Friday, November 28, 2014

Solving my Tsundoku: The Return of TESTHEAD Book Reviews

As I was settling in and preparing for my journey home from Ireland (which will include a flight from Dublin to Toronto (roughly eight hours), plus a seven hour layover, and then a flight from Toronto to San Francisco (roughly another seven hours), I figured it was a great time to dig in and work through some of the books I have received to review, as well as some I have picked up to work with due to the work that I do as a tester and occasional programmer.

I receive a number of e-books in PDF format from a variety of sources. Some are offered to me free for me to review, many more are purchased by me to work through and bulk up my geek brain (well, that was the goal in any event). At some point, the desire to read and apply got overtaken by the real life aspects of work, family, testing initiatives and other things I do. All the while, my book pile keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Zeger van Hese gave a great keynote talk at EuroSTAR this week, and in the process, he talked a bit about those great linguistic terms that English doesn't have a succinct single word for. One example that resonated with me (to the point of causing physical discomfort, to be honest) was the Japanese word "Tsundoku" (積ん読, (hiragana つんどく) which is, according to Wiktionary "(informal) the act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piled up together with other such unread books".

The first way to deal with a problem is to realize you have a problem, and to that end, I have decided I am going to do something about that problem. How so? By making one of my "bold boasts" I make from time to time. Since we are still a few weeks before New Years, I cannot be accused of making a New Year's Resolution (since I don't make them ;) ), but I can declare a new goal, and that new goal is that I shall henceforth and forthwith start whittling down my book collection and actually read, apply and review the stack of books that I have. To that end, you may expect, in no particular order, reviews to start appearing for the following:
  1. Accessibility Handbook
  2. Apache JMeter
  3. Application Testing with Capybara
  4. Backbone.js Cookbook
  5. Beginning PHP 6 Apache MySQL 6 Web Development
  6. Build Your Own Web Site
  7. Computer Science Programming Basics in Ruby
  8. Confident Ruby
  9. Crackproof Your Software
  10. Design Accessible Web Sites
  11. Design Driven Testing
  12. Eloquent JavaScript, 2nd Edition
  13. Everyday Scripting with Ruby
  14. Exceptional Ruby
  15. Good Math
  16. Head First Ajax
  17. Head First HTML and CSS
  18. Head First HTML5 Programming
  19. Head First JavaScript
  20. Head First JavaScript Programming
  21. Head First Mobile Web
  22. Head First PHP and MySQL
  23. Head First SQL
  24. Head First jQuery
  25. Higher Order Perl
  26. How Linux Works
  27. Jasmine JavaScript Testing
  28. JavaScript for Kids
  29. JavaScript Security
  30. JavaScript Testing Beginner's Guide
  31. JavaScript and JSON Essentials
  32. JMeter Cookbook
  33. jQuery Cookbook
  34. Kali Linux Network Scanning Cookbook
  35. Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things
  36. Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms
  37. Learning Metasploit Exploitation and Development
  38. Learning Python Testing
  39. Manga Guide to Calculus
  40. Manga Guide to Electricity
  41. Manga Guide to Physics
  42. Manga Guide to Statistics
  43. Mastering Regular Expressions
  44. Metaprogramming Ruby
  45. Metasploit Penetration Testing Cookbook
  46. Metasploit The Penetration Testers Guide
  47. Modern Perl
  48. More Agile Testing
  49. NGUI for Unity
  50. PHP MySQL JavaScript HTML5 All in One for Dummies
  51. Pride and Paradev
  52. Pro HTML5 Accessibility
  53. Python for Kids
  54. Rails Crash Course
  55. Regular Expressions Cookbook
  56. Responsive Web Design By Example
  57. Robot Framework Test Automation
  58. Ruby Wizardry
  59. Running Lean
  60. Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices
  61. Selenium WebDriver Practical Guide
  62. Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred: Seriously Geeky Stuff to Make With Your Kids
  63. Specification by Example
  64. Test Driven Web Development with Python
  65. TestComplete Cookbook
  66. TestComplete Made Easier
  67. The Art of Application Performance Testing
  68. The Art of Software Testing, 3rd Edition
  69. The Selenium Guidebook
  70. The Well Grounded Rubyist
  71. Web Development with Django Cookbook
  72. Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux
  73. Webbots Spiders and Screen Scrapers 2nd edition
  74. Wicked Cool PHP
  75. Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts
  76. Wireshark Essentials
  77. Zero to One
Yes, this is a line in the sand. Yes, I intend to fix this problem of mine. No, I cannot say which order these reviews will appear, but be sure, they are coming. Yes, I encourage you all to call me on it if I slack off.

One way or another, this begins today, and it will not finish until all of the stack is read, worked and commented on. That may take awhile ;).

No comments: