Kris’ Book Reviews

This is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. First of all, it starts few million years in the future, when the Sun is dying, Earth has been taken over by giant plants and the last remaining human beings are 5 times smaller than now.

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Dark profession of tortures isn’t to often described in fantasy literature. Wouldn’t it be fun to read how they torture people ? Probably for some psychos Fortunately this book focuses more on other aspects of torturers life.
We are following the life of a young apprentice in the Guild of Torturers which learns his profession.

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The cold north, home of the aggressive Erlings, quarrelsome Cyngaels and civilized Anglcyn. This the where Guy Gavriel Kays next book takes us. And as the last three books it tells a story about the world which takes much from ours. This time the story takes place around X century (if you like to think in real world terms).

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It’s not the first time when Guy Gavriel Kay takes the reader on a journey to an alternative world which, with few exceptions (two moons, somehow changed coastlines, slightly different gods) resembles ours. This time we are presented with a history of conflict between two religions (with a drop of third one) that happens on peninsula of Al-Rassan.

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Certification a mark of a good programmer or just a paper that anyone can get? Whichever definition you prefer take a look at this short review of a book that helps achieving such certificate.

The book starts with a short summary of all Sun Certification exams with a more detailed explanation of the Sun Certified Programmer Exam. Besides those reviews, first chapter shows how to study for the exam in an efficient way.

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TomTom ONE XL-S GPS - a detailed review of the bestselling auto navigator

Usually most computer programming related books contain a language course or an API specification/description, sometimes algorithms. As a result computer industry lacks books dealing with software development in general, telling how to “do it” not in a specific language, but in a broader aspect. “The Pragmatic Programmer” is different, gives a more general view on the subject of programming, as such it is much more valuable than any book talking about specifics of a language or operating system internals.

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I came across this book by coincidence, looking for a computer developer book, that doesn’t emphasize certain language, but gives a slightly broader view on computer engineering, now lets go back to the book itself. The paperback is big, more than 800 pages almost completely filled with useful information.

Introductory chapters present how software should be constructed, how important is to have upstream prerequisites.

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This is the first book of the Baroque Cycle, a new series by Neal Stephenson, unlike his previous works, it is not a cyberpunk novel but historical and quite a good one.First volume of this series takes place mostly in two time lines, the first is places in early 18th century Massachusetts and the second one is Daniel Waterhouse’s flashbacks into the second half of 17th century’s England. In the former part, Daniel is on his way from America to England, and in the latter author presents Daniels life beginning with studies on university and meeting Newton.

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It is a book by famous extreme programming evangelist - Kent Beck, and takes the reader on a trip of early testing. The technique is called test-driven development, or test-first development.The book consists of three parts, in the first one Beck teaches us this new technique by developing a currency classes. Here we are taught step by step how to add test cases and after that, developing the code to be tested. In this part, the source code is in Java.

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It is the year of 2021, Scott lives in Thailand, has a wife and a child, when during a trip with his colleague he encounters a military blockade. Beyond this barrier they see a massive block monument made out of blueish material which is surrounded with a thick fog. As they hear later, the monument has a writing on it saying that it is a memorial of stranger Kuin’s victory in the 2041 year.

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• Nov 12 : Hothouse
• Mar 5 : Shadow of the Torturer
• Mar 2 : The Last Light of the Sun
• Feb 25 : The Lions of Al-Rassan
• Feb 10 : SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 Study Guide