Eloquent Ruby Review

In 2007 Russ Olsen published Design Patterns in Ruby (US | UK | CA). Right around that time there were several other Ruby books hitting the shelves (as Rails was really reaching the peak of its popularity),...

Jenga Driven Development

Over the years I’ve coined a few new programming related terms that are meaningless to other people, but which make sense to me (as they concisely describe certain programming concepts). Sometimes these...

Try the next version of DB2 today

IBM has been working hard to create a new, substantial upgrade of DB2. Thanks to the Early Experience program, you can now test drive the recently released Alpha 4 in the cloud for free. Despite its name,...

An In-Depth Comparison of the Kindle...

These days ebook devices are becoming increasingly common thanks to the convenience they afford readers and the affordable prices. As much as I love holding an actual printed copy in my hands, I’ve...

The Art of Computer Programming, Vol...

There’s exciting news in Computer Science-land this week, as the 4A volume (on Combinatorial algorithms) of The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth is now complete and is available for preorder...

DB2 University goes live

DB2 University is a website that’s aimed at providing (mostly free) database courses. Its public beta went live today. While the focus is clearly on the free DB2 Express-C — as the name implies...

Give your programmers professional t...

Professionals tend to have expensive tools that enable them to do their job as efficiently as possible. Even when cheaper, more commonly used tools exist, professionals often opt for higher-end ones that are...

The recommended Ruby and Rails book ...

During the holiday lull I managed to finally update the Ruby and Rails book pages. The Ruby page includes a few new titles and sees a few existing ones get the axe, as I took the major emphasis on Ruby 1.9...

In-Depth Book Review: Authoring eBoo...

Jeremy McAnally is a fairly well known name in the Ruby community. Among other gigs, he’s published three Ruby related books: Ruby in Practice, Humble Little Ruby Book, and most recently The Rails 3...

Why would you use a commercial datab...

Yesterday was the 25th birthday of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Over the past 25 years they’ve managed to deeply influence the world of computing and technology. The ideas promoted by the...

StreamSend is looking for a senior (...

This is just a quick heads up for my US readers. Given the tough economy we’re all battling, I thought you might be interested in learning about a great employment opportunity. My friends at StreamSend...

Things I’ve learned from hirin...

A few months ago I blogged about the fact that IBM was looking for two interns to fill a longterm (paid) internship. The good news is that after an extensive selection process and a hearty dose of governmental...