The PHP Complete Reference

Living up to it’s name the PHP Complete Reference is a tome of PHP knowledge. With great detail about each (and just about every) PHP function, the book easily warrants the space it takes on your desk. If you are like me you will spend most of your time flipping back into the book to remember the correct order of arguments for in_array or another function.

Don’t expect to learn anything fancy or exciting, the book covers the functions and the basics. It is also not exactly where you want to learn PHP, but that is where my second book I am reviewing comes in. The book PHP: A Beginner’s Guide is the perfect companion to the Complete Reference. What you learn in the Beginner’s Guide is backed up and reinforced in the Complete Reference.

PHP: A Beginner's Guide

The Beginner’s Guide is really a great starter book for PHP developers, or those who think they will be PHP programmers. The information is provided in usable chunks, but fast enough that the book isn’t a boring text book. When paired with the PHP: Complete Reference you will become a better PHP developer in no time at all.

Both books are from McGraw-Hill, and are availble at Amazon.com or directly from McGraw-Hill.

JavaScript & Ajax: For the Web, Seventh Edition

Any web developer should be able to tell you the secrets to the web at JavaScript and Ajax. They are after all what makes Web 2.0 what it is. Lending to the ability of a site to have dynamics that were once thought impossible this book unlocks the secrets of the web and shows you what you must know to be a good javascript developer.

PeachPit really picked a winner in Tom Negrino and Dori Smith. They present the information in a playful but informative manner. Each chapter covers a direct purpose, but overall the pieces fit together quite well and explain in common english the best practices of JavaScript.

They didn’t stop at good chapters either, the Appendixes are actually really informative too! The first (Appenix A) talks about the history of JavaScript and is also a quick reference. Appendix B is reserved words, which is really handy. Appendix C is a CSS Reference, which is really handy while doing Dynamic page chagnes. 

Overall this books was quite informative and I will keep it close as it is a good reference of Javascript as well.

Ubuntu Kung Fu: Tips, Tricks, Hints, and Hacks

First I would like to say thanks to O’reilly and the good people at Pragmatic Bookshelf, for allowing me to read and review Ubuntu Kung Fu: Tips, Tricks, Hints, and Hacks. I absolutely loved the book, and I am going to recommend it to everyone I know who uses Ubuntu.

The book was written for version 8.04 of Ubuntu, but will work great with 8.10 too! While reading and reviewing the book, you ought to have a machine nearby to test the hacks and hints. They are absolutely amazing. There are over 300 tips in the book, and each is a gem in its own right. The tips range rom optimizing the speed of your machine, to GUI hacks, hardware, messing with media, security enhancements, and system administration.

The table of contents is really great too! First it list each hack/tip in order of the book, then it shows you the tips organized into groups of topics, system admin, security, etc. Also each tip has information on getting to the next tips that are related. 

Truly this book is for anyone who is using Ubuntu who hasn’t been working with the code directly and would like to know more about the OS and what it can do. 

Just after reading the first few tips I was able to reduce the boot times on my laptop from minute and twenty seconds to under thirty seconds. I was also able to accurately graph the results of these changes by installing and using bootchart, a tip from the Ubuntu Kung Fu book.

If you are looking for a good book to help you enhance your understanding of Linux and Ubuntu, this is the book, get it now at Amazon, or from the Pragmatic Bookshelf.

Things have been mighty quiet here. I have been working on getting setup with more publishers so I can read and  review more books on Open Source and Programming with you. I have also been working with friends to establish some partnerships to hopefully get a chance to write reviews for video games as well. All in all things are moving quite nicely on all fronts.

This weekend looks to be packed with a lot of fun. Tonight I am attending a party to get some free software, probably nothing OS, but hey free is free. The company hosting the party is also giving us free tickets to the Jazz game, I don’t much care for basketball, but again free is free.

Gears of War 2 released today, so I will of course be getting knee deep in some Locust blood, can’t wait to chainsaw in an upward fashion. You can find me on Xbox Live as “ut dragon”, I hope to be changing that soon.

Finally I have a slew of books that should be hitting the PO Box this weekend. I know for sure I am getting RESTful PHP (Packt Publishing), I should also be getting Ubuntu Kung Fu (O’reilly), as well as Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship(InformIT), and PHP 6:  A Beginner’s Guide (McGraw-Hill). This will make for some great reading and growth in the peronsal category.

Expert Python Programming by Tarek Ziade (PacktPub.com)

Expert Python Programming was not what I was expecting to get from a book about Python. I am not a savvy python programmer yet, and in my quest to become one I picked this book up to read. It certainly is not for beginners, and I mean that. If you are not comfortable you may wish to skip it, if you are daring and have the basics of programming down then you can slip this one into your collection.

Tarek Ziade presents, for the most part, best practices and design patterns. Chapters 8 through 14 really are just that, explaining how to be a really great python programmer. From Test-driven design, to Optimization he covers all the bases and if the suggestions and steps are followed even the worst of programmers (no matter the language) could become an expert programmer.

Chapters 2 and 3 literally blew my mind, I mean that! The concepts aren’t earth shattering, but they are really good and indepth. I am glad I had the chance to review the book and read those chapters as they gave me some great insight to the language of Python. 

Overall this book has really opened my eyes to the powers of Python and even more how to be a better programmer in general. Thanks Tarek!

You can pick up this novel of awesome at Amazon.com, or check out more details on the book at PacktPub.com.