hal helms' personal site : Newsletters : Winter Reading: Book Recommendations

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What Students Say...

"I wrote you kudos right after the class, but thought you might be interested in hearing from me after a month back at work. I'm finding that so much of what I learned keeps coming back to me in different situations. You helped me see that programming is about making good architecture decisions, not just slamming out code. That is invaluable. Thank you." - Cary L.

"This class was jammed packed with great information. Hal really makes learning Fusebox very easy. What is very unusual is that the academic learning (traditional) is a very small portion of the class. I left the class with the knowledge to start programming using Fusebox and have implemented it when developing our corporate intranet. Well worth the money!!!" - Rob S

"My boss has sent every one of us through your FastTrack to Fusebox class and says it's the best investment in training he ever made. (And I agree!) Thanks, Hal. Really a great class. Great CDs, too." - Jennifer M

Some winter reading

With the holidays coming up, I thought you might be in a mood to curl up by a warm fire and do some good reading. My first recommendation is an O'Reilly book. When you think of O'Reilly, you probably think of dense tomes of excellent, no-nonsense information? Well, think again, because O'Reilly has a new "Head First" series of books that is unlike any computer book you've ever seen.

The first book in the series is Head First Java. I can't find enough superlatives to heap on this book. If you have any interest in learning Java, but have been put off by Java's reputation for difficulty, run to buy this book. I've described it as "a picture book for Java". Or maybe a "coffee table book for Java".

Computers are incorporated in modern ice cream vending machines to enhance their functionality. Ice Cream Vending machines are manufactured by many companies. Your competition will try to overcome all requests for high-tech ice cream vending machines and credit card acceptors

The extraordinary thing about the book is how accessible it makes Java -- without dumbing it down. The content is top notch, but it's presented in pictures, riddles, puzzles, quizzes--well, you have to see it to really appreciate it. This is a book you can read in little snippets and still get a great deal out of. This book has my highest recommendation. Of course, if you really want to jump-start your understanding of object orientation in general and Java specifically, check out the details on my Java class below...

The next book on my recommended list is from Kent Beck, the "father of Extreme Programming". Kent's book is titled Test Driven Development: By Example. This book spells out the argument for writing tests for code before writing the actual code itself. It's very clearly written and even though the examples are in Java, I think you'll get a lot out of this book, not the least of which will be the way Kent challenges your thinking.

If you're looking for a good ColdFusion book, I have a couple of suggestions. Rob Brooks-Bilson has a very good book, Programming ColdFusion MX, also by O'Reilly. Rob has a great depth of ColdFusion knowledge and it's a solid "bible" for ColdFusion. The other CF book really is a bible: the ColdFusion MX Bible written by Adam Churvis, Charlie Arehart, and moi. Adam did the yeoman's share of the work on this book and his attention to detail and accuracy really make the book a stand-out. Highly recommended.

Discovering Fusebox 4 is a very good book on the newest version of the Fusebox framework. Written by John Quarto-vonTivadar, Brian Kotek, Sandy Clark, Brian LeRoux, and Perry Woodin, the book includes chapters on FB4's new layouts via content variables, the XML grammar, and Flash integration with Fusebox. Very good.

Finally, I heartily recommend Meilir Page-Jones' book, Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML. Meilir is a gifted (and funny) author whose book I highly recommend for learning both OO and UML. This is probably the "hardest read" of my recommendations, due to the subject matter, but I hope that won't scare you away from it. (Halloween was last month.) The book is wonderfully written and will greatly reward you for the study you put into it.

With the weather getting colder, have I got a deal for you! Come to warm, sunny Tampa in December and learn OO and Java while improving your tan. I'm holding my five-day Java for ColdFusion Programmers class December 8-12. The class requires no previous experience with Java and we've gotten universally excellent responses from students who've taken the class. Details are available at http://halhelms.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=training.javaDetails.

Other upcoming training classes:

Mach-II: Tampa, Jan 12-14
Project Success with FLiP Methodology: Tampa, Jan 15-16
Fusebox 4: Tampa, Jan 19-21
Info on all these can be found at www.halhelms.com/training