Random Thinking

and another waiting. I read three books in three days while waiting in various waiting rooms at the hospital. I posted the review of Explorer’s Guide to the Semantic Web and Core Java 2, Fundamentals today. I still have to post the review of the best of the three books, SWT/JFace in Action. I’ll try to get to that one tomorrow.

Core Java 2, Fundamentals
by Cay Horstmann, Gary Cornell

This is the seventh edition of this book and in some ways it hasn’t changed much since the first edition. The first edition was aimed at C++ programmers who were looking to transition to the new language. The seventh edition is still fast-paced and detailed and aimed for the experienced programmer. This is not an easy-to-follow tutorial for the beginner programmer. The authors assume that you already know the basics of programming even if it isn’t with an object oriented language. The book might make a fairly good college textbook but not as a first language.

The book covers the main areas that you would expect in an introductory Java book with a few surprises. The book gives a little bit of the history of Java and shows how to install and run Java from the console and Eclipse (but not NetBeans). There is an early introduction to reflection but exception handling isn’t covered until well into the book. Swing is covered in a fair level of depth. J2SE 5.0 changes are covered throughout the book with the many examples written to show off the new additions to the language. Threading and Collections are not covered but rather are saved for volume two.

Overall this is a well written book but the target audience is getting small. How many C++ programmers can be left that don’t already know Java? If you are looking for an introductory tutorial then this book may be a bit too advanced. Through seven editions, Core Java has changed little other than to reflect language changes. Perhaps it’s time to rethink the franchise.

This earned 4 stars on Amazon. The book is published by Prentice Hall.

The review can be seen on Amazon on My Amazon Reviews page.

Explorer’s Guide to the Semantic Web
by Thomas B. Passin

The semantic web is an intelligent web, that is, a web that can be intelligently used by computers. There are two things you need to know about the semantic web. First, it doesn’t exist. Second, it may never exist. If this isn’t enough information for you, and you want to look at what the future may hold in the area of an intelligent web, then I can’t think of a better way to get an introduction to the technologies and ideas that may be part of the semantic web than by reading this book.

The author of the book takes the layers of the semantic web as proposed by the W3C and looks at each one in turn, skipping over the familiar XML and XML schema layers. The author starts with the RDF layer and gives one of the best explanations of RDF and RDF schema that you will find. RDF is the potential meta-data language of the semantic web and the author makes it clear and understandable. Other than XML, RDF is the most real layer of the W3C layer cake so this section is also the most accessible. The next chapter delves into ontology which is vaguer and less clearly defined. The chapter on web services seems a bit unnecessary except as how they fit into the semantic web. A chapter on how intelligent agents may work is included. The last section deals with how information may be verified for truthfulness and authenticity.

If you are interested in RDF then you may want this book just for that section. If you are interested in what the semantic web might look like then this book may be of interest. If you are looking for practical programming samples or ways to build intelligent agents then this isn’t the book for you. This is an explorer’s guide for those having no fear to tread into unknown waters. This part of the web is still uncharted but this book will help you learn what technologies may be used to fill in the missing pieces of the map.

This earned 4 stars on Amazon. The book is published by Manning.

The review can be seen on Amazon on My Amazon Reviews page.

A perfect surgery! The operation was 7 hours long but everything went perfectly. They repaired the base of Michel’s skull and she now has a plate in her head. I’m not sure what exactly was involved but it was very extensive. The doctors who performed the surgery are the director and associate director at the Chiari Institute, Dr. Milhorat and Dr. Bolognese.

They let me see Michel at around 3:30 PM but she was still out of it. She is spending the night in the recovery room and being sent back to a regular room tomorrow. She seemed to be in a lot of pain compared to Tuesday’s surgery. I’m just glad that this is all over and we can start the recovery process.

Michel is doing very well. She got up and walked around a bit and they let her eat a regular meal for supper (ziti with meatballs). Surgery is tomorrow at 7:30 AM. This surgery will definitely be the worse of the two as they have to cut through the muscles in her neck to get to the section of her brain that they need to work on. If everything goes well they spring her on Monday or Tuesday.

Here is the picture of the day. Rather than post it I have linked to it because some people may be a bit too squeamish to look at it. The doctor came to change the bandage and while he had Michel’s head exposed I got a shot. You can see the two incisions in the picture. The larger one on the top of Michel’s head is shaped like an upside down “J”. At the top of the “J” is a bump under Michel’s skin. That is the shunt. You can see the second incision by Michel’s ear. The incisions are held together with staples (and yes, they do sometimes use a glue stick). Michel has another incision in her abdomen but I didn’t get a shot of that one.

The shunt itself is an amazing piece of technology. It can be set to let more or less fluid flow through it as needed. They use a magnet to change the setting so that they don’t have to operate again.

I just want to add a special thanks to the gang at JavaRanch. I appreciate all the good words of support and the beautiful flowers and the teddy bear. You guys and gals are the greatest!

