IRC Hacks, by Paul Mutton

I am an IRC Junkie, so when I heard about this book being released I was pretty excited, I could always learn new things about IRC!

The book starts off with very simple basics of using IRC, including connecting to a server, registering with the servs. Then it goes into "raw" IRC, which was interesting to me because I really don't know enough about it, and it went into how to make a "basic" irc bot without an actual client, way cool!

Although I tend to use Perl for my IRC scripting, I was pleased to see that the author covered all sorts of IRC clients and scripting, including Perl, Java, TCL and C. The book is a valuble resource to IRC bot writers, as it gives you all sorts of ideas for new bots, and new features, like blogging from IRC, or making the chat client irssi talk aloud, I didn't think about these! It also introduces programs like Bitlbee (which has a special place in my heart because of the documentation I wrote for it) which allows you to use instant messangers in your IRC client.

This book is definately of most value to bot writers, but also for just about anyone interested in exploring the possiblities in the world of IRC. Another great O'Reilly Hacks book, I love this series!

How Linux Works, by Brian Ward

I didn't know about this book until it showed up on my doorstep courtesy of the great folks at the O'Reilly LUG program. But I was interested in it from the moment I opened the box.

It's a basic guide to general Linux. It's new, fun and the author does a nice job of covering the basics. He doesn't dwell on any one distro, but covers all sorts of commands, issues, and questions that a lot of people who are switching to linux might have. He goes over basics of Networking, Printing, and touches upon more advanced options in linux. I was especially pleased with the referencing he did, if you want to know more about a subject he recommends a book to check out! Very nice.

I sat down on a Saturday afternoon, and by Sunday night I had read my way through it. Even as an experienced Linux user I was interested and picked up a few tidbits from this book that I didn't know about. Although it's aimed at the new user, it was fun and interesting for me to read.

I'd definately recommend this book to people wanting to get into the Linux world.

Hackers & Painters, by Paul Graham

I saw this book on O'Reilly's site and was quite interested, so I ordered it. The quick review? It was a very interesting read, and at least half of it is understandable to people with all varieties of computer knowledge, as Graham is very good at explaining things simply.

It's basically a collection of essays that Graham (a Lisp programmer, an artist, and one of the parners who started Viaweb, which produced a web-based online store creator which was bought by Yahoo! and to this day runs the Yahoo Store). The essays all flow very nicely with each other, so there are few parts in the book that feel random. And definately go from easy to understand to everyone, into more complex as the book goes on.

He explains a lot of typical "Hacker" (good programmers, not people who illegally break into computers!) culture, and compares it to other art forms. He starts out by explaining nerds, and why they are so unpopular in school, a fun chapter that makes me feel a bit better about being such a nerd in High School. The book goes into internet startups, programming languages, and it's only in the last three or four chapters that he gets into specifics which may lose the ordinary reader. Still, from the chapters preceding those you get a great snapshot of the Hacker world.

I was very pleased with how he used his artist background to draw historical and artistic parallels between the art world and the computer world. And these strong associations really made this book different from others that I've read hacker culture.

This book was definately worth my time.