More Recent Reading

Imaginary Futures by Richard Barbrook. Pluto Press
Subtitled 'From Thinking Machines to the Global Village', this is a really unusual and interesting book. It's about the political and philosophical lineage of the Internet. Beginning with the 1964 New York World's Fair, it traces the Cold War origins of the politics which gave rise to the Internet.
For Barbrook the work on cybernetics by Norbert Weiner and John von Neumann fused with the 'global village' concept developed by Marshall McLuhan provided the impetus for the eventual development of the Internet. This was elaborated on by a group of former left wing intellectuals including such luminaries as Walt Rostow, J.K. Galbraith, and Daniel Bell who were able to turn it into a vision of an American future that would compete with that of the Cold War enemy - Russia.
The book charts the history of the ideas and actions of this group through to its discrediting through the denouement of the Vietnam War. It also covers - unfortunately all to briefly - how the ideology was co-opted and resuscitated by Californian neo-cons via Wired magazine.
I suspect Barbrook's left wing analysis, and some of his assumptions, will make American readers feel uncomfortable. In addition, I feel that the analysis has a touch of one-dimensionality about it. Nonetheless, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone interested in an analysis of the Internet's political pre-history.

Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers. Prentice Hall
The biggest single problem I had when I moved from working for myself as a programmer back to the mainstream was dealing with other people's code. For nearly twenty years I only had to deal with my own code. Suddenly I had to understand and change other people's code. It was quite a culture shock, and one of the most difficult things I've done.
I wish I'd found Michael's book earlier, it would have helped ease the transition. Of course, not everyone else's code is legacy code, but even if you are not handling true 'legacy' code, this book will help you deal with the problems you face.
The book is in three parts. The first is a discussion of how you go about changing software that is badly structured and has complex interactions and side effects. Where do you start, and how do you make sure that you don't break things further down the convoluted chain of dependencies. The answer to the latter, of course, is testing, testing, testing, and the author makes a good enough case to persuade even the most sloth like to get into the testing mode.
The second part of the book is organised almost like an FAQ with chapters devoted to common problems like 'I don't understand the code well enough to change it'. This one crops up all too often, and is an excellent example of how the author doesn't avoid difficult questions. The final part of the book is a useful catalog of mostly pattern based techniques that can be used to break dependencies.
The book is well written and features clear examples that are written in either C++, Java, C and C#, and the problems caused by the different features, or lack of them, available to the different languages are discussed and work arounds suggested. I enjoyed reading this book.
Highly recommended!

The Mystery of Capital by Hermando De Soto. Black Swan Books
I had high hopes of this book, since I'd come across mention of it in a number of different books read previously. In the event I was somewhat disappointed. It wasn't that I massively disagreed with the book. It was more that I fell asleep while reading it! The problem is that Mr de Soto seems to have been told that you only teach one thing at a time and repeat it in at least three different ways. This may be true talking in a classroom, but in a book it leads rapidly to terminal boredom.
The central theme of the book is simple - the reason while capitalism has not taken off outside the west is not that people are somehow lazy (quite to the contrary) but that legal and property systems do not allow them to use their property to obtain liquid capital. I don't disagree, but I think this is a one-dimensional view. I'm always dubious about single cause explanations for economic and social phenomena, and this idea is no exception. Yes, lack of legal property is an important part of the problem, but it's not the only one, and a more rounded view of the problems involved is needed to resolve them.

Beginning HTML with CSS and XHTML by David Schultz and Craig Cook. Apress
The useful book is both a beginner's introduction and a reference book. One particularly useful feature is that the elements are fully defined in the body of the book as you learn about them, and then they are all brought together, alphabetically in Appendices. This allows the book to be used as a fast reference when you have finished it.
XHTML and CSS are covered pretty thoroughly, as are forms, tables and image maps. There is a brief discussion of client side scripting with JavaScript, but I would hesitate to use the technique on production code without looking at a more in depth book on the subject. This book is, as the title implies, a book for beginners. I doubt that a web developer with experience would get much out of it. On the other hand it's refreshing to find a book for beginners that doesn't talk down to its readers, or treat them as dummies!
Recommended

The Definitive Guide to SQLite by Michael Owens. Apress
I recently decided that it was long overdue time for me to start moving the databases in my programs away from Sleepycat's Berkeley DB (recently purchased by Oracle, whom I don't trust) to SQL databases. Since I wanted built-in databases, SQLite seemed to be the only serious contender. I didn't really have much experience with SQL databases, so I needed a comprehensive book that would teach me about SQL as well as this specific database.
Michael Owens' book didn't disappoint me. It gave me a solid grounding in SQL and taught me how to use SQLite efficiently. The SQL material covers both relational theory and the actual language, while the SQLite specific material covers the use of the 'C' API, and the internals of how SQLite works. I doubt that most people would be likely to do programming at the latter level, but a knowledge of what goes on 'under the hood' makes it easier to program at a higher level. Comprehensive appendices cover an SQL alphabetical reference, and all the 'C' API functions.
I liked this book and thought it was well worth the money I paid for it.
Highly recommended.

Snipers, Shills & Sharks by Ken Steiglitz. Princeton University Press
This is a book not about eBay per se, but about auctions - their history and how they work, both from a technical and sociological and psychological angle. The reader will learn all about how auctions work and how eBay actiually works, which is something many of its users don't understand.
The explanations are clear and well written, the mathematics banished to a number of appendicies. I was impressed by this book and I learned a lot about auctions and human behaviour from it. I'd recommend it to anyone who uses ebay, or other on-line auction sites, regularly - you may be surprised at what your optimal strategies are!
Recommended.

