Ajax on Java Review

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Ajax on Java ReviewSad to say, this book is little more than a code dump, and the code does not run without debugging.
There are no explanations of technologies and concepts that surround Ajax, therefore, given the state of the code, there is not a lot of reason to work through the book. In fact, this is the first computer book that I returned to the seller, simply because I found so little reason to keep it on my bookshelf.
The writing in the introductory chapter gives promise, but as the book progresses the code quickly becomes dense and the organization and writing becomes unacceptably thin. I expected more from O'Reilly.
Before I gave up on this book, I was half way through it, and only one code set had ran correctly from build on. For example, the author's code has at least four variations of the basic application URL sprinkled among the Javascript and build files of the first four examples. Finding and correcting the URL was annoying but not difficult, but even after that, the examples did not run without further debugging.
I finally threw up my hands and surrendered... defeated by the author's rush to publication.Ajax on Java Overview
This practical guide shows you how to make your Java web applications more responsive and dynamic by incorporating new Ajaxian features, including suggestion lists, drag-and-drop, and more. Java developers can choose between many different ways of incorporating Ajax, from building JavaScript into your applications "by hand" to using the new Google Web Toolkit (GWT).

Ajax on Java starts with an introduction to Ajax, showing you how to write some basic applications that use client-side JavaScript to request information from a Java servlet and display it without doing a full page reload. It also presents several strategies for communicating between the client and the server, including sending raw data, and using XML or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for sending more complex collections of data.

The book then branches out into different approaches for incorporating Ajax, which include:

The Prototype and script.aculo.us Javascript libraries, the Dojo and Rico libraries, and DWR
Integrating Ajax into Java ServerPages (JSP) applications
Using Ajax with Struts
Integrating Ajax into Java ServerFaces (JSF) applications
Using Google's GWT, which offers a pure Java approach to developing web applications: your client-side components are written in Java, and compiled into HTML and JavaScript

Ajax gives web developers the ability to build applications that are more interactive, more dynamic, more exciting and enjoyable for your users. If you're a Java developer and haven't tried Ajax, but would like to get started, this book is essential. Your users will be grateful.


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Tapestry 5: Building Web Applications: A step-by-step guide to Java Web development with the developer-friendly Apache Tapestry framework Review

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Tapestry 5: Building Web Applications: A step-by-step guide to Java Web development with the developer-friendly Apache Tapestry framework ReviewI went through this book before realizing that there is a better and up-to-date tutorial available for free on the Tapestry 5 official site written by the creator Ship himself:
[...]
As this book was obviously written a couple of years back, a lot of information is out-dated. I had to jump through quite a number of hoops, looking for info and tips on the web, to get the project going. There are numerous errors starting from using Maven to create a Tapestry 5 project all the way down to attributes of form tags. While some of these errors are minor and are caused by the continued evolution of Tapestry 5, they put a considerable damper on my learning process and make it unnecessarily frustrating.
A major omission from this book is the integration with any ORM tool such as Hibernate. In my opinion, this leaves the book "half-baked." After going through this book, one would not be able to create a "real" project that include DB persistence. All in all, whether you are experienced in Java EE or not, if you wish to learn Tapestry 5, you will be much better off by following Ship's official tutorial listed above instead of using this book.Tapestry 5: Building Web Applications: A step-by-step guide to Java Web development with the developer-friendly Apache Tapestry framework OverviewThis book is a practical step-by-step tutorial for those who want to build contemporary, real-life web applications with Tapestry 5, the Apache open-source framework for creating dynamic, robust, highly scalable web applications in Java. It shows the path of least resistance, so that the reader can learn all the essential skills quickly and easily. To give the reader an initial practical experience, a simple but useful web application is built throughout the chapters. This book is for those who want to build sophisticated Java web applications quickly and easily. It assumes that the reader is reasonably comfortable with the Java programming language, but no knowledge of web technologies is needed. For experienced Servlet, JSP, or Struts developers, the book will show an alternative way that will allow them to raise their productivity to an incomparable level. With this book you will see that a contemporary component-based framework can be easy to learn and a pleasure to work with.

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CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing Review

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CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing ReviewThe previous edition of this book was so useful that I had two copies, one at work and one at home. I work in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and the previous edition, which only claimed to cover Japanese, was still the most useful book on Chinese and Korean info processing that I ever found. With this new edition, the author has extended coverage to all Asian languages that use Chinese characters, or used to do so in the case of Vietnamese, as part of their writing systems.
Thank goodness he has. The author, Ken Lunde, has an encyclopedic knowledge of this material. In addition, he is one of those people to whom anything less than strict, literal correctness is intolerable. Authors of this sort usually write in a style reminiscent of the federal tax code. Lunde manages to avoid this, creating one of those rare and delightful computer books that serve as a lucid tutorial the first time through, and as a strict and comprehensive reference thereafter.
The principal reason I consider this book the bible for Asian language information processing is the extreme difficulty of getting most of this information via any other source. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of another computer book whose original source material is as scattered, poorly documented, and often unreliable as that Lunde had to gather to produce this book. His job of ferreting out the details, cross-checking, error correction, and organization into a single book makes this almost a work of journalism. If you do CJKV work, you'll need more than just this book, of course, but the book is full of references to other material, so this is the place to start.
Lunde also provides a lot of usable source code in the book. This is not unusual in a computer book, but this code is special in two ways. First, it's available in C, Java, and Perl, not just in C. This is refreshing, given the increasingly prominent roles played by Java and Perl on the Internet--the place where multilingual computing arguably matters most.
Second, his code serves as a great checklist for what has to be done by any similar code. This is one of those difficult types of programming where many bugs aren't easy to see, because of the large number of obscure "gotchas" and arcane details. Lunde doesn't miss much, and he revels in these arcane details. His code is not highly optimized, and he admits as much, but if his code does something, you need to do it, and if it doesn't, you (probably) don't need to, either. This fact alone justifies the cost of the book for any developer to whom bugs might have financial consequences.
If you're going to do CJKV work, this is the bible. As I said, it's not the only thing you'll need, but it's where you should start.CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing Overview
First published a decade ago, CJKV Information Processing quickly became the unsurpassed source of information on processing text in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. It has now been thoroughly updated to provide web and application developers with the latest techniques and tools for disseminating information directly to audiences in East Asia. This second edition reflects the considerable impact that Unicode, XML, OpenType, and newer operating systems such as Windows XP, Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux have had on East Asian text processing in recent years. Written by its original author, Ken Lunde, a Senior Computer Scientist in CJKV Type Development at Adobe Systems, this book will help you:



Learn about CJKV writing systems and scripts, and their transliteration methods
Explore trends and developments in character sets and encodings, particularly Unicode
Examine the world of typography, specifically how CJKV text is laid out on a page
Learn information-processing techniques, such as code conversion algorithms and how to apply them using different programming languages
Process CJKV text using different platforms, text editors, and word processors
Become more informed about CJKV dictionaries, dictionary software, and machine translation software and services
Manage CJKV content and presentation when publishing in print or for the Web

Internationalizing and localizing applications is paramount in today's global market -- especially for audiences in East Asia, the fastest-growing segment of the computing world. CJKV Information Processing will help you understand how to develop web and other applications effectively in a field that many find difficult to master.


