Online resources truly can be horrendous and antiquated, especially considering that the open source movement chugs along at a good clip compared to commercial products. All things considered, however, PHP.net is still the best and most up to date resource for PHP and PerlMonks.org moves just as quickly and is chock-full of innovation and brilliant code.
I'm honestly not trying to detract from the product of your efforts; you and the reviewer both clearly tout this book as a wide introduction to web development with an emphasis on exposing the reader to different approaches and within that context it looks like it is very successful. My major gripe is with books on web development in general, though I certainly cannot hold you personally responsible. (And I won't rule out the possibility that, speaking as a grizzled web developer, I can't appreciate this book and what it teaches.)
Of course, it all boils down to the fact that reviewers and critics may have differing opinions but they're meaningless if you find that the book personally works for you.
Even as a professional web developer I cannot help but feel that books like these are, useful as they may be, totally redundant and devourers of perfectly good shelf space. The intricacies of setting up, maintaining, and administering a Linux webserver are numerous enough to warrant their own book and I suspect that one would be better suited buying a text on that particular topic and sticking to online resources for the others.
The Internet is teeming with websites full of introductory material such as this. I'm almost positive that to establish a respected computing site you are required to have an Apache and/or mod_perl tutorial; these are so unnervingly common that one would think the entire world is stuck in a cycle of endlessly installing Apache. It's a great credit to the creators that it is so easy to install and administrate that the entire process of setting up a production-ready server can be covered in a few poorly-written online tutorials. Why buy a book if your needs can be satisfied by a quick Google search?
I'll admit that the subjects of Apache and Linux administration may be too complex without a handy book, but PHP and perl? PHP's online manual is absolutely superb. No matter the size of the project or its complexity, if I have a question it will most assuredly be answered by a quick rifle through the documentation. And perl? PerlMonks is all you need. The monastery blows my mind.
I'll be the first to recommend books on operating system design, theory, and microprocessor internals, and in fact my shelves are lined with them. It is, however, the unfortunate truth that introductory material is everywhere on the Internet but getting any deeper will require a speciality textbook; that is, of course, and not very ironically, unless you're a web developer. For the shallow depths that this book plumbs, I'd recommend saving the money for a guide to webserver administration and taking a visit to http://www.php.net and http://www.perlmonks.org.
Before starting, I should mention that the given estimate for the number of languages spoken today is just that: an estimate. There are areas in the world such as Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, the Congo basian, and the Amazon basin that are constantly yielding new languages. Compounding the problem of an accurate number is the fact that, unfortunately, records and data are not available for all spoken languages and counting all of them is quite difficult. I have personally seen figures in the range of four thousand to fifteen thousand currently spoken languages so don't take that number as gold. (It is, however, as close to being accepted as any other estimate can be.)
OK. Why should a dying language be preserved? People have pointed out the parallel to preserving endangered animal species through environmental efforts or the scramble scientists made to save Mesopotamian artifacts from Iraq before the war broke out and these are both excellent analogies: just because a language is not a physical thing does not mean it is not worth the time, money, and effort to preserve. Wildlife activists fight for the rights of endangered species because they are unique and part of the natural environment of this world. Archeologists do the same for artifacts of human eras long gone and disappeared. Why shouldn't the same be made for languages? A language and the culture surrounding it are inseparable; a language is a living thing, a product of the unbelievable mechanism of the human mind. Chimpanzees can use basic tools to scrape termites out of their mounds but they are unable to communicate using spontaneous, creative language. Ultimately this is what lifts the human race above the rest of this planet's fauna. Preserve a dying language because it is part of the heritage of the entirety of mankind.
Of course, saving a language for its aesthetic value is not the only reason. Linguists (notably Noam Chomsky and Joseph Greenberg) have been trying for at least decades to document and discover the underlying reasons for the existence of language universals. Using simple examples, every language has the concept of a noun and a verb. Why is that? Is it just to facilitate the processing of communication in the human mind or is it innate? Every language that has evolved naturally is complex in its own manner and can express any concept found in any other language; no language is inferior or superior to any other language in facilitating communication. Is this natural? Are there languages out there that are simply empirically inferior to others and die out as its native speakers learn the value of another, superior tongue? Has every language ever spoken been this way?
