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This is a small book(approx 200 pages) that introduces programming android.

As I am sure you are aware Android is the relatively new operating system aimed at mobile phones that comes from the stables of google. It is in competition with the IPhone.

Android is a Linux Kernel based system that is programmed at an application level using Java and a set of custom API’s. You are not creating swing programs here.

The book is not aimed at people new to programming. You really need to know Java or some closely related language and be familiar with XML. Through most of the book an application is developed to demonstrate how the various features and ideas fit together. The author uses Sudoku as the example application. Taking you from a simple hello world app through declaring UIs using XML to drawing custom graphic for the game board and then dealing with the many different input method possible, as the book progresses it develops a reasonably competent Sudoku game.

Some areas are not touched with the large example for instance the Javascript/Java integration and the sound/video API’s, Here the author uses smaller scale examples.

The book won’t make you an expert but will get you up and running quickly and given its page count you can easily get through the whole book in one evening of straight reading.

I found the writing style informal but smooth and informative. An easy read where you learn without really noticing it. If you have read any other books in the pragmatic programming series then you probably know what to expect. It should be noted it is not a reference book.

Oh, the book makes extensive use of the android emulator so you don’t actually need to own an android based phone to get started!

As you can probably tell I quite like the book.

Just finished the book “Inside the machine” by Jon Stokes. Currently rates as the best book of the year. Jon gives a general introduction to microprocessors and why they have evolved the way they have over the years. He then does a comparison between PowerPC and Pentium 4 before moving on to discuss the Core Duo processors from intel.

What can I say, I have been a fan of the in depth articles that used to be posted on arstechnica by Jon Stokes and this book exceeds the quality of them. That is to say if you are intersted in computer arcitecture but you are not an expert on it them this book is great. The writting is clear, very clear, and add in plenty of diagrams to get the ideas across and you have a fine book. Well worth the price.

Continuing my javaFX adventure I purchased “JavaFx Script: Dynamic Java Scripting for Rich Internet/client-side Applications” a book by published be APress. Being produced not long after JavaFX was officially announced it is only 216 pages long and for the most part runs as a long tutorial where you get to develop a relatively simple but none trivial application with a few jaunts into other examples where appropriate.

Given there is not a great deal of information on the web about actual application development with JavaFX is does help to move you beyond messing around with the simple scripts.

Its size does not hinder it, JavaFX is a small languages and you really do need an understanding of Java to be productive in it (You can use Java objects in JavaFX scripts) so a book devoted to JavaFX should be slim. In fact is could have been smaller as many pages are devoted to code listings and who really studies a 6 page listing of code!

The writing is up to a reasonable standard it doesn’t quite have the fluidity and polish of some books but it’s not bad either.

While I have not used it as a reference book and acknowledging its tutorial structure will limit this it looks like it should be passable as reference material until something more suitable comes along.

Overall I can just about recommend the book in part because it is small so the investment in time is not substantial, it is cheap and there is nothing else on the market that covers JavaFX – as far as I can find.

You may have noticed I have been pretty productive in updating marblemice over the past few weeks. The are a number of small reasons for this. Being between projects so to speak means more time to write this blog and having time to investigate ideas in programming has lead to a number of post on C++. An ankle injury is nearly repaired itself meaning exercise is again possible which has left me energised and finally the discovery of Windows Live Writer has had its effect.

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This is the autobiography of Peter Del La Billiere and chart his life from early adventures in his child hood, though his days in the SAS and then his gradual climb in rank culumating in leading the British force in the Gulf War.

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