Review Day

There are no spoilers in these reviews.

JUnit Recipes: Practical Methods for Programmer Testing by J. B. Rainsberger:
The BURI is still out on the penchant for publishing companies to put unrelated animals and lithographs on the covers of their technical books, but I'm leaning towards the side of "utterly retarded design decision". Thankfully, I did not need any warrior skills to benefit from this book, which is a tip-oriented cookbook of common approaches and patterns for unit testing. It's not as cover-to-cover readable as, for example, a book in the Pragmatic Programmer series, but the information is concise and jokes are thankfully relegated to footnotes.

Final Grade: B-

The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond:
This tiny tome contains various essays on Open Source Software (which DDMSence is an example of), with musings on the psychology behind open source developers and several open-ended questions on the economic viability of open source. Some essays are more readable than others, but even the dry ones are interesting, as long as you are interested in the field.

Final Grade: B

A New Tide by Gomez:
I picked up this CD because I liked the song, and wanted to see what they'd done more recently. This CD is very mellow and easy to listen to, with a good mix of hooks and interesting combinations of instrumentation. Samples can be heard -- I really like the timbre of the vocalist on Track 2 and 6, but dislike the whiny Rufus-Wainwright-sounding guy on Track 1 and 5.

Final Grade: B+