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FileMaker® 9 Developer Reference: Functions, Scripts, Commands, and Grammars, with Extensive Custom Function Examples Review

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FileMaker® 9 Developer Reference: Functions, Scripts, Commands, and Grammars, with Extensive Custom Function Examples ReviewThis book can serve as a bible for using functions and script commands with it's thorough and easy to find listings.
It could only be better if more examples were provided for us newbies.FileMaker® 9 Developer Reference: Functions, Scripts, Commands, and Grammars, with Extensive Custom Function Examples OverviewMaybe you know FileMaker, and you have used it for years, but need a quick reference, immediately accessible while not interrupting your work on screen. This isthe only book on the market expressly focused on describing each calculation formula and how and when to use each! Filled with real-world, concrete examples, this book is an invaluable companion to readers working to develop solutions to their every day software problems. Contains hundreds of calculation functions, script steps, and operations that will appeal to every FileMaker user, new and old.

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Enterprise AJAX: Strategies for Building High Performance Web Applications Review

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Enterprise AJAX: Strategies for Building High Performance Web Applications ReviewCollege-level computer holdings strong on Ajax or web programming guides need ENTERPRISE AJAX: STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING HIGH PERFORMANCE WEB APPLICATIONS. It covers advanced Ajax topics, so it's not for the beginner - that will please any already versed in Ajax who want to skip the basics. From implementing Model-View-Controller in the browser to overcoming security risks and optimizing Ajax functions, this is the item of choice for any collection moving beyond introductory texts.
Diane C. Donovan
California BookwatchEnterprise AJAX: Strategies for Building High Performance Web Applications Overview"The core technologies of Ajax are quite straightforward; the hard part is applying them in the real world. Fortunately, the authors have been putting Ajax into practice since long before the term 'Ajax' was even coined. Enterprise AJAX offers excellent coverage of issues rarely explained to date, but frequently encountered by enterprise developers—including architecting of Ajax applications, and how to deal with such concerns as usability, security, and reliability."-DR. MICHAEL MAHEMOFF, PH.D. author of Ajax Design Patterns (AjaxPatterns.org)"Just when you thought you knew all you need to know about Ajax, Dave, Alexei, and Andre force open your cranium and unload a dumptruck full of Enterprise Ajax techniques, best practices, and hard-earned expert insight onto your brain. If you want to mix some serious Ajax into your serious business applications, the solid information and advice you get from this book will let you do so with confidence."-BRENT ASHLEY, Web Developer and Ajax Pioneer"I can't think of any better authors for a book on Enterprise AJAX. The book is sure to be a valuable reference for developers the world over working on the next generation of web applications."-MATT MCKENZIE, Software development manager, LiveCycle, Adobe Systems Inc."A great resource for writing quality, enterprise-level JavaScript."-CHRISTIAN VAN EEDEN, Senior Application Specialist, Schenker DB LogisticsBUILD RELIABLE, SCALABLE, ENTERPRISE-CLASS WEB APPLICATIONS WITH AJAXWriting for enterprise developers, architects, and user interface specialists, the authors explain why AJAX offers such great promise in large-scale development. Next, they systematically introduce today's key AJAX techniques and components.You'll walk through developing frameworks for building AJAX applications that combine data tables, Web forms, charts, search, and filtering: the very systems businesses depend on in CRM, ERP, BI, and beyond. Then, building on this strong foundation, the authors identify proven AJAX architectural patterns, and present case studies drawn from actual .NET and Java AJAX applications. Coverge includes
Using AJAX to implement Model-View-Controller (MVC) in the browser
Encapsulating user interface functionality to facilitate code reuse and reduce cross-browser development problems
Overcoming the unique security challenges associated with AJAX Web applications
Optimizing AJAX usability: the "back" button, caching, bookmarking, offline usage, and beyond
From security to scalability to project risk, this is the only book to cover all the issues facing AJAX developers in the enterprise. Whether you're migrating legacy HTML interfaces or building new applications from scratch, you'll find it absolutely indispensable.ABOUT THE WEBSITEwww.enterpriseajax.com contains code samples, case studies, tutorials, live demos, and other AJAX resources.ABOUT THE AUTHORSDavid Johnson has many years of experience with AJAX-related technologies. He is co-founder and CTO of Nitobi, producer of a component library designed to speed AJAX development. Johnson has written widely for print and online publications, including JavaWorld.com and XML.com. Alexei White is Product Manager at Nitobi. Andre Charland, co-founder, President, and CEO of Nitobi, is an experienced Internet software developer.

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A Developer's Guide to the Semantic Web Review

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A Developer's Guide to the Semantic Web ReviewNot only does A Developer's Guide to Semantic Web offer an excellent introduction to "what is" Semantic Web, but it also guides the readers onto the "how to" stage with assiduously, almost mind-numbingly easy to understand, step by step coding examples. Needless to say, the author has an amazing grasp of the Semantic web technology himself. Unlike some quite complicated and mind-boggling books on Semantic Web, A Developer's Guide to Semantic Web is easy to comprehend, therefore an outstanding tool. Concepts such as RDF, OWL, SPARQL, and well-known applications such as FOAF, Wiki, DBpedi and LOD are brilliantly illustrated with ample coding examples. The last section of the book weaves all of them together with raw examples of running applications, which are readily available for use. This is a must-read for students, researchers, software engineers and developers who are interested in the Semantic Web technology. Highly recommended.A Developer's Guide to the Semantic Web OverviewCovering the theory, technical components and applications of the Semantic Web, this book's unrivalled coverage includes the latest on W3C standards such as OWL 2, and discusses new projects such as DBpedia. It also shows how to put theory into practice.

