Test Driven Development,
Kent Beck -
May 11, 2005
This was a very easy read, but his writing style can be a little annoying.
I was motivated to try his system, and after playing around with it in
some small projects I'm working on I can see how liberating it is
to have the tests written; I can refactor without fear.
The End of Racism,
Dinesh D'Souza -
May 13, 2005
It's always a pleasure to read or hear D'Souza; he is so well spoken.
This book starts with a fascinating history of racism and moves into an
examination of racial policies in the US.
The War of the Worlds,
H. G. Wells -
July 16, 2005
I read this fun and quick story in anticipation of seeing the movie,
and it's free at
Project Gutenberg.
It was interesting that H.G. Wells'
(no relation to Orson Welles) alien invaders were supposed to be
vastly superior to humans, but the entire invading
force would have been easily dispatched by, say, a company of US
Marines today.
Could Wells have been more imaginative?
Modern C++ Design,
Andrei Alexandrescu -
August 22, 2005
This was eye opening for me;
I especially appreciated the introduction to template
metaprogramming at the beginning of the book.
The God Who Is There,
Francis A. Schaeffer -
August 30, 2005
I was somewhat disappointed.
Before giving evangelism advice,
Schaeffer gives a survey of different philosophies
and how they compare to Christianity,
but I didn't find the examples compelling.
Perhaps I didn't know enough to follow it?
In general, I don't think his arguments will appeal to non-Christians.
For example, he claims that true personality
can only come from another source;
that is, the existence of personality implies a god.
This is a bold claim indeed,
but the only justification is a hand-wavy
metaphor about water flowing downhill.
Perhaps I approached this book with the wrong attitude -
I'm hung up on critically examining my world view
and this book is clearly written for a sympathetic audience.
Accelerando,
Richard Stross -
September 27, 2005
This story explores
technological singularity
- the idea that the pace of technological change will increase so
much that it will lead to a fundamental change in human society.
It's fun and engaging, but I don't think many of the technical ideas
in this book are original, and Stross' conception of the super-smart
AI as being primarily concerned with playing economic games seems unlikely.
Perhaps it's an homage to
Heinlein:
it starts off as a nice, fast-paced story and devolves into a random plot
with long living and free loving geniuses. There's even a magical cat.
C++ Coding Standards,
Herb Sutter, Andrei Alexandrescu -
October 6, 2005
I love the bold claim in the preface: nothing in the book is controversial.
This book is full of great little gems,
but some of it will be review if you've read Sutter's other books.
More Exceptional C++,
Herb Sutter -
December 17, 2005
While excellent, I didn't feel this book quite lived up to
Sutter's previous work, Exceptional C++;
it just wasn't as tightly organized.
Go for Beginners,
Kaoru Iwamoto -
January 25, 2006
Some people at work have been playing go,
and I always meant to learn how to play,
so I borrowed this book.
The rules are presented along with some tactics
and strategy in a clear, interesting way.
The problems are good, if challenging.
I feel that the annotated example games in this book, however,
have no place in a book for beginners.
Learn to Play Go Volume III:The Dragon Style,
Janice Kim, Jeong Soo-hyun -
February 13, 2006
I really like this author.
The book essentially is divided into three sections:
tips, example games, and problems.
The tips were great,
and the examples were excellent,
especially compared to the ones in Go for Beginners.
The problem section was a little short on explainations,
but perhaps that's because I haven't read volumes I and II yet?
Ruminations on C++,
Andrew Koenig, Barbara Moo -
May 11, 2006
A lot of this book would be review to anyone who knows the language,
but I enjoyed the standard library section
and the presentation of the minimalist lisp-ish sequence.
I think the style and analysis are useful, but I have a few complaints.
Most of the examples use one character variable names,
making them very difficult to read.
The authors claim operator+= needs to be a member because it
modifies the item on the left hand side, which is not true;
I feel this kind of thinking leads to bloated interfaces.
They also say that assignment operators sometimes must test for
self assignment.
In fact, assignment operators *never* need to
if written correctly to be exception safe,
and in most cases this test is nothing but
an unnecessary and inefficient "optimization."
Escape From Reason,
Francis A. Schaeffer -
June 14, 2006
This book is quite similar to the other Schaeffer book above.
Circumcision,
Ed Schoen, MD -
June 26, 2006
I have an autographed copy of this book -
apparently the author and my grandfather are friends.
The first half is a survey of various studies detailing
the health benefits of circumcision including
reduced risks of urinary tract infections, AIDS,
penile and cervical cancers, etc.
Then Dr. Schoen takes on the opposition. The most inconvenient
is probably the American Academy of Pediatrics, which does not
recommend routine infant circumcision despite the
studies mentioned in the first half of the book.
Dr. Schoen explains that neonatologists are responsible for that policy,
and neonatologists are generally too focused on
sick newborns to see or care about
the future conditions that circumcision may prevent.
Some of the criticism is useless ad-hominem that
lowers the overall credibility of the book.
For example, he tries to demonstrate the intensity of his opposition
by relating a story about a man who almost became violent at one of his
talks.
I think that anyone advocating preemptive surgery in healthy children
has to meet a pretty high standard,
and I don't feel that this book acheives that.
Dr. Schoen doesn't really address the existing criticisms
of the studies that he cites, and in any case these studies merely
claim small reductions in risks for very rare diseases.
Crusade,
David Weber, Steve White -
October 8, 2006
A friend of mine recommended this author, and the book is available free at
the Baen Free Library.
It kind of reminded me of
Galaxy Quest,
in that there is an alien civilization that totally misinterprets
an aspect of human culture.
The battle descriptions are pretty good, and there are a lot of pages
devoted to them. Not quite as compelling, though, are the fights between
the meddling politicians and the military commanders, which also take up
quite a bit of the book. Despite being somewhat predictable,
Crusade managed to be an entertaining read up to the end.
Go: The World's Most Fascinating Game, Vol. 1 Introduction,
The Nihon Ki'in
-
January 5, 2007
I borrowed this very short book from the bookshelf at work. The translation is
a bit odd, but I think it serves as a great introduction to the rules and
basic concepts such as live spaces and atari.
1633,
David Weber, Eric Flint -
April 23, 2007
Similar to Michael Chrichton's
Timeline, this is a story
about a small modern city that has been transported back in time
to 17th century Europe.
On Basilisk Station,
David Weber -
May 4, 2007
1632,
Eric Flint -
July 19, 2007
Ring of Fire,
Eric Flint et al. -
Aug 3, 2007
This is a collection of short stories written by various authors about the
characters of 1632 and 1633.
Ring of Fire,
Piers Anthony -
This science fiction story has some fascinating plot elements and action, but I found the end a bit whacky.