A must have for Django developers! Seriously.. ...
935378
A must have for Django developers! Seriously... the information in this book covers the nooks and crannies of using Django. Worth every penny!
3052543
You've downloaded Eclipse.  You've coded with the Java IDE.  You've loved the refactoring and incremental compilation.  Now you have an idea for a new cool plug-in that you think everyone will love.
If this describes you, you need this book.
I've been developing Eclipse plug-ins commercially for over a year.  Previously, I had to teach myself by reading and/or searching:
1) Articles on Eclipse.org
2) The online help
3) The newsgroup
4) The source code to Eclipse itself
--not necessarily in that order.
Now I just turn to this book.  It almost always answers my questions quickly and succinctly.  Even with over a year of Eclipse background gained by teaching myself, I continually feel amazed at how quickly and how much this book has increased the depth of my understanding about how to write Eclipse plug-ins.
It is obvious when reading this book that (as professional teachers/trainers) the authors of this book have already taught this information many times and know what tends to trip people up.  Their writing style flows with the ease of great familiarity with and confidence about their material.  And their code examples work.
1741296
Oracle's Application Express (aka ApEx, formerly HTMLDB) is an amazing foundation for developing database-driven web applications.  It is easy for a novice, yet very flexible for a software developer.  Unfortunately, there have not been any good references published until now.  Scott and Spendolini have created a wonderful reference and tutorial that surpasses anything else out there.

The chapters on Ajax and JavaScript and the APEX Dictionary were extremely helpful to me as a developer.

I was disappointed that there was no section on validation.

Overall, it was excellent, and if I could give 4.5 stars, I would.

Tom Hubbard
Software Developer
2716515
http://www.amazon.com/Two-Scoops-Django-Best-Practices/dp/0981467342?ie=UTF8&redirect=true&ref_=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0
4222005
i had to purchase this book for a web design course that i'm taking, and it is extremely useful. prior to this, i have purchased past versions of visual quick start guides for older versions of various adobe products and i have always been impressed. this is a wonderful guide for newbies who have never used dreamweaver before!
1769225
I needed it someone who can explain me how to start a Django application, without loose to much time studying or googling and hopefully I found this guide, few pages, easy to read and straight to the point!
Of course it's just a start kit, later you need read something else, but for a noob like me was perfect! :-)
485650
Just absolutely terrific book.  Stephen Burge's version is absolutely the one.  I looked at several, and I am an absolute newbie.

I bought a Synology DS713+ to host my website and one of the many free Packages that Synology offers is Joomla to create a website, and a MySQL database to manage it.

This book presents very clear instructions, and shows what each screen should look like.  Truth to tell, it took about 4 hours of working with this book and with Joomla itself, following the examples in the book, to create my first website.  I just went up to page 100 or so, and not only could use it well enough to create a starter site, but I can see the quite logical way in which Joomla is organized and used.  Joomla is astonishingly powerful and malleable, as well as simple to use.  You never see code.  You make a change in Site Administration, and there it is on the website.

Joomla is a CMS Content Management System.  It allows you to type in text and imports pics to your webpages, and manage the look of your pages, navigation, etc.  It turns out that creating a website is astonishingly simple Joomla and using this book, and the book gives a lot of good, sort of sidelight advice.

As a final note, it was easy to create the web site, but what had me stumped was actually installing my joomla-produced site on the Synology DS713+.  There are things involved, including getting a fixed IP address, a domain name, and a security certificate from StartCom, setting up the DNS on the DS713+, and more.  I figured all of this out, but I have zero experience in actually installing the website on the server.

It turns out that you create your website in Joomla, then  open FileStation file manager and you can see the target file for any internet visitor.  "\web" is a shared folder automatically created on the DS713+ when you set it up.  The target file is web\index.html.  Rename it to, e.g., web\originalindex.html.  Then go to the folder at web\joomla and copy everything, directories and all, up to the web\ folder.  Don't cut and paste.  I experimented.  Voila!
2187856
I give this book a 3.  I think the way it is presented and the pace is good. However I think a lot of the errors go beyond just minor  typos and cause much confusion and waste of time.  On the bright side, figuring out why the code doesn't work and finding the errors in the book was also very instructive and showed to me that Djangos error system is very good.

I would like to find a book that would let you display images in a Django app with the development server, out of the box.  Does anyone know how to do it?
183758
Firstly, procure this book! Read it! Use it! Love it?! Leave it, in an accessible area, because you will be referencing and using it again, and again.

Secondly, pardon the lateness on this review; I told Mark the author I would get this done sooner, but I'll use the good ol' excuse "work has been busy- site launches and whatnot."  To provide some context to my opinions here,  I am a somewhat 'green' developer, and not a seasoned vet... so my review is telling the story of how this book has fit into extending my competencies as a web-developer... okay, I'm hoping those were useful "disclaimers"!

Easy enough, that is the appropriate segue to my review, the long-version; because if you are like me and must do high-quality work, professionally (or hope-to-be professionally) writing software... then quality is the name of the game - Yet in practice knowing what is quality and what is not, how to measure things such as performance, capacity, amongst so many other components of "testable" javascript - can be quite elusive - to say the least!

Things* can't break, but they do break, and we know that when they do break no one is happy. *I'm using some abstract verbiage here to refer to the whole UX ecosystem that web-developers engage with.  When money is on the line, will your scripts, programs, softwares be up to par?

So how do we prevent the breaking (and stress) from happening to us?  How can I test my code,  optimize my processes, identify and fix bugs, avoid putting anti-patterns into production... address preventable issues beforehand (rather than after in a panic) ???

The questions can go on and on, and for the longest time I've wondered how I would go about answering these questions.  Many other texts I've consulted never tend to delve into the nuts-and-bolts and 'what to look for' of the other half of programming (not just the typing part), which includes testing and quality-control.  How would I improve my code?  How would I begin to measure these things?

Testable Javascript provides the road-map - a detailed guide into the many ins-and-outs of methods/approaches to writing better quality code.  This consolidates the tools and techniques to test, tells you ways to provide metrics on the code-base you develop, as well as going outside the scope of pure JavaScript to use Java (even a bit of Perl) to introduce tooling and automation, excellent things to know and more importantly to be using hand in hand with your coding practice...
All meaning greater and greater consistency in the code, in addition to quality and efficiency gains.

Eventually, after a bit of practice, these protocols make a developer's life significantly easier, ..err okay at very least provide some "sanity" to the madness.  Simply put: Reading this, you will become smarter about your coding, and it will show the love back to you for it. If you are afraid because none of what I'm saying makes any sense, and it sounds like I'm speaking Greek*... well then all the more reason to educate oneself on the topic!  *Curiously, I wonder if Greeks ever say "You're speaking English to me!"... (end-tangent...)

I can go on all day, so I will tie this up with some parting thoughts - O'Reilly has put out some, in my opinion, seminal master works on JavaScript, starting with The Good Parts by Dougie Crockford (coincidentally I have no idea if he prefers to be called 'Dougie' ;)  I'm happy to say this book is right there with Good Parts; both work in unison, with clearly varying aims, to help cement the best-practices and understandings of our favourite, and most widely-used, web language.

I don't need to explain to anyone about the excitement or projects javascript is generating, or talk about how it's here to stay and become ever more important - people already know these things, so if you want to know more and not just the fluff material about some particular specific implementation, but something that will advance your practice as a whole - then you know what to do.
4787522
I knew nothing about html, css or anything else related to building websites before I bought this book.  I needed to develop a custom website for my new small business, and didn't want to spend $2000+ for someone else to do it.  Reading this book was (is) very enjoyable and formatted in a very easy-to-understand manner (and I don't really like reading books), and I was actually able to apply the information to real-world situations for building my first website and writing all of the code myself.

One of the best parts is how easy it is to use the TOC and index to re-reference topics when I need to insert new code of a specific topic.  Plus, the included software / content on the CD-ROM is extremely helpful (Aptana is great!).

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to build a great foundation for developing websites by writing XHTML code.  The Styling with CSS minibook helps you get the exact custom look for your website.  I still have to delve into JavaScript and PHP to enhance my website's functionality to allow my visitors to download files, and I'm excited to keep learning from this wonderful book!

P.S. I ordered the book at 5:30 PM on a Thursday evening, and it arrived at my door on Friday afternoon just before noon (with standard shipping)!  Thanks again for the great service, Amazon.
1143633
This is a great book, it will guide you thru your initial first steps and beyond, I recommend to anyone that is starting or have not used very much HTML before. The several links that the author gives you (according to the chapter that you are reading), will point you to "HOT websites" where you can get further information or download software for your web development and learning. example that he is talking about.  Great examples and fun that is to read this book, THIS BOOK IS A MUST!!!!!!!(The authors:Molly and Dick are GREAT instructors)
150421
I've bought what seems to (my wife) be every Python book out there and I can't tell you how sick I am of spam, spam, spam code! (trivial and obfuscated Python code examples with a common theme focused around one Monty Python skit or another...) Spam code seems to prevail in other Python books.

Here finally is a book with code examples that are very clear, are immediately useful to the serious programmer and filled with real life discourse on relative performance differences between Python and other languages that have a reputation for speed.  There are clear examples of 'number crunching', producing images and even video animations, hooks into other scientific packages such as MathLab, etc.

If you are interested in really learning Python, want to come away from an hour or twos worth of coding experience with a module or two that you can use tomorrow and are not interested in code examples extolling Monty Python silliness, then this is the book for you.

