Julio Biason
6 years ago
3 changed files with 128 additions and 0 deletions
@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ |
|||||||
|
+++ |
||||||
|
title = "Hands-On Microservices with Rust - Denis Kolodin" |
||||||
|
date = 2019-03-03 |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
[taxonomies] |
||||||
|
tags = ["reviews", "books", "en-au", "rust", "microservices", "denis kolodin"] |
||||||
|
+++ |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
<!-- more --> |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
{{ stars(stars=2) }} |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
The shortest and simpler way to describe this book is this: |
||||||
|
```rust |
||||||
|
let mut a = 1; |
||||||
|
a = a + 1; |
||||||
|
// increase a |
||||||
|
``` |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Sure, increasing `a` may seem interesting, but where the heck is the |
||||||
|
explanation on why you're increasing a? |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
The long version is this: this is an exact representation of what a Packt book |
||||||
|
is. There are a bunch of grammatical errors from the half of the book to the |
||||||
|
end, which should've picked by the editor; there are a bunch of weird |
||||||
|
explanations and the incredible tendency of use a different package on each |
||||||
|
project (one project uses Hyper, the other Rocket, the other Actix-Web) which |
||||||
|
should've been picked by the reviewer; the whole book have a bunch of what the |
||||||
|
code is doing, but not why it was designed that way. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
So the whole thing feels rushed and without thought. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
The "change package on each discussion" is also damming: you never really got |
||||||
|
deep into a package, understanding its ins and outs, because it keeps changing |
||||||
|
all the time (logs is another thing that keeps changing all the time in the |
||||||
|
code, which seems really weird when you want to have a fleet of microservices |
||||||
|
-- why would you use different packages on all of them; yes, you can do this |
||||||
|
due the nature of microservices, but does it make sense?). |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Also, no code is shown in completion. The book uses snippets all around instead |
||||||
|
of showing everything. The full code is available on Github, but that means you |
||||||
|
need to keep two sources open at the same time: one in the book, to follow |
||||||
|
whatever the author is showing and the source code to understand where each |
||||||
|
thing fall in the big picture. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Those two last points could be easily solved by starting with a simple code |
||||||
|
(say, the Hyper that says "Hello world") and then, slowly, refactor it to reach |
||||||
|
a fully asynchronous code, showing the full code with each refactor |
||||||
|
highlighted. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Maybe this will be a good book in the 3rd edition. |
@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ |
|||||||
|
+++ |
||||||
|
title = "The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science - Matt LaMothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski, David Macaulay" |
||||||
|
date = 2019-02-17 |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
[taxomonies] |
||||||
|
tags = ["books", "reviews", "en-au", "science", "illutations", "matt lamothe", "julia rothman", "jenny volvovski", "david macaulay"] |
||||||
|
+++ |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
A science book like no other, The Where, the Why, and the How turns loose 75 of |
||||||
|
today's hottest artists onto life's vast questions, from how we got here to |
||||||
|
where we are going. Inside these pages some of the biggest (and smallest) |
||||||
|
mysteries of the natural world are explained in essays by real working |
||||||
|
scientists, which are then illustrated by artists given free rein to be as |
||||||
|
literal or as imaginative as they like. The result is a celebration of the |
||||||
|
wonder that inspires every new discovery. Featuring work by such contemporary |
||||||
|
luminaries as Lisa Congdon, Jen Corace, Neil Farber, Susie Ghahremani, |
||||||
|
Jeremyville, and many more, this is a work of scientific and artistic |
||||||
|
exploration to pique the interest of both the intellectually and imaginatively |
||||||
|
curious. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
<!-- more --> |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
{{ stars(stars=3) }} |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
(This is getting quite common on my reviews but) This is a weird book. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Now, don't get me wrong: The idea the title gives is that they are going to |
||||||
|
give you the where, the why and the how, but they actually mean the questions |
||||||
|
"where", "why" and "how". A lot of the answers is, basically, "we don't know |
||||||
|
yet" -- which, by the way, is completely fine, specially when dealing with |
||||||
|
proper science. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Also, the questions are not really "trivia"-like: they go more deep than simply |
||||||
|
"Why are plants green?" and the like. And, because you have no certain |
||||||
|
questions, it gets even more nerd-like -- which, again, is completely fine. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
(Also, the illustrations: meh) |
@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ |
|||||||
|
+++ |
||||||
|
title = "The Wolf's Hour - Robert R. McCammon" |
||||||
|
date = 2019-02-16 |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
[taxonomies] |
||||||
|
tags = ["books", "reviews", "en-au", "werewolves", "robert r mccammon"] |
||||||
|
+++ |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Michael Gallatin is a British spy with a peculiar talent: the ability to |
||||||
|
transform himself into a wolf. Although his work in North Africa helped the |
||||||
|
Allies win the continent in the early days of World War II, he quit the service |
||||||
|
when a German spy shot his lover in her bed. Now, three years later, the army |
||||||
|
asks him to end his retirement and parachute into occupied Paris. A mysterious |
||||||
|
German plan called the Iron Fist threatens the D-Day invasion, and the Nazi in |
||||||
|
charge is the spy who betrayed Michael’s lover. The werewolf goes to France for |
||||||
|
king and country, hoping for a chance at bloody vengeance. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
<!-- more --> |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
{{ stars(stars=3) }} |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
This is truly a weird book. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
So you take the idea of mythical creatures like werewolfs. And you take great |
||||||
|
events in history, like World War II. And then you mix both. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
In one hand, the book is almost silly in its premise. And, as if it was a 60s |
||||||
|
spy movie, it makes the hero always get the girl -- which is narrated almost as |
||||||
|
a horny teenage vision of what sex could be. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
On the other hand, there is a bunch of what seems real information: Locations, |
||||||
|
dates, aircrafts, guns you name it. It's almost as the author really did some |
||||||
|
research on geography and history about WWII events. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
This dichotomy permeates the book in every place. The very beginning of the |
||||||
|
book reminded of a site that gathered the most absurd adverbs: "like a ghost in |
||||||
|
the night" and the like. So, at the very start, it feels like it is a bad book, |
||||||
|
but then you get what seems like real events happening (with a touch of what |
||||||
|
was done in Assassin's Creed series of games) and then it seems like a real |
||||||
|
book. And then you get the horny parts and it goes back to silly. |
Loading…
Reference in new issue