The best recommendation I can give for this book is simply this: just a few days after I gave a copy to my 13-year-old son for his birthday, and without any more intervention from me, he showed me his first completed game program. It was a simple numbers guessing game — the first major exercise from this book. Since then, he’s been following along and tinkering with Python. The book has kept him motivated and built up his confidence in his own skills, which is a tricky thing to achieve (something I’ve tried myself with mixed success).

The authors of Core PHP Programming have found a marvelous middle ground. Toward the beginning of the book they have a great deal of light, explanatory material as they cover the basics of PHP. As they move towards more advanced topics there is less explanation and a tighter packing of information. At the same time the book has a large number of small code examples throughout, making sure that you know how to use the functions under discussion.

One of the most useful methods of checking Perl code, though, is the Perl debugger. Despite the usefulness of this tool, most Perl programmers (including me) never use it. There are a few reasons why we don't use the Perl debugger — we don't know how to use it or feel like learning how to use it is one reason. As part of O'Reilly's monograph (aka Pocket Reference) series, they've recently released a small book on the subject called Perl Debugger Pocket Reference, written by Richard Foley. Although it's small, the book simplifies getting started with the debugger and the price makes it affordable.

This book is for users who have administered a machine or network before and want to get the absolute most out of their Mac. It's also useful for connecting your Mac to a network seamlessly. But it's complicated and technical enough if you're the kind of Mac user who doesn't have the Terminal on your dock you might be intimidated.

Knowledge of SQL is pretty much a core skill that every developer ought to have. Aside from embedded systems, just about every major programming domain depends on a database - whether it's for dynamic web pages, web services, desktop applications or just about anything else - being able to communicate with a database is a key skill. This book is expressly designed for those wanting to learn this skill, or seeking to brush up their existing knowledge.

This is a very different kind of book on software development practices. It's almost a personal manifesto rather than an 'objective' look at software theory and practice. At times it reads more like a self-help manual than anything else. The emphasis is very much on aspiration, self-improvement, self-knowledge and so on.

Being a Perl user, I found the first two sections (which use Perl exclusively) the more useful. The third section focuses more Java-based solutions and, thus, was less interesting to me. The content was still worthwhile, even if I had to translate it as I went along. I think the book would have been better either using both Java and Perl throughout the text, or picking one or the other and using it exclusively.

As the author notes in the Introduction, the book is not designed to be a complete reference for either technology, but instead intended as a tutorial for Web developers who are interested in learning how to do server-side scripting in combination with a database management system. Vaswani states that he does not assume prior knowledge of programming or database fundamentals, and that these basic concepts will be taught by example, using tutorials and realistic examples.

Even though I have been experimenting on and off with Linux for the past few years, I have remained mostly a Windows XP user (albeit with Firefox as my browser, Thunderbird as my e mail client, and OpenOffice.org more and more replacing that other office suite).

Just a few years ago, I didn’t consider Linux attractive enough to even consider making the switch—if only because it looked so clunky. That it needed a little work to get it working properly, wasn’t that much of a problem for me—I saw that mainly as an opportunity to learn more about it as I played with it.

If you own a previous edition of Beginning C, should you rush out and buy the new 4th edition? Of course not; only one of the author's relatives would make such a recommendation. But if you are a novice seeking to learn "C" on a C99 compiler, I highly recommend the 4th edition. If you don't have a C99 compiler – I say again – stick with the 3rd edition. Kudos to Ivor for writing a great book!

Linux for Dummies' back cover says it will teach the reader how to work with popular Linux distributions (specifically, Fedora, SUSE and Mandrake), choose an ISP and configure dialup access, understand bash syntax, install and use OpenOffice.org, and manage the Linux file system. It does all of these things, to a reasonable depth, but don't expect a heavy tutorial on any one of them: the whole point is naming and defusing common newbie problems. A DVD included with the book contains Red Hat's Fedora Core 1 and source code, making it a reasonable way to obtain that distro as well.

A very capable programmer new to both PHP and databases could use this book to learn both simultaneously. For the most part, though, the reader who'll get the most from it will already have worked quite some time with Web applications and will be able at least to prepare a PHP-coded "Hello, world". While there's early mention that PHP can be used off the Web, Beginning PHP4 Databases leaves everything to do with those possibilities to others. This book is all about database-backed Web applications.

Part I uses two chapters to provide an overview of, and step-by-step instructions for, installing Linux. The overview provides information about the process including how to try Linux with the Live DVD supplied, planning your hard disk layout, acquiring a newer version of Ubuntu, and the install process in general. The step-by-step chapter goes into great detail on each step of the process, using both the graphical and textual installation paths. It also throws in additional detail on how to configure the X server.

Now that you have Linux in a runnable form, Part II provides higher-level information that shows newer Linux users what they can do.