There are still untold numbers of questions that cannot or have not been answered by contemporary linguistics. Joseph Greenberg is the father of the movement to uncover linguistic universals by studying large sets of data representative of the distribution of the genetic makeup of the world's languages. This approach has yielded many valuable insights into the human creation of language. If a universal is absolute, then perhaps it reveals part of the inner workings of our own minds. The sad truth, however, is that so many languages have been lost before the advent of the written language and since that no universal can ever be proven to be 100% absolute. Does this mean linguists should give up? No, of course not! Perhaps some unique language in the valleys of Papua New Guinea will manifest some exception to an absolute universal, forever changing our views on the human mind. For instance, the language Hixkaryana, spoken by less than 400 natives in the Amazon basin, has a default word order of Object-Verb-Subject. Before the discovery and documentation of Hixkaryana it was thought this word order was so counter to normal human thinking that it probably did not exist. What would have happened if no efforts had been made to document Hixkaryana? Linguists would have been unknowingly deprived of a valuable insight into language typology.
Among most of the SF fans I know you're most well known for realistic aliens and their bizarre but strangely logical societies and cultures. The Moties are a prime example. Do you have any background in biology and/or anthropology? Do you confer with professionals in these fields to help develop your alien races? Where did you get the inspiration for the truly original puppeteers, kzin, and moties?
The basis for your entire argument relies on a falsehood. I attend GeorgiaTech and major in CS, and having done away with the class in question (CS1321), I can say with authority that learning from examples, or even using short examples from cookbook-like texts, is encouraged. This student, however, was not learning from example, nor did he simply consult with another student because he didn't understand the homework. No, the bottom line is that he cheated because he replicated another student's code line for line. This is not code re-use, that is simply handing in someone else's working program.
Next time you go on a rant about "ivory tower crap," get off your little soapbox and do some actual research into the matter.
Much to the chagrin of Linux zealots everywhere, many companies choose Windows and will continue to do so because support by third-party companies is much more plentiful and cheaper than support for Unix- or Linux-based solutions. Our head of IS was an MCSE for the sole reason that there is no major, recognized certification for the Unix or Linux platforms, Brainbench and other small, web-based or obscure ones aside. Perhaps one of the greatest drawbacks to Linux is what many people consider one of its most endearing qualities: lack of centralization. However, if it is ever to become a major force, progress will have to be made on this front.
Release an album under a major label and watch as people download your material, without your permission, off of AudioGalaxy, FTP sites, and other services. What would you call it then, when the one-time advance from the label is gone and you no longer have a source of income? Get off your Goddamn high horse and realize that it IS stealing because you're violating fair use and, as another user helpfully pointed out, conforming EXACTLY to the American Heritage dictionary definition of stealing: Taking another's property without permission. Intellectual property is property, thus the word "property" in the name.
You seem to be missing the point. Yes, the RIAA is greedy and out to make the greatest profit it can, but that does NOT make copyright infringement RIGHT. Every time you buy a CD, the overwhelming majority of your money goes to the record label and the rest goes to the artist. You are depriving an artist of his or her profit, and when in such a terribly binding contract as the ones record labels force artists to sign, every one of those cents count. Your high and mighty "I am entitled to copyrighted information because I don't agree with the principles of copyrights in the first place" attitude is not only selfish, but you are denying a musician his or her fair share.
Downloading pirated music is the same as stealing the CD from the store. Grow up: You're defending Napster with ridiculous claims of idealism when the basic reason is that using Napster is so much easier than paying for the CD.
As a computer science student at GeorgiaTech I feel I should say something on this subject: It is quite possibly news because GaTech is a state university; we have very poor funding and something on this scale, in view of our financial situation, is something of an accomplishment. Granted it isn't front-page-headline-worthy but it is noteworthy nonetheless.
