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Over the next few weeks, I thought we'd take a close look at some of the common Head First elements. A lot of folks love getting into the pedagogy of Head First, so this is almost a mini-primer to how...

Brett McLaughlin https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 Over the next few weeks, I thought we'd take a close look at some of the common Head First elements. A lot of folks love getting into the pedagogy of Head First, so this is almost a mini-primer to how we use lots of our elements [1]. First up? Brain Power: <img alt="Brain Power" src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/Picture%201.png" width="390" height="145" class="mt-image-center" style="float: none; text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 20px;" /> Brain Power is not just an "ordinary" exercise, like a Sharpen Your Pencil or Exercise. Instead, it's a little bit tougher. In fact, you'll often have to think more critically about Brain Powers (when they're well done) than almost anything else in a Head First book. We also don't typically put answers to Brain Powers in the book. You'll find text like this in most books' Read Me sections, up in the front matter: <img alt="Brain Powers don't have answers" src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/Picture%202.png" width="462" height="86" class="mt-image-center" style="float:none; text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 20px;" /> Why no answers? Well, there are two reasons. First, without an answer, your brain is left to puzzle at what to reply. What do you think? And is what you think correct? Is your solution tenable and workable? Your brain hates irresolution. So forcing it to whir along without a definitive answer is really a dirty trick we're playing to get you to continue thinking. But there's another reason. Brain Powers pose hard questions, without (hopefully!) easy answers. Because of that, there's always the risk a less-experienced learner gets the answer wrong. There's nothing like rubbing a learner's face in a wrong answer to turn them off and cause them to disengage. While we're by no means afraid to tell a learner that they've made a mistake, it's tricky to ask a very hard, abstract question, and then present an answer on the next page, as if to say, "Get it? Nope? Well, too bad!" And another reason (yeah, I said just two, but hey, who's counting, anyway?): Brain Powers might have a range of correct answers. Lots of the time, these abstract questions can be solved in several ways. We really don't want to take up 10 pages with possible answers; or rather, if we did, we'd take you through that learning process, rather than handling it all with a Brain Power. Like I said, Brain Powers are all about critical thinking, and not coming up with a simple answer. One thing I often tell authors is this: Don't ever phrase a Brain Power so that you can answer it with a "Yes" or "No." For example, here's a (bad) Brain Power question: <blockquote>Do you think it's possible to build an MVC implementation using Objective C that runs purely on an iPhone?</blockquote> It's an interesting question, but the brain of a learner can read the question, and simply think, "Sure." That little bit of closure is all it takes to turn the page. This could easily be made more effective, though: <blockquote>How would you build an MVC implementation using Objective C that runs purely on an iPhone?</blockquote> In this improved case, you've got to really think. The brain wants resolution! There's a lot more to be said about these elements, but that's a pretty good start. What other things do you think Brain Powers accomplish? Do you work on them much? Not at all? Do you ignore them totally? What do you think? [1] Just so we're clear, lots of people -- including some in O'Reilly -- will think that it's insane to "reveal" how we use our elements and build Head First books. I tend to think that's silly. First of all, there's very little I'll be writing on this blog that an astute observer couldn't figure out on their own. Second -- and maybe this is just my naivete -- I think it's our editors that make the key difference. If you can take these little discussions and go write Head First Basket Weaving for another publisher, then best of luck to you. (Although if that's the case, I'd much rather you come write for us. Except we aren't looking for a basket-weaving book...) <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/YL_5Zkq6t6k" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/06/brain-power-up-close.html Where do I start if I want to write for Head First? tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.35574 2009-03-11T17:26:13Z 2009-03-11T17:34:29Z

Brett McLaughlin https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 <embed src="https://blip.tv/play/AfGlBQA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="287" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/cMth2HDkg0k" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 video https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/03/where-do-i-start-if-i-want-to.html What does it take to be a Head First author? tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.35521 2009-03-06T02:17:58Z 2009-03-06T02:26:32Z

Do you ever wish you could write a Head First book? Wondering what it takes? Check out what Brett, the series editor, has to say about writing a Head First book.