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Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity Review

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Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity ReviewThis book is an excellent book on Web 2.0 technologies and how they can be used to provide value to users in a Web 2.0 world. The book is a light on technical (programming), but rich on concepts and the business side of Web 2.0. What makes this book useful is the fact that it reintroduces common concepts such as blogs in a way that an executive can understand and take advantage of. The first chapter discusses a brief history of the web. The second chapter goes into explaining what web technologies such as CSS and XML are and what a web service can do for a business. There are a few other very useful chapters in this book, but by no means you should stop your Web 2.0 quest with this book. This book's a great way to start your Web 2.0 journey and it even puts forth the notion of semantic web. But, once you figure out what area you want to concentrate on, I recommend getting a more comprehensive book on that specific topic.Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity OverviewThe emergence of Web 2.0 is provoking challenging questions for developers:What products and services can our company provide to customers and employees using Rich Internet Applications, mash-ups, Web feeds or Ajax?Which business models are appropriate and how do we implement them?What are best practices and how do we apply them?If you need answers to these and related questions, you need this book-a comprehensive and reliable resource that guides you into the emerging and unstructured landscape that is Web 2.0.Gottfried Vossen is a professor of Information Systems and Computer Science at the University of Muenster in Germany.He is the European Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier's Information Systems-An International Journal.Stephan Hagemann is a PhD. Student in Gottfried's research group focused on Web technologies.* Presents a complete view of Web 2.0 including services and technologies* Discusses potential new products and services and the technology and programming ability needed to realize them* Offers 'how to' basics presenting development frameworks and best practices* Compares and contrasts Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web

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Expert PHP and MySQL (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Expert PHP and MySQL (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewThis book is choke-full of information, examples and best practices written by some of the foremost experts in their respective fields. All of the authors clearly have extensive experience working on setups requiring expert knowledge. Best of all, they are not afraid of thinking outside the box and the solutions they present are in no way limited to pure PHP and MySQL solutions.
This book really does expect something from the reader, so perhaps a word of caution is in order: you really do need to be familiar with a range of non-beginner subjects on both PHP and MySQL. I strongly recommend that you first read Chapter 1 of the book, helpfully available on the books' website. If you are not familiar with the contents presented here, you're not likely to gain much from your purchase.
If, on the other hand, all that you read there is Known Stuff, you're really in for a treat with this book. If you write programs because you have that personal itch, this book is going to make you feel as if you've just been attacked by a horde of mosquitoes. Really. You'll be re-thinking everything about how you build your websites from now on. But you won't need any itches for this book to make you re-think how you work with PHP and MySQL.
The book is extremely information-packed. I'm not one to shy away from reading 3-400 pages of technical references in a day, but this book is so densely filled that you simply won't be able to do that. Considering the breadth of topics covered, the authors at the same time manage to dive very deeply into each subject, covering all relevant resources, options, program libraries and best practices along the way. This does not make the book hard to read, to the contrary the language is very clear and concise. Don't expect information to be repeated anywhere.
Whether it's due to the authors or excellent editing, the language is very consistent and flows very well from chapter to chapter. If it wasn't for the change in subject matter and the authors' stated focus areas in the beginning of the book, it would be hard to discern that three people have been involved in writing this book.
A wonderful trait of all the authors is that they are very frank in assessing the available technologies, and don't mind telling you which things simply don't work, and why you should stay away from them - even when those technologies are offered by their respective employers.
You'll learn not only how to make the most optimal pure-PHP and pure-MySQL solutions, you will also see how you can integrate both of these with external programs by writing your own extensions and libraries. Descriptions of best practices in subjects such as user authentication and security will probably make you want to go back and check whether something could be improved in your own code and web server setup.
The chapters on advanced caching techniques, multi-tasking, optimization and debugging considerations are all very detailed and to the point. You'll be able to immediately put the techniques presented to use, and the book will serve you not only as a great tutorial, it will also be a great reference later on when you want to tune your setup.
There are of course a few chapters that could have used a bit more work. One chapter consists of barely more than a listing of output of feature lists, another contains very lengthy outputs that the reader might as well pull up on his own screen when working with some of the products. But these examples really are exceptions in an otherwise extremely well-written, informative and above all useful book.
Another word of caution: The book is highly UNIX (Linux) centric. If all your work is done using Windows, your benefit from reading this book might be limited. Then again, reading the book and realizing the potentials just might explain to you why it is most shops deploy their PHP/MySQL solutions on Linux.
Expert PHP and MySQL (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) OverviewBest practices and expert techniques for even the most demanding MySQL-driven PHP applications
PHP is the world's most popular, general-purpose, open-source scripting language and MySQL is the world's most popular open-source database. This expert-level book begins with a brief overview of the two technologies and quickly moves on to coverage of advanced programming techniques, as well as the exciting new features of the PHP 5.3 release.
Written by three of PHP and MySQL experts and veteran authors, this resource focuses on best practices and expert techniques that can be applied to the most difficult MySQL-driven PHP applications. The authors share design patterns and tools that they themselves have tested in order to save you valuable time usually spent on figuring things out via trial and error.
Reveals best practices and advanced techniques for handling challenges you may face with MySQL-driven PHP apps
Reviews practical data reporting techniques for separating business logic from presentation
Explains how to obtain improved performance and flexibility through caching, multi-tasking, PHP extensions, and MySQL user defined functions
Discusses security, optimization, and debugging
Shares author-tested design patterns and tools to save you time and effort

Packed with helpful examples and indispensable advice, this book shares tips and tricks that you can immediately apply to your projects.
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

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Beginning ASP.NET 4.0 in C# 2010 Review

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Beginning ASP.NET 4.0 in C# 2010 ReviewThis book has lots of good information, and it is in mostly the right order. The problem with this book for many readers will be the style of presentation. It has been proven many times that people learn by doing, but this book doesn't give you as much in that area as is necessary to learn. There is code that you can download but it doesn't really line up with the book.
The worst part of this book are the code snippets that are placed throughout the book. They don't show the surrounding code, so everything is out of context, and you don't feel 100% sure of where it goes in your file, and to top it off, it is code that sometimes doesn't relate to the code you download. Many times, instead of showing actual real-life variables, it just shows the equivalent of an 'x'. So you have no idea how it is supposed to come together. It continuously says 'code removed for clarity'. I understand the point of this as that code isn't the focus of this section, but if I'm building a page, I need to see that code to make sure I have the same code as the book.
I would have to say that the information given is very precise, and if you already know C#, you're probably going to enjoy this book, but if you are new to it, and need examples and practice, it's not the best. Imagine watching an Olympic freestyle skier for a few minutes, and then without ever having skied or practiced jumping, you are suddenly asked to do the same flips and twists perfectly. Maybe an exaggeration, but you are really left on your own a lot of the time.
The book is very dry, so you have a very long attention span and motivation to get through the book in order to do well with it. It is clear it is written by a programmer. There are constantly references to terms that haven't been defined previously, and sometimes you get the feeling this guy is trying to impress you with words. I've had professors like that, and although I respect their knowledge and intelligence, it does not contribute to a good learning atmosphere. I'm not saying 'dumb it down', but when learning a complex topic, the simpler it can be presented, the better.
Another problem is the low resolution of many of the screen shots. I know that's a limitation of the technology, but it can actually be somewhat dizzying to look at because of the blurriness.
There are other pros, and other cons, but I just touched on the main ones I noticed.Beginning ASP.NET 4.0 in C# 2010 OverviewBeginning ASP.NET 4.0 in C# 2010 follows in the footsteps of the highly successful .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 editions, teaching novice users how to use ASP.NET by gradually building their knowledge of the technology up in a pyramidal fashion chapter by chapter.Comprehensively revised for both ASP.NET 4.0 and the new Visual C# 2010 language this book presents the easiest path to ASP.NET 4.0 mastery.