It was during my senior year of high school that Bess was installed on the systems at school; we were the recipients of a government grant and it seemed, politically naive that I am, that one of a few stipulations was the use of filtering software. Being a budding computer science major I did all that was within my power to work around it. I compiled a list of interesting sites that Bess blocked and managed, once or twice, to evade the software.
I discovered that Bess not only blocks the expected pronography, explicit language, etc, it denied access to sites such as Peacefire.org. While this site now offers software for download that will disable net censoring, when I first checked it out it was nothing but a simple site advocating freedom of surfing as an extension of freedom of speech. I understand that this is against the very concept of Bess itself, but when does the advocacy of the enforcement of the American constitution constitute a threat to our nations youth? Clearly the act of blocking peacefire.org was malicious and spiteful, the only reason being it threatened the moral stance of the corporation. What does this say about N2H2?
Slashdot Mirror
Online resources truly can be horrendous and antiquated, especially considering that the open source movement chugs along at a good clip compared to commercial products. All things considered, however, PHP.net is still the best and most up to date resource for PHP and PerlMonks.org moves just as quickly and is chock-full of innovation and brilliant code.
I'm honestly not trying to detract from the product of your efforts; you and the reviewer both clearly tout this book as a wide introduction to web development with an emphasis on exposing the reader to different approaches and within that context it looks like it is very successful. My major gripe is with books on web development in general, though I certainly cannot hold you personally responsible. (And I won't rule out the possibility that, speaking as a grizzled web developer, I can't appreciate this book and what it teaches.)
Of course, it all boils down to the fact that reviewers and critics may have differing opinions but they're meaningless if you find that the book personally works for you.
Kudos on getting published.
Even as a professional web developer I cannot help but feel that books like these are, useful as they may be, totally redundant and devourers of perfectly good shelf space. The intricacies of setting up, maintaining, and administering a Linux webserver are numerous enough to warrant their own book and I suspect that one would be better suited buying a text on that particular topic and sticking to online resources for the others.
The Internet is teeming with websites full of introductory material such as this. I'm almost positive that to establish a respected computing site you are required to have an Apache and/or mod_perl tutorial; these are so unnervingly common that one would think the entire world is stuck in a cycle of endlessly installing Apache. It's a great credit to the creators that it is so easy to install and administrate that the entire process of setting up a production-ready server can be covered in a few poorly-written online tutorials. Why buy a book if your needs can be satisfied by a quick Google search?
I'll admit that the subjects of Apache and Linux administration may be too complex without a handy book, but PHP and perl? PHP's online manual is absolutely superb. No matter the size of the project or its complexity, if I have a question it will most assuredly be answered by a quick rifle through the documentation. And perl? PerlMonks is all you need. The monastery blows my mind.
I'll be the first to recommend books on operating system design, theory, and microprocessor internals, and in fact my shelves are lined with them. It is, however, the unfortunate truth that introductory material is everywhere on the Internet but getting any deeper will require a speciality textbook; that is, of course, and not very ironically, unless you're a web developer. For the shallow depths that this book plumbs, I'd recommend saving the money for a guide to webserver administration and taking a visit to http://www.php.net and http://www.perlmonks.org.
Before starting, I should mention that the given estimate for the number of languages spoken today is just that: an estimate. There are areas in the world such as Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, the Congo basian, and the Amazon basin that are constantly yielding new languages. Compounding the problem of an accurate number is the fact that, unfortunately, records and data are not available for all spoken languages and counting all of them is quite difficult. I have personally seen figures in the range of four thousand to fifteen thousand currently spoken languages so don't take that number as gold. (It is, however, as close to being accepted as any other estimate can be.)
OK. Why should a dying language be preserved? People have pointed out the parallel to preserving endangered animal species through environmental efforts or the scramble scientists made to save Mesopotamian artifacts from Iraq before the war broke out and these are both excellent analogies: just because a language is not a physical thing does not mean it is not worth the time, money, and effort to preserve. Wildlife activists fight for the rights of endangered species because they are unique and part of the natural environment of this world. Archeologists do the same for artifacts of human eras long gone and disappeared. Why shouldn't the same be made for languages? A language and the culture surrounding it are inseparable; a language is a living thing, a product of the unbelievable mechanism of the human mind. Chimpanzees can use basic tools to scrape termites out of their mounds but they are unable to communicate using spontaneous, creative language. Ultimately this is what lifts the human race above the rest of this planet's fauna. Preserve a dying language because it is part of the heritage of the entirety of mankind.
