| Perl |
|---|
Buy from Amazon UK |
This book gives indepth coverage of mod_perl - the glue between the apache webserver & the perl interpreter which allows far more efficent and elegant scripting than CGI scripts and exposes the entire Apache API. All I want now is Gerald Richter to write a book on embperl |
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This is the most in depth coverage you can get for Perl's Database Interface. Written by the master of DBI (Tim Bunce). |
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A book by a publisher who is rapidly becoming a contender to O'Reilly this is a superb introduction to Object Oriented Perl programming. This is a more advanced Perl book. |
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Written by the author of the Perl ODBC module, this is the best book on
writing Perl on Windows (with an emphasis on administration tasks on NT).
Not an introduction to Perl, but goes into detail on a lot of the
Win32-specific features available within the Perl modules. |
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Probably the most advanced Perl book you can buy.
This book goes into the internals of Perl, Perl's OO features, linking
C to Perl and more advanced subjects. It also discusses Perl/TK. |
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Full of useful examples that stop you from wasting your time reinventing the
wheel. I found the networking code very useful when writing some of the BBC
Forums system. |
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A very useful quick reference, although no substitute for Programming Perl & the Perl Cookbook. Handy sections on commonly used modules (CGI, DBI, Net, Win32). |
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This book is the first one you should get when starting with Perl. (Unless you have very little programming experience, in that case get Learning Perlor Elements of Programming with Perl). A little light on examples, for which the Perl Cookbook (see below) is ideal. It goes into regular expressions in details which should be read and re-read until understood. |
| Unix |
|---|
Buy from Amazon UK |
One of the O'Reilly nutshell series, this is a very useful reference and
a lot more convenient than peering at man pages. Not the easiest book
to learn UNIX from (see "The Unix Operating System" for that).
This is a recently updated (Sep 1999) 3rd Edition. If Linux is specifically what you want, get
Linux in A Nutshell which
focusses more on the GNU tools (for example my copy of this covers sh
rather than bash which is covered in L.I.A.N.). |
Buy from Amazon UK |
A big book including a CD (which contains many UNIX tools) which is
sort of "Unix Examples in a nutshell". Provides pre-written solutions to
common tasks on Unix machines.
Passes a colleague's criteria of "Can this book tell me how to redirect
to a file and to a pipe simultaneously?" If you don't know how to do
this, get this book. |
The UNIX Operating System, 3rd Ed.
Buy from Amazon UK |
A great introduction to the UNIX operating system. Also (quite) useful for more
experienced users. Goes into detail on topics such as the difference
between a hard and soft file system link. |
| Java |
|---|
Buy from Amazon UK |
I have the version for JDK 1.1., and it's the best introduction to Java
I've found. For advanced topics, get Volume 2. |
Core Java II Vol. 2
Buy from Amazon UK |
With a similar style & quality to Vol. 1 this covers more advanced Java
topics such as multithreading. |
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I am working my way through this book at the moment and am becoming
keener on the servlet approach to web development.
It would be nice to get some more coverage of
Java Server Pages
but the spec wasn't finalized until well after the book came out. |
| Oracle |
|---|
Buy from Amazon UK |
I'm not really a Visual Basic programmer, so this book is good for me
as it's slanted more towards oracle (about 70/30). It's a really good
introduction to Oracle and touches on some of the Windows client tools.
It is strong on the different ways of connecting to Oracle from Windows
(ODBC, DAO, RDO, ADO/OLE-DB, Oracle Objects for OLE). |
Buy from Amazon UK |
This is one of the most useful (and heaviest) books in my collection.
Covers SQL, SQL*PLUS, PL/SQL and more in 1,300 pages. (Unfortunately
Oracle is such a massive topic you do need even more if you want to
use it in depth). |
Buy from Amazon UK |
This covers in depth Oracle's procedural extensions to SQL, PL/SQL.
something I haven't used in depth yet apart from a few functions
for the BBC forums system.
Also includes a short section on the Oracle WebServer.
At the moment this is £17 cheaper than the UK RRP! |
| General |
|---|
Buy from Amazon UK |
Recently revised, this is the best guide to the world's most popular web server. If you're interested in directly programming apache
Writing Apache Modules with C & Perl may be of interest to you. An alternative Apache book which I've been checking out is Professional Apache |
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This book is excellent, and it is all available online to read.
It is slanted towards developing database-backed websites on Unix, his tools
of choice being
aolserver and Oracle,
but the general principles are applicable to other architectures.
It also is full of colour pictures which are generally totally
irrelevant to the text (which is cool). |
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This is similar in style to Web Design in a Nutshell, but has an overview of more technical topics, such as the Apache server, PHP (a similar language to ASP for Unix (& Windows) servers), Perl, CGI, Server-Side Includes, basic HTML overview, XML. Some of the topics covered are UNIX-specific, I believe an NT-specific W.I.A.N. is scheduled for release |
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This is an excellent book on how to use standard internet servers (INN, Apache) and protocols (HTTP, NNTP) to create intranet and extranet systems for collaboration at low cost. Written by Jon Udell, who used to be in charge of Byte Magazine's systems (and who has recently taken a post as CTO at O'Reilly). |
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Forget the O'Reilly "Msql & MySQL" books - this one is much better - written by someone who contributed a lot to the online mysql documentation |
| HTML / Javascript |
|---|
Buy from Amazon UK |
This covers Dynamic HTML: getting client-side scripting to
manipulate your webpages.
Most importantly it stresses cross-browser compatibility unlike
some of the Wrox books.
It's another hefty book, and doesn't cover IE5 (look for another
release when Navigator 5 is out too). |
Buy from Amazon UK |
This is a handy guide covering HTML, cross-browser compatibility,
graphics, audio, general design principles. It also has introductions
to "emerging technologies" - CSS, XML, DHTML, embedded fonts.
I used it recently to look up the syntax for server-side imagemaps
(something I'd never used before). It also has handy appendices. |
| Non-Programming |
|---|
The Onion: Our Dumb Century
Buy from Amazon UK |
A hilarious book from the publishers of The Onion. If you've never read it, I suggest you visit the website now. (I recently discovered that they sell The Onion newspaper in Borders Oxford Street…) |
| Microsoft Web Tech |
|---|
Buy from Amazon UK |
This is a reference to Microsoft's object model for Web Programming. It's divided into 3 parts: Introduction to ASP; Object Reference & Installable Component Reference. For more detailed coverage (1000 pages!) try "Professional Active Server Pages" from Wrox. |
Buy from Amazon UK |
This is generally regarded as the bible for Active Server Pages. If you are a real programming beginner, Wrox do "Beginning Active Server Pages". This covers the Object Model, Active Server Components, IIS4 Admin, ActiveX Data Objects, Transactions, Index Server & Case Studies. Also note Prof ASP v3.0 is out now (for Windows 2000 & IIS 5.0). |
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This is a reference to Microsoft's scripting language: Visual Basic. One of the larger Nutshell guides this has 100 pages on the workings & philosophy behind VB & a 450 page language reference. |