[Book Review] Code Reading : The Open Source Perspective

Code Reading : The Open Source Perspective:

Source code reading is an activity meant to provide:

1. Insight into the design of a system
2. Relevant information for reuse of parts of a system (extension, modification, reuse of a systems aspects)
3. Debugging info on a system
4. Re-factoring and maintainance of a system.
5. Reverse Engineering of a system

The book could be reorganized for accessibility-at-a-glance. Thereby reducing the need to go through it entirely. Focus of the book can be made more action-oriented and rationale oriented.

However there is  an Appendix of maxims from the book chapters.I really didn't feel upto reading the book in its entirety.
So I confined myself to the maxims. These are not directly usable off-the-shelf.
They could be made more action oriented without being too generic or too specific.

Some reflection on the maxims alone helped to get insight into the Where, What, How and Why of code reading.

[BookReview] Why Programs Fail by Andreas Zeller

[BookReview] Hacking Firefox - More than 150 Hacks, Mods and Customizations

Simple easy-to-use how-to full of tips-n-tricks for automating, configuring and customizing firefox to your specific needs.
Table of Contents is good with 2 versions - At-A-Glance and Detailed so you can just scan it for your current needs without having to go through the entire book/index.
Gives enough background info to get you started and understand how firefox works.
This approach helps you tweak it just so.

[Book Review] Apprenticeship Patterns - Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman

First off - A Huge "Thank-You":
To both of Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye, for writing this Jewel-of-a-Book:
"Apprenticeship Patterns - Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman"
I Especially loved the long snaking road set in an emerald green landscape. "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever"

It was the missing view of the jig-saw puzzle.A birds eye-view of a completed jig-saw puzzle.
The beauty of it - everything fitting in perfectly.

I'd been regularly using some of the patterns for as long as I can remember. Study The Classics and quite a few others. But somewhere there was a gnawing thought - That I was missing something.
It's been a long and wearying quest - "There's gotta be a better way".

Until I found this book:  
"Apprenticeship Patterns - Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman"
It was like an Emerald Oasis emerging from the burning sands (almost seemed like a mirage at first)

[BookReview] Flight of the Phoenix

How the minds of men work esp. in bad situations, is the theme of this book. People who look really strong may not be so strong in adverse conditions...
This book reminds of that Hyundai Ad : "Because we dream.... Because we do"

Actually if you think about it the main reason for the emergence of man above the other animals could very well be a message of this story...
How man beat the seemingly unsurmountable odds, given his weaknesses, his lack of strength and powerful enemies...
Then again... Maybe not.

A plane carrying a monkey, a group of oil workers, british soldiers and an inventor crashes in the Sahara!!

How they handle the situation, fight it and nearly lose their lives is what the book is about.

Amazon Link:
"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060762225/qid=1148198976/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-4284932-1536067?s=books&v=glance&n=283155"

[BookReview] Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick

"See the Universe in a Grain of Sand, the mini-whirl pool of your swirling tea or the arch of a tendril, the milky mountains in the sky..."

Beauty lies all around and so does turmoil and disorder otherwise known as Chaos!!

Chaotic systems like a kettle of water or weather have a surprising 'eye of the storm' kinda quality. Self organizing systems tend to find order in chaos.

For example during a heart attack a persons neurons misfire and make the heart beat erratic. The standard method is to shock the heart back into order. How does adding more chaos into an already chaotic event bring about order??!! That is what is known as a self organizing system.

Did you know that our body itself has such an amazing design that no cell in the body is more than 2-3 cells away from the blood distribution system. No distribution system invented by man is so accessible.

I was so obsessed with what I read in this book that I got a temporary nickname "Captain Chaos!!"

Written by a Journalist - James Gleick - about the abstruse world of Physics and Mathematics, it tells the gripping tale of how Chaos and Order are 2 sides of the same coin.... Since he's a journalist and not a physicist he tends to bring out the essentials without submerging into formulas... Also the human element of the people involved in the evolution of this field of science makes the tale more tangible.

See Also: 
Link to Author website on Chaos
Book Link to Amazon