While this book is about twice as expensive as many of my other Python books, I wish I had purchased this one first.  Even though I've been using Python, seemingly every day, for two years, I kept finding nuggets in this book with what seemed to be every turn of the page.  My focus right now is processing extremely large data sets of binary data but I'll soon be looking at image processing and I know I'll be reaching for this book over and over again.  Don't hesitate!  Just buy the book!
4252472
As soon as your star, ego-swollen developer signs on, you should hand them anything by Booch and also this book. Then quiz him or her. Get your developers on track from day one and prevent the spaghetti code and  maintenance nightmare you'll be nursing in two years.
This is an  unusually complete pattern guidebook which contains very specific,  practical coding gems applicable in any language conducive to  object-oriented development e.g. Java, C++, Powerbuilder, and yes, with  enough sweat, even VB. It is not a "Patterns for Idiots" book,  and it's not the definitive JDK reference, but it sits right in front of me  on my desk (with several earmarks).
As a consultant, I'm constantly  mulling through others' bad code, and in the back of my mind I'm always  thinking "Who was the idiot who taught these folks to code! "  The examples in this book will point developers in the right direction,  regardless of their background.
The format is excellent, and what I like  best about this book is that the author clearly explains when to use a  particular pattern and WHY. For example, "What's the difference  between a HashTable and HashMap?" Simple question... but when and how  to use each one is clearly explained for both JDK 1.1 and 1.2
It is also  an excellent "bridge" book for bringing developers from another  language into Java, and it lays an excellent foundation for developers of  any experience level.
Kudos to Mr. Langr... now please hurry with an  "Essential XML Style" book.
1380542
Finally Drupal developers have a new Drupal book on development that believes in hand holding and step-by-step instructions.  The new Drupal book by Kurt Madel,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Drupal-7-Development-by-Example-Beginner-s-Guide/dp/1849516804/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Drupal 7 Development by Example Beginner's Guide</a>, is a much needed addition to the galaxy of Drupal books.  Drupal 7 Development by Example teaches the reader how to use Drupal on several different development platforms.  Using this book you will learn how to install and use Drupal on your choice of computing platforms.  Madel shows readers how to use Mac, Ubuntu and Windows to create custom Drupal sites.  Madel gets extra kudos for teaching readers how to install and use both Git and Drush, two important and powerful tools in Drupal development circles, on multiple platforms.  Madel also covers installing and using another powerful tool; the free Aptana IDE for PHP-based Drupal projects.  The first few chapters alone will save the sanity of new to moderate Drupal developers by providing them secure footing on their development adventures.

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 provide essential guidance for newbies in custom content types, HTML 5 and theming.  These three chapters will empower beginning developers, non-profits groups and business owners to build functionality that meets their specific needs with some added some jazz through HTML 5 and theming.

Chapters 5 through 11 provide additional customization for Drupal sites by teaching readers to add media, use the Webform module, ColorBox module, FiveStar module, Views and ViewsSlideShow modules, and SimpleTest module.  With these modules Madel teaches the reader to make a custom Drupal site that will stand out online and will be remembered by visitors and clients.  Overall Madel's book,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Drupal-7-Development-by-Example-Beginner-s-Guide/dp/1849516804/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Drupal 7 Development by Example Beginner's Guide</a>&nbsp;is just that- an easy to read, use and understand book with a sensible approach to learning to create custom Drupal sites.

Also you may want to use another Drupal 7 book by Veron Denny&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Drupal-7-Webform-Cookbook/dp/1849516480/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Drupal 7 Webform Cookbook</a>&nbsp;to add even more power to your Drupal website and Webforms modules.
3812758
Hello,
I just wanted to send a note to THANK YOU for this priceless set (Access 2002 Developer's Handbook Set)!
I'm a novice, developer-in-training and thought that there would be no way I could possibly benefit from such an advanced publication, but many newsgroups praised it, so I bought it, just in case.
So although I purchased the set close to 5 months ago, I would lug it to and from work and home, but never delving into it. I had a problem last night and posted it to the Access newsgroup hosted by Microsoft. One of the responders made a reference to the set. "Hey, I have those books", I thought.
I started flipping through the pages of the Enterprise edition and stumbled across page 68, "User List and Connection Control". I copied the frmViewUsers form into a database I've created for my company and felt an instantaneous chill surge through me!! Formerly, whenever I had to do maintenance on the mdb, I would have to make an announcement over the PA to ask people to get out of it, hope everyone heard it and hope that no one would try to get in it. No more!!. I can see who's in it, and request they exit via email and even prevent others from opening it. I can't begin to tell you how gratifying it is to purchase a product hoping that it meets your needs and it actually does!!
This encouraging experience has motivated me to take on the challenge to learn more from this set and hopefully improve my skills.
And for that, I thank you.
Damon Johnson
2989745
Just finished <Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging> by Karen M. Tracy.

The chapter on using the Python debugger alone was worth the cost of the entire book. Even though it (obviously) doesn't include information about Django's newer testing features/integration, all the information is incredibly relevant.

The author walks the reader through building a simple survey application, addressing best practices on debugging, testing, efficiency and resiliency along the way. It reads like a brisk but casual conversation with the author -- I feel almost surprised at the amount of technical knowledge conveyed so effortlessly. No words wasted, no pointless ramblings.

Highly recommended (if you're into this kinda thing).
265914
I have been using Joomla! for about 9 months now and have done fairly well in creating a couple of websites. But it was always a bit of a struggle to get a good overview as I would just click on this or that and see where it took me.

Dr. Griffin clearly and logically walks through the total process: from downloading the Joomla! software to installation, then through each step in creating your own website. I found myself having mini-epiphanies as I followed her directions. What I had struggle through previously, now was made clear.

I recommend this book to anyone wishing to enter the realm of web creation as it will take the mystery out of the process and get you up and running your own website in no time at all!