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In order to get ready for the SCJP 6 exam, I’ve read SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 6 Study Guide, from Katherine Sierra and Bert Bates, aka some of the certification’s exam creators. The authors make clear at the beginning that the book is about, and only about, being ready for the SCJP exam. [...]

I had already read some books on usability. The last one had about 400 pages and lots of texts. It laid out 10 (or 12) rules regarding usability. I can’t even remember one ! On the other hand, Steve Krug’s Don’t make me think is still deeply in my mind. Not only the author applied [...]

At work, we’re currently reviewing our Agile process. So I thought it was a nice occasion to read again Scrum and Xp from the trenches, esp. since we have a paper edition of it. Simply put, this book is why I started to be so much interested in Agile software development : the process it [...]

I’m currently looking seriously at some Java certifications. As such, Uwe kindly gave me lots of Java certification books, but they are about Java 1.2 (whaou, prehistory ) and 1.4. Since Java 5 introduced quite some new stuff, extra resources/books would be welcome, as such feel free to comment. I’ll as well update this post [...]

During my holidays, I notably read

I’ve recently finished Maven: The Definitive Guide. It was the paper edition, since I muss confess I didn’t manage to go through the pdf edition. Still, I found the book rather interesting and quite well put. It’s not as enlightening and breath cutting as some others, but at least I was able to read it [...]

via CLOSED-LOOP: Book Review: ActiveMQ in Action. However do not expect the following from the book: Learning how to architect and design applications/systems that use ActiveMQ (or generally MOM/JMS) How to evaluate if ActiveMQ is the right technology for a new system For me the book did not contain any real eye-openers nor did I [...]

I bought Effective Java 2nd edition last year. I loved it immediately, and since I’m frequently reading bits of it again. I even think I should read it all over another time. Indeed, Joshua Bloch items are more than just “do this, do that” : he takes care of explaining them in great depth. It [...]

In France, we say never two without three. And despite all the speech about “Alsaceness’, I feel like having to abide to the popular saying : I’ve been trying to find a “good” book on linux without much success. Well, for sure, this time the task is hard… My requirements are quite shallow : getting [...]

While I’m on wanted books…And even if I’m not a css fan, this little cascading style sheets are just too powerful and used to be ignored. Unfortunately, the book I’ve read on it wasn’t up to its expectations (more on it later I guess)… Any pick anyone ? ++

I’m currently running out of IT read : what will I do during my daily train commute ? More seriously, Scala is on my radar since quite some time, and obviously uwe starts to get serious about it as well… Any suggestion for a good book about it ? Ideally, the kind of book I [...]

I recently read Learning JQuery, the version of 2007. I was reading it as a casual reader, just to get a better hand on JQuery. My feeling about it is the following : it seems good at providing technical details but fails at “empowering” the reader and providing the big picture. I say “it seems” [...]

hi I recently finished Clean code, from Robert C. Martin (well, in fact it’s mainly from him and some guests, but then..). Anyway, the focus of this book is how to write clean code, meaning readable and maintainable code. For this, the authors go at length on the different aspects, dedicating whole chapters to aspects [...]

I’m currently reading Refactoring from Martin Fowler. Overall, it’s an interesting book from which much could be said but tonight I would like to speak only of the “introduce Null object” hint provided in it. The basic idea is pretty simple, instead of checking for null return from various call, just provide a “null object”. [...]

… if your intereseted in Scrum. I have read quite a few, but this one is different: very, very compact funny to read no fluff no “why it works” just: “we do it this way, and it worked” and “we did it that way, and it sucked”. A must read, at least for Scrum beginners: [...]

I came to read “JUnit Profi-Tipps” yesterday. This book from ‘Entwickler.Press’ is about unit-testing with JUnit, just like many others are. But there is something outstanding to it: The more you read, the harder it gets to keep reading. Don’t get me wrong: i often read books i disagree with. It is a good educating [...]

Well, not actually crap, but utterly useless if you have more than 48hours of experience in the JavaEE field as well as 30min experience with glassfish after installing. It is very much about begining JavaEE and very little – beyond the non-obvious – about glassfish. Do not buy this book or you risk being bored [...]