Brett McLaughlin https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 <center> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://blip.tv/scripts/pokkariPlayer.js?ver=2008010901"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://blip.tv/syndication/write_player?skin=js&posts_id=1856063&source=3&autoplay=true&file_type=flv&player_width=&player_height="></script> <div id="blip_movie_content_1856063"> <a rel="enclosure" href="https://blip.tv/file/get/Headfirstlabs-WhatDoesItTakeToBeAHeadFirstAuthor939.m4v" onclick="play_blip_movie_1856063(); return false;"><img title="Click to play" alt="Video thumbnail. Click to play" src="https://blip.tv/file/get/Headfirstlabs-WhatDoesItTakeToBeAHeadFirstAuthor939.m4v.jpg" border="0" title="Click To Play" /></a> <a rel="enclosure" href="https://blip.tv/file/get/Headfirstlabs-WhatDoesItTakeToBeAHeadFirstAuthor939.m4v" onclick="play_blip_movie_1856063(); return false;">Click To Play</a> </div> </center> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/1SDyI0dosg0" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 video https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/03/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-head.html What's coming in 2009 for Head First? tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.35272 2009-02-10T19:10:24Z 2009-02-10T21:20:19Z

Brett McLaughlin https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 <embed src="https://blip.tv/play/Aev1dwA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="390" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/vt9-85R0wNo" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/02/whats-coming-in-2009-for-head.html January Newsletter tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.34986 2009-01-14T16:34:42Z 2009-01-14T16:39:36Z

We sent out our January Newsletter recently. Sign up here to receive future newsletters via email....

Caitrin McCullough https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/hfnewsletter/2009/01/newsletter.html"><img src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/images/coffee_saucer2.png"></a> We sent out our <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/hfnewsletter/2009/01/newsletter.html">January Newsletter</a> recently. <a href="https://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#head_first">Sign up here to receive future newsletters via email.</a> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/z4Mr49Zhw6Y" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/january-newsletter-1.html The dreaded EJB question... addressed tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.34972 2009-01-13T20:03:23Z 2009-01-13T20:06:54Z

Lots of folks have been clamoring to know about the second edition of Head First EJB. Click Play on the video below to get a direct answer... I promise.

Brett McLaughlin https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 Lots of folks have been clamoring to know about the second edition of Head First EJB. Click Play on the video below to get a direct answer... I promise. We'll be posting a lot more of these video Q&A sessions in the weeks to come, as we try and address your questions in an even more direct manner. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/hYmJOu421-4&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/hYmJOu421-4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/l3L9-kV2VAY" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/the-dreaded-ejb-question-addre.html Three Things You Can Do (Today) to Improve Your Website tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.34968 2009-01-13T17:16:29Z 2009-01-14T13:22:19Z

Jeff Siarto is a User Experience and Web Designer living in Chicago. He is a co-author of Head First Web Design and writes about design and technology at his blog: siarto.com. 1. Simplify Everything Remove unnecessary and extraneous content People...