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Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large, Multisite, and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale Scrum Review

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Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large, Multisite, and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale Scrum ReviewThe content is rich and covers almost everything about scrum.
This is a very good book on agile development, unfortunately, inappropriately named.
1) Readers who bought this book, probably are interested in the additional stuff on multisite and offshore, and not the everything about Agile Development. Thus, this book can be, should be a lot thinner.
2) The book contains lots of good examples. Unfortunately, I have to jump around the book to read them. Thus, the organization of the content can be improved.
Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large, Multisite, and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale Scrum OverviewLean and Agile Development for Large-Scale Products: Key Practices for Sustainable Competitive Success

Increasingly, large product-development organizations are turning to lean thinking, agile principles and practices, and large-scale Scrum to sustainably and quickly deliver value and innovation. Drawing on their long experience leading and guiding lean and agile adoptions for large, multisite, and offshore product development, internationally recognized consultant and best-selling author Craig Larman and former leader of the agile transformation at Nokia Networks Bas Vodde share the key action tools needed for success.

Coverage includes

Frameworks for large-scale Scrum for multihundred-person product groups
Testing and building quality in
Product management and the end of the "contract game" between business and R&D
Envisioning a large release, and planning for multiteam development
Low-quality legacy code: why it's created, and how to stop it
Continuous integration in a large multisite context
Agile architecting
Multisite or offshore development
Contracts and outsourced development
In a competitive environment that demands ever-faster cycle times and greater innovation, the practices inspired by lean thinking and agile principles are ever-more relevant. Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development will help people realize a lean enterprise—and deliver on the significant benefits of agility.

In addition to the action tools in this text, see the companion book Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrumfor complementary foundation tools.


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Beginning Joomla (Expert's Voice in Open Source) Review

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Beginning Joomla (Expert's Voice in Open Source) ReviewThis book does a nice job to get you up and running with a Joomla!-website (chapters 1 to 3), and then in chapter 4 nicely points your way in getting your own content organized and in place, but then, when it comes to questions like "How do I put related but different articles together in one 'page'" it lets you down completely. The way you use menu's to lay out a page doesn't get real attention, instead you only get an overview of the different manager screens, no explanation of the coworking of menu and module manager.
I expected this to come in chapter 6, but then the author moves to things like creating new templates, using extensions and other things that are surely interesting to know, but of more intermediate to advanced level. The beginners level however seems to be somewhat unfinished. I really have looked to see if pages where missing in my copy somewhere in chapter 4 or 5, but they weren't.
This book could have been so much better if the more advanced chapters where left for a second volume and that space was used for more info about concepts and real world examples. The books promises to make you from novice to professional, but you really can't get there if the foundation is too weak.Beginning Joomla (Expert's Voice in Open Source) OverviewThis Second Edition of Beginning Joomla! updates to the new features included in Joomla 1.6. Author Dan Rahmel shows site managers and developers alike how to build impressive and complex websites using the number one open source content management system, Joomla!While it is simple to install Joomla! and use its base features (http://www.joomla.org/) many users will want to customize it to their specific needs, tweaking the design templates and extending its capabilities.Beginning Joomla! is the most up-to-date guide available for users seeking to resolve the many common yet confusing questions surrounding these tasks. Along the way, the book takes special care to focus on implementing many of today's most desired website features, such as MySpace-like user profile management, photo galleries, and e-commerce.The new features for Joomla 1.6 such as access management, content versioning, multi-blogger components and the expanded search capabilities are all covered in this new edition.

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The Productive Programmer (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)) Review

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The Productive Programmer (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)) ReviewThis is a terrific book for boosting your productivity in two areas: how you work, and how you code.
The first section of the book, Mechanics, focuses on tools you can use to boost your productivity as you're working with your system. Ford launches off into an exploration of lots of little crazy tools that help you automate or ease repetitive tasks. You'll find lots of goodies from virtual desktops to shortcut tips/launchers, to using Ruby to script everything from splitting up SQL to automatically sorting your laundry and washing it for you.[1]
All these little tools and tricks add up to drastic decreases in the amount of friction you're forced to suffer through while doing your daily job. Cutting this friction lets you focus on the job at hand, instead of trying to bend your environment to your will.
The second section of the book, Practice, discusses ways to speed your development. There's an awful lot of goodness in this portion of the book, ranging from re-emphasizing critical aspects of object oriented programming, to object and method composition. Ford walks through a lot of great stories meant to get you to re-evaluate why you do things a certain way. The infamous Angry Monkeys story gets pulled out as an example, and Ford also concisely covers development principles like the Law of Demeter, Occam's Razon, and his Polyglot Programming meme.
The book's concise, amazingly well written, and a definite must-have for your bookshelf.
The Productive Programmer (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)) OverviewAnyone who develops software for a living needs a proven way to produce it better, faster, and cheaper. The Productive Programmer offers critical timesaving and productivity tools that you can adopt right away, no matter what platform you use. Master developer Neal Ford not only offers advice on the mechanics of productivity--how to work smarter, spurn interruptions, get the most out your computer, and avoid repetition--he also details valuable practices that will help you elude common traps, improve your code, and become more valuable to your team. You'll learn to:
Write the test before you write the code
Manage the lifecycle of your objects fastidiously
Build only what you need now, not what you might need later
Apply ancient philosophies to software development
Question authority, rather than blindly adhere to standards
Make hard things easier and impossible things possible through meta-programming
Be sure all code within a method is at the same level of abstraction
Pick the right editor and assemble the best tools for the job

This isn't theory, but the fruits of Ford's real-world experience as an Application Architect at the global IT consultancy ThoughtWorks. Whether you're a beginner or a pro with years of experience, you'll improve your work and your career with the simple and straightforward principles in The Productive Programmer.


