Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, & technology book reviews, plus social, political, & economic commentary
Yes, Americans need to work, and businesses of all sizes now claim they are desperate to hire. So why are we quitting jobs, refusing employment offers we supposedly “can’t refuse,” resisting orders to return to previous workplaces, and generally just mad as hell at those who employ us or beg to hire us? A few … Continue reading The Great Resignation. Why Is Anyone Surprised?
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?’
Go in Practice Matt Butcher and Matt Farina Manning, paperback Considerable planning, effort and care have gone into writing Go in Practice, a new Golang programming book from Manning and also available from Amazon. The book’s structure and approach are both geared toward helping Go newbies move beyond the basics. The writing is clear, and the … Continue reading Get Better with Golang: ‘Go in Practice’
Introducing Data Science Davy Cielen, Arno D. B. Meysman, and Mohamed Ali Manning – paperback The three authors of this book note that “[d]ata science is a very wide field, so wide indeed that a book ten times the size of this one wouldn’t be able to cover it all. For each chapter, we picked … Continue reading ‘Introducing Data Science’ – A good doorway into the world of processing, analyzing & displaying Big Data – #bookreview
The White House and the University of the District of Columbia are two of the sites helping spotlight the National Week of Making, June 17-23, 2016. “America has always been a nation of tinkerers, inventors, and entrepreneurs,” a White House news release recently stated. “Empowering students and adults to create, innovate, tinker, and make their … Continue reading Some Book Choices for ‘National Week of Making,’ June 17-23, 2016 – #books #WeekofMaking
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
MongoDB in Action, Second Edition Covers MongoDB version 3.0 Kyle Banker Manning, paperback Yes, this updated edition of MongoDB in Action is aimed at software developers. However, the book wisely does not ignore those of us who are more casual users of MongoDB. Indeed, this is a fine how-to book for MongoDB newcomers and casual … Continue reading Manning’s ‘MongoDB in Action’ has been updated for version 3.0 – #programming #bookreview
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
Clojure in Action, 2nd Edition Amit Rathore and Francis Avila Manning – paperback Clojure seems to be afflicted with a measles-like outbreak of parentheses, and it generally just looks strange to many software developers. And there’s a good reason for that, as this book’s two author point out in their recently released second edition. “Clojure’s … Continue reading Attack of the Killer Parentheses: ‘Clojure in Action, 2nd Edition’ – #bookreview
Many people who want to jump into 3D printing have almost no idea what they actually want to make. Or, they may have projects in mind that far exceed their abilities to fabricate as beginners. If 3D printing is on your mind (or arriving soon in some shipping boxes and downloads), here are two new … Continue reading Getting started with 3D printing? Consider these two new Maker Media books – #bookreview
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