Jeff Siarto https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3460 <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfwd/"><img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/hfnewsletter/graphics/hfwd_ad.png" border="0" alt="Head First Web Design" style="float:right; padding:10px;"/></a>Jeff Siarto is a User Experience and Web Designer living in Chicago. He is a co-author of <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfwd/">Head First Web Design</a> and writes about design and technology at his blog: <a href="https://siarto.com">siarto.com</a>. <h2>1. Simplify Everything</h2> <h3>Remove unnecessary and extraneous content</h3> People come to your website to find information. It might be to look at your portfolio, read about a recent vacation or find out how to get in touch with you. Your job as a web designer is to make this information accessible and easy to find. The easiest way to help people find the important content is to get rid of the stuff that seems trivial and non-essential. The next time you make changes to your homepage, try taking things out instead of adding. Maybe that Facebook status widget or your most recent 100 Tweets aren't as essential to the core content of your site as you thought. Think about the main content areas of your site and concentrate on making them better before even thinking about adding more. <h3>Downsize your markup</h3> Just as content can become cluttered and unorganized, so can your site's underlying markup. In a perfect world, the HTML that your site's built on would be an exact semantic representation of your content. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world and HTML (and it's variant XHTML) aren't perfect markup languages. With that in mind, it's important to try and make your markup as lean as possible. Is that extra container <code><div></code> really necessary? Do these items need to be in a list, or will a paragraph work just as well? Am I using tables for tabular data and not layout? Go through your markup — and just like you did with your page content — remove anything that isn't essential to the layout and semantics of your site. Organizing that tag soup will not only speed up your site, but also reduce browser inconsistencies and give clearer meaning to your content. <h3>Reduce your site's download footprint</h3> Believe it or not, not everyone is connecting to the Internet over a fast cable modem or DSL line. In areas where broadband is limited, some users still connect with dial-up, slow DSL or even satellite. These users can account for 5 to 15% of your total visitors and their experience on your site is just as important as those connecting from a super-fast campus LAN. Knowing that, files sizes and download times should always be considered when designing new pages or adding content and features to existing ones. Make sure you are using proper image compression for the given image type. Icons, fonts and logos typically perform best as GIFs while photographic images usually look best saved as JPEGs. Adjust the quality of your images to offer the best resolution and detail in the smallest possible file size. If you use <a href="https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/compare/">Photoshop</a>, the Save for Web feature will tell you how long a particular image will take to download at a given speed. Make note of these speeds so you have an idea of how long the site as a whole will take to download. In addition, using your browsers activity menu or web inspector (<a href="https://webkit.org">Safari/Webkit</a>) can also help glean vital information on download speed and file size — often showing you exactly where you can expect bottle necks. Finally, see #1 and #2 above for ways to make your files smaller and faster. <h2>2. Learn About the People and Robots that Visit Your Pages</h2> <h3>Watch someone else use your website</h3> Good websites are designed for their intended audience. Most of the time, this isn't you. So it really doesn't make much sense for you to be the only person that tests the design and layout of your site. Now, it might not be easy to find a person that best exemplifies your intended audience, or you may not even know who your intended audience is. The point is that you need to find someone other than yourself or your mom (she'll be too nice) to give your pages a thorough "click-through" while you observe their actions and behaviors. So, find a friend or neighbor and ask them if you could watch them click around on your site. Give them a few tasks like finding a particular article or locating your contact information and just see what happens. How long does it take them to find the information? Did they get lost? Were they frustrated? You'll be surprised by the results and it will likely make you think differently about the design and content choices you've made. Remember, you built the site and know where everything is located and how to get there. Your users don't have that luxury. <h3>Analytics can tell you more than just page hits</h3> Most people look at programs like <a href="https://www.google.com/analytics">Google Analytics</a>, <a href="https://haveamint.com">Mint</a> and <a href="awstats.sourceforge.net/">AWStats</a> as tools for keeping track of how may people visit their site on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. While this is true, they offer information that is exponentially more useful than how many unique visitors you had last December. When a visitor accesses one of your pages, they leave behind a wealth of information that can help you make their experience more enjoyable. Most analytics programs will track browser versions, screen size, connection speed, time spent on the site, pages clicked to and where they came from. This information is gold. Knowing all these metrics will allow you to make changes to your site that really improve the user experience. For example, if 80% of your visitors have a screen resolution of 800x600 but your site was built using a 1024x768 template — more than 3/4 of your visitors are receiving a sub-par experience. Fixing that issue will not only make users happier with your site, but probably keep them there longer and coming back more in the future. <h2>3. Validate Your Hard Work</h2> <h3>Use the W3C Markup Validation tools to check your pages</h3> One of the easiest things you can do to improve your website is to <a href="https://validator.w3.org">validate your markup and stylesheets</a>. All this means is running your code through a form provided by the <a href="https://w3.org">W3C</a> that makes sure your HTML and CSS meet the required specification. The validator will automatically look at your <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Type_Declaration">DOCTYPE</a> and then generate a report either saying that your code is valid or giving you a list of errors and recommended fixes. This is a great way to catch tags that you may have forgotten to close and also a good way to make sure you are using the elements properly (like not putting an <code><h1></code> inside of a <code></code>). Validating will help make many of the steps above easier and will also help you learn more about HTML and XHMTL along the way. This is by no means an exhaustive list of ways to improve your website. Great web design is a process that requires skills in many different areas and full books have been written on just small segments of web design. Your best bet is to keep things as simple as possible and really think about the people that are going to be using and interacting with your site. Knowing these two things will make your pages better than 90% of the content on the web and you'll have some of the happiest users around. <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/lEUKjAgJkp8" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3460 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/three-things-you-can-do-today.html Head First Rails: An Interview with David Griffiths tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.34966 2009-01-13T16:13:23Z 2009-01-14T13:30:46Z

David Griffiths is the author of the newly released Head First Rails. We sat down with him recently and asked him a few questions about his favorite subject. What are some of the coolest things learners can do once they've...

