Today I finally finished reading Concurrent Programming on Windows by Joe Duffy. It took me this long, not because it’s a boring book (it’s not!), but because it covers a lot of ground and a goes into a lot depth.

This is not a book for someone looking for a 3-step program to start writing flawless concurrent programs, simply because there is no such program. As Joe points out throughout the book, writing concurrent programs is hard and error prone. It’s definitely not a simple case of running running all the items in your for or foreach loop on a new thread and automagically your program got a n-times faster.

Amount of subjects the book covers easily explains it’s size (900 pages), it covers a wide range of subjects from low level Memory models, via threads and lock object, to concurrent containers and finally to Parallel Containers for .NET CTP. I think this is a must read book for all serious developers, who in the near or not so near future expect to be writing concurrent programs. Considering the future of CPU’s and cloudcomputing, I believe that will be all of us.

In 1936 Alan Turing wrote a paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem [0]". The most interesting result of this paper is not the conclusion, that there cannot be a general solution to the Entscheidungsproblem, but how Alan Turing reached that conclusion. In his paper he introduces a computing machine (a Turing machine) with a limited number of operations, by showing that such a machine can not determine the ultimate fate of all other machines, he proves there is not general solution.

In 2008 Charles Petzold wrote "The Annotated Turing", in this book he dissects the original paper from Alan Turing. This book not only presents the original paper (and the appendix and corrections) with numerous annotations and samples, but also is a biography of Alan Turing's life and an introduction to the mathematical background, required for understanding the paper. The book concludes with an overview how the Turing machines can be used to help understand the human mind and the universe.

This is a highly recommended book, which is very accessible for anyone with a general interest in computes and mathematics. And a must read for all developers, who want to understand why there can't be a general program which verifies all programs are error free.

[0] The Entscheidungsproblem asks for a general decision procedure with a finite number of steps to determine the provability of any given well-formed formula.

This book (Understanding Windows CardSpace by Vittorio Bertocci, Garrett Serack and Caleb Baker) is not a guide how to implement Windows CardSpace in your website or webservice, but this book helps you understand the reasoning behind Windows CardSpace and how it fits in the Identity Metasystem. As such it is a much better book, than a book which just explains how to add a widget to your website to authenticate users, could ever be.

The parts of the book follow a logical structure. Part 1 discusses the problems we face on the Internet: identity theft, phishing and others and a technology independent solution is proposed. Finally in part 2 CardSpace is introduced and the implementation of CardSpace (both managed and self-issued) in websites and webservices is discussed. Part 3 shows the practical and business considerations when working with the Identity Metasystem and Windows CardSpace.

Even if you're a regular reader of Vittorio's blog, and are familiar with the Seven Laws of Identity, this book still has value. If you're not familiar with one or the other, you really should read this book, since it's the first book which really made me understand the problems we face on the Internet today with respect to identity and why and how Windows CardSpace provides a solution.

With the release of Zermatt this book really has proven it's value: Zermatt makes it much easier to implement a Security Token Service and a Relying Party, but it won't help you understand the concepts behind them or why you need to implement them (or not).

Recently I finished 2 books about programming with the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), "Programming WPF 2nd edition by Chris Sells & Ian Griffiths" and "Essential Windows Presentation Foundation by Chris Anderson". Both books offer a great introduction to programming WPF, but I think "Programming WPF" is the better book.

The first obvious difference is the difference in size between both books, Programming WPF with its 835 pages dwarfs Essential WPF pages with (only) 458 pages. After the foreword, the first chapter of both books gives you a tour of WPF and an introduction on the topics that will be covered in each. Here the difference all ready shows, the additional pages in Programming WPF have not only been used to go into more detail the subjects covered in both, but also covers additional subjects like: 3D and Silverlight (by Shawn Wildermuth).

The thing makes Essential WPF a very interesting book nonetheless, is that because it's written by one of the architects of the WPF team it gives insight in why some choices are made, where Programming WPF is more a book which describes how to do things (often far better than the documentation).

In the end I am very happy I read both books. Initially I wasn't going to read this edition of Programming WPF because I read the first edition and had Essential WPF and the Petzold book in my reading stack. But after reading it, this book is huge addition to the first edition by covering more subjects and updating all code to the final version.

If you are only buying one book about WPF buy Programming WPF; if you are interested in some of the architectural choices you should also buy Essential WPF. Hopefully both books will soon have an updated version which will cover the changes made to WPF in .NET 3.5 and .NET 3.5 SP1.

Note: a review of "Application = Code + Markup by Charles Petzold" is coming as soon as finish reading it.

A nice surprise today when the mailman brought 4 new books:

1. Programming Pearls, 2nd Edition by Jon Bentley
2. The No Asshole Rule by Robert I. Sutton, PhD
3. Mastering Regular Expressions, 3rd edition by Jeffrey E.F. Friedl
4. Code Complete, 2nd Edition by Steve McConnell

1,2 and 4 I consider required reading for any serious developer, allthough I have only read Code Complete myself.

Now the only thing left is to actually read all the books I have collected in the last couple of weeks.

I. M. Wright's Hard Code is a collection of 49 columns Eric Brechner wrote for the Interface magazine at Microsoft from June 2001 till April 2007. The topics of the columns range from software development to career development to being a better manager. And along the way give you great insight in the process of software development at Microsoft.

The best column is "Where's the beef? Why we need quality", which describes the change Microsoft needed to make when the primary users switched from enthusiasts to consumers and enterprises. Customers that want a turnkey solution - you turn it on and it works. The key to making the switch is, according to Eric, raising the quality bar and focus on customer issues. And the three areas to work on are:

• Better design and code
• Better instrumentation and test
• Better supportability and recovery

Highly recommended.

Also read Eric's blog, where he posts a column every month.

I finished Essential Windows Workflow Foundation earlier this week. This is a nice introduction to the workflow foundation and covers everything from writing activities to hosting them and creating designers. There is enough technical depth to get you going and show you where you need to look for more information. Highly recommended.

Now I'm reading Practical Common Lisp and I. M. Wright's "Hard Code", both of which are very promissing.

Still remaining:

My current development reading list:

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

Programming Windows, Fifth Edition

Debugging Microsoft .NET 2.0 Applications

Practical Common Lisp

Applications = Code + Markup: A Guide to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation

Developing More-Secure Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications