凍結 天然氣 火車

I think that book was:

Peter Norton's Guide to Unix

The problem I had with that book was Harley Hahn could ramble on forever without saying anything. It's kind of annoying to have to read three pages to get what could be explained in one paragraph.

I don't remember having any technical problems with the book, but I was really annoyed because Harley Hahn could ramble on forever without saying anything.

Normally I never remember the name of a book or even the author of the book. But in the case of this book I have remembered the authors name for almost 20 years because I was so annoyed as I read the book which seemed to ramble on forever.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a used book at the Chandler Library titled

AJAX for Dummies

The book was written by Steve Holzner, PhD. The books turned out to be far worse then Harley Hahn's book on Unix.

In the book AJAX for Dummies, Steve Holzner, PhD really doesn't explain how anything works, but rather gives a bunch of cut and past examples and barely explains them at all.

I am also annoyed by the example at the beginning of each chapter which talk about a highly paid master AJAX programmer. The highly paid master AJAX programmers seems to invent uses for AJAX that could be done much cheaper and simpler without using AJAX.

Of course there is nothing wrong with doing cool technical stuff, but when your are writing code for an employee my goal is to always come up with simple cheap, cost effective solutions to your customers problems. Not invent expensive ways to milk your employer out of every penny in his wallet.

And of course that reminds me of the contractors that sold toilet seats to the government for $1,000. Toilet seats which cost $5 each at Home Depot.

Yes I used to be a highly paid computer programmer before I became homeless, but I never told sold any of my employers stuff they didn't need.

Steve Holzner also claims that AJAX programmers don't need to know how to write code on the server side of the web. (Chapter 10, page 297)

I find that to be very misleading.

How on earth are you going to write AJAX applications for the client side of the web if you can't write the corresponding server side code to feed the client side?

Steve Holzner also claims that AJAX programmers don't need to be skilled JavaScript programmers.

Again I find that ridiculous!

When you are writing real time, interrupt drive code, which AJAX is you certainly do need to be a skilled programmer that understands all the nitty gritty details of JavaScript.

The final book on my gripe list is:

The C++ Programming Language Third Edition

The reason I don't like this book is the guy seems to be able to take simple easy to understand things and convert them into complex hard to understand things.

If guess that's something great if you want to make yourself look like a genius and make everybody else look like idiots.

But if you are writing a book I think it's the wrong way to go about things.

I started out programming in FORTRAN and when we convert a floating point number to an integer or vise versa we call it just that - data conversion.

Of course the C++ gurus like Bjarne Stroustrup seem to want to use a $500 word when they do simple things like a data conversion and they call it polymorphism. Which is why I am critical of how the book is written, it takes the simple and make it complex.

That reminds me of when I was studying electricity on my own and learning how capacitors works.

Instead of saying that a capacitor is two electrical conductors, like metal separated by an insulator the holier then thou electrical engineers like to confuse the hell out of people by saying that a capacitor is made out of two conductors separated by a dielectric.

That confused the hell out of me for years until I discovered that a dielectric is a $500 word for an insulator.

Jesus, why can't people who claim to be educators use simple 10¢ words that everybody can understand.

Who am I?

My next computer was a PRIME computer. On those machines I wrote all FORTRAN code.

Then I moved on to the junky UNIVAC 90/80 machines that run an operating system called VS/9. Univac didn't invent those machines but bought out the old RCA Spectra line of computers.

Those machines look more like IBM mainframes. VS/9 looks like an improved version of DOS/VSE, but light years ahead of it.

The hardware runs an assembly language much like the IBM mainframe assembly language. On the VS/9 machines I also wrote code in FORTRAN, COBOL and assembly language. Oddly that assembly language is pretty much the same as the assembly language on IBM mainframe computers.

Then I learned IBM mainframe computers next. I have worked on the MVS and VM/CMS operating systems and written lots of code in FORTRAN, COBOL, assembly language, and a TSO CLISTS and REXX along with the ISPF Dialog Manager programming language.

From there I learned IBM PCs. On those I have written mostly code in C. I have written almost no code for WINDOWs and of course I think Microsoft Windows sucks.

Then after that I learned UNIX and have written lots of code on those machines mostly in C, PERL and UNIX shell scripts, mainly the KORN and BASH shells. UNIX and Linux machines are my favorite type of computer or operating system.

And last but not least I started programming web pages mostly in PERL and PHP.

I also have done a lot of programming in SQL on a good number of platforms.

Last but not least I an not one of those people who's only experience with assembly language is in a class room.

I probably have written 100's of programs in UNIVAC 1100 assembly language, UNIVAC 90/80 assembly language, and good old IBM assembly language which is also called ALC or BAL on both MVS machines and VM/CMS machines.

I have dabble in a few other assembly languages, such as the assembly language for 8086 chips, which is used on the IBM PC, and the assembly language used on the 68HC11 Motorola chip, but I really have not done enough coding in any of them to get good at it.