This is Michel sitting in the kitchen waiting for it to be time to head off to the hospital. Surprisingly, Michel was not the least bit nervous. She was just anxious to have the surgery so the pain that she has had since her fall back in July would go away.

Here is Michel waiting at the hospital for the surgery. She is listening to London Calling by The Clash. The surgery was scheduled for 3:30 but they wanted us there at 1:30. The problem with showing up on time is that you have to wait.

The surgery was over in almost exactly three hours which is what the doctor told us it would take. It went perfectly and I got to see Michel in recovery about an hour after the surgery was over. Michel’s first words when I saw her in recovery were, “I love my shunt.” (This is a reference to the Julia Sweeney movie, God Said, “Ha!”) The pain between her shoulders was gone for the first time since July. Amazing!

Michel was brought up to the room fairly quickly. She is sore but in good spirits. And she is bald. Completely bald. Totally bald. But she is still beautiful. The next surgery is scheduled for 7:30 AM on Thursday.

This is Michel sitting in the kitchen waiting for it to be time to head off to the hospital. Surprisingly, Michel was not the least bit nervous. She was just anxious to have the surgery so the pain that she has had since her fall back in July would go away.

Here is Michel waiting at the hospital for the surgery. She is listening to London Calling by The Clash. The surgery was scheduled for 3:30 but they wanted us there at 1:30. The problem with showing up on time is that you have to wait.

The surgery was over in almost exactly three hours which is what the doctor told us it would take. It went perfectly and I got to see Michel in recovery about an hour after the surgery was over. Michel’s first words when I saw her in recovery were, “I love my shunt.” (This is a reference to the Julia Sweeney movie, God Said, “Ha!”) The pain between her shoulders was gone for the first time since July. Amazing!

Michel was brought up to the room fairly quickly. She is sore but in good spirits. And she is bald. Completely bald. Totally bald. But she is still beautiful. The next surgery is scheduled for 7:30 AM on Thursday.

Reviewed another very good book. I downgraded this one a little bit because the writing isn’t as crisp as some of the other books I’ve read. On JavaRanch, I am giving this 8-horseshoes which makes it a high 4-star book. In the book, the authors mention a web site they are setting up to support the book but at the time of this review, the site didn’t exist. The site was supposed to provide some additonal information about using Pluto that the authors didn’t include in the book.

Building Portals with the Java Portlet API
by Jeff Linwood, David Minter

Portals are becoming more popular as companies are looking for a single web-based entry point into their various applications. Java provides a standard portal model with JSR 168. This book is a thorough introduction into JSR 168 that will help get portal developers up to speed into this relatively new specification.

The book starts with an excellent introduction into developing portlets. The first seven chapters cover all the details of developing portlets. Response and request objects are covered in detail. The portlet life cycle is clearly explained. Deployment descriptors are discussed. Integrating with Servlets and JSPs is described. The remainder of the book covers more advanced topics. Anyone working with a portal knows the problems with providing single sign-on to multiple applications. The authors discuss this issue giving several examples. The authors cover syndication, searching, personalization, web services, content management, and more.

My only complaint with the book is that it uses the Apache Pluto portal, which is not in final release yet. Pluto is an open source portal but it is complicated to distribute content to it (you are forced to use Maven). When the book explains how to distribute portlets to Pluto it gets a little confusing because the authors need to explain multiple configuration files, some of which are exclusive to Pluto. Other than this one problem, the book gives a solid introduction to developing a portal providing detailed information of both the basics and many advanced concepts. Clearly the authors understand portal development and know how to pass that information on to their readers.

This earned 4 stars on Amazon. The book is published by Apress.

The review can be seen on Amazon on My Amazon Reviews page.

Tomorrow is the big day. Michel is getting her head chopped open and her brain messed around with. Tomorrow is actually shunt day. Thursday they go back in again to fool around with the base of her brain. I think they need to do the shunt first to relieve the pressure in her brain otherwise when they do the other surgery her head will explode like a can of Coke that has been shaken up. Or something like that.

It just seems like something comes up every year around Christmas. It’s always somebody is sick and needs to spend some time in the hospital. We picked up Michel’s parents from Brooklyn yesterday. They will be spending some time with us taking care of the kids while Michel is in the hospital. If I say that they are life savers, that would be an understatement.

Since Michel is going to have her head shaved for the surgery, she went and got a short haircut on Saturday. It looks really pretty. Of course, it will all be gone tomorrow but hair grows back. Bald and with staples in her head… my little Frankenstein monster! I will be sure to post some pictures of before and after!

We did get some good news that I forgot to mention. Beth made the honor roll at school. I talked to all of Beth’s teachers and they all said that they are happy to have Beth in their class and that she is wonderful girl. This is such a relief after the bad year she had at Our Lady of Mercy. Her sixth grade teacher was a disaster and whenever I asked her why Beth wasn’t doing well I always got the same response, “Sixth grade is much harder than fifth grade.” What a load of crap. Beth is doing great, loves her teachers, and has made a bunch of great friends. I’m sorry that I ever wasted my money putting Beth in private school.