When Written: Oct 2008
I’m often asked if I can recommend any good technical books that are readable, rather than, as so many of them seem to be based on a single application and the authors efforts to build this app. Great if that is what you are wanting to do, but then why don’t you just download some free code for somewhere. No, what a lot of readers seem to want is a way of getting their ‘heads round’ a particular technology. I find visiting various conferences very good for this but this can be expensive. Our friends O’Reilly publishing have a range of books called ‘Brain-Friendly Guides’ and I came across ‘Head First Ajax’ the other day and found it most readable with lots of graphics being used to illustrate the points. It reminded me a bit of a early Basic programming book back in the late 70’s called ‘Illustrating Basic’ by Donald Alcock. Hands up all those of you who remember it? I have not been able to find my copy of it and it seems to be out of print, but it was one of the books that first got me started in this fascinating and challenging industry, something I don’t regret.
Article by: Mark Newton
Published in: Mark Newton