Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewKnowing near nothing about Drupal, I wanted to find a book that would give me the big picture and help me develop a nuts-and-bolts working knowledge quickly. I saw so many titles online that I went to a physical bookstore so I could carefully look at the books and choose the most appropriate one for my needs. I looked at many books, and scanned the Introductions and Tables of Contents of several promising ones. I chose "Beginning Drupal" because it had a great balance of concrete examples, theory, and discussion of the implications of making various choices in Drupal.
After I purchased the book and began to actually use it, it became quickly clear that Wiley Publishing had not only jumped the gun in publishing a Drupal 7 book prematurely, but several other things really soured the experience for me. There was no discussion in the introduction about the fact that the book was based on early alpha and beta versions of Drupal 7, and that the installation instructions would install Drupal 6 which is so different that the exercises in the book are more confusing than helpful. Still, I persisted, trying to find the Drupal 6 equivalents to the Drupal 7 examples in the book. (of course this was not mentioned on the cover either, or on the web site. As a matter of fact, the promotional materials misleadingly call Drupal 7 the latest version, but don't mention that it has not been officially released yet). After I hit page 100, I realized that the UI differences were not the only problem. The book was not only unclear because of the version differences, but because the writer apparently didn't have the benefit of a conscientious editor to make the language clear. The grammar was sloppy, but worse yet, the meanings of many of the sentences were foggy.
I did switch over to using Drupal 7 beta, hoping that would help. In fact, it did help with many of the exercises, but there were also far too many instances in which the examples were confusing because they were based on earlier versions of Drupal 7. I looked at the "errata" published for the book, but they barely scratched the surface of the errors in the book.
I really liked the unfolding of concepts as the book progressed, in that sense the design of the book was brilliant. But it was sloppily executed, and there were numerous instances in which avoidable inconsistencies prevented examples from working the way they should have.
In summary, I'd say that this book was a well conceived but so poorly executed and rushed to market. It wasted more of my time and effort than any other "how to" book that I have ever encountered in my 4 decades in the computer business.Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Overview

Want to learn more information about Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Learning Java Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Learning Java? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Learning Java. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Learning Java ReviewI had purchased "Learning Java" out of the conviction that some patience and thought was all that was needed to make sense of the book. "Learning Perl" (also published by O'Reilly) had a somewhat steep but manageable learning curve-I thought "Learning Java" would be more of the same. Unfortunately, I found "Learning Java" to be a disappointment. The book begins by creating a simple "Hello, Java!" pop-up box along with brief explanations of the basic concepts of Java (class, methods, etc). The book, however, then gives an overview of syntax and tools with no practice exercises. The book essentially went like this: "This is what a class is. This is what a method is. This is what an exception is." And so on. The book spends a few paragraphs describing many important concepts of Java without adequate examples and no practice exercises. The author's organization and presentation of the materials made the book more of a dictionary than a tutorial.
Don't get me wrong, the book does provide an excellent overview of Java's history and heritage. It also serves as a handy (but incomplete) reference, although "Java in a Nutshell" is a much more complete reference. However, like some reviewers, I believe that the title was a bit misleading for those wanting to actually learn to program in Java. This book is not for someone new to programming. "Learning Java" is actually more like an overview or tour of Java that introduces the program's features and tools. It is not a tutorial.
My recommendation: See if you can get a hold of "Learning Java" and take a look at a few chapters. If you like the author's approach (and several reviewers did), then by all means purchase the book. I was originally going to recommend that only those with C or C++ programming experience give the book a try, but I've noticed several reviewers with such experience giving the book a poor review. If you are looking for a tutorial, try the deceptively named but excellent "Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days" by Laura Lemay.Learning Java Overview

Want to learn more information about Learning Java?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...