Category: Book Reviews
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Book review: The Rust Programming Language by Steve Klabnik and Carol Nichols
My next review is a small departure, it is for The Rust Programming Language by Steve Klabnik and Carol Nichols but rather than buy the physical book I read this interactive version, which has quizzes and embedded, runnable code. The Rust programming language is the target for my next Rosetta Stone blog post which identifies…
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Book review: Beautiful Code edited by Andy Oram & Greg Wilson
This review is of Beautiful Code edited by Andy Oram and Greg Wilson, a collection of 33 essays by 41 authors about computer code that the authors consider beautiful. A number of the authors are very well known, including Brian Kernighan, Charles Petzold, Douglas Crockford and Yukihiro Matsumoto. The chapters vary considerably in length but…
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Book review: Daphne Draws Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
I recently reviewed Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic’s Storytelling with data, as a result the storytelling team sent me a (pre-publication) copy of their latest book, Daphne Draws Data scheduled for publication 29th October 2024 (UK) and 4th September 2024 (US). This is something of a change for me in the sense that the book is targeted at…
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Book review: A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout
Next for review is A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout. This a book about a big idea for software design. The big idea is that good software design is about managing complexity. In Ousterhout’s view complexity leads to a set of bad things: (1) change amplification – small changes in code lead to…
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Book Review: Grace Hopper – Admiral of the Cyber Sea by Kathleen Broome Williams
After reading Broad Band by Claire L. Evans, about women in computing, I realised Grace Hopper was important, so I thought I’d hunt out a biography. I found Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea by Kathleen Broome Williams. Unusually I bought it second hand – my copy came from the Richard Stockton College of…
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Book review: Broad Band by Claire L. Evans
This review is of Broad Band by Claire L. Evans, subtitled The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. It is arranged thematically with each chapter focusing on a couple of women moving in time from the first chapter, about Ada Lovelace in the 19th century, through to the early years of the…
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Book review: Storytelling with you by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
I recently reviewed Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic’s Storytelling with data, as a result the storytelling team sent me a copy of Storytelling with you to review. Storytelling with you is the next step in the journey which started with Storytelling with data, widening the scope to talk more fully about the whole process of presenting from…
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Book review: The Mythical Man-month by Frederick Brooks Jr.
Next up The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Brooks Jr. This is a classic in software engineering which I’ve not previously read, I guess because it is more about software project management rather than programming itself. That said it contains the best description I have seen as to why we love to…
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Book review: Masterminds of Programming by Federico Biancuzzi and Shane Warden
The next review in my work related books thread is of Masterminds of Programming by Federico Biancuzzi and Shane Warden. The subtitle, Conversations with the creators of major programming languages, is a good summary of the contents. The book is an edited transcript of interviews with the creators of major programming languages. Frequently the conversation…
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Book review: Resonate by Nancy Duarte
I picked up Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte following a couple of recommendations in Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. You can see how Resonate influenced the storytelling elements of Knaflic’s book. Resonate is about the importance of storytelling in making presentations, and a model to construct compelling presentations which…
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