oxgoad writes "Sun Microsystems, Federal Express, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory -- what do they have in common? All have used, or are currently using, the programming language Forth in critical subsystems of their products or processes. 'What is this language Forth?' you ask. Forth has been called 'One of the best-kept secrets in the computing world.' Read on for a review of the book Forth Application Techniques authored by Elizabeth D. Rather."

Craig Maloney writes "Linux Programming By Example is a book aimed squarely at programmers learning how to program the Linux and UNIX system for the first time." Read Craig's review of Linux Programming by Example (below) to find his take on whether the book delivers on the promise of its title.

TheThinMan writes "This is the completely updated second edition. Four years ago I made the first edition my constant companion and it has saved me, and any other web developer nearby, weeks of head-scratching since. Back then we had to tussle with Netscape Navigator 4 vs. Internet Explorer 4 while supporting the version 3 browsers. Though the browser war is over and all sides have vastly improved their products, DHTML has moved on. This edition brings home just how much has changed and just how much is new. Most importantly, it helps you to develop web interfaces that will be cross-platform from the outset." TheThinMan's thoughts on the book continue below.

EnlightenmentFan writes "In When Things Start to Think, MIT Media Lab whiz Neil Gershenfeld predicts an appealing future of seamless, foolproof computers. User alert: Relentless optimism ahead. (I am ready to let MIT graft smart chips into my skin some day after my PC goes a week without crashing.) This is the book to buy for your folks to get them excited about nerds. It does also have some interesting stuff for nerds themselves." Read on for Enlightenment Fan's review.

bbagnall writes "Vehicles, by Valentino Braitenberg, presents a different way of thinking about thinking, one tied more closely to sensing and acting as opposed to long, detailed calculations. In many ways it's similar to the strategy of robot programming advocated by Rodney Brooks, however Braitenberg's ideas came first so he probably deserves more recognition for this train of thought than the much more publicized Brooks." The book is not new (it's in reprint mode now, was published first in 1986), but relevance trumps novelty. Read on for the rest of the review.

habit forming writes "Enjoy using Perl? Ever marvel at how Perl can "do the right thing" but still be written in C? Extending and Embedding Perl aims to take the black magic out of understanding our favorite language. In fact, the authors flat out admit they think it is unfair that only so few of us get to have one foot in Perl and one in C. Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens attempt to break down that barrier with lots of annotated code examples, direct analogies from the structures in Perl to those in C, a fine-grain look at XS and what it takes to robustly use a Perl interpreter in C."

Peter Wayner writes "The book Creating Applications with Mozilla did not set out to capture the essence of modern open source software development in a few hundred pages, but it comes closer to that unreachable goal than almost any other book I can imagine. Everything is there: the proliferation of acronyms, the funky names, the endless layers, the earnest collaboration, the unstoppable yearning for customizability, and, of course, plenty of source code. The book is just supposed to be teaching us how to turn Mozilla into a front end for everything, but it's really a distilled exhibit of all that is hip and now in code creation." Peter's review continues below.

actiondan writes: "Constructing Accessible Web Sites is about how to build websites that can be used by people who rely on assistive technologies to browse the web. When I picked up this book, accessibility was an area that interested me but I am now convinced that it should be in the thoughts of every web developer. Some of the laws that are emerging to regulate accessibility look positively scary and there are lots of other good reasons to take accessibility seriously." Read on for the rest of his review.

David Kennedy writes "This is a review of Tom DeMarco's recent Broadway title, Slack, sub-titled Getting past burnout, busywork, and the myth of total efficiency." Relax, and read on below to find out how good a case DeMarco makes for keeping slack.

canadian_right sent in this review of a self-published book available through the Xlibris service. He writes, "You've heard of the web service that will publish anyone's book for a reasonable fee, but wondered if any of the books are worth buying? If you like fantasy with a dash of science fiction you will likely enjoy Reflecting Fires."

oxgoad writes "Need a closed-form algorithm to derive square roots? Stymied by strange and scary results from your favorite compiler's math library? Math Toolkit for Real-Time Programming by Jack W. Crenshaw attempts to shed some numerical light. Read on for the goods." Oxgoad's review continues below.

Nice2Cats writes "Python is something of a programmer's dream and an author's nightmare. What started life as a scripting tool for the Amoeba operating system has matured into a full-blown programming language with such speed that every book seems to be outdated in a year or two. To make matters worse for publishers, the crew around Python's creator Guido van Rossum keeps adding higher-level constructs such as iterators with every new release, reducing reams of code to single-line idioms at half-year intervals. Because not everybody has been able to keep up -- RedHat 7.3 infamously still ships with version 1.5.2 as the default, while SuSE 8.0 is hanging in there with version 2.2 -- authors are forced to cover stone age variants as well as modern forms. Python is cross-platform (Unix/Linux, Mac, Microsoft), has two underlying languages (C for Python, Java for Jython) and works with various GUIs (Tkinter, wxWindows, Qt, GTK, curses, Swing). Given this breadth of material, the idea of writing that most fragmented form of a programming book, a 'Cookbook,' seems as crazy as, say, nailing a dead parrot to its perch." Read Nice2Cats's review below of The Python Cookbook to see how well O'Reilly deals with dead parrots.

genehack writes "Long-time weblogger Rebecca Blood's The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog is an excellent introduction to the currently white-hot world of weblogs. Blood covers all the bases, from a history of the weblog form, through starting a blog of your own, and finally onto finding (and retaining) readers for your site. The book doesn't offer as much for the veteran blogger, but even the bloggeratti won't go away completely empty-handed -- Blood's weblog history provides a valuable common vocabulary for debating what is and isn't a weblog, and her discussion of weblog ethics should be required reading for anybody who claims to be serious about their weblogging." Genehack's review continues below.

If you have fond memories of happily donating quarters to the Konami corporation for hours on end, or thinking how cool the Dragon's Lair graphics were, or better yet can remember when Pong was hip, you may enjoy Alex McLintock's review below of High Score: An Illustrated History of Electronic Games. Update: 10/04 16:17 GMT by T : Yes, this is the same High Score that Jon Katz reviewed a few months ago.

Spencerian writes "I've become quite accustomed the depth of co-author Dave Taylor's writing on UNIX in previous books such as Teach Yourself UNIX in 24 Hours . As you can note from Dave's recent writing credits, his experience and knowledge of UNIX is vast and varied. That said, I was mildly disappointed with this latest offering that discusses the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X." Spencerian explains the logic underlying that conclusion in his complete review, below.

zenomorph writes: "I first heard of this book on amazon.com on a Monday morning, and read the reviews of people who had purchased this book. I noticed that there were no reviews from any person in the web security community had commented on it, either on Amazon or anywhere else (with the exception of two brief comments on the back of the book, of which one was written by the person who wrote the book's foreword). So I decided to pick it up on Friday after I left work and see what it had to offer. After picking up the book I noticed it was co-authored by three people who all work for Foundstone, a very large security company that deals with everything (including web security). This review will cover some of the topics covered in this book, along with things that could or should have been covered in greater detail." Read on for the rest of zenomorph's review.

David Kennedy writes: "This is a review of Brett McLaughlin's new O'Reilly title, Building Java Enterprise Applications. Volume 1: Architecture, subtitled Designing with EJBs, Databases, and Directory Servers." Read David's in-depth review, below.

Are Flagan writes with the review below of Hacker Culture. Flagan says this book "truly marks the entry of the 'hacker' into the realm of academia" -- a point which has both good and bad consequences. Read on to see if you might enjoy Hacker Culture as much as Flagan did.

David Kennedy writes with a review of Tom DeMarco's older Dorset House title, Why does software cost so much? (sub-title: And Other Puzzles of the Information Age.) Sounds like something to put in the same section of your library as Frederick Brooks Jr.'s The Mythical Man Month .

RickHigh writes "The BEA WebLogic Server Bible is an enjoyable read. If you have been using WebLogic off and on since before EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans) existed, you will still learn a bunch of new tricks. This is an excellent reference that can be read from cover to cover. The book focuses on small examples with an emphasis of deploying and configuring the examples in the WebLogic environment." BEA's WebLogic is an application server -- as such, it sits in a small enough niche that you won't find a full shelf of helpful books at your local Borders. If hosting applications for a large organization is part of your work, though, you should read on.