Recent Reading:
The Definitive Guide to SQLite by Michael Owens. Apress
I recently decided that it was long overdue time for me to start moving the databases in my programs away from Sleepycat's Berkeley DB (recently purchased by Oracle, whom I don't trust) to SQL databases. Since I wanted built-in databases, SQLite seemed to be the only serious contender. I didn't really have much experience with SQL databases, so I needed a comprehensive book that would teach me about SQL as well as this specific database.
Michael Owens' book didn't disappoint me. It gave me a solid grounding in SQL and taught me how to use SQLite efficiently. The SQL material covers both relational theory and the actual language, while the SQLite specific material covers the use of the 'C' API, and the internals of how SQLite works. I doubt that most people would be likely to do programming at the latter level, but a knowledge of what goes on 'under the hood' makes it easier to program at a higher level. Comprehensive appendices cover an SQL alphabetical reference, and all the 'C' API functions.
I liked this book and thought it was well worth the money I paid for it.
Highly recommended.
Snipers, Shills & Sharks by Ken Steiglitz. Princeton University Press
This is a book not about eBay per se, but about auctions - their history and how they work, both from a technical and sociological and psychological angle. The reader will learn all about how auctions work and how eBay actiually works, which is something many of its users don't understand.
The explanations are clear and well written, the mathematics banished to a number of appendicies. I was impressed by this book and I learned a lot about auctions and human behaviour from it. I'd recommend it to anyone who uses ebay, or other on-line auction sites, regularly - you may be surprised at what your optimal strategies are!
Recommended.
Useless Arithemtic by Orrin H Pilkey & Linda Pilkey-Jarvis. Columbia University Press
Sub-titled 'Why environmental scientists can't predict the future', this book is a devastating survey of the consequnces of relying on quantative mathematic modelling to make environmental predictions.
The bulk of the book is a series of case studies covering the collapse of the Grand banks fishery (once the world greatest fish supply), Yucca mountain proposed nuclear waste repository, the rise in sea level, predictions of beach geology, open cast mine pollution predictions, and invasive plants.
The results make for a terrifying indictment of our attempts to predict futre events from mathematical model of past events. Time and again the models have been proved wrong, but with fudge factors added to get the politically 'correct' predictions, the reasons for the glaring failures are never analysed.
The discussions and explanations are easy for the non-mathematicians to follow, and for those with a maths bent there is a section at the end which gives the mathematics of the models.
Highly recommended.
Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark, Penguin
Christopher Clark's history of Prussia is, to say the least, comprehensive. It's also interesting, covering as it does the whole period from 1600 until the end of World War II. Occasionally, it gets a little dry, but most of the time it is a well written portrayal of not just the royal court, but also of peasants, burgers, aristos, merchants and the emerging of the working class.
Although the book charts the rise and eventual fall of the Hohenzollern dynasty, it does so within the framework of the geopolitics of a state that was peculiarly vulnerable to attack for most of its existence. It also traces the two influences that defined the Prussian state - militarism and a progressive and enlightened liberalism.
Fascinating, and fundamental to understanding the 20th Century history of Europe.
Learning PHP and MySQL (2nd ed) by Michele E Davis & Jon A Phillips
This is an adequate, though uninspired, look through the basics of using PHP and MySQL to build dynamic web sites. Because it is trying to cover two major topics from a starter level it is unable to treat either in the depth needed for the reader to become fluent in either the use of SQL databases, or PHP.
However, the book also suffers from a serious flaw which renders it unfit to be used by those wishing to learn the subjects involved. The sample code is frequently incorrect, and this will cause endless confusion for newcomers. It is clear that insufficient attention has been paid to making sure the code is correct, which would seem to indicate that the authors haven't even tried to run the code they present. What the editors at O'Reilly were thinking of when they let this go through, I really don't know.
Not recommended.
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Penguin
The art of the sustained polemic is not dead! In an age where bland agreement with the current fad is 'in', Nicholas Taleb has written a book that not only takes apart the pretensions of the market traders and other would-be oracles, but also reintroduces robustness into debate.
Some people won't like the style, of course. That's sad, because they will also be missing a very informative book. It really does tell you a lot about randomness in life, what it means, and possible strategies for dealing with it.
As a computer programmer I was particularly struck by the discussion of how easy it is to mistake noise for signal by looking at phenomena at the wrong scale. That's a small part of the discussion though, others will find nuggets relating to their own experience as they read through the book.
I liked this book. I liked the irreverence - arrogance even - with which Taleb dispatches his enemies, and turns 'common sense' upside down.
Highly recommended.
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