Book Reviews

If you are looking for a quick and fun introduction into statistics, The Manga Guide to Statistics is right up your alley. It introduces and teaches the many topics that one would learn about in an introduction to statistics class in a very efficient and entertaining manner, even the equations! Each of the seven chapters explains the material in a cartoon, and concludes with a concise text explanation along with a few practice problems and answers. The Manga Guide to Statistics starts out by introducing the difference between categorical and numerical data, and works the reader up to probability density functions, various correlation techniques, and hypothesis testing. There is even a section on how to use Microsoft Excel to analyze your data for you! Each concept is introduced using real life situations where we are presented data, and is used to answer specific questions one may have about said data. This problem-based approach makes you want to continue reading and figure out how to answer the question.

Wow. That's probably the best thing I can say about this book. I am a computer scientist who has always been fascinated with art and art history, and as of late I have been experimenting with computational creativity, technology art, and generally messing with the visual and the technical. I have looked through several books and essays that discuss art and technology, but they are all stuffy works that talk about how the new media is the wave of the future and really give no advice as to what artists can do with technology. Here, finally, is a book that gets what computational art is. From the introduction through the reference, this book covers the Processing language and art hand in hand. Processing is by far the easiest computer art programming environment and so the text never gets too far ahead of itself and allows the author to continue to discuss art and technique rather than belabor how to draw a line. I'm not sure any other book or programming environment allows artists the instant freedom of expression. As a computer scientist, this book is great at covering the essentials of Processing. As an artist, I am most pleased by the coverage of art and technology, hearkening back to "techne." This is a wonderful book that I highly recommend.

Mark Pilgrim's Dive Into Python books are exactly what they say they are: a way to jump straight into Python development. This is both a benefit and a hindrance. On the one hand, reading this book and following the examples, one will be set to write Python applications and get to work using the language. The book is good at being informative and in-depth. On the other hand, diving into the complexities of ODBC and SOAP is not the best way to learn the language if you're just a hobbyist programmer. The examples are rather large and complicated for something that is ostensibly an introductory text and I am afraid I was lost quite a bit working through the examples. I was expecting a very light read, but the book left me confused a few times. However, the book is well written and it is clear that the author cares about the reader. I would not recommend the book to someone just starting programming, but to an advanced programmer or someone in industry, Dive Into Python is a good introduction to the language.

This is great reference book for network engineers. It goes through every layer of the OSI model as it relates to networking and explains how protocols and technologies work in those layers with clear and concise explanations and graphics. It also includes some maths so you can convince those with the checkbooks of the cost of supporting a large-scale network. Look up MTBF. In the last pages of the book you get a short article that discusses the colophon (cover art) on the front of the book. In this case it is a reindeer. So you get a great book about networking and a free article on reindeer. What more could you ask for? This is now my first source on reindeer and large-scale networking.

In Programming Erlang, by Joe Armstrong, you will cover a very wide range of topics related to the Erlang programming language. This book is great for beginners and experts alike. The focus of the first section of the book is really on introducing the language and teaching all of the basic and intermediate functional programming concepts associated with it. The rest of the book dives into more complex topics such as concurrent programming, network programming, working with databases, and interfacing with code written in other languages. The end of the book has several great appendices including a fairly comprehensive module and function reference and a section on additional resources. Throughout the book Armstrong makes great use of code examples and figures to make sure that you are learning the concepts correctly. He has several actually practical applications such as a chat system, SHOUTcast server, and search engine. These examples are great because they are used to illustrate why a programming language like Erlang is well suited for a number of practical situations.

All in all, I liked the book when reading it. I found it very easy to follow what the author was trying to explain and there was always a good focus on why Erlang was a language worth learning. I also appreciated the fact that the book was broken down into decent chunks based upon your level. It is very easy to jump into the middle of the book and start learning if you already have a good foundation of basic Erlang. The best part is that the preface is focused on explaining this exact breakdown of the book and what you should expect to learn from the various parts. I would definitely recommend this as a great beginning book for Erlang, especially for someone who wants to rapidly advance into higher level material.