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Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It Review

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Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It ReviewI'm going to go on record and say that this is one of the most important books about software development that has been published in the last few years. It's easy for many of us in the industry to complain that software engineering research is years behind practice and that it is hard to construct experiments or perform studies which produce information that is relevant for practitioners, but fact is, there are many things we can learn from published studies.
The editors of this book do a great job of explaining what we can and can not expect from research. They also adopt a very pragmatic mindset, taking the point of view that appropriate practice is highly contextual. Research can provide us with evidence, but not necessarily conclusions.
Beyond the philosophical underpinnings, 'Making Software' outlines research results in a variety of areas. It gives you plenty to think about when considering various approaches on your team. The chapter 'How Effective is Modularization?' is worth the price of the book alone.
I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn how to think rigorously about practice.

Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It Overview
Many claims are made about how certain tools, technologies, and practices improve software development. But which claims are verifiable, and which are merely wishful thinking? In this book, leading thinkers such as Steve McConnell, Barry Boehm, and Barbara Kitchenham offer essays that uncover the truth and unmask myths commonly held among the software development community. Their insights may surprise you.

Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others?
Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster?
Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software?
Do design patterns actually make better software?
What effect does personality have on pair programming?
What matters more: how far apart people are geographically, or how far apart they are in the org chart?

Contributors include:

Jorge Aranda Tom Ball Victor R. Basili Andrew Begel Christian Bird Barry Boehm Marcelo Cataldo Steven Clarke Jason Cohen Robert DeLine Madeline Diep Hakan Erdogmus Michael Godfrey Mark Guzdial Jo E. Hannay Ahmed E. Hassan Israel Herraiz Kim Sebastian Herzig Cory Kapser Barbara Kitchenham Andrew Ko Lucas Layman Steve McConnell Tim Menzies Gail Murphy Nachi Nagappan Thomas J. Ostrand Dewayne Perry Marian Petre Lutz Prechelt Rahul Premraj Forrest Shull Beth Simon Diomidis Spinellis Neil Thomas Walter Tichy Burak Turhan Elaine J. Weyuker Michele A. Whitecraft Laurie Williams Wendy M. Williams Andreas Zeller Thomas Zimmermann


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Becoming Agile: ...in an imperfect world Review

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Becoming Agile: ...in an imperfect world ReviewBecoming Agile by Greg Smith and Ahmed Sidky describes how to start your journey to start agile development. The target audience for this book are people who are just starting to look at Agile development and currently have issues. However, personally, I would not recommend this book. The book contains recommendations that I would personally not follow (I'm not that they wouldn't work) and a better alternative might be Mike Cohns new book "Succeeding with Agile" which will be published later this year.
The book contains eight parts and it follows one case study of "Acme Media" throughout the book. Acme media is implementing a small pilot project using agile development. The first chapter of the book describes agile development, the agile manifesto and introduces the background of the case study. The second chapter in the book covers the start, that is the preparation work that the authors recommend. Chapter 4 in this part discusses a assessment test for assessing your agility. The authors recommend to use the test and based on that decide what practices to start with. Chapter 6 describes one of the their key recommendations, which is to form a "core team" which defines the agile process to be used by the organization.
Part three describes the real kick-off of the development. Chapter 10 covers a feasibility phase where the a smaller team will assess if the project is even feasible and after that will be a "gate" or a go/no-go moment so that the project can be killed early. It suggests creating a feasibility study guide to do your feasibility and the authors provide some examples. Chapter 11 talks about creating the initial agile pilot team.
Part four is called "populating the product backlog" where the authors start describing their variant on user stories called "feature cards." It wasn't clear to me why the authors decided to re-invent or rename other agile practices. The chapter describes creating the feature cards and putting them in the product backlog. Chapter 13 discusses the prioritization and chapter 14 the estimation of the features (which seems to be the wrong order to me, but the authors insist on not wasting estimation time). The chapter explains planning poker and story point (wonder why they are not called feature points...)
Part five then discusses the planning (or scheduling) of the project and fills all the requirements to the iterations. Chapter sixteen then starts with the iteration planning of the first iteration. The authors suggest first some modeling and than task breakdown and already doing task assignments. They not that people often recommend differently, but then they assume that it because in these teams "everyone can do everything." It feels like the authors think it is either pre-assigning all tasks OR everyone can do everything... and there is no middle way.
Part six discusses the iteration itself and covers some of the agile engineering practices, but only on a somewhat shallow level. The part starts with chapter 17 which still recommends to run an iteration 0 (even though their project has only 2 iterations!!) Part seven discusses change and adaptation. Chapter 20 describes the adaptations of Acme and why they did it. Interestingly enough, the authors suggest a "adapt week" between their iterations. Then chapter 21 describes the final delivery.
Part eight, the final part, describes how the core group can take the result of the pilot and try to roll out agile in the whole company.
Why I wouldn't recommend the book? There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the book doesn't feel well researched at all and the language is somewhat too 'popular.' For example: page 6 about the Agile manifesto talks about "a group of authors writing a document." Unless you interpret 'authors' very broadly, this is just not true. On page 33 the authors describe weaknesses of Scrum. I'm probably not the most neutral person about this, but still the sentence "Scrum doesn't want specialists" seems like a really odd conclusion and seems to me simply untrue. Another example, on page 248 the authors equate exploratory testing to "company-wide bug stomp." They claim "exploratory testing tries to make sure the software doesn't accidentally do things it isn't supposed to do." If I simply google the internet, then the definitions of exploratory testing are quite different. As a final example, in chapter 22 on retrospectives, the authors do not at all refer to any of the retrospectives techniques described in other places (like the popular "Agile Retrospectives" book).
The second reason why I wouldn't recommend the book is because I personally disagree with a lot of the recommendations done by the authors. These are too numerous to all mention, but to just pick a couple. Having a separate team define the 'process' for the Agile team seems odd to me. Doing a pilot project with only 2 iterations is somewhat short from my perspective. Especially as things like velocity aren't that useful on projects like that. The iteration 0 and the adapt week are things I wouldn't recommend and certainly not on a 2 iteration project. The description of retrospectives are certainly not how I would do them myself. The focus on engineering practices is somewhat shallow. And the list goes on and on. Fair enough, this might be just my opinion against their opinion, but because of this, I would personally not recommend this book.
I decided to go for two stars. Three stars would mean the book does what it is suppose to do, and I don't think it does. One star would be too low as the idea of the book is good. Also, I like the way the authors have build up their case study and the way they describe a project based on their own experiences. The book is not all bad or useless, just not the book I would recommend. Therefore decided to go for two stars.
Becoming Agile: ...in an imperfect world OverviewMany books discuss Agile from a theoretical or academic perspective. Becoming Agile takes a different approach and focuses on explaining Agile from a case-study perspective. Agile principles are discussed, explained, and then demonstrated in the context of a case study that flows throughout the book. The case study is based on a mixture of the author's real-world experiences.
Becoming Agile also focuses on the importance of adapting Agile principles to the realities of your environment. In the early days of Agile, there was a general belief that Agile had to be used in all phases of a project, and that it had to be used in its purest form. Over the last few years, reputable Agile authorities have begun questioning this belief: We're finding that the best deployments of Agile are customized to the realities of a given company.

