We’ve put together a short list of tech books that could keep you company this weekend.3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice
A bunch of students, first met through the 3D UI newsgroups in the 90s, are now professionals in the field, and this book is the fruit of their collective work through the years. The book explains the different kinds of 3D UIs & evaluates them. It’s a shame that the book doesn’t really get seriously into presenting in depth any of the methods, but instead stays pretty much on surface and functions as a guideline. Still, it’s a great introduction to what many believe it will be the future of computer UIs.
Overall: 8/10
.NET Compact Framework Programming with C#
Are you programming for PocketPC or for smartphones? Then you need this book. It’s a detailed reference and guide to the Compact .NET API, a total of almost 1400 pages. Lots of screenshots, sample code, easy to understand text. A marvelous book, if you are into the mobile software industry. Especially cool that all the dev tools and IDEs are free to download too.
Overall: 10/10
The Official Blender 2.3 Guide
We all know how impossible to figure-out Blender’s interface is. Well, this is the official guide on how to use Blender 2.3x, that’s suppose to help us go through the pains of the interface. But honestly, after going through the book and trying it with my Blender installation(s), I still can’t figure out Blender fully. It is definetely not a tutorial-style book that would guide you by hand to learn to create 3D scenes or animation, but simply a guide of the interface alone. Personally, I am still fighting with the overall usability in Blender.
Overall: 7/10
Version control with Subversion
O’Reilly’s attempt to introduce Subversion is a successful one. The book gets into the point quickly, it is well written, it has enough examples and even includes a chapter directed to CVS users and migration. The book is free for download too, but having the real book around feels nice too. Wish they also included some migration tips for Perforce users too though.
Overall: 9/10
Do you want me to read them all this weekend?
Just kidding, thanks for the Blender book.
Halloween weekend isn’t the right weekend to be reading technical books… it’s the right weekend to be reading ghost stories…
http://www.saugus.net/Local/Contests/Halloween/2004/
http://www.ghostsofhalloweenpast.com/
http://www.americanfolklore.net/halloween.html
So we have to post our book reports on all of them here. If we read them all do we get a free pan pizza at pizza hut?
Halloween weekend isn’t the right weekend to be reading technical books… it’s the right weekend to be reading ghost stories…
how about TCP/IP illustrated (2100 pages), Undocumented Windows 2000 Secrets, Exploiting Software: How to Break Code, Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency.
scary enough for ya?
scary enough for ya?
Not realy , more a encouragement:-)
Exploiting Software: How to Break Code,is a good one.
It’s the best book to learn GUI programming in C++, you must read it even if you code with GTK+, it gives you many great ideas and teaches you how to be fast and productive in GUI development! Want to design a cool API? Read that book!!
..Forget the Rest…
I’m reading “Electronic Computers” by Ivall, from 1960. Very interesting – you can do quite a lot without integratd circuits.
another suggestion:
the hitchhikers guide to reporting services
must read!
How about a great alien abduction book with a powerful message to humanity? Read “Abduction to the 9th Planet” by Michel Desmarquet. It’s a quite intriguing read, if you ask me
Demonstrates that Blender is software that, no matter how powerful, was implemented without the user in mind, other than perhaps the original authors.
I once tried Blender on BeOS, and the interface was very bizarre, to put it nicely. I can see why a book would be required to explain it, but I can’t see why an interface should require a book to understand anything at all, if it follows some reasonable guidelines appropriate for the platform it runs on.
I think that Blender was put together so as to sell books!
I believe the Blender interface was mainly desgined with efficiency in mind. So apart from selling the book the idea was to get things done with as few clicks, mouse-moves and key-presses as possible. The learning curve is pretty steep, but the interface works rather well once you get the hang of it.
The .NET Compact framework book is 1400 pages and you expect to read that over the weekend?!? Some people have too much free time :-).
Also, anyone find it kinda ironic that a ‘compact framework’ requires a book that’s 1400 pages thick?
“I can’t see why an interface should require a book to understand anything at all, if it follows some reasonable guidelines appropriate for the platform it runs on.”
Some programs cover tasks which are by nature very complex. There is a limit to how much something like 3D modelling can be simplified without dumbing it down. Many of the “guidelines” are for much simpler tasks, such as word processing.
I wouldn’t try to use any 3D modelling/rendering/animation program without a manual. Not even Lightwave, which IMO has an excellent interface.
So, going back to books, I recommend the Quickstart Guide to Lightwave, which I have been studying lately.
Missed there being a blender book, definitely want to read that one. Encouraging people to read C# or .Net does nobody a favor and makes your own integrity suspect.
There is quite a variety in suggested topics, as there is quite a bit of diversity in Osnews’ readership. Your complaining about one topic only speaks to your biases (the only integrity in question is yours). I think that Blender and associated open source software may mean it will be harder for me to get a job after I graduate, but I don’t think that means I need to bitch on Osnews about it.
The lack of complaints you hear from other people is called civility.