Books
Mission of Honor is now available
I just finished listening to At All Costs for the second or third time, and now Mission of Honor, the next book in the Honor Harrington series is out!!!! I have an article to finish and code to write, but don’t expect to hear from me much for the next day or two. I LOVE Kindle, the best purchase I made in the last 5 years. It means that I can relax in bed and read a book I ordered two minutes ago!!! And yes, as you can see by the !!!! I am excited.
DSLs in Boo is out!
It has been quite a journey for me, starting in 2007(!) up until about a month ago, when the final revision is out. I am very happy to announce that my book is now available in its final form. When I actually got the book in my hands I was ecstatic. That represent about two years worth of work, and some pretty tough hurdles to cross (think about the challenge that editing something the size of a book from my English is). And getting the content right was even harder. On the one hand, I wanted...
NHibernate is on the cover of MSDN Magazine
A while ago I run a poll about what posts you would like me to do, and the most requested topic was handling NHibernate in a Desktop application. I started writing a blog post about it, but when it hit twenty pages, I thought better on that and decided that I might as well post that as an article. MSDN Magazine just did. You can read the about Building a Desktop To-Do Application with NHibernate in the latest issue of MSDN Magazine. And now that the article is out, I can start posting about other topic in the...
Reading Frenzy
I don’t usually read non fiction books, I read some tech books, but that is work, more than anything else. I do read a lot, and I thought that I might post what I like, in hope to get recommendations for more stuff. The following list is mixed between authors & characters, depending on what I find more memorable. I only included authors / books that I read in the last 6 months or so. Robert Jordan Kris Longknife Miles Vorkosigan Jim C. Hines ...
Book Review: The Wheel of Time – The Gathering Storm
I love the WoT series. My nickname, Ayende Rahien, is based on that series. So you can imagine how happy I was to start reading the Gathering Storm. There are no spoilers in this post, I a going to spend some time digesting the book and then post a review about the actual details of the book. What make this book unique is that the author was changed (the original author died), which caused a huge delay for this book and caused sever worries whatever the new author would be as good as the original. ...
Authors Review: David Weber & John Ringo
Well, this is going to be a tad different than my usual posts, instead of doing technical post, or maybe a SF book review, I am going to talk about two authors that I really like. David Weber is the author of the Honor Harrington series, the Prince Roger (in conjunction with Ringo) series, the Dahak series and the Safehold series, as well as other assorted books. John Ringo is the author of the Prince Roger series, the Posleen series, the Council Wars series and a bunch of other stuff. Both are really good authors, although...
Book Review: Yellow Eyes
This book (free online version!) is part of the Posleen series, and I stands quite well in that series. Ringo manages to weave a complete tale, and even there are some stuff there that stretch my credulity even in SF novel, I liked it. One very interesting aspect of the book is the treatment for “war crimes” during the book. I don’t want to give any spoilers, since it is a good book, but let us just say that I could more than see how the enemies were able to use stupid and insane laws to hinder...
Book Review: Watch on the Rhine
I just finished listening to this book, and it is… quite an interesting one. The basic premise of the book is enough to ensure that it would be interesting: After the first [alien invasion] enemy landings in 2004, the German chancellor decides, despite fierce opposition, to rejuvenate survivors of the Waffen SS. Eager to redeem their tarnished honor, these veterans display the same steadfastness and fortitude that they did in Russia and Normandy. I think that just from that, you can understand why it is interesting by default. I have to say,...
Book Review: By Heresies Distressed
Hands down, David Weber is my favorite author. He has the ability to create rich worlds that are complete, logically consisted and interesting. While Weber is mostly known for the Harrington series, which I also really like, I have to say that the Prince Roger books (March Upcountry, etc) are the best military action series that I have read, and that the Safehold series is the best political action series. Of the two, I actually think that I prefer the Safehold series, although it is a very close match, and I’ll likely change my mind if there...
Review: C# in Depth
C# in Depth has a very different focus from most “Learn language X” books. Starting from the premise that you are already am familiar with the basic language syntax (for 1.0, or maybe you are a Java or C++ programmer), it focus entirely on the new additions to the language and platform. Its stated goal is to take C# 1.0 developers and give them all the changes that happened to the language in the C# 2.0 and 3.0 versions. And it most certainly deserves the “in Depth” part of the name. I consider myself a fairly...
Haven’t we been tortured enough?!
This has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with books. In particular the Wheel of Time books. Go and read this announcement. I want to cry! For crying out loud, I have been reading this series of book for the last decade. I spent most of my high school re-reading the books, and I consider them a big reason for why I able to understand English at the level that I want. Hell, I own several copies of some of the books, but for crying out loud, another three books? And ones that would...
Building Domain Specific Languages with Boo – Full book now available
Building Domain Specific Languages with Boo Another big milestone, early access subscribers can now read the entire book, all 13 chapters and both appendixes. Not edited yet, but much closer to completion.
