A small book that takes a critical look at Java and other languages (Ruby, PHP, ) at a moment in time.

I say ‘at a moment in time’ because this book will lose relevance very quickly – even more quickly than the typical nerd book.

In a nutshell:

• You get a brief history lesson on languages and their problems.
• You get a perspective of the problems that Java developers face.
• You get perspective on the subject from interviews with several big-wig names in the field.
• You get an overview of Ruby and Rails.

My complaints:

• The author likes to introduce his chapters with kayaking stories that are suppose to reflect what he is about to talk about … I would just skip those parts because I am not into kayaking.
• Question of accuracy: he mentions (page 174) that PHP does not have enough structure. This is a silly statement given that there are SEVERAL PHP frameworks out there that provide the exact same structure as Rails – some even copy Rails.

Conclusion:

I liked the book and it was a worthwhile read. It has a few problems but it does open your eyes to things.

That said, the title of the book should have been: ‘Beyond Java and why I love Ruby’.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 11:39 am and is filed under Nerd Book Reviews, Ruby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.