Of course, saving a language for its aesthetic value is not the only reason. Linguists (notably Noam Chomsky and Joseph Greenberg) have been trying for at least decades to document and discover the underlying reasons for the existence of language universals. Using simple examples, every language has the concept of a noun and a verb. Why is that? Is it just to facilitate the processing of communication in the human mind or is it innate? Every language that has evolved naturally is complex in its own manner and can express any concept found in any other language; no language is inferior or superior to any other language in facilitating communication. Is this natural? Are there languages out there that are simply empirically inferior to others and die out as its native speakers learn the value of another, superior tongue? Has every language ever spoken been this way?
There are still untold numbers of questions that cannot or have not been answered by contemporary linguistics. Joseph Greenberg is the father of the movement to uncover linguistic universals by studying large sets of data representative of the distribution of the genetic makeup of the world's languages. This approach has yielded many valuable insights into the human creation of language. If a universal is absolute, then perhaps it reveals part of the inner workings of our own minds. The sad truth, however, is that so many languages have been lost before the advent of the written language and since that no universal can ever be proven to be 100% absolute. Does this mean linguists should give up? No, of course not! Perhaps some unique language in the valleys of Papua New Guinea will manifest some exception to an absolute universal, forever changing our views on the human mind. For instance, the language Hixkaryana, spoken by less than 400 natives in the Amazon basin, has a default word order of Object-Verb-Subject. Before the discovery and documentation of Hixkaryana it was thought this word order was so counter to normal human thinking that it probably did not exist. What would have happened if no efforts had been made to document Hixkaryana? Linguists would have been unknowingly deprived of a valuable insight into language typology.
Among most of the SF fans I know you're most well known for realistic aliens and their bizarre but strangely logical societies and cultures. The Moties are a prime example. Do you have any background in biology and/or anthropology? Do you confer with professionals in these fields to help develop your alien races? Where did you get the inspiration for the truly original puppeteers, kzin, and moties?
Thanks for the fantastic novels!
The basis for your entire argument relies on a falsehood. I attend GeorgiaTech and major in CS, and having done away with the class in question (CS1321), I can say with authority that learning from examples, or even using short examples from cookbook-like texts, is encouraged. This student, however, was not learning from example, nor did he simply consult with another student because he didn't understand the homework. No, the bottom line is that he cheated because he replicated another student's code line for line. This is not code re-use, that is simply handing in someone else's working program.
Next time you go on a rant about "ivory tower crap," get off your little soapbox and do some actual research into the matter.
Much to the chagrin of Linux zealots everywhere, many companies choose Windows and will continue to do so because support by third-party companies is much more plentiful and cheaper than support for Unix- or Linux-based solutions. Our head of IS was an MCSE for the sole reason that there is no major, recognized certification for the Unix or Linux platforms, Brainbench and other small, web-based or obscure ones aside. Perhaps one of the greatest drawbacks to Linux is what many people consider one of its most endearing qualities: lack of centralization. However, if it is ever to become a major force, progress will have to be made on this front.
Downloading pirated music is the same as stealing the CD from the store. Grow up: You're defending Napster with ridiculous claims of idealism when the basic reason is that using Napster is so much easier than paying for the CD.
I discovered that Bess not only blocks the expected pronography, explicit language, etc, it denied access to sites such as Peacefire.org. While this site now offers software for download that will disable net censoring, when I first checked it out it was nothing but a simple site advocating freedom of surfing as an extension of freedom of speech. I understand that this is against the very concept of Bess itself, but when does the advocacy of the enforcement of the American constitution constitute a threat to our nations youth? Clearly the act of blocking peacefire.org was malicious and spiteful, the only reason being it threatened the moral stance of the corporation. What does this say about N2H2?