Burk on Books - Groovy Recipes by Scott Davis

Almost a year ago I read "Groovy Recipes" and posted my review on DZone in early November. I also wrote up a posting for this blog but it never got published. The good news is that the book is still relevant and worth picking up if you're interested in getting things done in Groovy.

I would like to say that I actually held off posting this note so that I could create a second wave of interest after the initial one faded, but that would be misleading so instead I'll just hope it works out that way.

Burk

P.S. Scott, if you're reading this, the fact that I'm finally posting this mere hours before you're speaking at the No Fluff Just Stuff conference I'm attending later today is a complete coincidence. Really.

Burk on Books - Switching to the Mac, Designing Web Interfaces, and Essential JavaFX

Its been a while, but I've recently posted three new book reviews on DZone; Switching to the Mac and Designing Web Interfaces, and Essential JavaFX. While they cover very different topics, all of them are worth reading.

Essential JavaFX is a great introduction to JavaFX. You get a good feel for working with JavaFX without having to devote too many hours to it. The only thing I didn't like is that the images are gray-scale instead of color. I know it ups the printing cost, but when you're dealing with graphical user interfaces I think having color is important.

Switching to the Mac is a great book for those of us who have spent many years on Windows and finally move to a Macintosh. I bought mine almost a year ago and found that my previous training didn't help me on my Mac so I did what I often do. I went looking for a book to help me. After reading reviews of several books and leafing through a few at Borders, I decided on Switching to the Mac, and I'm glad I did. It's not the kind of book I read cover to cover, but it's stuffed with useful information. If you moving like I did, I think you'll find if useful to keep the book near your Mac for a while.

Designing Web Interfaces is an excellent book for anyone designing web applications. It's well written with plenty of color diagrams and screen shots (Yes!) so you can see how various interactions play out. I am a little disappointed though because there's no sample code even though the authors say they targeted the book for designers and developers. Even so, I think this is a great book for designers and a good one for developers who enjoy a challenge.

That's it for today. I've got three more reviews to write up, one book to read and review, and I think I'll be caught up.

BTW, I'll be at the the No Fluff Just Stuff software symposium here in Atlanta this weekend so if you're there and want to talk about the books, or any aspect of software development, feel free to introduce yourself.

One more thing before I sign off, this blog isn't intended to be a one way signal. If you want to ask a question or share a thought (preferably one that is relevant to the posting), please leave a comment.