Code Simplicity by Max Kanat-Alexander (O’Reilly)

This is not the typical O’Reilly programming book and you can find it out very easily when you have the book in your hands, since it does not have any code inside. The author, in fact, tries to create a software development science. This left me very puzzled since:

  • I think this kind of stuff has to be said by people after you, not buy the author himself
  • The author mainly collect ideas and principles that are already explained in a lot of other books
  • The author suggests the DRY and the don’t fix if it isn’t broken principles and I think these will not always bring you to good code
  • The book only says what to do, it does not cover how to do it
  • Re-factoring and single responsibility principle are not covered

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Linux Pocket Guide by Daniel J. Barrett (O’Reilly)

This is one of my favorite book about Linux. Probably is the most favorite one. In the last years I’ve been looking for a book that was like a printed man with some more explanation and a rigid order. This book does all this plus something more (that I’d rather not having).

I really liked the professional to professional user, since otherwise it would be much bigger and boring for pro users. I’ve to say that thanks to this the book is really small.

The books says to cover Fedora but the 99% of the book fits perfectly any other Linux distribution.

The only thing I dislike of this book is the GUI program part, since it seems to be there just to fill unused pages and not really useful.

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jQuery UI by Eric Sarrion (O’Reilly Media)

jQuery has very interested me in the last period. I think that it is the best JavaScript library for me. jQuery UI is a set of functions that allow you to improve the graphics and the functionality of your websites with very few lines of code.

My jQuery level was pretty close before I took the time to read this book. I’ve found this book amazing and really interesting even for fast-learner as I am (knowing dozens of languages and libraries I tend to go really fast when I’m studying a new language or library). I think this book is mainly for beginner or intermediate users since it focuses the reader on the main parts of jQuery UI leaving aside some real-world and advanced coding details that may be crucial in the real world development.

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Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers by Michael Schrenk (O’Reilly Media)

I’ve been immediately caught from this book as I’m in a project that is based on a webbot, and I’m developing it using PHP and cURL.

Since the first day I’ve started to use cURL (and a lot of other PHP classes) I wondered about the sense of all these complex and extravagant classes and functions. The book author has a really different approach to the classes, and his approach is way more similar to mine that the standard PHP approach. One example of this is the LIB_http.php class that is a wrapper for some http functions.

When I started to code my own webbot, I thought I was taking the wrong approach since I preferred to parse the HTML with RegEx instead of following the tree-navigation. Reading this book I discovered that the approach I used is the one suggested by the author.

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Mobile Design Pattern Gallery by Theresa Neil (O’Reilly Media)

This book is weird, I’ve to tell you. I was expecting a book with some examples and some text. Well, I ended up with a book that, at the first sight, seems more a book for kids rather than a professional book since is 90% images.

The book is clearly organized, each chapter covering one specific aspect.

  • Navigation
  • Forms
  • Tables
  • Search, sorting and filters
  • Tools
  • Charts
  • Invitations
  • Feedback & Affordance
  • Help
  • Anti-patterns. Continue reading →

The Art of SEO by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Jessie Stricchiolla and Rank Fishkin (O’Reilly Media)

Since the four authors are very popular in the SEO field, I was expecting the best book on SEO ever. All my expectation have been met.

I think that the book authors have done a great job describing these difficult concept in an easy and ordered way. The book, also, is very complete. The touched topics include: user-focussed data, key analytical tools, effective website creation, result tracking, search engine theory and behaviour, the impact of social media, SEO best practices and much more. Sometimes the authors deviate from the topics usually covered in SEO books, in fact you can find topics like In-house vs outsourced SEO.

All the chapters are full of links and the book is supported by a website. Continue reading →

jQuery Mobile: Up and Running by Maximiliano Firtman (O’Reilly)

jQuery Mobile is a library that allows you to develop mobile apps using jQuery. Is even possible to use a jQuery Mobile program as a native app, thanks to programs like PhoneGap.

This book assumes that you already know jQuery and I think that this is good since the author can focus only on the main topic in this way. I think you should know or study jQuery before even starting this book. I do know that’s possible to understand jQuery code even if you don’t know anything of JavaScript if you have rock solid programming knowledge, but I discourage it.

I really liked this book since it says what to do and what not to do for each of the ten sections. Also it has hundreds of images that will help you through the learning process. Continue reading →