Becoming Agile discusses the cultural realities of deploying Agile and how to deal with the needs of executives, managers, and the development team during migration. The author discusses employee motivation and establishing incentives that reward support of Agile techniques.


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ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies Review

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ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies ReviewI am an experienced developer so I only expected to skim over the book to get familiar with any of the new asp.net 3.5 features. I found myself reading every word of every page because the book was actually "entertaining". The writing is very smooth and easy to understand. You feel as if a really good teacher who knows how to relate to people is talking to you.
I was also surprised how deep the book was able to go into each subject. For example Linq is a very complicated subject yet the book does contain enough examples for you to use it in the real world.ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies OverviewDid you volunteer to create a Web site for the softball team? Is it time to take your small business to the next level and let your customers shop online? Well, you can relax! ASP.NET 3.5 makes creating a dynamic site faster and cleaner than ever before, and ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies makes it easier.
First, you'll get an introduction to all the tools and terminology you need to understand ASP.NET. If you've used earlier versions of ASP.NET and Visual Web Developer, you can probably skip that part and jump right into what's new in 3.5. You'll make friends with LINQ and SQL, create sites in Visual Web Developer 2008 Express, and much more. Before you know it, you'll discover how to:
Integrate data, track shopping cart contents, and whisk away bugs
Create user interfaces with easy navigation
Use the ListView control for sophisticated formatting
Write LINQ queries
Add a table to a database
Create an event handler
Take advantage of the drag 'n' drop feature that lets you write less code
Put all the features to work to develop dynamic Web applications

The softball team is going to love that Web site, and your customers might enjoy shopping on your site so much that you'll have to expand your business to fill all the orders! We can't promise that, of course, but we're pretty sure that ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies will make creating Web sites easier and a lot more fun.

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Sams Teach Yourself iPad Application Development in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours) Review

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Sams Teach Yourself iPad Application Development in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours) ReviewThis is an adequate book for an experienced programmer wanting an easy introduction to developing IOS apps. However, its content was already somewhat out of date when it was published in August, and is about to be seriously out of date within a matter of days when Apple introduces not just IOS 4.2 on the iPad, but XCode 4 on the Mac. The book covers XCode 3.2 and iPhone OS (now known as IOS) 3.2.
When I first received my review copy, I noticed that it was extremely similar to a similar SAMS book, Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours) by the same author along with a coauthor, Sean Johnson.Many chapters are copied nearly word for word. A lot of the flaws that I saw in that earlier book persist. The downloadable sample files are dated February 2010, before the iPad was even released ... and yet this book was not available until August 2010. A lot happened in the iPad world in those 6 months, and none of it is in this book, yet it is in books by other publishers who got their manuscripts to market faster.
Most examples from the earlier iPhone book are not truly redesigned to take advantage of the large iPad display, as is recommended by Apple to developers porting iPhone apps to the iPad. instead, the content is just spread out over the larger surface. The focus here is on development and not interface design / user experience, so I can only criticize the examples so much ... however, at least one truly designed-for-iPad sample would have made sense for this updated and repurposed book.
The Sams "24 hour" book series format can be seen as both a plus and a minus for a book such as this. The plus is that each "hour" is a digestible amount of content, possibly with exercises. The minus is that 24 such lessons is not quite enough to cover everything ... but it would be hard to have 28 chapters in a book that requires that there only be 24.
The book sets an impossible goal in the introduction: "No previous experience with Objective-C, Cocoa, or the Apple developer tools is required." But, prior programming knowledge is required as is reading various Apple documents or other books on Objective-C and more.
Page 7 of this August 2010 book says that "The specs of the [iPad's] processor will eventually become clearer, but are still mostly guesswork at the time of this writing." We cannot fault the author for completing his manuscript very early in 2010. We can, however, fault the publisher for not getting the book out the door until August when this sentence, and many others, just look silly.
Hour 1 leads the reader through joining the free Apple Developer program, but does not clarify the value and limitations of the iPad / iPhone simulator that is part of the developer tools. It very nearly pushes the reader into joining the $99 program which allows for testing developed apps directly on a connected iPad, describing provisioning and more. Much of the chapter assumes that the user has indeed joined the paid program, giving various steps that are inappropriate until an application has actually been developed. Instead, in my opinion, the reader should not be encouraged to part with $99 (and start the 12 month clock ticking) until he or she has actually developed something that it makes sense to run on a real iPad and not the simulator. Some readers may have plenty of fun just with the simulator and others may decide that iPad app development just isn't for them.
Hour 3 on Object-Oriented Programming and Objective-C claims that object-oriented programming is distinct from imperative programming, rather than a type of imperative programming. Then, he presents half a page in total in answer to the heading "What is Objective-C?" followed by "Now that you have an idea of what OOP and Objective-C are, let's take a look..."
In general, there are lots of typos, concepts presented before they are needed, and, in my opinion, lack of clarity on some of the concepts presented. For me, the writing style grates. Still, anyone with some programming background but new to IOS will benefit by more than the small purchase price. But, the similar book Beginning iOS 4 Application Development appears to be better organized, written and illustrated and is a bit more current and deep. No book at this writing yet addresses the big changes of IOS 4.2 on the iPad which arrives this month, or the nice improvements in development workflow in XCode 4 which also arrives soon. Both of these technologies have been available to developers for several months now; updated books should not be far behind. But, if you want to get started today, this or the other book mentioned above will get you off the ground.Sams Teach Yourself iPad Application Development in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours) OverviewThe clear, easy-to-understand tutorial for developers who want to write software for today's hottest new device: Apple's iPad! Figures and code appear as they do in XcodeCovers iOS 3.2 and upIn just 24 sessions of one hour or less, learn how to build powerful applications for today's hottest tablet device: the iPad! Using this book's straightforward, step-by-step approach, you'll master every skill and technology you need, from setting up your Xcode development environment to utilizing the full iPad screen real estate for touchable interfaces, integrating maps and media, to improving the reliability and performance of your software. Each lesson builds on what you've already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success!Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common iPad development tasks.Quizzes and Exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge.By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion. Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks. Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them.Printed in full color• Learn the features of the Xcode development suite• Prepare your system and iPad for efficient development• Get started fast with Apple's Objective-C and Cocoa Touch• Understand the Model-View-Controller (MVC) development paradigm• Implement advanced application interfaces with interactive widgets and web-connected interfaces• Enhance the user experience with popovers and other iPad-only UI features• Build interfaces that adjust to the iPad's orientation• Read and write data, and navigate it with table views• Implement media playback and recording capabilities • Integrate your software with the iPad's email, photos, iPod, and address book applications• Create map and location-based services• Sense motion with the iPad accelerometer input• Discover the tools for building universal iPad/iPhone/iPod touch applications• Distribute your applications through the App Store

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Ajax: The Definitive Guide Review

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Ajax: The Definitive Guide Review§
There is a LOT of code in this 950 page book. I guess there is something here for everyone because there is code not directly related to Ajax but is directed to HTML structure or CSS presentational aspects or to frameworks that may include Ajax conveniences.
In fact, the amount of code may interfere with the author's object of appealing to two very different types of people with this book: Web developers and project managers looking for a high-level view. Except for some intro chapters and the odd breather between 10-15 page code listings, I don't think any project managers *I* have worked with would extract much from the book.
The book has 4 sections:
Part 1 - Ajax Fundamentals: the basic technologies that could form the core of a typical Ajax application.
Part 2 - Ajax Foundations: approaches to standards-compliant structure, separation of the presentational layer and client-side behaviors. Code code code!
Part 3 - Ajax in Applications: describes the specific implementations of these technologies into Web applications. More code!
Part 4 - Wrapping Up: tips on optimization.
In addition, there are some reference appendices on XML and XSLT; on JavaScript frameworks; on Ajax implementation risks; and most interestingly, a catalog of freely available Web service APIs.
One thing I did not like about the code listings was the use of Prototype style $() function syntax. This means when I see something like:
var titleText = $('title').firstChild;
I had to check whether .firstChild was a reference to a Prototype object or a reference to the standard DOM object. If the standard object, it would have been a whole lot clear just to have written document.getElementById().
The book index is actually pretty good. With 950 pages stuffed with content, you will probably be thankful for that!
§Ajax: The Definitive Guide Overview
Is Ajax a new technology, or the same old stuff web developers have been using for years? Both, actually. This book demonstrates not only how tried-and-true web standards make Ajax possible, but how these older technologies allow you to give sites a decidedly modern Web 2.0 feel.Ajax: The Definitive Guide explains how to use standards like JavaScript, XML, CSS, and XHTML, along with the XMLHttpRequest object, to build browser-based web applications that function like desktop programs. You get a complete background on what goes into today's web sites and applications, and learn to leverage these tools along with Ajax for advanced browser searching, web services, mashups, and more. You discover how to turn a web browser and web site into a true application, and why developing with Ajax is faster, easier and cheaper. The book also explains:

How to connect server-side backend components to user interfaces in the browser
Loading and manipulating XML documents, and how to replace XML with JSON
Manipulating the Document Object Model (DOM)
Designing Ajax interfaces for usability, functionality, visualization, and accessibility
Site navigation layout, including issues with Ajax and the browser's back button
Adding life to tables & lists, navigation boxes and windows
Animation creation, interactive forms, and data validation
Search, web services and mash-ups
Applying Ajax to business communications, and creating Internet games without plug-ins
The advantages of modular coding, ways to optimize Ajax applications, and more
This book also provides references to XML and XSLT, popular JavaScript Frameworks, Libraries, and Toolkits, and various Web Service APIs. By offering web developers a much broader set of tools and options, Ajax gives developers a new way to create content on the Web, while throwing off the constraints of the past. Ajax: The Definitive Guide describes the contents of this unique toolbox in exhaustive detail, and explains how to get the most out of it.

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Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours) Review

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Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours) ReviewThis book inspired me to write my first-ever review on Amazon (after being a customer since virtually day one). The reason I was so "inspired" is that this book has some real problems. If you are not a reasonably accomplished programmer in other languages/platforms, stay clear. Typos, omissions and flat-out wrong code abound. I downloaded the errata and that doesn't even cover it all. My book is full of notes. Chapter 16 seems to be particularly bad. For example, they have you enter:
newCard.question = thisQuestion;
When the correct code is:
[newCard setValue:thisQuestion forKey:@"question"];
The other problem I have with it is that the authors (particularly whoever wrote the first 14 to 15 chapters make horrible variable and object naming choices. Sometimes the only difference between the type and the instance is a difference in capitalization:
int Int;
Not an actual example (don't care to go through the book to find a real one) but they are all over the place.
An extension of this is when they use similar names for different things and get them confused. For example: "wrongCount" and "wrongCounter".
They also call out for editing the wrong files at times and even confuse prior chapters' projects with current projects. Probably a cut-and-paste thing while writing.
There's a real difference in style between the two authors. Starting around chapter 14/15 the tone and approach changes. The second author tells you to "right click" all the time...when Macs don't have but one mouse button. Lucky for me the first thing I do to a Mac is throw away the useless mouse and replace it with a Logitech trackball...so, in my case, right-clicking works just fine.
I am just getting past chapter 16 and I will finish the book but it made me so angry for wasting so much of my time that I had to post a review.
Should you buy it? I don't know. If you are an accomplished programmer you might look at the above problems as an opportunity to learn more because of having to debug the code and figure out where they screwed-up. That's how I am taking it. I don't like it because I wanted to push through this book quickly and move on to more advanced books, but you play the cards you are dealt. Happy debugging!Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours) OverviewSams Teach Yourself iPhone® Application DevelopmentSecond EditionJohn RayFigures and code appear as they do in XcodeCovers iOS 4.0 and up, and iPhone 4Additional files and updates available onlineIn just 24 sessions of one hour or less, learn how to build powerful applications for today's hottest mobile device: the iPhone! Using this book's straightforward, step-by-step approach, you'll master every skill and technology you need, from setting up your iPhone development environment to building great user interfaces, sensing motion to writing multitasking applications. Each lesson builds on what you've already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success!Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common iOS development tasks.Quizzes and Exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge. By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion. Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks. Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them.Printed in full color—figures and code appear as they do in Xcode Covers iOS 4.0 and up Learn the features of Xcode 3.2 and Interface Builder Prepare your system and iPhone for efficient development Get started quickly with Apple's Objective-C and Cocoa Touch Understand the Model-View-Controller (MVC) development paradigm Design highly usable applications with interactive widgets and web-connected interfaces Use Table views to navigate structured data Build rotatable and resizable user interfaces Read and write data and create System Setting plug-ins Use the iPhone's media playback and recording capabilities Create map and location-based (GPS) services Sense motion and orientation with the iPhone's accelerometer and the iPhone 4 gyroscope Create universal applications that run on the iPhone and iPad Write background-aware multitasking applications Distribute your applications through the App Storehttp://teachyourselfiphone.com

