The Book Stack 

I just finished The Substance of Style by Virginia Postrel a few days ago, and I thought I'd share my thoughts. I actually found this to be a very interesting read. I picked it up originally for a couple of reasons. First of all I read and enjoy Virginia's Dynamist Blog, and so I thought I would enjoy her book. Second, I think that the look and feel of a product is something that a lot of engineers forget about during design, and I was curious on her take.

Overall, I thought it was an excellent discussion on the topic, but found it lacking in one key personal area of interest. Her general thesis was the currently people tend to dismiss style as having no intrinsic value of it's own, and that many people don't understand why others choose to buy something based solely on it's style. From this general thesis, the majority of the book concentrated on the positive value that style adds to a product. And while, she did discuss some of the negative impacts, she didn't go very in depth. I think it would have been interesting to talk more about how style could affect aspects of usability in a product (when something gets over-styled for instance), and ways in which those negative aspects could be overcome.

Now that I have that book out of the way, I can replace it in my current list of reads. Amazingly, there are only 3 books in the rotation, which is small for me. Here is what the list currently looks like:

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene: I read his earlier book, The Elegant Universe and found it to be a very easy and cool read. Astronomy and astrophysics are kind of a passing interest of mine. Not that I actually understand a lot of details, but I enjoy keeping up on the latest thought about how our universe works, and where it all could lead on a higher level. This is what is replacing Virginia's book in the rotation, so I've just barely cracked it.

Mastering Regular Expressions, Second Edition by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl: Knowledge of regular expressions are one of those things that separates the geeks from the uber geeks. I figured it was about time I was able to actually use and apply them. O'Reilly books are almost always top notch, and this is no exception. I'm about half way through it, and have found it to be a great resource for anyone who wants to learn about this very confusing programming topic.

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Design and Implementation: This is part of my preparation to take the next exam (70-229) towards my MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer). I'm already an MCAD (Microsoft Certified Application Developer), and my company is paying for me to upgrade. It's a typical test prep book... boring and not a lot of detail where I want it, but it gets the job done. I've actually finished this book, but have ended up re-reading sections as I take the practice tests. Hopefully I'll be able to take this exam sometime this month.