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Better, Faster, Lighter Java

I saw this title in a press release from O’Reilly, and was intrigued by the description. For the last few years I have been letting myself concentrate almost entirely on WebObjects, and along the way I have acquired a few programming habits as I have matured as a programmer. This book seemed to embody them – and it does. It starts well, with an evangelical sell about agile methods, but then lacks meat. It just keeps on selling and selling, until about two/thirds in, when it entirely turns around and talks code. This sounds ok, but the switch is extreme (not a pun). Checking the catalog, this may be just the switch between two authors; and if so, some sloppy editing. Instead of explaining the code, it just drops onto the paper. Like many current books and articles, it also talks about lightweight, easy to understand programming, and yet is happy to use multiple layers of programming, inner classes, and some of the other horrors of Java style. Part of my reason to read it was because it includes examples that expouse the use of Hibernate and Spring. Summary: good in principle, slips shy of perfection in the execution.

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2004 08 13 paul Programming for Apples Comments (0) Permalink

Looking Around

One problem with being a long term WebObjects developer is that I get extremely jaded when viewing other technologies. WebObjects isn’t perfect, there’s lots of room for improvement, but for a very early (’95/’96) web application server, it is remarkably mature. It has a persistence layer, application server and template engine, as well as a set of enabling frameworks and IDE. I had to discover those terms before even starting to look around. Names that are dropped on the WebObjects mailing lists include Eclipse, Tomcat, TopDeck, Cayenne, Struts, Tapestry. I have also read about Hibernate and Spring. A number of these are parts of the Apache Jakarta project. It isn’t clear to me that there is actually a strong preference for any particular combination, although Eclipse as the IDE seems to win hands down.

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2004 08 12 paul Programming for Apples Comments (0) Permalink

Thinking In Java

by Bruce Eckel. I have been recommending this to my students since I came across the downloadable version of the first edition, which was probably around 2000. Since then I seem to have updated to a copy of the second edition, and I see on Bruce’s web site that a third edition is now available. Interesting point – this is one book, the first in fact, that I found as an html download, read, and then immediately bought. The main reason I keep recommending it is because it treats Java as a proper programming language, and starts and continues from object oriented principles; it probably helps that it is the first book I found on Java that wasn’t based around applets, too. Every other introductory text that I have read is either infuriatingly lightweight, or really a reference text. This sparkles, has humour, and treats Java so that I can understand what is being written.

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2004 08 11 paul Programming for Apples Comments (0) Permalink

Starter

Everything I have written for the web has been a blog, in a way; but before the technologies were implemented, until I started to use the blog format to contain notes to myself about Everquest. But my first web pages were guides to NeXT programming, which I have kept up to include WebObjects and MacOS X/Cocoa more recently. Both my biography, and copies of articles I wrote for Arabian Computer News around 1990 and the column I kept up for PC Pro on PDAs are also available here.

2004 08 11 paul Blog Admin Comments (0) Permalink

Dressage for the 21st Century, Paul Belasik

From his previous books, readers may expect a quirky, self-absorbed, opinionated, “New Age” tour around the periphery of classical riding – but instead we get a comprehensive and practical review of the entire art, with references made to the greats of the (small) body of literature on dressage.

Belasik covers the field with chapters on walk, trot, canter, the campaign school and airs above the ground. At each point he stresses the layered nature of classical riding, and the need to correctly build on the fundamentals of training at every stage. Yes, an independent seat and light hands are important, and the role of straightness at all levels is explored. Each chapter considers practical problems in the movements, and gives advice that I have already found useful.

Along the way he pokes digs at the riding establishment, with comments about the lack of true collection shown in competitive dressage, and an interesting analysis of the role of overtracking in collection and extension. I greatly appreciated his obligatory dig at trainers who consider half-pass to be travers executed on a diagonal, as well as his explanation of why this has to be considered incorrect.

One of the best features of this book is the excellent collection of photographs, taken in ways that subtly emphasise his points. The sequence of shots showing absolute straightness in tempi flying changes is breathtaking, and the build up to flying change showing the exact moment when the leading foreleg alone is on the ground must have taken an age to shoot.

This book isn’t for those new to riding, but for riders who have advanced some way down the path, and realise how much more there is to learn. It also isn’t for those looking for quick fixes to their problems. I commend it highly.

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2002 03 09 paul Life in General Comments (0) Permalink