5 Books that I am waiting for…
Well, technically I am not expecting this any longer, since it is out. One of the best sources for information about NHibernate is finally available! Moving on to books that aren’t out yet, but I am really looking for, and have nothing to do with technology (well, they are both SF, but other than that): Both are really good, and I have been reading (well, hearing) the series for a long time. Don’t expect to hear much from me the next day or two after each of them out. And,...
On Hadoop
Yesterday or the day before that I read the available chapters for Hadoop in Action. Hadoop is a Map Reduce implementation in Java, and it includes some very interesting ideas.
The concept of Map Reduce isn't new, but I liked seeing the actual code examples, which made it so much easier to follow what is actually going on. As usual, an In Action book has a lot of stuff in it that relates to getting things started, and since I don't usually work in Java, they were of little interest to me. But the core ideas are very interesting.
It does seems...
A balancing act
Probably one of the hardest challenges that I am facing with writing the book is to know what to say and what to leave unsaid. Phrasing it another way, it is choosing at what level to talk to the reader. On the one hand, I really want the reader to be able to make immediate use of the concepts that I am talking about, which drive me to do more practical demonstrations, code samples and covering more common situations. On the other hand, those take up a lot of room, and they tend to be boring...
Review: Hibernate Search in Action
I just finished reading Hibernate Search in Action, and I loved it. I should point out that I was the porter of Hibernate Search to NHibernate Search, so I had some previous expertise in the topic. In addition to that, I approached this book at an angle completely orthogonal to the expected audience. Unlike most "in Action" books, I did not intend to make immediate use of the code and approaches suggested in the book. Instead, I looked to the book as a way to deepen my understanding of the tool and how it works. I am impressed,...
Quarter of a Book Review: The Last Centurion
I am not really sure what to think about this book. On the one hand, it is entertaining. On the other hand, it seems to be filled with... propaganda? I am not sure that this is an accurate statement, but I am on 2.5 hours, and so far it has been interesting. The description of the handling of a crisis and analysis of how it could be prevented is fascinating in itself. But the last twenty minutes or so seems to be focused really heavily on showing off the US healthcare system and interesting political views. The...
First minute review: The Last Centurion
I just started to listen to the Last Centurion. I am under the first minute, and I like it already. It is apparently in blog style, but I don't know, since I am listening to it. I like it because the very first minute the hero starts talking about nitpickers :-)
Book Review: By Schism Rent Asunder
Okay, I just finished listening to this book. It was... hard to describe. The book itself is excellent, the sheer quality of the world that Weber paints is flat out amazing. I really liked the amount of sheer magnificence that is going on there. The number of balls that Weber manages to keep in the air is impressive. There is just one issue with this book. It is a setup. That is, it lay down the ground for the next book, By Heresies Distressed. Which sounds like it would be action filled. I hoped...
Annoying Anomalies
Currently listening the By Schism Reapt Asunder The hero ask a computer to find anomalies between two sets of records. Specifically, finding records of people who are assigned to different to several enclaves at the same time. The quote that annoyed me was: OWL was a fast computer, and it only took him two minutes to find the answer, even though there were millions of people in those records. I just winced hearing that, I felt like shouting, that is not the way it works at all.
By Schism Rent Asunder
Here is the deal, I got the book shipped to me, and I am currently buying the audio book. Yes, I expect it to be that good. Don't expect to hear much from me in the near future...
Audio Book Review: Starship
SciFi Inflation is the best term that I can use for this book series. It was engaging enough for me to go through all three books, but it bothered me enough to put a negative post about it. Just about anything in those books is over-inflated. Interstellar travel times are measured in minutes, thousands of sentient races exists, sensors that can read the details of a ship from thirty light years away, an interstellar power has 300 million ships, etc. This is like nails on board, highly disturbing for the flow of the story. And the story is...
Official: British Humor == Crazy
I really wish I got this yesterday...
Recommended Books
In my absence, some evil person has re-arrange my library. Apparently having the books strewn on the floor is not cool, although it make them very accessible. Since I can actually see all the books now, I thought it would be interesting to list some of the good technical books that I have read. As usual, it is without any particular order, with the only qualification is that reading this book literally changed the way I think about software development. Domain Driven Design - Evans:This is a very dry book, but it contains a lot of valuable information. I...
Building Domain Specific Languages in Boo: Available for early access
Well, this is a big moment. My book is now available for as part of the Manning Early Access Program. Chapter 1 to 4 are already there, but they are there in their nearly raw format. That means that they have not been edited yet, and I didn't put in the results from the review cycle that we did yet. The book forum is here, I eagerly awaits the posts telling me how off base I am :-) More seriously, I would appreciate any feedback that you have on the book, the topic, the code, etc. Thanks, ~Ayende
Release It!
Following Ted Neward's recommendation, I got Michael Nygard's Release It! it was worth it! It is rare to see a live blog from a book, but what the hell. I read this in about 8 hours, and I can't recommend it enough. I am currently at chapter 5, but I had to stop and think about all the stability anti patterns that Chapter 4 has. More specifically, I had to think about all the stability anti patterns that I have put in my own code. The only thing that actually happened to me in production was an Unbounded Result Set,...
