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Amazon's Best Computer Books of 2004
theodp writes "Amazon.com's Editors have announced their selections for the Best Books of 2004 in the Computers and Internet category. Their favorite book of the year? Excel Hacks, which edged out Head First Servlets & JSP (#3), a Grand Theft Auto Strategy Guide (#5) and The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit (#8). Can Slashdot readers offer some more inspired choices?"
Valves - why they are better than transistors.
Transistors - why they are better than valves.
The Transputer - computing the future in paralell.
Pong - strategy guide.
And the number one computing book of 1979.
Miss DEC - the pagent.
Beep beep.
It's called "Hide The Fact You're On AOL By Using A Free Webmail Service." I just wrote it.
Doesn't stand against the classics, but since this is for this year only... PHP 5 Power Programming
I am Ergo the magnificent. Short in power, tall in stature, narrow of vision and wide of purpose.
Alternative to Amazon I have some computer related eigenpolls.
Agile Software Development Books
Best Practices for Software Development
Favorit websites
Spam Fighting Software
other books related eigenpoll are:
Alternative Science Books
Real Estate Investment books
Books on Accelerated Learning Techniques
Books for Automatic Trading Systems
I flipped through a bit and couldn't find what criteria they used to decide which were the best books. Out of the top 10 only 2 have any customer reviews. Is this a bestseller list, or just which publisher(s) paid the most to be on it?
Those are barely "Computer Books" Those are more acuratly described as "Books for idiots with an attention span of 5 seconds flat"
I was expecting to see real books on that list. Things like C Unleashed perhaps. Not that cornicopia of crap.
They didn't mention The story about ping Clearly the best introduction to this network test tool.
Just look at the reviews, especially the one from John E. Fracisco.
If you're including "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide" as a computing book, "101 Tips for Winning At Monopoly" in the list for Business/Management.
Games are cool, but they're not computing.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook by Dan Cederholm Great book about designing web sites using proper xhtml and web standards. Great examples and practicle recipes!
Have a Happy.
I find it disturbing that #5 was the GTA: San Andreas strategy guide. Is the selection of computer and internet books so meager, that a strategy guide makes the top ten. I think that choice really shows the lack of serious consideration on this list. I can understand that Amazon is trying to appeal to a large audience and not the computer power user, but there are better choices even for the casual user other game strategy guides.
-- Wolfpup
"A man whose circumstances went beyond his control." -- Styx
Probably they felt that GNUCash is so easy you don't need a book with it, whereas Excel is such a beast you absolutely need a manual.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Programming Ruby by by Dave Thomas, Chad Fowler, Andy Hunt
More proof that consumer-oriented books are gaining traction, now that computers and related technologies are in the mainstream. Much bigger potential audience. A lot of developer info is available for free these days, too, which makes a developer-oriented book a harder sell. It will be interesting to see what the bestsellers are in the next few years.
Of course, there will always be developer-oriented material, especially innovative series like "Head First" that buck convention. (You either love or hate that series.)
EricPalm Database Programming: The Free Electronic Version
Linux Server Hacks, Knoppix Hacks, and Network Security Hacks.
Meh.
That the Grand Theft Auto Guide is getting it's due. I don't know what I would've done without it.
Frank Mittelbach, Michel Goossens et al.,
This book, launched in June 2004, is a <em>major</em> rewrite of the old book and for every LaTeX user its worth its price in gold. I have a dog-eared copy at my desk and I can attest to it.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
I don't buy no book that doesn't have "for dummies" in the title.
So I wanna preorder
- Excel Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools for dummies
- The World's 20 Greatest Unsolved Problems for dummies
But really interesting sounds No. 4:I don't need a signature.
"The spreadsheet is the software tool that turns everyone into a hacker"
Riiiiiight...
I really liked Edd Dumbbill's book on Mono - clear, concise and with no filler. It's sad that those traits are so unusual in most technical publishing.
/ qid=1101219728/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-0124431- 0374516/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596007922
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Oh well, resubmitted with proper formatting...
Frank Mittelbach, Michel Goossens et al., The LaTeX Companion, 2nd edition.
This book, launched in June 2004, is a major rewrite of the old book and for every LaTeX user its worth its price in gold. I have a dog-eared copy at my desk and I can attest to it.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
I was mentored in my first job out of college by a guy who helped McConnell write the new edition...the first edition did more to make me a better developer than any book on a specific language, technology, etc. and the second edition refreshed the code examples with current programming language, incorporated class and OO design, refactoring, and more modern development methods. Good stuff, check it out.
Best career book you can buy
Monstar L
Check out the hilarious Dating Design Patterns. (Your spouse may wonder why you're reading it, though.)
EricExpert One-on-One J2EE Development without EJB by Rod Johnson, Juergen Hoeller.