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Pro Android Python with SL4A Review

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Pro Android Python with SL4A ReviewI've been programming computers for about thirty years, but have just started programming on the Android platform in the last few months. I found this to be a great book that not only explains the SL4A (Scripting Layer for Android), but also provides a great primer for the underlying Android architecture. The book starts with an easy to understand explanation of the Android SDK & API, as well as the Eclipse development platform. The book covers the initial setup of the SDK under Windows & Linux. For my own development I am running Linux in Virtualbox, and while I was already setup, I found the setup instructions comprehensive. Adding SL4A to the phone took only a few minutes, and I was writing scripts to send SMS messages and do other cool things in just a few minutes more.
The book then delves into the SL4A platform (which offers a variety of languages in addition to Python). SL4A & Python also provide extensive access to the Android platform's wide range of features. I was especially impressed with the range of examples provided. One of the weaknesses I often find in programming books is that the examples can be contrived and not as helpful as they might be. This book provides great examples, and reading each one reinforces how much you can do with scripting.
In addition to the batch-like scripting, SL4A offers various dialog and HTML user interface options, and the book goes into what is necessary to provide these features. It concludes with a discussion of the steps needed to package your scripts for distribution.
My overall feeling about the book is favorable, and I can recommend it to anyone who wants to start Android development who has at least an intermediate level of programming experience.
Pro Android Python with SL4A Overview
Pro Android Python with SL4A is for programmers and hobbyists who want to write apps for Android devices without having to learn Java first. Paul Ferrill leads you from installing the Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A) towriting small scripts, to more complicated and interesting projects, and finally to uploading and packaging your programs to an Android device. Android runs scripts in many scripting languages, but Python, Lua, and Beanshell are particularly popular. Most programmers know more than one programming language, so that they have the best tool for whatever task they want to accomplish. Pro Android Python with SL4A explores the world of Android scripting by introducing you to the most important open-source programming languages that are available on Android-based hardware. Pro Android Python with SL4A starts by exploring the Androidsoftware development kitand then shows you how to set up an Eclipse-based Android development environment. You then approach the world of Android programming by using Beanshell, which runs on the Dalvik, and learning how to write small programs to administer an Android device. Next, discover how Lua, a lightweight language perfectly suited for scripting on smaller devices, can work with Android. Lua can be used for small but important tasks, like SMS encryption and synchronizing photos with flickr. Last, but certainly not least, you will discover the world of Python scripting for SL4A, and the power contained within the full range of Python modules that can combine with the Android SDK. You'll learn to write small location-aware apps to get you started, but by the end of this book, you'll find yourself writing fully GUI-fied applications running on the Android desktop! Pro Android Python with SL4A is rounded out with a chapter on distributing and packaging scripts, a skill that you'll find very useful as you reach out to a wider audience with your programs.

What you'll learn
Understand the SL4A
Explore the Androidsoftware development kit
Write scripts to administer an Android phone
Write and execute full Python and applications
Learn how to write simple apps using Facades
Explore the full Android development process, from development to packaging

Who this book is for
This is a book for beginning and intermediate Android developers, and a book for anyone coding in Python, Lua or exploring Beanshell.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Getting Started with Android Scripting
Navigating the Android SDK
Developing Androids Scripts with Eclipse
Exploring the Android API
Background Scripting
Python Utilities
Python Dialog-Based GUIs
Python for GUI with WebUI
Packaging and Distributing Your Scripts


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iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications Review

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iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications ReviewGiven all the urgency and uncertainty around the enterprise use of mobile devices, iPad for the Enterprise is a welcome addition to the literature available on the topic.
Nathan Clevenger has been involved in the development of mobile strategies and applications for over a decade, and the book reflects it. He begins with a consideration of iPad strategy that's a wonderful primer for anyone involved in mobility at their organization, from developers in the trenches to executive leadership.
It sets the stage through a consideration of how we reached the current state of mobility and introduces the concept of the consumerization of IT, i.e., IT changes being driven in a decentralized way by the "consumers" in the enterprise (the employees) rather than in a centralized way by IT.
From there, it moves to more practical considerations and presents an overview of how to build an enterprise mobile strategy and application roadmap. Both are somewhat general--it's difficult to generalize meaningfully about either of these activities--but nonetheless useful, especially for folks who've never participated in creating enterprise strategy before.
With the groundwork in place, Clevenger moves through all the phases of iPad app development: architecture, design, development, and deployment. And while none of this is not intended as a detailed ho- to guide or instructional manual for app development, he manages to get in enough technical detail and code samples to make this a valuable first-stop for technical folks looking to better understand what's happening under the hood of the iPad.
All in all, the book is a strong offering. Non-technical readers will benefit greatly not only from the first section on strategy, but also from the more technical sections, which they can read selectively to gain a better preliminary understanding of concepts like sandbox security or iOS Human Interface Guidelines. Technical readers will not be disappointed in Clevenger's treatment of app development and will also benefit from a better understanding of the context and strategy of iPad app development.
***Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book to use in preparing for this post.***iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications OverviewDiscover how to plan, design, develop, and deploy iPad apps for the enterpriseHaving taken the enterprise by storm, iPads are now in the handsof workers in virtually every level of companies in almost every industry, andusers are beginning to demand line-of-business applications to help them bemore productive and efficient from wherever they are. From businessintelligence and executive dashboards to customer relationship management andorder capture solutions, the iPad has incredible potential to leverage existinginvestments in information systems and enterprise applications. Even manypaper-driven processes today, from sales presentations to survey data capture,can be dramatically enhanced through the introduction of the iPad.This book is a guide for how business and IT must collaborate todevelop a mobile strategy to properly take advantage of this transformativetechnology. Readers will also learn about the high-level software architecturaloptions, the importance of design and user experience, application developmenttools and techniques, and best practices for deploying and managing iPads inthe enterprise.iPad in the Enterprise gets you started immediately planning, designing, developing, deploying, and managing iPad apps specifically for the enterprise.

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