By the DSL, guess what I am reading
I am toying with this DSL: recieve:
message msg as ChangeAddressMessage if msg.AddressId is null:
transaction:
address = Address.FromMessage(msg)
address.Create()
message msg as ChangeAddressMessage:
transaction:
address = LoadAddress(msg.AddressId)
Address.FromMessage(address, msg)
address.Save()
message other:
raise MessageNotUnderstood()
What book am I reading now?
Book Idea: Writing Domain Specific Languages in Boo
I know that I am asking the question from a self-selecting group, but what the hell. I am considering the idea of writing a book about writing domain specific languages, with Boo as the implementation language. This has two distinct topics: Theoretical knowledge: DSL Usages How to create the syntax How to integrate into an application Testing Versioning Patterns Implementation strategy - how to actually build a useful DSL that can do all of the above using Boo. I certainly like the subject, but I wanted to know what you think about it. Do you find the...
Book Review: Making Money
I have no idea how he does it, but Terry Prachett is so consistently funny, amusing and a very good writer. Making Money is a continuation to the Going Postal book, with the main hero being Moist, again thrust into an unwilling job description, and raising to the occasion. It was both hilarious and a good read, two distinct qualities, but Prachett is combining them masterfully. Highly recommended, and more than worth a second read, which I need to make time to. There is also the shred of a promise to have Moist as the tax collector for the city, which...
Time sinks are selling well, apparently
I have hardly had time to read Empire of Ivory and listen to Black Powder War and two thirds of Empire of Ivory when I got Making Money from Terry Prachett. I have read Going Postal with great enjoyment, in fact, I just finished listening to it on the way back from JAOO. I also got several other books as well, but I have yet to open them at all, since that one has all but capture all my attention. We will see how fast I can go through that. . P.S: I...
Robert Jordan, Deceased
James Oliver Rigney, Jr. October 17, 1948 - September 16, 2007 Okay, I am in shock. Robert Jordan is one of the main reasons that I have even minor fluency in English at all, he is responsible for a lot of inspiration and the name "Ayende Rahien" is taken from his books. I spent many enjoyable hours reading and re-reading and re-reading his books, and I have spent many pleasurable moments arguing semantics and plot twists with other members of the community. I never knew the man, but he sure did influenced me greatly. To steal from...
Book Review: Empire of Ivory
Damn, but that is a good book. A different style than most of the other ones, with a lot more investment in characters than in actions, but very good nonetheless. Highly recommended. Finished it in one sitting, and already want more, but that would be out in 2008 :-(
Enter a new time sink...
I just bought Empire of Ivory, in both ebook and audio book format. It came out four days ago, and I can't believe that I let four days pass by without getting that. Yes, it is that good. I was just getting ready to listen to Black Powder War, the third part of this series, but with changing times comes changing plans. Now I intend to read the ebook, hopefully this will take up the rest of the night only, and then listen to Black Powder War and then to Empire of Ivory as an audio...
Audio Library
I have become a recent convert to audio books, mainly because they let me do other stuff while I am listening to them. Here is my current collection: The only problem that I have with them is that it is fairly hard to "re-read" the favorite parts over and over again
Book Review: Empire Of Man
Last week I started to listen to the Empire Of Man series of audio books. The series has been written by David Weber and John Ringo, and all I can say is Wow! It starts with March Upcountry, which gets interesting in the first few minutes, rather than the usual longer opening of most books, proceed with March to the Sea and then to March to the Stars and finally to We Few, where the books (but not the story) ends. You may have noticed that I didn't have much activity in the last week, that is because I spent most to all...
Book Review: March Upcountry
I had plans for this weekend. I really did. But it is not 05:35AM and for the second day in a row, I am watching dawn raise and feeling very annoyed at myself. Yesterday I started to listen to the March Upcountry audio book. Just to give you an impression, it is a 17 hours audio book, and I have just now finished it. Yes, this does mean that I spent most of the last to days listening to it. Luckily I am able to do other tasks while listening (mechanical only, nothing that requires concentration or beyond-reflexes thinking). To say...
Audio books: His Majesty Dragon
I have just finished listening on this book: Extremely entertaining. I really liked it as a real book, and as an audio book, I could hardly let it go. I have also listened to The Light Fantastic for Prachett, which was also good. I am now getting Soldier of the Legion, which sounds like it should be fun. Any good recommendations for audio books? SF / Fantasy are my forte, for your information...
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Time and time again, Working Effective with Legacy Code comes up in conversations that I have with like minded fellows. It is a very good guide to working with code, not necessarily legacy one. I have read it a few years ago, and have been vastly impressed, to quote myself: Working Effectively with Legacy Code is a book that should be a mandatory reading for anyone who is interested in coding for a living. I consider this book the #1 reason for the existence of Rhino Mocks, and I can't really recommend it heartily enough. If you haven't read it yet, go...
