Book reviews written by Derek P.

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Displaying 1-10 of 16 reviews

Prototype and script.aculo.us: You Never Knew JavaScript Could Do This! (Pragmatic Programmers)

by Christophe Porteneuve
- Rated 5 stars
“This is a fantastic book to read if you are getting into doing serious AJAX work on the web. Its server-side agnostic, for the most part. Most server-side examples are in Ruby, but chances are, you are doing Ruby if you are really into the programming styles behind both Prototype and Scriptaculous. I cannot emphasize it enough, GREAT READ!”

Derek P. wrote this review Wednesday, July 23, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
Design Patterns in Ruby (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series)

by Russ Olsen
- Rated 5 stars
“Fantastic read if you are interested in design patterns and how Ruby changes some concrete paradigms.”

Derek P. wrote this review Monday, July 14, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
The Cluetrain Manifesto

by David Weinberger, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls
- Rated 3 stars
“This book was pretty good. I think it was probably considered more "radical" in the late 80s or early 90s, because most of the internet age already sounds like these guys do. I don't really like the style of writing in this book, it sort of talks down to you the whole time. If you can get past that, its worth reading.”

Derek P. wrote this review Wednesday, June 25, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
Agile Web Development with Rails

by David Thomas, Leon Breedt, David Heinemeier Hansson, Mike Clark
- Rated 3 stars
“Pretty much everyone learns Rails from this book. A classic, important read for every Rails developer out there.”

Derek P. wrote this review Saturday, June 7, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
Collective Intelligence

by Toby Segaran
- Rated 4 stars
“An excellent book on collective algorithms. I wasn't so thrilled that all the examples are written in python, but its better than Java! This book was written in a very friendly voice, which was unexpected for a book about algorithms. Definitely a recommended read in my mind.”

Derek P. wrote this review Saturday, June 7, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
The Pragmatic Programmer

by David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
- Rated 5 stars
“This is a great book, Its sort of like a primer for a series of books that the pragmatic programmers eventually wrote out to be complete texts. Another great book for those starting out in the world of object-oriented programming and theory. Its not really about that, but it gets you into the culture either way.”

Derek P. wrote this review Saturday, June 7, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
Web 2.0: A Manager's Guide

by Amy Shuen
- Rated 4 stars
“This book focused on the strategies that made companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Flickr successful. Shows powerful ways for monetizing "network effects" and different strategies and theories for composing your own successful application.”

Derek P. wrote this review Saturday, June 7, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
Advanced Rails

by Brad Ediger
- Rated 3 stars
“This was a fun, short read. I liked the first few chapters that just focused on power-house meta-programming techniques using Ruby. The rest focuses on how to write plugins, and other hardcore Rails tips.”

Derek P. wrote this review Saturday, June 7, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects

by Jared R. Richardson
- Rated 3 stars
“This book was a lot like the Object-Oriented Project Management book, but focused more on "human-oriented" workflows. Talks about obvious things like source control, unit testing, build automations, etc. Good read if you are starting out on a development team.”

Derek P. wrote this review Saturday, June 7, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

by Martin Fowler
- Rated 5 stars
“This is a classic. Once you've got the concepts of object-oriented programming down, this would be the next book I'd recommend. Martin Folwer's signature series is very well written, and its a nice hard cover book you'll reference for the rest of your career.”

Derek P. wrote this review Saturday, June 7, 2008. ( reply | permalink )