'''Practical Internet Groupware  '''
A book written by JonUdell about developing simple, effective groupware applications based on internet protocols. 

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1565925378.01._PE_PI_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg
(ISBN: 1565925378)

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pracintgr/
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I'm re-reading this book: I bought it in late 1999, moved before I
finished it, and just got it out of storage last month.

''PIG'' has some excellent things about it: Jon really pushes his
unorthodox views that flexible software is more important than
"scaling", trying to do everything in one language is unnecessary, and
Web applications should be accessible by programs, not just people.

To an ExtremeProgramming partisan, it looks like Jon's ''this close''
to crossing some invisible line and joining up.

The book also has some flaws.  If you're not a PerlMonk, you'll have
some tough sledding figuring out half the code (hint: he typically
explains it ''after'' each listing).  Jon seems like he has a residual
case of HungarianNotation, which leads to variables being named for
their internal structure (tabHoHoLoL) rather than their purpose
(tabSets); in addition to making it harder to understand the code,
this will create a lot of work when you go to refactor.  And he writes
page-long methods -- is calling a function really that expensive in
Perl?

The organization is a little strange; there's no overarching project
that he describes, though he spends a lot of time on DocBases,
Conferencing, and Authorization (separately and linking them).  The
major parts are mostly independent, meaning you can read them out of
order.  In fact, the non-technical reader can treat all of Part I,
plus Chapters 5 and 16, as a much briefer -- but still useful and
thought-provoking -- book.

Like most O'Reilly books, ''PIG'' is almost completely free of
stupid little errors (and the only one I can point to is perfectly
innocuous).  While I haven't personally tried to compile or run all of
the code, I could see no errors or typos in it.

According to the O'Reilly Web site, the book is out of print.  That's
a shame, because there's no way I'm going to sell my copy to anyone.
Maybe they can publish a second edition soon; a lot of Jon's excellent
advice and ideas still haven't made it into the mainstream (e.g. using
XML-RPC).

Finally (and unaccountably), the picture on the cover is of seals and
sea lions, instead of sows and hogs.  --GeorgePaci

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CategoryBook