Java 5.0 Tiger: A Developer’s Notebook (J5T) was one of two books I requested from O’Reilly’s User Group support program during my last semester of school. I requested J5T because I was going to be working on an independent study that used Java 5 features in the existing code base. I was comfortable with “basic” Java from previous course work, but since it isn’t part of my day-to-day work, I hoped that a J5T would serve as a nice supplement to my existing knowledge. And for the most part, it did.

J5T does an excellent job of providing an overview of the new features in Java 5. The book is divided into chapters, with each focusing on one particular new feature. Topics covered include generics, autoboxing, annotations and threading, among others. The chapters on generics and Java 5’s enumerated types were particularly helpful, as these are two features that greatly simplify lots of Java 1.4 code. Seriously, who wants to deal with a Collection and have to perform a type-cast every time you get an object out of it? And while static classes with simple public final static members did 80% of the job of enumerations, having true enumeration support brings that final 20% which really makes it, well, work. Correctly.

The chapter on threading is also a welcome utility when I’m working with Java applications. Java’s threading has been a persistent mystery to me and McLaughlin and Flanagan do a good job of covering the basics you need for most use cases.

My complaints about the book are incredibly few and mostly echo my previous complaints about the last Developer Notebook I reviewed. They mostly boil down to this: I hate it when my books get scuffed, let alone have coffee slipped on them, so faux drink circles do not make me feel relaxed, only like I need a wet rag to wipe the book down.

Overall J5T is an excellent utility book for people coming from a Java 1.4 background. This also implies that it’s lifetime is somewhat limited: these features are only going to be new for so long, and more and more developers are going to get their first taste of Java in a Java 5 world. Luckily for authors, there’s always new features being added, currently in the Java 6 (Mustang). And if you don’t want to write about language features, I’m still waiting for Java Version Numbering in a Nutshell. Now that would be useful.

I picked up Hibernate: A Developer’s Notebook (H:ADN) as someone who was famliar with Java, but doesn’t use it for day to day development. I had heard good things about Hibernate, but didn’t really have an immediate application for it. However, after reading the H:ADN, I am convinced that Hibernate could be a useful addition to my toolbox on future projects.

For the uninitiated, Hibernate is an Open Source object/relational mapper (ORM) for Java, or more specifically JDBC databases. Like all ORM tools, Hibernate attempts to reduce the inherent pain involved in working with relational databases in an object oriented world. It has been my experience that while relational databases are models of efficiency when it comes to storing and querying information, working with them in applications often leads to a large amount of boilerplate code for loading rows from tables into objects and persisting them back. Past projects have also demonstrated the maintenance load embedded SQL queries can create for future developers. The goal of an ORM is to eliminate much if not all of that boilerplate code by providing transparent (or lightweight) persistence and loading facilities to go between the row and object worlds.

H:ADN is also the first book in O’Reilly’s “Developer Notebook” series I’ve read, so I was curious how the “lab notebook” format would read. Overall I thought H:ADN did a good job of providing me with the necessary background on Hibernate and how I might use Hibernate to ease the pain of database development. The book uses a running example, that of a music database, throughout the chapters to illustrate topics such as loading/persisting objects (rows), finding particular objects, and translating common relational database idioms to the world of objects – one to many joins and the like. Interestingly Elliot chose to use the all-Java HSQLDB as the database of choice for the examples. He does briefly discuss connecting Hibernate to other more common RDBMS, but I suppose using the HSQLDB system allows him to more accurately state what the interactions between Hibernate and the DB will be. In that regard it’s a good thing, as there are moments when he points out something that he initially did incorrectly and had to go back and fix.

Elliot is nothing if not thorough in demonstrating examples and then walking through what they do in particular. This was a mixed blessing for me. I think Elliot expects the reader to input and run the examples while reading through the book so they can see them in action and use that experiential knowledge in conjunction with the text to understand what goes on behind the scenes. Since I was primarily reading H:ADN with the goal of getting some background on Hibernate’s facilities, I typically read it over lunch, trying not to drip Special Sauce on the pages. In this setting, the detailed explanations, in the form of “What Just Happened?” grew tiresome. I know what just happened – I can read code, and you told me before what we wanted to happen, so I assume the code did just that. Had I been interactively editing and running code, these details would probably have been more interesting, as I’m sure there are naggling details that are not immediately obvious simply by reading the code.

Overall I found Elliot’s writing to be clear and natural. Perhaps it is a characteristic of the Developer Notebook series, but the tone was far more conversational than many technology books I’ve read in the past. If I have any complaints about the format, it’s that the side notes and faux drink circles only distract from the content.

Shortly after “the confession” I heard Stephen King interviewed on Fresh Air, talking about his book, “On Writing.” I rushed out, picked it up and read it cover to cover, twice. I’d never really considered what being an author entailed and King’s discussion of the process and the pitfalls made it a little more real to me. It also began to disabuse me of the notion that the only way to be a writer was to be an Author, capital “A”, words for the ages. Lately I’ve been thinking more about writing and, as a result, reading about it as well.

First, there’s William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, with it’s subtitle of “the classic guide to writing nonfiction.” I didn’t notice the subtitle when I picked it up on a whim, and it’s probably a good thing. The back compares the book to The Elements of Style, which is a bold assertion. Zinsser lives up to the claim with a practical and readable volume. Zinsser divides the book into four parts, but he ends up talking about two themes: how to write and what to write. While the focus is definitly non-fiction, I think the principles can be applied to all writing. I finished the book feeling like I could tackle any writing assignment, all the while plotting revenge on my middle school english teachers for making grammer and syntax seem so, well, difficult.

While I was still working my way through On Writing Well I heard Chris Baty as a guest on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Baty, for those unfamiliar, is the founder of National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo”. NaNoWriMo participants committ to writing a 50,000 word novel in the space of 30 days. Baty is the first to admit that some of the results are real pieces of shit, but the focus has never been on quality. Baty’s theory goes something like this:

So while in San Francisco earlier this month, I wandered through Borders and picked up No Plot? No Problem!, Baty’s “low stress, high velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days.” I finished reading NP?NP! by the time I returned to Indiana, and was really inspired by Baty. After reading the book, and thinking about it some more, it seems to me that too often we’re cowed by our fear of failure into believing that we can’t or shouldn’t try something new. I know I am. The local Civic Theatre was in desperate need of actors for a production of “Footloose” last year. I’ve never acted in my life, but the idea really appealed to me. But I didn’t even audition. And I regret that.

I don’t remember how, but shortly after finishing NP!NP? I ran across Believer, an “an amiable yet rigorous forum for writing about books”. And it is. It’s published by McSweeny’s, the same folks who bring you the quarterly short story collections. I can’t even told you why, but I ordered a subscription, probably convinced by the promise of a free copy of Nick Hornby’s new collection of essays, The Polysyllabic Spree. The essays first appears as his monthly column in The Believer, and all center around the books he bought versus the books he read during the month. As someone who can only be described as a hoarder of books, I definitly sympathized with his struggle to read all he bought. I also felt validated by his honesty in admitting that with certain books, he wasn’t going to read them. Not any time soon. Anyway, regardless of your authorly aspirations, TPS is a funny, charming read, and it’s already changed my book buying habits. I’ve taken the time to investiage the local used book store, Hyde Brothers, and predict I’ll be spending lots of time and money there in the future.

So there you have it. What I’ve been reading the last 30 days. The theme has been writing, but it’s got me thinking about creativity and creation more generally. And yes, I’ve started some writing and plan to do National Novel Writing Month this year. It’s November, by the way, although I’m a little more anxious, so I may make an early attempt. I’ll be sure to let you know.