Software-Technology – Page 10 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

React and React Native

By Scott J. Pearson | September 11, 2021September 11, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

To enhance its social media software, Facebook commissioned a JavaScript framework that makes clicking around on a website much more pleasureful for users. Instead of waiting for web servers to respond, the content requests are handled in the background and rendered by JavaScript on the client’s computer. This framework, called React, has become one of the leading UI frameworks available for web development today, along with Vue.js. This book introduces React.js and gets developers up-to-speed…

Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People

By Scott J. Pearson | August 28, 2021November 8, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

It seems that advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have always been just over the world’s horizon ever since the 1950s. Although General AI – the kind that mimics full human intelligence – still seems decades away, our society seems to be adapting so-called Narrow AI already. (In fact, for work, I develop software that uses Narrow AI approaches for use by research administrators.) Noessel seeks to explain how non-programmers can design software that helps us…

Software-Technology

Advanced JavaScript

By Scott J. Pearson | August 15, 2021August 15, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

In the past decade, the JavaScript language has witnessed a renaissance of new activity. Once pigeon-holed as a language for web browser eye-candy, JavaScript can now be used for the entire stack (server-side, client-side, testing, and even command-line). In this book, Shute attempts to keep developers up to date with a high-level review of the advancements. While this book is not a classic (and what modern computer-language-specific book is a classic?), it serves the needs…

Software-Technology

HTML5: The Missing Manual

By Scott J. Pearson | July 24, 2021July 24, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

The advent of HTML5 enabled much advancement in the design of Internet apps. New markup went hand-in-hand with improvements in JavaScript and CSS3. Together, these set the course for web design up to the present (at least, in 2021). This book, though last updated in 2014, still presents the clearest explanation of these technological advances. However, to access this clarity, the reader has to overlook copious references to outdated browser versions along with older (but…

Software-Technology

Exploring Splunk: Search Processing Language (SPL) Primer & Cookbook

By Scott J. Pearson | June 29, 2021June 29, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

Splunk is familiar to those in the IT world who need to search the massive amounts of data that a computer, particularly a web server, generates. The software – available in a downloadable, free format from their website – epitomizes the definition of Big Data. The old way of searching logs involved opening up text files manually, searching for certain words, and compiling results in a spreadsheet. To replace it, the Splunk team created Search…

Science Software-Technology

Programming for Computations – MATLAB/ Octave

By Scott J. Pearson | June 18, 2021June 26, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

Undergraduate scientists and engineers must master complex mathematics to rise to practice their professions. Once they understand the fundamental mathematics, they must learn to calculate the results on their own using a computer and a program like Matlab (or the free version Octave). In this book, these two Norwegian scientists offer a friendly (or, in their words, “gentle”) introduction to this domain. By providing a clear guide, they help ease the burden of learning for…

Science Software-Technology

Scientific Computing: For Scientists & Engineers

By Scott J. Pearson | June 17, 2021June 17, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

This work is misnamed. Its main contents are the mathematical foundations of scientific computing, not scientific computing itself. The actual computer code in Matlab/Octave is sparse throughout the book, with the exception of the last two chapters and the appendix. Again, the main subject is mathematics. This book is suitable for a mid-level undergraduate course in mathematics about how to approach scientific and engineering problems. A short yet comprehensive overview of the field, it provides…

Presentation Software-Technology

Web Style Guide: Foundations of User Experience Design

By Scott J. Pearson | June 15, 2021June 15, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

Not many books on topics related to the Internet are in their fourth edition. Around since the 1990s, Web Style Guide is an exception, and its contents illustrate why. It offers in-depth examinations of various elements of user experience. Much like traditional style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style, this work provides a comprehensive, one-stop treatment of what designers need to know to make use of websites. While being comprehensive, this book profoundly offers…

Management-Business Software-Technology

Agile Essentials: You Always Wanted to Know

By Scott J. Pearson | May 23, 2021May 23, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

I’ve worked as a software developer in Agile environments since around 2014 and have enjoyed the productivity and quality gains that this paradigm provides. This workplace loosely implements Agile and accomplishes amazing feats of productivity. In this book, Ashar distills Agile concepts into easy-to-read chunks that can be quickly implemented. This book empowers managers to organize their team’s work more effectively so that customers can benefit more readily. Ashar begins this guide by stating that…

Management-Business Research-Education Software-Technology

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps

By Scott J. Pearson | April 19, 2021April 19, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

DevOps, roughly speaking, seeks to get IT workers to interact with each other more – particularly when they are in different functional roles. Authors Humble and Kim have led this movement and pioneered annual studies to ascertain its progress among practitioners of technology. In this book, they team together with Forsgren (a PhD who brings a rigorous knowledge of statistics and data collection to the table) to present their findings and explain their methods. IT…