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Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Hibernate in Action (In Action series) Publisher: Manning Publications Authors: Christian Bauer, Gavin King Rating: 3/5  Disclaimer: I'm only on chapter 4 at the moment, so my opinion may change as I complete the book. The first three chapters are fantastic; simply the best introduction to the concepts in Hibernate that I've ever seen. I wouldn't mind seeing some more examples and table layouts, but really, I have no complaints. The recommendations of good practices are illuminating and excellent. For these three chapters alone, the book was a worthwhile purchase. In chapter 4, something bad happens; the writing suddenly becomes very generic without the usual guidance as to what concepts you should use and when. It could also really use some schema and sequence diagrams to clarify what's happening behind-the-scenes, especially with the more convoluted detached objects. The index hasn't been very helpful so far, but the table of contents is detailed enough to make up for some of that. One thing that might help is a reference section that goes over each item in the hibernate config and mapping files and explaining what that option does, with an example, and what other options it interoperates with (also with examples). Then again, much of that is actually available from the Hibernate FAQ, so perhaps they supplement each other. Like I said, I'm still happy with the book, but it might only be a one-time read. I'll update this review after I finish the book.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills Publisher: O'Reilly Authors: Cynthia Gibas, Per Jambeck Rating: 5/5  I've seen quite a few reviews on bioinformatics books, and I think it's important to mention that this book is NOT for those people who really know their way around bioinformatics. It's NOT for people who have a pretty good idea WHY they're doing bioinformatics. These people usually know what they want to do, whether it's molecular phylogenetics, or developing search algorithm software....... whatever. They have a better feel for the field (which is a diverse one, by the way), and have high, sometimes arrogant, expectations of any book that deals with bioinformatics because they are always on the lookout for specific answers to their specific questions. They want books like Pierre Baldi's or the (in)famous Durbin textbook on sequence analysis algorithms, books which for the most part, are pretty damn inaccessible at first and downright scary to look at to people like myself who want to familiarise with bioinformatics and see what all the hype is about. Those are NOT texts to check out if you are totally new to all this. Now for people who don't really know anything significant about the field and, who for all intensive purposes, are generally CLUELESS about what it deals with in particular, like myself before I bought this book, it's worth buying this text to get an excellent intro on what bioinformatics is all about, and the kind of biological problems it addresses. The text is neither a programming bible, nor a manual on pairwise alignment techniques or RNA structure/function prediction. What it does do well is to give you a very good feel for what this field is about, as well as the confidence to start hitting the 'real' bioinformatics books that are aplenty out there. It will help you decide whether you are willing to do computational biology and really interested in it. It's the only book I know that does that, that can serve as a proper primer on bioinformatics. I suspect Gibas and Jambeck's book can also serve as a decent reference guide for the more seasoned bioinformaticians out there. It's a handy book and covers a little of everything, and I recommend reading it along with Attwood and Parry-Smith's introductory text, maybe following it up with Kanehisa's Post-Genome Informatics (2000). In any case, finally somebody came up with a book explaining the field that's actually from Planet Earth. It's very accessible, reasonably priced, and for that I am grateful to the authors.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Game Programming All in One, Second Edition Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade Authors: Jonathan S. Harbour Rating: 5/5 First off, this book is VERY well written and easy to follow. It is one of the only game programming books that I actually had a blast reading. What really strikes me about this book is that it is the only one (that I know of) that concretely discuses cross-platform game programming with Allegro, a library more powerful and easier to use than DirectX. It's almost hilarious how fast Harbor gets into the 'good stuff' without losing the reader. My only question is, why hasn't someone written a book like this before???
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Java Servlet Programming, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly Authors: Jason Hunter Rating: 5/5 I never knew anything about servlet programming this book just jump started me to write server side programme. One of the best book in servlets. Good examples the authors are thorough in every aspect. Its my Bible for Servlet and JSP programming.
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