This is an excellent book with great advice about many aspects of software development. As the title suggests, it describes how EJB is not necessary for most J2EE projects, and offers alternative solutions to many of the problems EJB's solve. It does center around the Spring framework, as the authors are the creators of that framework, but it does give other technologies a fair chance.
I've personally found the strategies and technologies discussed in this book to be very useful. My new projects are developed in a manner largely based on this book and they've been pretty successful so far.
-Programming Ruby the second edition. An excellent book for an excellent language. The second edition is packed full of useful advice and has a huge number of pages devoted to the standard library. I have both the PDF and the actual book. I like the PDF a bit more because it is easily searchable and has some color to it.
-The updated Code Complete. All around good update of a great book.
I am not Dave Thomas, Andy Hunt or Mr. McConnell
[Amazon's splurb on Excel Hacks...] "The spreadsheet is the software tool that turns everyone into a hacker" Whoda thunk it. Microsoft Excel provides the true path to hacker enlightenment. Amazon said!
I read
IMHO
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!
Hmmm is the formatting of you post testament to its teaching prowess?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
.. didn't make it.
.. highly recommended, even if it isn't current!
Okay, maybe C is passé (I personally don't think so), but this book gives a lot of great insight into this wonderful language
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You need to add "LIMIT 10" to the end of your sql statement.
Meh.
Design Patterns Elements of Object Oriented Design by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides. This "classic" is one of my favorite books at the moment. I'll recommend it to the countless college grads and self taught OOP programmers who only know OOP at a syntax/functionality level. It will give you an insight on how to properly design OO systems instead of the common beginners mistake of using OOP as a thin layer on top of more procedural programming. This book will give you a good kickstart on how to properly think and use Object Orientation the way it was meant to be used.
[alk]
"Write Great Code: Understanding the Machine"
Unbelievably interesting book. the premise being that the current generation of coders is among the first who were not *required* to learn Assembly Language, thus do not truly understand what is going on under the hood. Because of this, they are unable to create "great" code in high-level languages because they simply don't understand the inherent costs of various routines.
One of the secondary premises focuses on the fact that, while hardware power is advancing at Moore's Law pace, software is requiring more power at nearly the same rate, many times for no reason other than the developer(s) not knowing how to write truly efficient code.
"All that glitters is not gold"
\documentclass{slashdot}
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\title{Re:'LaTeX companion' should definitely be on the l}
\author{Anonymous Coward}
\begin{Document}
No, this formatting would be a testament to its teaching prowess. Except, I didn't use a book. I've pieced together my knowledge from various sites. \url{http://www.tug.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/} was helpful, but now I wish I had just bought a book. Seriously, don't try to tackle \LaTeX{} without a good book.
\end{document}
Linux Cookbook, CSS Cookbook, and Java Cookbook.
Out of all the computer books I own, I keep coming back to the Cookbooks over and over.
Meh.
Design Patterns Explained, by Alan Shalloway and James R. Trott.
The authors are extremely intelligent and the book offers a very direct and simple approach to the material.
It's very easy read and teaches very fundamental concepts involved in the architecture and design of applications with a focus on eXtreme Programming.
Compute!'s third book of Commodore 64 Games.
Type in hex code like mad!
Actually, this is the best computer book *ever*.
I recently picked up Advanced PHP Programming by George Schlossnagle just the other day and (although I haven't had a chance to dig deeply into it) am very impressed with the content. Unlike so many PHP books, it shows some of the best methods for large scale PHP designs. It covers all of the new features of PHP 5 and explains other advanced topics , such as caching. I was already doing many of these things, but just seeing a different perspective opened a world of possibilities to me (and pointed out where my methodology could use improvement). I'm sure there will be much more to learn as I work through it.
Here's a link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067
As for the top books on Amazon.. I'm not sure many self-respecting developers would have many of them...
... when their top rated music CD is this.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Since lots of people are linking to books on Amazon, it seems a good time to mention a useful trick mention in O'Reilly's Amazon Hacks: you can link to Amazon products in a much friendlier way, like so:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/059600542
Where the numeric parameter is the product's ASIN (which, for most books, is also the ISBN). This hack is also detailed on Oreilly.com.
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition by David Pogue is an excellent book for Mac OS X users, both new and pro.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
These lists are cobbled up to unload excess inventory on easily duped consumers. Come on folks, this is Retailing 101.
"Refactoring to Patterns" gotta be my favorite software book of the year (assuming it was indeed published in 2004). Finally someone who makes the connection between test-driven development and design patterns!
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
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23421 <--- database engine
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Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
I second that. It is a truly interesting read. It is also available online at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/
Linux is not Windows
I read it recently and the author did a great job in explaining the strong points of the language instead of writing just another boring introduction to beginner level programming tools like if, for,... like so many other books on programming languages do.
Linux is not Windows