puzzles by companies on their hiring process. Overall, I found it quite entertaining (though I must confess that I probably wouldn’t solve half of them under pressure) and I’m giving it 8/10.

Book review: Software Estimation

luisabreu — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

During my last vacations, I’ve manager to read a couple of books. One of them was Steve McConnell’s Software Estimation book. The author starts by making an important point regarding estimation: art vs science. It then starts building on several important concepts before presenting several tips and techniques that might lead to more accurate estimations. You’ll also find several interesting facts which explain why so many estimates go awry (the cone of uncertainty concept was really well explained and I think that anyone who reads the book will easily get it).

Even though the book has good content, it’s not really one of those topics that makes me want to read “without stop”. In fact, I did had some problems reading through some chapters (they felt pretty boring) and I guess that’s why I’m only giving it 7.5/10.

Recent activities

skeet — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

It's been a little while since I've blogged, and quite a lot has been going on. In fact, there are a few things I'd have blogged about already if it weren't for "things" getting in the way.

Rather than writing a whole series of very short blog posts, I thought I'd wrap them all up here...

C# in Depth: next MEAP drop available soon - Code Contracts

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on my writing dilemma. For the moment, the plan is to have a whole chapter about Code Contracts, but not include a chapter about Parallel Extensions. My argument for making this decision is that Code Contracts really change the feel of the code, making it almost like a language feature - and its applicability is almost ubiquitous, unlike PFX.

I may write a PFX chapter as a separate download, but I'm sensitive to those who (like me) appreciate slim books. I don't want to "bulk out" the book with extra topics.

The Code Contracts chapter is in the final stages before becoming available to MEAP subscribers. (It's been "nearly ready" for a couple of weeks, but I've been on holiday, amongst other things.) After that, I'm going back to the existing chapters and revising them.

Talking in Dublin - C# 4 and Parallel Extensions

Last week I gave two talks in Dublin at Epicenter. One was on C# 4, and the other on Code Contracts and Parallel Extensions. Both are now available in a slightly odd form on the Talks page of the C# in Depth web site. I no longer write "formal" PowerPoint slides, so the downloads are for simple bullet points of text, along with silly hand-drawn slides. No code yet - I want to tidy it up a bit before including it.

Podcasting with The Connected Show

I recently recorded a podcast episode with The Connected Show. I'm "on" for the second 2/3 of the show - about an hour of me blathering on about the new features of C# 4. If you can understand generic variance just by listening to me talking about it, you're a smart cookie ;)

(Oh, and if you like it, please express your amusement on Digg / DZone / Shout / Kicks.)

Finishing up with Functional Programming for the Real World

Well, this hasn't been taking much of my time recently (I bowed out of all the indexing etc!) but Functional Programming for the Real World is nearly ready to go. Hard copy should be available in the next couple of months... it'll be really nice to see how it fares. Much kudos to Tomas for all his hard work - I've really just been helping out a little.

Starting on Groovy in Action, 2nd edition

No sooner does one book finish than another one starts. The second edition of Groovy in Action is in the works, which should prove interesting. To be honest, I haven't played with Groovy much since the first edition of the book was finished, so it'll be interesting to see what's happened to the language in the meantime. I'll be applying the same sort of spit and polish that I did in the first edition, and asking appropriately ignorant questions of the other authors.

Tech Reviewing C# 4.0 in a Nutshell

I liked C# 3.0 in a Nutshell, and I feel honoured that Joe asked me to be a tech reviewer for the next edition, which promises to be even better. There's not a lot more I can say about it at the moment, other than it'll be out in 2010 - and I still feel that C# in Depth is a good companion book.

MoreLINQ now at 1.0 beta

A while ago I started the MoreLINQ project, and it gained some developers with more time than I've got available :) Basically the idea is to add some more useful LINQ extension methods to LINQ to Object. Thanks to Atif Aziz, the first beta version has been released. This doesn't mean we're "done" though - just that we think we've got something useful. Any suggestions for other operators would be welcome.