Caitrin McCullough https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/dgriffiths.png" alt="" style="float: right; padding-left: 10px;">David Griffiths is the author of the newly released <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfrails/index.php?CMP=NLC-July07&ATT=0109" >Head First Rails</a>. We sat down with him recently and asked him a few questions about his favorite subject. <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/question.png" align="left">What are some of the coolest things learners can do once they've worked through <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfrails/index.php?CMP=NLC-July07&ATT=1108" >Head First Rails</a>? <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/answer.png" align="left">Wow — there's so much cool stuff in the book, where to begin? I wanted to write a book where people didn't just get to know stuff, but they actually learnt how to do stuff. So really the whole book is about how to do cool things. Like build a custom web application in two minutes. Or manage multiple data sets in a single interface. Or create a mashup with Google maps. Or using Ajax in really practical ways, not just for eye-candy. Cool is really just another word for powerful and I want people to finish this book armed with practical skills that they can apply from the get-go. <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/question.png" align="left">How do you think the Head First approach to Rails is different from other non-Head-First Rails books you've seen and used? How do you think Head First makes Rails easier to learn? <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/answer.png" align="left">A lot of books provide information about Rails, but Head First Rails gives you something else as well: motivation. Motivation is a really key thing in learning any new topic. It doesn't matter how smart you are, if you don't feel motivated, then it will be really hard to learn anything. So how does Head First Rails motivate you? It uses fun and drama and scenarios. It has characters and plots and twists and turns. We use a lot of the same tricks they use in movies. Why? Because we want the teaching material to be compelling, like a movie is compelling. Rails is this incredible development framework. Things that used to take me four or five hours, I can now do in four or five minutes in Rails. That's an exciting thing! And <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfrails/index.php?CMP=NLC-July07&ATT=1108" >Head First Rails</a> is designed to convey that excitement. <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/question.png" align="left">What topic do you think people struggle with most in Rails? How did you address that topic in a way that will help learners who have struggled before? <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/answer.png" align="left">One problem that I had when I first looked at Rails was figuring out how to create master-detail applications. These are applications where the user needs to manage multiple pieces of related information. You might have a blog post and its related comments. Or the example we have in the book is an airline called Coconut Airways which needs a system to manage flights and seat bookings. Now Rails is great at generating applications for managing single pieces of information, but if you want to create a master-detail app, well... you pretty much have to do it yourself. And that involves knowing about lots of different topics like database relationships and partials and even advanced subjects like Ajax. Head First Rails teaches you all those things in an integrated way. You don't have to skip back and forth between chapters. When I'd finished that section of the book, I kind of wished I'd had it when I was learning Rails. <img alt="coconut.png" src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/13/coconut.png" class="mt-image-center" style="text-align: center; display: block;" />   <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/question.png" align="left">What topic or section of the book are you most proud of? What did you do to make it especially effective? <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/answer.png" align="left">The part of the book that I am most pleased with came at the end — with the Google Maps application. Why Google Maps? Because it's a great example of a mashup. To integrate with another application — whether it's Google, or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> or <a href="https://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a> — you generally need to do two things: dynamically generate information in some format like XML, and then hook up some chunk of Ajax code. <img alt="gmaps.png" src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/13/gmaps.png" width="235" height="212" class="mt-image-right" style="float: right; margin: 0 0 20px 20px;" /> I was genuinely surprised when I was writing the book at how much people would be able to do in the final chapters. It was such a surprise that I changed the ending of the book! All of a sudden people could build this application where data was not only viewed, but also created and edited directly on the map . And the learner doesn't just build the app by blindly following some set of instructions but by actually understanding the code as they write it. It was a real surprise to me. I would never have dreamed that such a thing was possible when I began the book. <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/question.png" align="left">Is your book for people who've never studied Rails, or who have already worked with Rails? <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/answer.png" align="left">If you've done any kind of programming before — whether it's in Java or Visual Basic or PHP — then you'll be able to learn Rails from this book. I think even someone who knows Rails will still get benefit from the book, but really the target audience is people coming to Rails for the first time. Rails is such a great framework — one that makes development so much faster — that even taking into account the time it takes to read the book, I think you'll ship your application faster if you build it in Rails. But then, maybe I'm biased... <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/gc3Oub2V_tI" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/head-first-rails-an-interview.html It's 2009... learn like it! tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.34869 2009-01-06T21:21:09Z 2009-01-07T13:22:14Z

So here we are, a new year. Unsurprisingly, we're getting lots of questions here at the Labs about what's coming in 2009. What books are in progress? What about Rough Cuts and Safari... what's going on there? And where, oh...

