I've heard a lot of people describe Richard Stallman as "unreasonable." I find Stallman instead to be one of the most persistently, relentlessly reasonable people whose thoughts I've ever encountered. Stallman may be a dogmatist, but the dogma is sincere and his own, not borrowed. A new book from the GNU Press called Free Software, Free Society collects several of his essays (and some other material) into one slim book. Stallman's essays document what his actions (as a programmer and through projects like GNU) have demonstrated concretely -- that the software future can be one primarily of rigorously open and freely, explicitly shareable code: a nightmare of control is not the only option. Free software enthusiasts might find little actually new: Those readers are probably already aware that control exercised through hidden, inaccessible bits is becoming more odious, more ubiquitous and more invisible. This makes the book worth reading especially to people who are currently not interested in the distribution and disclosure of software's source code. Unless you can completely disentangle the future of society from the future of software, this should concern you.

cpfeifer writes "Building browser-based java applications has involved a mixed bag of server side technologies (servlets, JSPs), client side technologies (HTML, Javascript) and frameworks (webmacro, Struts, Taglibs, Velocity). As these technologies appeared and matured, "The Right Way" (tm) to build web applications evolved to be an application of the classic model-view-controller pattern." Below is Craig's review of Struts in Action, a book which attempts to illustrate a successful path to making sure that web applications are designed the right way.

danny writes "Kenneth McNamara's Shapes of Time is a popular study of the role of growth and development in evolution, following in the footsteps of Stephen Jay Gould's influential Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Read on for my review of Shapes of Time."

rcr1001 writes "Turning Numbers into Knowledge (TNIK) is an entertaining and readable primer on practical problem solving. TNIK is about structured analytical thinking and Slashdot readers interested in improving the quality of their critical thinking skills should consider learning from this book." Read on for the complete review.

Jason Bennett writes "The Java Developer's Almanac is an interesting cross-breed of a book. On one hand, it's a reference book for the entire Java 1.4 API, complete with a listing for every method in every class in the API. On the other hand, it's a mini-tutorial, as it comes with myriad examples of how to use various Java classes. In the end, though, it's a book geared toward the advanced Java developer, especially one facing a new part of the API who needs a little guidance." Read on for his review.

Mirko Zorz writes "Internet Site Security - what a name for a book. When I first heard about it I was thinking: '1400 pages, 6 CDs,' but when the book came and I began to read through it, I realized how much good information the authors were able to fit into just over 400 pages. We all want 'big books' but with this one, the authors take a somewhat different approach, one that is less connected to software versions and that will endure in time. But, before we get into the core of the book, let's take a look at the people behind it." Mirko's review continues below.

nellardo writes "War of Honor is out, complete with the aforementioned CD-ROM full of free, unencrypted novels. If you're a true fan of Honor Harrington, you probably don't need this review - you've already bought the book. If you're just waiting for paperback, don't, because the CD-ROM included with the book is worth the price of the book. If you're new to the Honor Harrington series, reading the book itself is not the place to start, but with the entire series (and then some) on the CD, you might want to pick up the book anyway, just for the CD-ROM."

It is difficult today to remember how intimidating computers were for non-technical people in the early 1980s. In previous decades, the machines had been corralled into computer departments at universities and large businesses, and were the responsibility of trained personnel. However, in the early 1980s, people who might have been perfectly happy never getting closer to a computer than a Star Trek re-run were told that personal computers would be soon be on their desks at work. This created demand for books that introduced computers, defined basic jargon, and reassured American readers that they could master the machine when it inevitably arrived. The panic probably reached a peak in 1983, as did the response. In 1983, Time Magazine called the personal computer Man of the Year ("Machine of the Year" under the circumstances). In 1983, The Soul of a New Machine won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1983, Michael Crichton published Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers.

ianb104 writes "I was rushing home to catch the ending part of game 6 of the 1997 Kasparov vs. Deep Blue match, when the news came over the car radio that Kasparov resigned after less than one hour of play, to my great dismay. Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion brought back this memory and then some." Read on for the rest of Ian's review.

