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Head Rush Ajax
Brett McLaughlin
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/headra/

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Programmers are flooded with choices about which technologies to pursue in order to maintain a marketable skillset. Even in a particular area of programming like web applications, one must choose carefully where to invest time. Ajax, to the regret of some and delight of others, has emerged as a means of providing rich, responsive web applications that are highly cross-platform. However, when arriving home after a 10-hour day at the office programming, who has the energy to plow through yet another new facet of emerging technology? If a developer is going to invest their free time in self-driven career development, should it not be at least remotely enjoyable? Judging from the content of O'Reilly's new release Head Rush Ajax, their answer is yes.

In the course of my average week, I have referred so many people to the books I use for Agile Software Development and Scrum that I decided to create a bibliography for easy reference.

• Agile Software Development with SCRUM - Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle
• User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development - Mike Cohn
• Agile Estimating and Planning - Mike Cohn

This is a brief talk that I give from time to time to introduce the topic of user stories as a solution to the communication problem of software development. A PDF of the slide deck can be found on this page. My primary reference for user stories is User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software.

This is a central page to catalog presentations and talks given by Barry Hawkins. Wherever applicable, slide decks and/or sample code are included.

• Introduction to User Stories

This is a list of Debian packages I help maintain. This makes it easy for my Application Manager to track and critique my activity, if needed.

Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition
Debra Cameron, James Elliott, Marc Loy, Eric Raymond & Bill Rosenblatt
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/gnu3/

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It is a fairly safe assumption that people who are thinking of learning GNU Emacs or improving their Emacs skills are motivated. These people probably know their way around a command prompt, and it is likely that they are aware that Lisp is more than just a speech impediment. This person needs a book that offers expert advice without wasting time or insulting the intelligence of the reader. Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition is that book.

Introduction

I am asked from time to time about how I became interested in and involved with Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS). This question comes from all sorts of people, ranging from those who think I am crazy to "work for free" to my fellow companions in the F/OSS community. This is the story of how and why I became involved in F/OSS.