Brett McLaughlin https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 So here we are, a new year. Unsurprisingly, we're getting lots of questions here at the Labs about what's coming in 2009. What books are in progress? What about <a href="https://oreilly.com/roughcuts/">Rough Cuts</a> and <a href="https://my.safaribooksonline.com/?portal=oreilly">Safari</a>... what's going on there? And where, oh where, is Head First EJB? Yeah, it's definitely true, we've got some great books coming out in 2009. To mention just a few, you'll see Head First Networking and Head First Programming, and keep an eye out for an improved and updated second edition of <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfpmp/">Head First PMP</a>, just in time for the updated PMP exam coming out later this year. We've also got another exciting title, Head First Data Analysis, that's going to give you a Head First look at data in a way you'd never expect. Should be really cool. But what I think we're most excited about around here is the expansion of our product formats, not just our product offerings. Safari has offered Head First books for a while, and late last year, you got a glimpse of Head First both as a Rough Cuts (early access) contender and a fully-digital PDF. So whether you're online at work or stuck on a long plane ride, you can catch up on Ajax or learn what centripetal force is really all about. In 2009, though, we're going to push well beyond simple "convert that paper page to a non-paper page." <img alt="blog010609_retro1.png" src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/06/blog010609_retro1.png" width="500" height="379" class="mt-image-center" style="text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 20px;" /> Head First is about learning in the most effective manner possible, and that's not always a book. In fact, in some cases, one person might love a book, and another might really just want to go play a little more XBox. In light of that, 2009 is the year of Head First in some really new, really innovative formats. First, you'll see us hard at work on releasing some online versions of our books. That's not just a PDF, or even a digital copy of the page... we tend to be OCD about going above and beyond around here. Instead, we're creating a completely new digital interface where you can learn, interact, exercise, and achieve through the Head First methodology... all in a digital environment. Stay tuned... this will be one of the most exciting developments of 2009, I can promise you. <img alt="blog010609_sg1.png" src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/blog010609_sg1.png" width="500" height="377" class="mt-image-center" style="text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0;" /> Not only that, we're working hard to bring you in-person events. No, Skeptical Girl and Kim won't mud wrestle, but we are bringing the innovative learning principles of Head First to a live environment. Project-based learning, lots of games and interesting exercises, a true learn-by-doing attitude, and instructors who aren't about "Did you catch my name? Do you know who I am?" and more about "Let's learn how to DO something today" will be the cornerstones of these in-person events. Yup, 2009 is gonna be a blast, because we want to make learning the new pink (or orange, or black, or... well, you get the idea. Want more details? Keep hanging around the Labs site. Lots more content to come, from blogs to videos to teasers of these new formats. <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/oHj6lnSsAWc" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/its-2009-learn-like-it.html New Forums Now Open tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2009:/headfirst//46.34864 2009-01-06T15:56:10Z 2009-01-06T16:03:31Z

Get your questions answered in the forums for the newest Head First titles: Algebra, PHP & MySQL, Rails, and Web Design....

Caitrin McCullough https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/phpBB2/"><img src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/pizza_slice.png" width="40" height="40" /></a> Get your questions answered in the forums for the newest Head First titles: <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=21">Algebra</a>, <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=20">PHP & MySQL</a>, <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=23">Rails</a>, and <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=22">Web Design</a>. <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/b4K8ca8Bhzk" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2009/01/new-forums-now-open.html Special Announcement: Head First PDFs tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2008:/headfirst//46.34723 2008-12-19T22:30:26Z 2008-12-19T22:37:26Z

Hey there, Head First fans. It's been a crazy year for us here at Head First, and we've been working hard to end the year on an amazing, Joe-Frank-and-Jim would-love-this note. You've already seen our latest newsletter, where we've made...

