Book Review 14

Book #14 Getting Started with Processing
Casey Reas and Ben Fry

First of all, I love the Processing language. It's fun, portable, and easy to learn. I abhor the name. Why? Because every time I google it, I never found it! Really, I think Proce55ing is better because when I google that, it goes right to the site!

So, having actually learned the language, why did I pick up the book? Because I love the language and I want as many people to use it as possible. The book is interesting because it is the first "Getting Started" book from O'Reilly that I found. And I found out that hand-drawn sketches makes perfectly usable illustrations, even when it can best served with computer graphic or CAD.

I find the book features just the right amount of personal touches for the artist in me, and yet not skimp on the technical side for the scientist in me. A rare treat that is yet to be duplicated from other "Getting Started" books.

The only complaint that I have is that the subject matter is too brief. It touches on other Processing usage, such as Arduino. However, I think that extra projects such as Arduino is best left to other "Getting Started" book. You can put a mention there, of course, but let's not dwell upon them.

All in all, a good book marred only by trying to be comprehensive in a small book. Highly recommended.

Book Review #1

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Matt Richardson & Shawn Wallace
O'Reilly

Raspberry Pi is an extremely popular cheap computer for hobbyist. Although the original purpose is to learn computer programming, it has excelled far beyond the original intent. This book is a great introduction for getting, building, and running Raspberry Pi. Like all "Getting Started" book series, though, it fell rather short on details.

This book is excellent in getting your feet wet and running in no time. Then again, using Raspberry Pi isn't that difficult. Like all newbies, however, I appreciate the nudge it does toward new, unexplored projects. There's section on Arduino, GPIO, and Camera. The actual Python code is given to get you up and running quickly. In some cases, there's not even Python involved. I especially like the section on accessing the GPIO via command shells!

There are some anecdotes and stories scattered throughout the book, just to get you excited. In that respect, the book does marvelously well. In other respects, though, the book fell short. Once you have duplicated the efforts in the book, where to go? I don't know. The book didn't say. It would have been perfect if the book would go beyond a referencing the site in "Going Further" section. Perhaps a survey of activities or projects around the world.

I'm not going to complain too much, since the book does successfully encapsulates the main points of the issues and the "Going Further" section does give you all the necessary information, should you choose to keep going. I do question the omission of certain topics:

1. Setting up Pi as Home Office Computer.
2. Blogging/Twitter and other social network apps.
3. Setting up Printer.
4. Game console
5. Touch screen interface

I think these projects are worthwhile. And I don't know. Perhaps the authors did consider these and only omitted at the last minute due to space consideration. Then again, some of the pages have some blank spaces in them, so they can at least put in a few more resources, pointing me the way to do these.

Overall, the book did get me excited about the projects, and for that I think the book is successful in its aim. I can recommend this to anybody who is interested in learning what Raspberry Pi can do. For those who already know they want to get Raspberry Pi, however, this can be safely skipped.