Manning Pop Quiz and discounts

While I'm plugging books etc, it's worth mentioning the Manning Pop Quiz - multiple choice questions on a wide variety of topics. Fabulous prizes available, as well as one-day discounts:

Monday, Sept 7th: 50% of all print books (code: pop0907)
Monday, Sept 14: 50% off all ebooks (code: pop0914)
Thursday, Sept 17: $25 for C# in Depth, 2nd Edition MEAP print version (code: pop0917) + C# Pop Quiz question
Monday, Sept 21: 50% off all books (code: pop0921)
Thursday, Sept 24: $12 for C# in Depth, 2nd Edition MEAP ebook (code: pop0924) + another C# Pop Quiz question

Future speaking engagements

On September 16th I'm going to be speaking to Edge UG (formerly Vista Squad) in London about Code Contracts and Parallel Extensions. I'm already very much looking forward to the Stack Overflow DevDays London conference on October 28th, at which I'll be talking about how humanity has screwed up computing.

Future potential blog posts

Some day I may get round to writing about:

Revisiting StaticRandom with ThreadLocal<T>
Volatile doesn't mean what I thought it did

There's a lot more writing than coding in that list... I'd like to spend some more time on MiniBench at some point, but you know what deadlines are like.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to and what I'll be doing for a little while...

The "dream book" for C# and .NET

skeet — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This morning I showed my hand a little on Twitter. I've had a dream for a long time about the ultimate C# book. It's a dream based on Effective Java, which is my favourite Java book, along with my experiences of writing C# in Depth.

Effective Java is written by Josh Bloch, who is an absolute giant in the Java world... and that's both the problem and the opportunity. There's no-one of quite the equivalent stature in the .NET world. Instead, there are many very smart people, a lot of whom blog and some of whom have their own books.

There are "best practices" books, of course: Microsoft's own Framework Design Guidelines, and Bill Wagner's Effective C# and More Effective C# being the most obvious examples. I'm in no way trying to knock these books, but I feel we could do even better. The Framework Design Guidelines (also available free to browse on MSDN) are really about how to create a good API - which is important, but not the be-all-and-end-all for many application developers who aren't trying to ship a reusable class library and may well have different concerns. They want to know how to use the language most effectively, as well as the core types within the framework.

Bill's books - and many others which cover the core framework, such as CLR via C#, Accelerated C# 2008 and C# 3.0 in a Nutshell - give plenty of advice, but often I've felt it's a little one-sided. Each of these books is the work of a single person (or brothers in the case of Nutshell). Reading them, I've often wanted to give present a different point of view - or alternatively, to give a hearty "hear, hear." I believe that a book giving guidance would benefit greatly from being more of a conversation: where the authors all agree on something, that's great; where they differ, it would be good to hear about the pros and cons of various approaches. The reader can then weigh up those factors as they apply to each particular real-world scenario.

Scope

So what would such a book contain? Opinions will vary of course, but I would like to see:

Effective ways of using language features such as lambda expressions, generic type inference (and indeed generics in general), optional parameters, named arguments and extension methods. Assume that the reader knows roughly what C# does, but give some extra details around things like iterator blocks and anonymous functions.
Guidance around class design (in a similar fashion to the FDG, but with more input from others in the community)
Core framework topics (again, assume the basics are understood):

Resource management (disposal etc)
Exceptions
Collections (including LINQ fundamentals)
Streams
Text (including internationalization)
Numeric types
Time-related APIs
Concurrency
Contracts
AppDomains
Security
Performance

I would prefer to avoid anything around the periphery of .NET (WPF, WinForms, ASP.NET, WCF) - I believe those are better handled in different topics.

Obstacles and format

There's one big problem with this idea, but I think it may be a saving grace too. Many of the leading authors work for different publishers. Clearly no single publisher is going to attract all the best minds in the C# and .NET world. So how could this work in practice? Well...

Imagine a web site for the book, paid for jointly by all interested publishers. The web site would be the foremost delivery mechanism for the content, both to browse and probably to download in formats appropriate for offline reading (PDF etc). The content would be edited in a collaborative style obviously, but exactly how that would work is a detail to be thrashed out. If you've read the annotated C# or CLI specifications, they have about the right feel - opinions can be attributed in places, but not everything has a label.

Any contributing publisher could also take the material and publish it as hard copy if they so wished. Quite how this would work - with potentially multiple hard copy editions of the same content - would be interesting to see. There's another reason against hard copy ever appearing though, which is that it would be immovable. I'd like to see this work evolve as new features appear and as more best practices are discovered. Publishers could monetize the web site via adverts, possibly according to how much they're kicking into the site.

I don't know how the authors would get paid, admittedly, and that's another problem. Would this cannibalize the sales of the books listed earlier? It wouldn't make them redundant - certainly not for the Nutshell type of book, which teaches the basics as well as giving guidance. It would hit Effective C# harder, I suspect - and I apologise to Bill Wagner in advance; if this ever takes off and it hurts his bottom line, I'm very sorry - I think it's in a good cause though.

Dream Team

So who would contribute to this? Part of me would like to say "anyone and everyone" in a Wikipedia kind of approach - but I think that practically, it makes sense for industry experts to take their places. (A good feedback/comments mechanism for anyone to use would be crucial, however.) Here's a list which isn't meant to be exhaustive, but would make me happy - please don't take offence if your name isn't on here but should be, and I wouldn't expect all of these people to be interested anyway.

Anders Hejlsberg
Eric Lippert
Mads Torgersen
Don Box
Brad Abrams
Krzysztof Cwalina
Joe Duffy
Vance Morrison
Rico Mariani
Erik Meijer
Don Symes
Wes Dyer
Jeff Richter
Joe and Ben Albahari
Andrew Troelsen
Bill Wagner
Trey Nash
Mark Michaelis
Jon Skeet (yeah, I want to contribute if I can)

I imagine "principal" authors for specific topics (e.g. Joe Duffy for concurrency) but with all the authors dropping in comments in other places too.

Dream or reality?

I have no idea whether this will ever happen or not. I'd dearly love it to, and I've spoken to a few people before today who've been encouraging about the idea. I haven't been putting any work into getting it off the ground - don't worry, it's not been delaying the second edition of C# in Depth. One day though, one day...

Am I being hopelessly naïve to even consider such a venture? Is the scope too broad? Is the content valuable but not money-making? We'll see.

Tricky decisions... Code Contracts and Parallel Extensions in C# in Depth 2nd edition

skeet — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

I'd like some feedback from readers, and I suspect my blog is the simplest way to get it.

I'm currently writing chapter 15 of C# in Depth, tentatively about Code Contracts and Parallel Extensions. The problem is that I'm 15 pages in, and I haven't finished Code Contracts yet. I suspect that with a typesetter moving the listings around a little it can be shortened a little bit, but I'm still concerned. With the amount I've still got to write, Code Contracts is going to end up at 20 pages and I expect Parallel Extensions may be 25. That makes for a pretty monstrous chapter for non-language features.

I'd like to present a few options:

Keep going as I am, and take the hit of having a big chapter. I'm not going into huge amounts of detail anyway, but the bigger point is to demonstrate how code isn't what it used to be. We're no longer writing a simple series of statements to be executed in order. Code Contracts changes this dramatically with the binary rewriter, and Parallel Extensions adjusts the parallelism, and ironically makes it easier to write asynchronous code as if it were executed sequentially.
Try to whittle the material down to my original target of around 35 pages. This means it'll be a really cursory glance at each of the technologies - I'm unsure of how useful it would be at all at that point.
Don't even claim to give enough information to really get people going with the new technologies, but possibly introduce extra ones as well, such as PostSharp. Build the theme of "you're not writing C# 1 any more" in a stronger sense - zoom back to show the bigger picture while ignoring the details.
Separate them into different chapters. At this point half the new chapters would be non-language features, which isn't great for the focus of the book... but at least they'd be a more reasonable size.
Ditch the chapters from the book completely, possibly writing them as separate chapters to be available as a mini-ebook companion to the book. (We could possibly include them in the ebook version.) This would make the second edition more focused again and possibly give me a bit more space when revising earlier chapters. However, it does mean there'd only be two full-size new chapters for the second edition. (There'll be a new "wrapping up" chapter as well for a sense of closure, but I'm not generally counting that.)

Other suggestions are welcome, of course. I'm not going to claim that we'll end up doing whatever is suggested here, but I'm sure that popular opinion will influence the final decision.

Thoughts?

Enter to win a System Center Configuration Manager book - Network World

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

How to enter to win: Answer the trivia question below correctly and e-mail your answer to Julie Bort at jbort@nww.com by midnight PT, August 31, 2009, and your entry will be entered into a drawing. In the e-mail, please include the answer to the question, your name, job title, U.S. mailing address and your daytime telephone number. Please write "Microsoft Subnet August book contest in the subject of your e-mail.

Enter to win a System Center Configuration Manager book - Network World