An ANTLR Book
A book about ANTLR is something that I have long lusted after. It is something that I keep planning to learn, but the learning curve is too high to do this informally. Looks like I am getting my wish, The Definitive ANTLR Reference is in beta book now. ANTLR is a compiler compiler, which makes it a great tool to write languages (Boo's parser is written in ANTLR, for instance). And although I would generally use Boo for DSL, it is important to me to understand the parser as well.
Book Review: Programming WCF Services
Programming WCF Services Let us start with the conclusion, I don't like this book. Allow me to start with an analogy, I thought I was going to read a book about working with SQL Server, instead, I got a book that tells me how TDS* works. *TDS == Tabular Data Stream - the network protocol for SQL Server. I am sorry, forget...
Book Review: Windows Developer Power Tools
I already posted my initail thoughts about Windows Developer Power Tools. Nevertheless, having just finished it, I feel that the is more to say about it. First, this is about how I feel at the moment. Except that I am not angry :-) My head does feel like it would overlow if I would move too fast. I would like to re-iterate my previous words, you really need to read this book. I got a lot of interesting tools from it, including some that I would really would like to...
Half of a book review: Windows Developer Power Tools
Windows Developer Power Tools* is a huge book. It is so big that I can't hold it in one hand. It is so big that I need to put it someplace to read it. It is so big that I think that it should come with a warning label about possible serious injury if you are reading while tired. It is also a hot recommendation from me if you are a developer on Windows. I believe that I am fairly proficent in the tools department, author of some (Rhino Mocks is in the book! :-D...
NHibernate In Action
Looks like Ben Scheirman have found the big secret. Just one question, what is this picture or? Aside from that, I can say that Hibernate in Action is a the best for anyone developing NHibernate. With the advent of NHibernate in Action, it is going to be even easier (no need to mentally translate from Java and EJBs anymore). I am looking forward to July 1th, when this book is coming out.
Race Conditions, Synchornized methods and overloading, oh my...
The question was brought up, and I had to find out what the behavior is under this conditions. Here is the test scenario: class Program { Hashtable t = new Hashtable();...
TestDriven.Net 2.0 is out, and it is exciting!
Zero Friction Unit Testing has always been TestDrive.Net strongest point, but with this new release, it bring it to a whole new level. I feel that some of the new features are made for me, take this one for instnace: That one was a personal request of mine, and I am going to really worn this botton. There is now integration with a host of new frameworks, from TypeMock to Zanebug. But this isn't something that make me happy. What does make me...
Posting habits
I can't figure out my own posting habits sometimes. I average on about 75 posts per month, but the actual post count vary pretty wildly. Last month I posted 54 posts through the month, the last two weeks I posted 55. This has to do with the amount of time that I spend at the office vs. the time that I spend at various client sites, I guess. I don't get a lot of posts from clients (at least not the kind that they would want me to air :-) ). On the...
Book Review: Old Man's War
Old Man's War Only occasionally I get to read a book that make go "Wow!", merely because the strength of the plot and the charm of the charaters. Scalzi creates a full fledge world (universe, actually) very quick, very easily and very convincingly. The story reminded me strongly of Hienlien's Starship Troopers (although the only common plot idea is war among the stars). As someone who grew up on Hienlien's books, that is a high praise. There are two other...
Book Review: Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns
Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET Couple of disclaimers before I continue: I got a free copy of this book to review. I am probably not in the intended audiance of the book. Nearly a month and a half ago, I posted my initial impressions from this book, which were good (even if it didn't come...
Book Review: Dzur
First, let me start saying that I... don't like this book. It is another Vlad Taltos adventure, and it has all the normal hallmarks of such a novel. It bring back most of the normal characters, and the plot is good. The problem is that the whole thing feels like half a book. It ends badly, with Vlad meeting his son, but without actually resolving anything with his personal life. Frankly, I just don't get the motivation of Vlad to do all of this, and then just go off into the sunset. Not to mention that the...
Book Review: When Darkness Falls
I love this book! This is the third book in a trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, and it is more than up to par with my expectations. It is not 06:04 AM, and I just finished it. Simply amazing. This is one of those books where the author has managed to create a truly living, breathing, world, which is consistent and believable. I really liked the main characters, and how they evolved through the trilogy. Even the end, often the worst part of many books was excellent. Just the right mix of tragedy, hope and...
Sleep, lack of
Okay, here is the deal, I just got Mercedes Lackey's When Darkness Falls, and I'm probably going to read it all in my non existing spare time. There for un-neccecary activities such as working on OSS, blogging (maybe), writing documentation and sleep are going to be put on hold. The issue is a bit more sever in that I got Steven Burst's Dzur in the package as well. I have been waiting for that one for ages. Do no expect much acitivity in any front. However, this being such an...
Not a book review: Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns
I got Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns two days ago, and I have been trying to read it ever since. If you followed my adventures with reading about databinding, you know that I can usually devour a book in a day or so. At the moment, I am on page 30, and I am incredibly frustrated. The issue is with this book. I only need to touch it to feel this sudden craving ("Must Code. Must Code. Must Code!") to reach the computer and start working. I am reading about two pages and...
