Thursday, November 14, 2002

Distributed Programming Runtime Systems: Inside Rotor Gary Nutt. University of Colorado "This is a hands-on book that focuses on the internals of a CLI implementation on a UNIX platform" Cool! This morning Google led me to this book.  There are several chapters online too. I only had time to glance at them this morning, but looks like good stuff. Check out chapter 3 for a nice overview of the VES.   [Managed Space] 11:35:15 AM

Writing Secure Code This book provided a few new insights, but nothing earth-shattering.  It's a good read for newer programmers, but [good] seasoned programmers will have already run into a lot of the described issues and learned from their mistakes. [Paresh Suthar's Radio Weblog] I agree that its quite basic. However, judging from the amount of buffer overruns that are seen in everyday C/C++ code, and the fact that Buffer Overrun checks had to be put into Everett C++, I don't at all agree that many programmers are writing C/C++ write code that doesn't have these problems (or even aware). Heck, to some extent Java and C#/.NET exist for large reasons because of the failure of C/C++ programmers to write good safe code. 9:30:16 AM

	Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Charles Petzold is a very cool guy.   Of course we've all read his 1998 Programming Windows, the bible of Win32...I was weaned in the original 1990 Programming Windows.  I've just finished another offering from Charles.  It's called Code.  It's absolutely worth it if you can find a copy.  If you want to explain to your spouse what you do for a living, get it.  If you want to show someone not-to-technical why alternate number bases (hex, binary, etc) are interesting, get it. I actually wrote 7 chapters of a similar book where I started from the Light Bulb and went up to the modern microprocessor.   I shopped it around to various publishers and then scrapped the idea when I discovered Charle's book.  He writes with startling clarlity.  He starts with morse code and braille and works up through history building and building...past light bulbs, the construction of memory, flip flops, older processors, assembly language...it's just fantastic. This book should really be required reading in any CS101 class.  Hell, I'd make it required reading for High School Seniors.  It can "fill in the gap" for some many technology questions.  So many people take technology for granted...it just works.  I'm surprised at how few people ask "Why."  My kids will read this book...I have no kids, so as soon as they are born...and learn to read.  [Scott Hanselman's Weblog] Totally agree. Great book! 3:32:14 PM

	Tuesday, November 12, 2002

Amazon.com: Top 2002 Computers and Internet. OMG, "Advanced .NET Remoting" is in the "Top 10 Editor's Picks: Computers and Internet" for 2002  (and it's the only .NET book there). This rocks! [Ingo Rammer's DotNetCentric] Wow! Congrats Ingo. 8:24:49 AM

	Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Jason is working on another book. If it is his CIL Programming and .NET Security books are any indication, it will be another fine addition to the library. 4:00:23 PM

	Monday, October 21, 2002

Essential .NET Security. Keith Brown, fellow DM instructor and security geek, is writing Essential .NET Security online - a draft ASP.NET chapter kicks things off. [Peter Drayton's Radio Weblog] I can't think of anyone more qualified to write such book. As Keith has so aptly demonstrated in his writings, talks, courses,  and work over the last few years, Keith has a superb understanding of all the aspects of security both unmanaged and managed. I am quite pleased and looking forward to this must-have book. 6:10:41 PM

	Saturday, October 05, 2002

CIL Programming. Peter Drayton recently made some Observations on CIL books. He summed them up very well. For most developers I think CIL Programming: Under the Hood of .NET would be the best buy because its an introductory text and is much more readable as a result. [Cook Computing] I'm also re-reading this book at the moment and agree as well. I did a lot of reading in the last few weeks myself and hope to get around to posting on it. 8:21:33 AM

	Thursday, October 03, 2002

I took Simon's most excellent recomendation on Yassar's (who, as Don told me, is now on his team) Real World XML Web Services: For VB and VB .NET Developers. I rush-ordered this book, 24-hour shipped and read 1/2 of it yesterday. I don't know what to say that won't sound like I'm going to an extreme or paid by Yassar-) but this is the single best Web Services book I have ever read. Its clear, its real-world, it's focused on the right things and its even Keith's favorite Web Services book. Its approach is very readable yet thorough and I'm finally starting to understand Schema. 2:03:09 PM