Liam writes "Tomcat is a subproject of the Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta project, its purpose being to serve Java Servlets and JavaServer Pages. It's a complex piece of software and though the documentation is very comprehensive, it helps to have a good reference work to hand. There aren't many books on the subject to choose from, so a publisher could make a fast buck putting out an incomplete work lacking in depth. Fortunately Wrox Press has done a great job with its new publication Professional Apache Tomcat." Read on for the rest of Liam's review.

Stella Daily writes "When the cool kids make fun of the geeks, the results are often lacking in wit ('Hey, Four-Eyes!') or simply inaccurate. We've all heard the joke about the computer programmer who, when given the choice of transforming a frog into a beautiful princess with a kiss, declines, saying he has no need for a beautiful woman, 'but a talking frog is REALLY cool!'" Read on for the rest of Stella's brief review of Science Askew to find out whether insiders can do a better job.

smarks writes "Java Development with Ant effectively shows the reader how Ant can be used as the foundation for the most complex Java software configuration solutions. The book is divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced sections, which makes it appropriate for a variety of audiences. The book has a comprehensive survey of tools that can be used with Ant such as JUnit, CheckStyle, Middlegen and XDoclet Even the experienced Ant user will find these sections helpful. Overall, Java Development with Ant is an excellent resource." Read on for the rest of Spencer's review.

David Kennedy writes with the following review of Pete McBreen's new Addison-Wesley title, Questioning Extreme Programming. It's one of the few books which casts a questioning look at the buzzwords and concepts of Extreme Programming; read on to see how well XP fares under McBreen's examination.

Spencerian writes "UNIX guru and writer Dave Taylor's Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours is a strong "rosetta stone" reference and tutorial for beginning and intermediate Mac OS X, Linux and UNIX system administrators. The book covers fundamental and specialized UNIX sysadmin tasks for three UNIX flavors: Red Hat Linux 7.2, Solaris 8, and Mac OS X, version 10.1.2. Although Mac OS X and Red Hat have advanced in versions since this book was published, it doesn't appear to affect the book's usefulness since many of the tasks involve the venerable UNIX command line." The rest of Kevin's review is below -- read on to see if this book might help you.

danny writes "Leading Spanish paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga has written a popular book on the Neanderthals, translated as The Neanderthal's Necklace: In Search of the First Thinkers. Read on for my review."

czarneki writes "This is the first book from Phobos Books, a new science fiction publisher based in New York. It's a collection of winning short stories from their 2001 fiction contest, and Orson Scott Card was one of the judges as well as the editor for the book. I knew nothing about this book before finding it in the sci-fi anthology section of the bookstore, and I only picked it up because OSC's name was on the cover. (For an unknown company and an unknown set of authors, this book has an impressive set of people associated with it: Doug Chiang, the design director for the new Star Wars movies, did the cover, and Lawrence Krauss of The Physics of Star Trek wrote a foreword.)" With that pedigree, I'm sure you'll want to read the rest of czarneki's review, below.

Slashdot's own Robo takes a look at SQL Fundamentals, writing "This beginner book takes a traditional look at the ever-popular Structured Query Language. Never bothered to learn SQL? Here's your chance. SQL Fundamentals, by John Patrick, takes a 834-page beginners look at the application of SQL to Access and Oracle. Read more for SQL Fundamentals' strengths, weaknesses and everything in-between."

BShive writes "Design Patterns is considered a classic for anyone in software development. The beginning third of the book is a solid introduction to patterns, while the last two thirds of the book is devoted to the patterns themselves. Many of the professionals out there probably already own a well-used copy of this book, but there are others who are wondering what all the fuss is about. The frequency of hearing about this text in discussions piqued my interest enough to buy it for myself. If you are interested in design patterns and are looking to use them, then this should be one of the books on your shelf." Read on for more.

Mike Clark writes "There are many security books on the shelves today. Most of them describe the same hacker tools and methods. They don't get very technical and once you've read one, you've read them all. Building Open Source Network Security Tools is a different breed of security book." Read on for the rest of Mike's review.

axis-techno-geek writes "This is the tenth Dune novel, and the fourth co-authored by Brian Herbert (the son of Frank Herbert) and acclaimed sci-fi writer Kevin J. Anderson. The story in this Dune novel takes place 10,000 years before the original Dune novel and gives the reader more foundation on how the empire we know from the previous 9 book came to be." Read on for the complete review.