Book Review: Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0: Programming Smart Client Data Applications with .NETand
Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0 : Programming Smart Client Data Applications with .NET (Microsoft Net Development Series) 12:57: I got this book from a friend, and I'm going through it in a speedy pace. I'm only finsihed chapter 2 right now, but I think that I can tell that this is going to be a good book. The datasets chapter was very good, without being condensingly simple, like most of the datasets tutorial that I encountered. As someone who can honestly claim to have never...
New Books
I have not posted about reading for quite a while. I was at the Israeli C# User Group meeting last week, and I won this book: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2005 for Developers (Pro - Developer) This comes at an appropriate time, since I'm doing quite a bit of work in SQL Server 2005 now. The second book I got today: Programming Windows Presentation Foundation...
On the bookshelf...
After a very long time (or so it seems), I'm done reading Patterns of Enterprise Applications :-) I already talked about why I found it interesting. Highly recommended, although it would blow your mind if you read it too quickly. I'm going through my Amazon orders history, and I'm amazed at the amount of books I read in the last year. I blogged about most of them, but the amount is really big when you look at it all together. On the other hand, I've books from 2004 (december, though) that...
To Spoiler or Not To Spoler?
In the Robert Jordan's newsgroup they already begun discussing the new book. Some lucky souls got it early and already know what is going on. I hope to have it next week. But I'm very tempted to just peek and see what is happening.
The Fairy Godmother
The Fairy Godmother is the latest book by Mercedes Lackey that I read. It's very different from her other works. It's a different world, with different rules. And the rules of the game are fairy tales. In this world the very reality tries to make everything into a fairy tale. And it doesn't care if it's a happy or a sad story. Like all of Lackey's works, it's a complete world, and you get the feeling that there is a background to the story, not a thin coat...
Robert Jordan Blog
As long as I'm speaking about the Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan has a blog! You can find it here, he is posting quite a lot lately, and each post reveal more goodies about the Wheel of Time!
Knife Of Dreams is in the mail!
Knife of Dreams is in the mail and should arrive sometimes next week. When it does, expect a short notice and a long silence, I'm waiting for this book for over 2 years, and I've been a reader of the Wheel of Time for nearly a decade!
Knife Of Dreams
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories
that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even
myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes
again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come,
an Age long past, a wind rose above the broken mountain named
Dragonmount. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings
nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was
a beginning."
I’m reading it right now, from
the first chapter of the Knife
of Dreams. It sends a shiver down my spine as I do...
A Grave Mistake
I’m about to commit a really big mistake, and I’m
helpless to prevent it.
Knife
of Dreams is about to come out in a couple of
weeks, and I haven’t read its prologue yet. I’ve been a fan of the Wheel
of Time since 1996; the books are one of the main reasons that I’ve any
knowledge in English.
I’ve attempted to resist it, but I can’t, I’m
about to start reading: Embers Falling on Dry Grass: Prologue to Knife of
Dreams
I’m sorry; I can’t help it any longer. I gotta read it. It
will have to be done in one seating, of course, and afterward I’ll be to ecstatic
to...
Rootkits: The newest addition to my reading list
Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel This is something to add to the reading list as soon as I finish the stack of Fowler's books.
Book Review: Working Effectively With Legacy Code
Working Effectively with Legacy Code is
a book that should be a mandatory reading for anyone who is interested
in coding for a living. I don't deal with many legacy systems at the
present (except for NQA, of course :-) ) and still this book has
been a fountain of knowledge about techniques, tips and tricks.
This is not a book about pretty code, it's a book about ugly code and
all the myrad ways you can abuse design pricipals and good coding
practices. What it does is show a set to systematically take a legacy
code* and break down the...
Phantom - The new Sword Of Truth Book
It seems that Amazon has puslished the info about a new Sword of
Truth novel! Should be out in January, and the blurb seems cool. Phantom This is the second in a trilogy, so there is one another after it to wait for.
Knife of Dreams prologue is out!
The prologue to the Wheel of Time 11th book is out!!! You can get it here: Embers Falling on Dry Grass I'm not that I'm going to read it, for the simple reason that my brain is on reading overload right now :-)
Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince I finished reading it today, and I was... not quite disappointed, but it didn't hook me quite as much as the other books. It may be that the part of my brain that deals with books merely shut itself down from overload. It is a good book, and it continue to move both the plot and the maturity of the characters onwards. It's a more mature book then the others, but somehow the ending didn't affect me as much as the ending of the 5th book....
Knife of Dreams Excerpt in Online!
You can get the Knife of Dreams Excerpt here! I just finished reading it, and it seems to promise great things for the next book of the Wheel of Time.
Reading overload
For the last week or so I read ~12 books, and I think that I'm starting to suffer from reading overload. The main problem is lack of motivation to read, which mean that the next book (Owlflight, currently) has better be good, otherwise I'll have to take some rest. I usually don't have a problem with too much reading, but it's been a while since I grokked three books a day, every day. I usually try to find a more balanced way between reading, computers and real life; but the vacation and...
