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Category: Best Open Source-Related Book
As you've probably noticed, we do a lot of book reviews here at Slashdot. But what book do you think deserves the Beanie award? A book on programming? Social Commentary? O'Reilly and Associates? *grin* You can nominate your favorite book - and check out our book reviews for help if you need it.
My nominee is "open sources - voices from the open source revolution". It's a book, published by oreilly, with some 14 articles by open source heros.
If you read it you get a very good impression of the whole open source project:
All in all it makes for a very decent introduction. You get a good overview and you get a foundation of information on which to build your own mindset regarding open source. It filled in quite a few blanks for me, so I like to recommend it hearthily! greetings, Reinout
Reinout van Rees
Surely the most deserving title worth the prize is Using Samba by O'Reilly. First because their authors open-sourced the book. You can read it at
this address. Second because Samba is the project who is giving the best advocacy argument to us, Linux lovers. To put a Linux server in an enterprise, instead of (Argh!) NT we must ensure the boss that machines with Windows 95 and 98 also can connect and use the Linux box as easily as if would be an NT. And the Using Samba book is the complete, official and best reference written about the best practices and examples to make Samba works(many times with best performance than a NT or W2K box!).
"Learning, learning, learning - that is the secret of jewish survival" -- Ahad A'Ham
Well, this book gives some hints where to look and how to improve the situation. While it might not be the holy grail of software development, it surely gives a very good insight into what we (desperately) ignored in the past and how it can be improved. At least this time, some very practical advice instead of complicated methodologies which are so complicated to understand that it should make everyone think twice before trying to use them.
--
Dipl. Inf. (FH) Aaron "Optimizer" Digulla
"(to) optimize: Make a program faster by improving the algorithms rather than by buying a faster machine."
I've been an obsessive collector of O'Reilly books for a number of years, and The Perl Cookbook is hands-down the most useful one in my collection. I can't begin to think how much work went into creating it.
no need to explain, You have it in Your shelf anyway ( i think >500.000 sold )
It's my bible. Better for learning Perl (IMHO) than Learning Perl and an indispensible reference. Quite possibly the best programming language book around; certainly the best I've used.
There's some good stuff in that book, but
a number of the essays are essentially
marketing propaganda for whatever open-source
company that essay's author happens to be
associated with. Personally I don't feel any
need to reward good PR...
http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel
I find it strange that no one has nominated The Cathedral and the Bazaar yet...
It may be trendy, but the dang thing just makes so much sense, and not only in computer software terms.
Eric Raymond really pointed out the obvious, which is easy to see AFTERWARD.....
jf
The 300+ page book is free on the website and free for downloading in pdf format according to the author.
It is an excellent resource on everything from RS-232 to Ethernet to TCP/IP with a touch of Linux thrown in.
O'Reilley's Java In A Nutshell is an incredibly useful book. And, of course, an Oreiley book (damn, I can't spell) must win.
Some of the stories were propaganda for compagnies. But only some 3 or 4 out of 14 stories!
The large majority isn't firm-PR. But even the firm-PR is fun to read. And much about the Open Source-stuff is about making it all creditable for the business-like people, so dedicating 1/5 of the book for those guys isn't too bad.
Reinout van Rees
His philosophy, as outlined in this book, clearly details why nearly each public and private institution today (command and control structures from the industrial revolution - read "closed-source) is inherrently sick and why chaordic (read open-source) organizations are the answer to the many societal and environmental ills plaguing our world. Chaordic organizations best reflect the models for organized behavior exhibited in nature. This is a truly visionary document that takes the open-source message beyond software and technology and applies it to the world around us.
I have great faith in fools. Self confidence, my friends call it.
Since nobody has mentioned it yet, I am nominating The LaTeX Companion.
Its a really nice read about my favorite document preparation system.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
The manual is extremely well written, and itself is under an open license. It is an invaluable aid to anyone who uses The Gimp. It can be had for free off the web at http://manual.gimp.org/
I'd like to nominate the Linux NAG (Network Administrators Guide) by O'Reilly.
It should get the award just for existing, kindova' lifetime acheivers award. It's a great book for reference, and has allowed people as uninformed as me to actually make some progress with networking Linux to other machines.
insignificant sig
Okay, so it's not strictly one book, and it's not directly open source-related, but who cares? TAOCP is the computer science book, and that's that.
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To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
In this three book set, J.R.R Tolkien lays out the framework for an alternate universe based on magic and hand to hand combat. By avoiding a restrictive look and feel license, the Lord of the Rings has spawned an entire genre of fantasy literature.
George
Great Book! Lots of code to learn from instead of longwinded commentary, accomplished author and its free online at http://www.eckelObjects.com/javabook.html
IDG's Samba Administrator's Handbook, but it shouldn't win, as one of the co-authors spends too much time reloading Slashdot, and would probably blow the prize money on Lego and computers.
George