Useless Arithemtic by Orrin H Pilkey & Linda Pilkey-Jarvis. Columbia University Press
Sub-titled 'Why environmental scientists can't predict the future', this book is a devastating survey of the consequnces of relying on quantative mathematic modelling to make environmental predictions.
The bulk of the book is a series of case studies covering the collapse of the Grand banks fishery (once the world greatest fish supply), Yucca mountain proposed nuclear waste repository, the rise in sea level, predictions of beach geology, open cast mine pollution predictions, and invasive plants.
The results make for a terrifying indictment of our attempts to predict futre events from mathematical model of past events. Time and again the models have been proved wrong, but with fudge factors added to get the politically 'correct' predictions, the reasons for the glaring failures are never analysed.
The discussions and explanations are easy for the non-mathematicians to follow, and for those with a maths bent there is a section at the end which gives the mathematics of the models.
Highly recommended.

Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark, Penguin
Christopher Clark's history of Prussia is, to say the least, comprehensive. It's also interesting, covering as it does the whole period from 1600 until the end of World War II. Occasionally, it gets a little dry, but most of the time it is a well written portrayal of not just the royal court, but also of peasants, burgers, aristos, merchants and the emerging of the working class.
Although the book charts the rise and eventual fall of the Hohenzollern dynasty, it does so within the framework of the geopolitics of a state that was peculiarly vulnerable to attack for most of its existence. It also traces the two influences that defined the Prussian state - militarism and a progressive and enlightened liberalism.
Fascinating, and fundamental to understanding the 20th Century history of Europe.

Learning PHP and MySQL (2nd ed) by Michele E Davis & Jon A Phillips
This is an adequate, though uninspired, look through the basics of using PHP and MySQL to build dynamic web sites. Because it is trying to cover two major topics from a starter level it is unable to treat either in the depth needed for the reader to become fluent in either the use of SQL databases, or PHP.
However, the book also suffers from a serious flaw which renders it unfit to be used by those wishing to learn the subjects involved. The sample code is frequently incorrect, and this will cause endless confusion for newcomers. It is clear that insufficient attention has been paid to making sure the code is correct, which would seem to indicate that the authors haven't even tried to run the code they present. What the editors at O'Reilly were thinking of when they let this go through, I really don't know.
Not recommended.

Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Penguin
The art of the sustained polemic is not dead! In an age where bland agreement with the current fad is 'in', Nicholas Taleb has written a book that not only takes apart the pretensions of the market traders and other would-be oracles, but also reintroduces robustness into debate.
Some people won't like the style, of course. That's sad, because they will also be missing a very informative book. It really does tell you a lot about randomness in life, what it means, and possible strategies for dealing with it.
As a computer programmer I was particularly struck by the discussion of how easy it is to mistake noise for signal by looking at phenomena at the wrong scale. That's a small part of the discussion though, others will find nuggets relating to their own experience as they read through the book.
I liked this book. I liked the irreverence - arrogance even - with which Taleb dispatches his enemies, and turns 'common sense' upside down.
Highly recommended.

The Last Man Who Knew Everything by Andrew Robinson. Oneworld Publications
I found this book really interesting. It is a biography of Thomas Young, famous for both his modulus of elasticity, and for the double slit experiment which established the wave behaviour of light.
Young was a both a polymath and an autodidact, and his achievements are much wider than just the two items named after him. He was the first person to correctly explain how the eye worked, and he was instrumental in the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone.
Andrew Robinson's book deals not only with Young's triumphs, but also with the frustrations of being a polymath on the edge of a time when specialisation was on its way in. Previously, scientists were gentlemen of means who had the time and the money to dabble in any number of fields that interested them. After Young, scientific research became a field for paid professionals with narrow specialities. Polymaths tended to be good at a large number of things, but not the absolute best in any of them. Of course, their ability to bring together disparate fields also enabled them to found new branches of science and the arts, but such achievements were usually not recognised until after their lifetime.
Robinson has produced a very readable book about someone whose achievements have been overshadowed by those who came later.
Recommended.

The Lion and the Unicorn by Richard Aldous. Pimlico (Random House)
This magnificent account of the rivalry between Gladstone and Disraeli is a revelation for anyone who, like me, thought history was a boring list of kings and queens. The book brings to life the role and functioning of the British parliament in the 19th century, which was, in general, dominated by the wealthy, and run in their interests.
And who 'won'? Well Gladstone outlived Disraeli, and became prime minister several times after Disraeli's death. Disraeli's legacy was the idea that the job of the opposition should be to oppose the government, and he laid down the foundations of the modern Conservative Party, and developed the 'One Nation' ideology that kept it as the natural party of government for near a hundred years.
Gladstone left a Liberal Party severely split over the issue of Irish Home Rule, and doomed within twenty years to be squeezed out between the confident Conservatives and the growing electoral power of the Labour party. On the other hand he did give his name to the gladstone bag!
Queen Victoria survived them both. She adored Disraeli and despised Gladstone. In fact her comment on the two of them makes a fitting epitaph: 'When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr Gladstone I thought he was the cleverest man in England, but after sitting next to Mr Disraeli I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.'
A really good read.

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