Book Review: Sword of Ice : And Other Tales of Valdemar
Sword of Ice An anthology of short stories about Valdemar; unfortunately, none of them was written by Lackey, so the quality moves between the very good to merely mediocre. It's an entertaining book, but not much beyond.
Book Review: Vows & Honor Trilogy
The Oathbound Oathbreakers Oathblood These books cover a time frame of two generations from the current time, and they are quite different from each other. The first is an attempt to bind together several short stories in chronological order and turn them into a single entity, the second is a full fledged book on its own and the third is a collection of short stories. I really liked Oathbreakers, it's a powerful story which is told masterfully. What I had problem with is the first book;...
Book Review: Winds of Change
Winds of Fury No, I didn't drown, but I was certainly lost for quite a while. I'm supposed to be on vacation now, and I'm spending most of my time handling troubles at works and reading Valdemar novels. The third book in The Mage Winds goes above and beyond the first two, and managed to captivate me to a frightening degree. Many plot lines come together in a way that is both conclusive and belivable (and that is not often the case), the ending was a very good and...
Book Review: Winds of Change
I've just finished Winds of Change, and it's a great book. It's the sequal to Winds Of Fate, and it seems to follow a much better path regarding the female - male balance. Really good plot and character development, and a nicely wrapped ending, with hinting of some interesting plot lines for the next book. Now I've to read the Griphon trilogy as well, since it appears that things that started then are coming to roost (literally :-) ) in those books. Can't write more, I'm going to read the...
An observation about Misty Lackey books
I'm still in the middle of Winds of Change and I think that I finally figured out why I like her Valdemar books so much more than most of her other books. It's a fantasy story that manage to carry a plot line that fits for adults without going into extremes. Most fantasy seems to be directed at young adults, which shows in both the strength of the plot and the language. Some fantasy is too far in the adult realm; J. R. R. Martin or Terry Goodkind both of which seems to take pleasure in trying...
Book Review: Winds Of Fate
Winds of Fate Yes another Valdemar novel, and this time featuring an old friend, Skif. The queen's daughter is searching for a mage to teach her magic and so save the kingdom. That is the basic story; but the plot is quite involved and contains Companions' conspiracy, an ancient talking sword with too much attidute and quite a bit of action both physcially and emotionally. I liked the book, but I didn't like what happened between the princess (Elspath) and Skif. He was pushed too much to the corner, in...
Book Review: Burning Water
Burning Water Yes another by Mercedes Lackey, about a serial killer and a witch that tries to catch it. I noticed several strange things about this book: It wasn't a Valdamar novel, and I really wanted to read one, but it was still a good story. It takes place in ~1986, and I just couldn't believe some things that happened there. The character search for a pay-phone (why...
Book Review: By The Sword
By the Sword It's now 05:35AM, and I just finished readin By The Sword, another book by Mercedes Lackey, this is a 496 pages monster, and I have been reading it since ~6:30Pm yesterday. That it's nearly 11 hours of straight reading, and it's simply a great book. It has just about everything that I like in Misty's novels, excitment, adventure, near-real-life conflicts and good over evil victory that is actually plausible. The one complaint that I've about this book is that it's not a trilogy. :-) I...
Testing by Coverage
I'm going over NQA's test coverage right now. I added tests to some areas that desperately needed tests, and several code paths that weren't tested. The best parts were that I found pieces of dead code that I could just remove. As usual, ReSharper is invaluable in finding those parts. I'm partly dog-fooding Rhino Mocks, and I got some interesting ideas for improvement, and partly to actually get a better code coverage on NQA :-) [I just thought that I've found a bug in NQA, but it was in my tests.] ...
Why I can't finish Extreme Programming Explained
I'm trying to read Extreme Programming Explained, and I just can't seem to finish the book. It's a very slim book, and I usually read these kind of books in an afternoon. The problem is that every time I read more than a couple of pages, I've to stop and do some coding. The ideas there are amazing, and I can't help it but stop and fix stuff in my code that can't stand up on my own. I guess that means that Kent Beck did a good job
Book Review: Developer To Designer
Developer to Designer All in all, I didn't really like it. Coder to Developer was full of good advice & tools, and I expected Developer To Designer to be much of the same mold. It's not. What it is, however, is a book that made explicit many things implicit about Windows UI. The problem that I don't think that it has enough value for me. The book covers in details a lot of Windows' controls, and web UI. But it does so in a way that...
Developer To Designer: The work begins
So I started to read Developer to Designer , the sequel to Coder to Developer . I'm about half done, and mostly I got the sensation that he's telling me things that I already knows. The first 7 or so chapters of the book cover the common controls and the ways to put text and data on the screen. The information cover there is mostly of interest to people implementing controls themselves, I think and to those who want to learn tricks of using them (for instance, I didn't know...
Heralds Of Valdemar
No, this is not about a specific book, it's about the whole concept of Valdemar. Usual fantasy books have very fixed structure, and rarely vary from the successful formula. Valdemar's books, however, are usually different. Here are some examples: The Last Herald Mage deals with gay mage. The Arrows Trilogy is more conventional fantasy (hero's growth, dealing with obstacles, etc), but contains several elements that are unusual (rape,...
