A long, long time ago before I started CaseySoftware, I didn't understand the point of an introduction.  I considered it irrelevant and not all that important to day to day business, goals, or even your personal/professional standing...

Disclaimer: The author of this book - Bob Walsh - was a CodeSniper last year, set me up with a free copy of this latest work, and recently invited me to contribute to the new Business of Software Wiki on Joel On Software. I may be biased, but would I buy it again? Read on...

When I left on my most recent cross-country trip for the MySQL Conference in April, I brought this book along. I had already had the book sitting on my shelf for a couple weeks and knew I should give it a shot. After reading the Cluetrain Manifesto a few years ago, I thought it would be old hat. "Yes, markets are conversations... yes, people should blog... yes, people can learn from each other." You know what I mean, the same old stuff, different day. But I was pleasantly surprised... then as I dug in, whoa.

Disclaimers: In case you can't tell, I'm not the most unbiased person who could write this review. In fact, as the author of the dotProject Manual, I'm probably the last person who should write about this but when I was offered a free copy by the publisher, I couldn't pass on the offer.

The dotProject Book comes in is available from Packt Publishing and comes in at 213 pages for just under 40 USD. The author - Lee Jordan - is a graphic designer and content manager for a technical firm here in the US. Her (mostly) non-technical approach gives the book an interesting flavor which many might appreciate...

Disclaimer: I have quite a few disclaimers this time around... First of all, I happen to know one of the authors - Eli White. We've run into each other at a number of conferences, had a few beers together, and I've even been over to his house to play cards. I happen to like the guy and although I read the book and formed my opinions first, feel free to take it with a block of salt. Second, I didn't purchase this book. I won it as part of a charity auction at ZendCon last fall. That said, would I buy the book again? Read on...

Disclosure: After recently registering a Flickr account for this site, I happened across Rob Kunkle one of the co-authors of this book. He and the great people at Apress arranged for a copy of this to be delivered to my door. There was no cash crammed in the cover, so they need to work on their tactics a bit, but regardless they deserve a thank you for that. So thanks! After this review is complete, this book will be given as a door prize at the next DCPHP Developers' Group meeting. Now on with the review...

This is the second part of brief summary and description raised by Bruce Tate's book Beyond Java. The first part is available here and seemed to ruffle a few feathers. Since that time, I've finished the book and plan to pass it along to a few other people from whom I'd like to hear some thoughts.

First, let me lay out my Java background. I have about five years of Java experience now. I think I timed it well as I joined the movement about the time Ant and Tomcat were catching the hearts and minds of many Java developers. I have since picked up Maven, Struts, and wading through the fun that is Hibernate and Spring.

In terms of length, I thought the book was very solid. Bruce spent a huge amount of time describing how and why Java became so popular. The summary of which is simple: Java solved many of the pains of the C++ community in a way which was familiar and powerful without being scary. He also posits that the biggest single strength of Java may not be in the language itself, but the JVM. I think I agree with this one. Sun - and the smart people around them - did something fantastic in pushing forward the idea of WORA. Sure, it's not perfect, but it set the standard incredibly high for future competition. I'm not doing justice to Bruce's explanations here, but you get the idea.

I have to say that I've been following the Java vs Ruby war for quite a while. Initially it started as a passing interest due to Nola Stowe's evangelism and heckling. I had a completely wrong idea of what it was and demonstrated that ignorance in this space but once I went to a presentation by Dave Thomas last year, I was convinced:

Ruby - especially because of Rails - is amazing and here to stay.

Therefore, in the past 10 months or so, I've watched technology with great interest. While the hype has been huge, there's been an even bigger warning sign for me. The sheer number of incredibly smart Java people who are picking up Rails. I don't mean that they've said "Hey, this is nifty". I mean people who have essentially dropped Java like a bad habit. There are
people like Jason Hunter (author of Java Servlet Programming), James Duncan Davidson (credited with inventing both Ant and Tomcat), Erik Hatcher (creator of Lucene and a coworker of a longtime friend), and probably more than I care to consider or admit. I've lived and breathed most of these projects since 2002 and can't help but notice that these gentlemen have been guiding lights in the community. When they make such an abrupt turn, you *must* take notice.