From 4fa6c45eb62478aeecee1fe6c4138f7857dcc354 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Julio Biason Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2019 09:34:46 -0300 Subject: [PATCH] Book reviews --- content/reviews/books/a-devils-chaplain.md | 50 +++++++++++++++++++ .../books/seven-languages-in-seven-weeks.md | 50 +++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 100 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/reviews/books/a-devils-chaplain.md create mode 100644 content/reviews/books/seven-languages-in-seven-weeks.md diff --git a/content/reviews/books/a-devils-chaplain.md b/content/reviews/books/a-devils-chaplain.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31010fe --- /dev/null +++ b/content/reviews/books/a-devils-chaplain.md @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ ++++ +title = "A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love" +date = 2019-07-16 + +[taxonomies] +tags = ["en-au", "books", "reviews", "richard dawkins"] ++++ + +[Goodreads summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61536.A_Devil_s_Chaplain): +Richard Dawkins's essays are an enthusiastic testament to the power of +rigorous, scientific examination, and they span many different corners of his +personal and professional life. He revisits the meme, the unit of cultural +information that he named and wrote about in his groundbreaking work The +Selfish Gene. He makes moving tributes to friends and colleagues, including a +eulogy for novelist Douglas Adams; he shares correspondence with the +evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; and he visits with the famed +paleoanthropologists Richard and Maeve Leakey at their African wildlife +preserve. He concludes the essays with a vivid note to his ten-year-old +daughter, reminding her to remain curious, to ask questions, and to live the +examined life. + + + +{{ stars(stars=2) }} + +A better name for this book would be "Dawkins, by Dawkins". It's a collection +of articles written by Dawkins, selected by Dawkins himself. + +The first thing I noticed is that, for a "smart" person, Dawkins surely can't +write. It seems he tries to shove so much stuff in an article that, at some +later point, you start asking yourself what the heck was the point he was +trying to make to start with. + +The other thing I noticed is how much he likes to quote other people. The very +first article is so full of quotes, it feels like more than half of it is +simply quotes. And absolutely a sloppy job in stitching them together. + +On top of that, there is a constant feeling that Dawkins believes he's +"Neo-Darwinian Prime": The only person capable of talking about new Darwinian +theories, and calling other theories wrong. I have the feeling that, in the +foreword for a Stephen Gould book, Dawkins claimed the book was wrong. But, +then again, with the mess Dawkins do with its ideas, I'm not actually sure if +it was a review or a foreword. + +And even if, through this book, Dawkins claims that he has a good relationship +with Gould, the fact that he keeps claiming he believes Gould theories are +wrong, and that general feeling that he's the only one that can claim to be +neo Darwinian makes me believe that he, actually, didn't. + +In general, I'm not even sure if this book gives a good impression of Dawkins. diff --git a/content/reviews/books/seven-languages-in-seven-weeks.md b/content/reviews/books/seven-languages-in-seven-weeks.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4692a2d --- /dev/null +++ b/content/reviews/books/seven-languages-in-seven-weeks.md @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ ++++ +title = "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" +date = 2019-07-16 + +[taxonomies] +tags = ["books", "reviews", "en-au", "bruce a tate", "clojure", "haskell", "io", "prolog", "scala", "erlang", "ruby"] ++++ + +[Goodreads summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7912517-seven-languages-in-seven-weeks): +You should learn a programming language every year, as recommended by The +Pragmatic Programmer. But if one per year is good, how about Seven Languages +in Seven Weeks? In this book you'll get a hands-on tour of Clojure, Haskell, +Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, and Ruby. Whether or not your favorite language is +on that list, you'll broaden your perspective of programming by examining +these languages side-by-side. You'll learn something new from each, and best +of all, you'll learn how to learn a language quickly. + + + +{{ stars(stars=1) }} + +A couple of random thoughts about this book: + +First off, you have the idea that, for each language the author would spend +one week (I'll not get into the fact that each "week" has 3 days only). This +is a great idea: How much of the concepts of a programming language can you +capture in just one week. Are the interfaces good? Are they simple and easy to +understand? The fact is, the author did not spend one week on each language. +In the Clojure chapter, he mentions that he got the idea after a month. So +instead of trying to capture the good and bad points in one week -- which, +again, it's a good thing, so one can understand how "ergonomic" a language is +-- the author decided the reader should only take one week per language. + +Second, there is a huge about of "obvious", "obviously" and "simple". Sure, it +may seem obvious for the author, but most of the time, things are not obvious +for people who never saw anything related. + +Not only there is an abuse of "obvious" things, sometimes the author seems to +either not understand some concepts of the language or tries to simplify an +explanation to the point it sounds wrong -- and I just realized that 'cause +I've read books about some of the languages. + +And there are times when the author shows a piece of code, with something +completely new, and forgets to explain what that new thing means. I'm glad +I've read books about Clojure and Haskell before, otherwise I'd never +understand what the thing really was. + +On the general, it's a book about seven languages. Instead of reading this +book, I'd suggest getting the list of languages and going after them in other +ways instead of reading this.