My Books Reviews
You probably noticed that I'm usually avoid surveying the plots of the books; that is because I hope that you would read them :-), and I don't want to ruin the surpirse. And beside, I think that the plot is not that important, the impression the book left on you is much more important. Any back cover blurb can gives you the general details of the book (although, if you read the Wheel Of Time blurbs, you won't recognize the plot :-) ). But the amount of joy that you got out of...
Book Review: The Last Herald Mage
The Last Herald Mage is another of Mercedes Lackey* trilogies, and a very good one at that. The three books are: Magic's Pawn Magic's Promise Magic's Price Unlike Arrows, each of the books stand very well by itself, but they make for a...
Amazon... Paying for Shipping sucks!
Here are two of my recent orders, pay attention to how much I'm paying for shipping! 42% for the first and 35% for the second. Subtotal of Items: ...
Second Book Review: Arrow's Fall
Arrow's Fall I just finished the book, and it's a very strong ending. Good one, with enough plot to make you want to read the next book. Those three books are simply wonderful, and they seem to progress from Young Adult to Mature Fantasy as the books progress. Very nicely done, and very real feeling. I'm in trouble now; I can't decide if to read the future books, or read those set in the past. Decisions... Decisions... [Update: I got...
Book Review: Arrow's Fall
Arrow's Fall I'm now in the middle of the book, and I had to stop and do something else. Talia is the hero of these books, and the author built her character over the three books well enough that I care for her. Currently she was caught by evil, raped, tortured and committed suicide. There is a strange prophecy from the second book that says something about it, but it's no help now. It hurts to see a loved one hurt, even she is fictional character. ...
Book Review: Arrow's Flight
Arrow's Flight This is the second book in the Arrows trilogy, and it's a good one, but I don't recommend to read it as a stand alone book. It's mostly about the growth of a single character, and it builds some big expectations for Arrow's Fall, the next book. The story is good, flowing smoothly, and very touching. We see Talia, the main character as she is thrown into her intership duties and how she grows to handle them. It's certainly wouldn't be a stand alone book, unlike ...
Book Reivew: Sanctuary
Sanctuary by non else but Mercedes Lackey The first thing to note about this book is that it's short, and it's not as packed with action as I hoped it would. The target audiance are young adults, and for them I think that the book would do very well. I found that I want it to be longer, and with bigger scope. However, the book is entertaining, and there was more than one point in which I had to point it down to laugh it out*. The book ends...
A new kind of programming?
I just discovered this: Rhythm Programming I wonder what this is all about, how do you play a loop using this? :-)
My Library
Some of my friends call me a book worm, but I don't think the title do me justice. P.S. I just couldn't get enough distance from the library to get all the books in one picture, even those three aren't all of it.
Book Reviews: Burning Brightly & To Light A Candle
Let me state it again, Mercedes Lackey is awesome. And by that I mean that she is a really good. Brightly Burning is another story in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, the book is about Lavan Firestorm (an important figure in Valdemar's history) and his story. And his end, the book is (like all the other Mercedes Lackey's books I've read) captivating and hard to put down. Unlike the rest of her books, this does not have a happy ending. In fact, it's not a very happy book, from the start to the...
I love Amazon
I just got a bunch of books from Amazon.com, I ordered them at May 12, 2005 and they arrived at my local post office on the May 19, 2005 , what is so impressive about that is that this is an international order, which means that the books waited as much time in the post office before I could pick them up as it took to deliver them. The estimate of Amazon says that they should be here from June 6 to June 15, but...
The Sword of Truth - Part 3
Just realized that there is a prequal to The Sword Of Truth. Debt Of Bones I'll read it and post my impressions later, right now I need to rest from that much reading.[Listening to: ילדה של כרמל - אנונימים - פרחים בקנה(03:26)]
The Sword Of Truth: Part 2
Well, I've finished all the published books of The Sword of Truth, and I have to say that it was quite a good read. There are apperantely to be twelve books in this saga, and the last three books are a trilogy. It make for a rather weak ending of the ninth book, but I think that this is to be expected, since the "trilogy" is more likely to be one book too long to tell in a single cover. This book is about...
The Sword of Truth
I'm now deep inside The Sword of Truth saga, it was highly recommend by a friend of mine, and I must say it's one of the more involved and complex books I've read. The cast of characters is small (which is a relief when compared to the Wheel of Time, which has hundreds of characters), likable and real. I don't know if I can easily explain it, but all the books contain very tightly woven plots, and capture the reader. Beware, I read the first seven books in the last week, and they...
eXtreme .NET : Introducing eXtreme Programming Techniques to .NET Developers
I've finished reading eXtreme .NET : Introducing eXtreme Programming Techniques to .NET Developers, and while it has been interesting, most of the book is composed of tepid code examples I found extremely boring. Perhaps it's that I know some about XP, so I need something more than an introduction. Next time, I'm going to get this book: [Listening to: Shadow Stalker - Shadow Stalker - Freedom, Flight & Fantasy(04:27)]
Spooky Google
I just finished (re-)reading Take A Thief (Yes, another book by Mercedes Lackey). Then I run a search on google for "mercedes lackey books timeline" and the very first result was the book. It's like google has been able to read my mind :-)
Book Review: Domain Driven Desing
I just finished reading Domain Driven Design, it took me over a month and a half to finish that. The last time that I read a book for that amount of time, I was learning English and reading with a dictionary by my side. Some parts of it were very interesting, and I could certainly see how I would apply it in certain situations. Other parts, however (mostly toward the end, about large systems) I'd to force myself to read. This is probably because I've no real experience in building the typical business...
