CSH Book Reviews

Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners

admin — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:08:14 -0500

I have to admit that I was a bit humbled by the title. Kids? I'm 24! I'm a full-blown professional scientist-type! What could a kids' book on programming offer me? read more »

Zune Game Development using XNA 3.0

admin — Mon, 02 May 2011 12:47:40 -0400

For someone who did not know much about C# and XNA before now, I felt that this book was a great learning experience. Not only did the author explore game development concepts, but he explained C# and XNA to the reader, ensuring that they understood all topics. read more »

Intermediate Robot Building

admin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:10:54 -0400

David Cook's second book is an excellent sequel to the first. Like Robot Building for Beginners, this is a hobbyist book aimed at those interested in tabletop robotics. It documents his exploration in robotics using easy-to-get parts for most hobbyists, and does good job of explaining the basic theory to the layperson. A basic understanding of electronics and mechanics is useful to take away as much as possible from the book, but with just the skills learned in the first book, it is easy to copy his simple designs. read more »

CLR via C#

admin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:06:37 -0400

The newest edition of CLR via C# brings this comprehensive volume up to spec on addressing many of the details regarding the CLR in .NET 4.0. This book covers almost anything you can imagine wanting to know about how the CLR operates, all in the context of the C# programming language. It has very detailed chapters on the basics such as assemblies and the CLR's execution model, going into detail on type definitions and how they are handled, content on how exception handling and garbage collection are managed in the CLR, etc. You name it, it's probably covered. read more »

The Definitive Guide to Pylons

admin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:02:37 -0400

The Definitive Guide to Pylons is clearly a comprehensive book on a complex subject. I struggled with Pylons development a lot when starting out (and still do in some regards), and this book helped me understand the architecture, the reasons why things were designed and implemented the way they are, and the general philosophy of the framework. The book has very comprehensive sections on setting up a basic site, using views and the model, and doing more interesting things with routing. There are also good sections on testing, internationalization and localization, and AJAX. read more »