Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, & technology book reviews, plus social, political, & economic commentary
Actually, no. This is not a post about that snarky kid named Eddie Haskell on the mid-20th-century TV sitcom “Leave It to Beaver.” (But I did watch “the Beave” and “Eddie” back then on a black-and-white television set with a rabbit-ears antenna.) The topic this time is Haskell, the not-so-popular software development language named for … Continue reading ‘What? Haskell??? Eddie Haskell?’
Java Testing with Spock Konstantinos Kapelonis Manning, paperback Spock, the author states, is “a comprehensive testing framework for Java (and Groovy) code that can help you automate the boring, repetitive, and manual process of testing a software application. Spock is comprehensive because it’s a union of existing testing libraries”—specifically JUnit, Mockito and JBehave. It … Continue reading Java Testing with Spock: A good (and sometimes Groovy) guide to using this powerful testing framework – #programming #java
Spring in Action Craig Walls Manning – paperback If you have worked with the decade-old Spring framework, you know well that it has a long history of providing configuration headaches for developers. The new Spring Boot framework, on the other hand, literally brings much-needed simplification and automation to the process of using Spring. And it … Continue reading ‘Spring Boot in Action’ can help you push aside the old drudgeries of configuring Spring applications – #programming #bookreview
Ionic in Action Hybrid Mobile Apps with Ionic and AngularJS Jeremy Wilken (Manning, paperback) Ionic in Action is a very good introduction to the Ionic framework, which the author describes as “a combination of tools and utilities….” These tools and utilities enable developers “to quickly build hybrid mobile apps using the same technology used to … Continue reading Ionic in Action – A solid guide to building hybrid mobile apps with Ionic and AngularJS – #programming #bookreview
Meteor in Action Stephan Hochhaus and Manuel Schoebel Manning – paperback I have worked with several JavaScript frameworks, and Meteor has become a favorite, mainly because it is closely related to the MEAN stack family and plays well with MongoDB and Node.js. As the Meteor in Action authors note: “Meteor runs on top of … Continue reading ‘Meteor in Action’: A good how-to guide for learning a popular JavaScript framework – #programming #bookreview
Unity in Action Joseph Hocking Manning – paperback Unity, the cross-platform game development environment, is easy to download and get running. But it definitely is not easy to learn without some help. Fortunately, Joe Hocking’s Unity in Action makes it reasonably straightforward to learn how to develop games in 3D, as well as with Unity’s … Continue reading Unity in Action: A top-notch how-to guide for game developers – #gamedev #programming
Elixir in Action Saša Jurić Manning – paperback “Elixir,” Saša Jurić writes, “is a modern functional programming language for building large-scale, distributed, fault-tolerant systems for the Erlang virtual machine.” What Elixir really is, of course, is a breath of fresh air for software developers who find it hard or confusing to work with … Continue reading Elixir in Action: A good guide to the ‘alternative language for the Erlang virtual machine’ – #programming #bookreview
Groovy in Action, Second Edition Dierik König and Paul King, with Guillaume Laforge, Hamlet D’Arcy, Cédric Champeau, Eric Pragt and Jon Skeet Manning – paperback Groovy in Action, Second Edition, is not light reading. Indeed, the printed book weighs nearly three and a half pounds and has 880 pages. But it is great reading for anyone who wants … Continue reading Groovy in Action, Second Edition – A hefty how-to guide newly updated for Groovy 2.4 – #programming #bookreview
R in Action Data Analysis and Graphics with R Robert I. Kabacoff Manning – paperback Whether data analysis is your field, your current major or your next career-change ambition, you likely should get this book. Free and open source R is one of the world’s most popular languages for data analysis and visualization. And Robert I. … Continue reading R IN ACTION: Data Analysis and Graphics with R, 2nd Edition – #bookreview
Big Data Principles and best practices of scalable real-time data systems Nathan Marz, with James Warren Manning – paperback Get this book, whether you are new to working with Big Data or now an old hand at dealing with Big Data’s seemingly never-ending (and steadily expanding) complexities. You may not agree with all … Continue reading BIG DATA: A well-written look at principles & best practices of scalable real-time data systems – #bookreview
Books, Commentary, & More 