Library
I just found about eLibPro, which is a personal library manager with tight integration to Amazon. I must say that I'm liking it more the longer I'm using it. I managed to enter in two or three hours all my purchases from amazon (a lousy 143 books, or 2,254$ in seven years). It was very interesting to just remeber those books. I was suprised how much I remembered about each book just from its cover. However, I still have ~1,000 (no, I'm not kidding, this is my personal library, and...
Book Review: Exile's Valor
The second book of the Exile's seria, it talks about the events after the Tedral Wars and the events of the Court of Valdemar. I just finished reading this book, and it has everything one would want from such a book. The action is very well paced, and there is quite a bit of emotional involment of the reader (me, that is :-D) in the story. Like all good fantasy books, it has a consistent world and you get the feeling that there is a whole lot...
More On VS Team System Prices
I read the next couple of books, and they are really good:
Open Source .NET Development : Programming with NAnt, NUnit, NDoc, and More
In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters
Those two I didn't read yet, but they become more relavant after the recent events.
Cross-Platform .NET Development: Using...
Old Fanfic stories
Last night I posted four stories that I wrote ages ago (8 - 6 years), it has been quite amusing to read them, but they are long, and I don't really have the time to edit them as I would like. I'm going to post them here as is, and edit them at my liesure later. Sorry about the grammer and spelling, but do recall that I wrote this a long time ago. I hope that my english improved since then.
The Wheel Of Time
If you haven't noticed, I read quite a bit. But my most favorite books belong to The Wheel Of Time (Amazon),
to say that they are excelent would be demeaning, they took up a whole
year of my life (in which I did little but read the books over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over again). For nearly three years I've managed to avoid reading (but not thinking) about WoT, but I just read New Spring
, and it's every bit as good as the rest...
Where has the weekend gone?
I seems to have misplaced my weekend, since it just vanished
without a trace. All I did was catch up on my reading and then handle
some personal matters and then it whisked away. I got a note that I might meet it in a few days, but only if I behave. Do you think that I need to post a carton milk shot to find it? On other news, I found
The Golem's Eye in a book store yesterday, I very...
Pragmatic Version Control using Subversion
Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion
is a book you need to read if you work with Subversion. And I feel confident saying this even though I've yet to read the book. I've read
Pragmatic Version Control Using CVS
and that was good, even though I don't use CVS. The pargmatic bookshelf have not let me...
Book Review: Alta
Alta is the second of book by Mercedes Lackey, following Joust. It's a fantasy novel about dragons, and intrigue, and friendships, and some more dragons.
I read it in one seating (432 pages), and immnesly enjoyed it, just as I enjoyed Joust.
Highly recommended.
Book Review: Coding Slave
I bought this book because I was certain that it was dilbert-in-a-book. The book is supposed to be about an ERP implementation in a company, and the start was really promsing.
The problem is with the rest of the book, which then digress to the characters acting in totally unbelievable ways (whatever-it-takes-to-please-the-client, for example) and the book stops being fun.
The worst part of it that the book is trying to sell you the author's point of view regarding the way we should develop software. I'm not saying that it would be a good way to do so, but somehow...
Book Review: Hibernate In Action
The book is directed at Java developers interested in learning Hibernate, but considerring the similarities between Hibernate and NHibernate, it just as useful for .Net developers who wants to learn how to use NHibernate.
The concepts transfer very easily from one framework to the other, and I've only found two places where NHibernate differed from Hibernate (and one of them got fixed since then :-D)
The book starts with a general view on O/R mappers and the advantages of using them, then moves on to the history of Hibernate (which wasn't quite of interest to me). Then it gets...
Reading
I'm currently reading Hibernate In Action, since there is no docmentation whatsoever (or nearly so) for NHibernate itself.
"Life's A Witch And Then You Fly" -- Bumper Sticker
"On a clear disk you can seek forever." -- Computerworld Button
[Listening to: עידן רייכל - ממעמקים - עידן רייכל - (04:23)]
Pragmatic Shelf
An update to my reading list:The pragmatic bookshelf is an excelent resource for any developer.
I recently finished Pragmatic Project Autumation and it was... englighting.I wonder when I can get a lava lamp and the Fire Starter that I can use in Israel...
Reading list
It seems popular lately, to share whatever books one is reading. Here are mine: Development books: Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET - This one seems to be required, so I got it, and I'm very pleased about it. Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for...