Brett McLaughlin https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/hfnewsletter/graphics/hfpdfs.png" style="float:right; padding-left:10px;"/>Hey there, Head First fans. It's been a crazy year for us here at Head First, and we've been working hard to end the year on an amazing, Joe-Frank-and-Jim would-love-this note. You've already seen our latest newsletter, where we've made <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/hfnewsletter/decemberbonus.php">sample chapters</a> available for our four latest books. But never ones to be satisfied, we've got some more gifts you can put under your tree. First, and probably most exciting to the little elves here in Head First land, not one, not two, but all of the Head First books are now available as PDFs. Surf on over to <a href="https://oreilly.com/store/series/headfirst.csp">this complete list of Head First titles</a>, and check it out. You can buy PDFs of every single one. That's right, now you've got the perfect companion for those 18-hour drives home to visit family... without the heft of 50 pounds of books to weigh you down. You've been asking for it for years, so it's our pleasure to make PDF books available for purchase. Check 'em out, and let us know what you think! <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/ZP1qeuFlgrI" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/152 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2008/12/head-first-pdfs.html Head First Books Now Available in PDF tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2008:/headfirst//46.34717 2008-12-19T15:14:42Z 2008-12-19T15:18:03Z

Newly available Head First PDFs feature in a major announcement from O'Reilly's electronic publishing initiative. Read it here....

Caitrin McCullough https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 <a href="https://toc.oreilly.com/2008/12/oreilly-ebooks-130-top-titles-plus-iphone-app-and-head-first-pdfs.html"><img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/blog/bang_icon.png"></a> Newly available Head First PDFs feature in a major announcement from O'Reilly's electronic publishing initiative. <a href="https://toc.oreilly.com/2008/12/oreilly-ebooks-130-top-titles-plus-iphone-app-and-head-first-pdfs.html">Read it here.</a> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/IgwB36FRpkM" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2008/12/head-first-books-now-available.html The power of mishtakes tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2008:/headfirst//46.34699 2008-12-18T14:47:29Z 2008-12-19T22:28:23Z

Next year is the 30th anniversary of The Book of Heroic Failures by Stephen Pile. It's like the Guinness Book of World Records for the clumsy, the forgetful and the just plain confused. Like the civil servant from Andorra who...

David Griffiths https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3371 Next year is the 30th anniversary of <a href="https://tinyurl.com/6qd7xn" target="_blank">The Book of Heroic Failures</a> by Stephen Pile. It's like the Guinness Book of World Records for the clumsy, the forgetful and the just plain confused. <ul> <li>Like the civil servant from Andorra who forgot to attend the peace treaty signing in 1919, resulting in Andorra being the only country in history to have taken part in two World Wars at the same time.</li> <li>Or Douglas Corrigan, who intended to make an historic flight from New York to California, but because of a navigational error landed in Ireland. </li> </ul> Throughout human history, failure has been our constant companion. No matter how hard people try, no matter how many systems and backup systems and backup-backup systems we put in place, stuff still goes wrong. <img alt="mishtakes.png" src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2008/12/18/mishtakes.png" width="500" height="425" class="mt-image-none" style="" /> Now if you are running a Nuclear Power Station, or a hospital, or a government department then failure is a bad thing and a lot of your time is probably spent in finding ways of preventing it. But the truth is that at Head First we don't see mistakes as always a bad thing. In fact we kind of like failure. And it's all to do with the way that your brain works. <a href="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2008/12/the-power-of-mishtakes.html#more">Read more...</a> <h3>Livin' like a lizard, baby</h3> At the base of your brain is a region called the Reptilian Complex. It's the legacy lizard brain that you inherited from millions of years of evolution. Think of it as a BIOS chip: it handles a lot of the really low-level stuff that you are not consciously aware of. It takes care of you. It tells you when to fight and when to run. When to eat and when to drink. It remembers which things are good for you and which are bad. But what's really interesting is how your lizard brain remembers. Unlike a computer, it doesn't just store facts away like files in a cabinet. It remembers things by association. Imagine you ate some berries and a few hours later felt sick. Your lizard brain would associate those two events. The next time you even see the berries, your brain will reactivate the association and you start to feel queasy. So your brain can associate things with mistakes and failures really easily. It needs to keep track of the bad stuff because that's what's likely to harm you. And that's why we think failure can be a really great thing. Because if we can associate a piece of learning with some sort of failure, then you'll remember it. <h3>Getting Rails into your head</h3> Take <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfrails/" target="_blank">Head First Rails</a> for example. Half, maybe two thirds of the code is designed to be incomplete, or buggy, or to crash. Why is that? Because it's memorable. For example, Rails uses routes to work out which piece of code should be run when a request is received from a web browser. Routes are kind of fiddly but thankfully most of the time Rails generates them for you so you don't really need to understand how they work. Most of the time. But Rails routes have a number of intricate little rules associated with them. The order in which they are written matters. The type of HTTP method (GET, POST etc.) matters. And if you get a problem with the routes in your application then all kinds of weird things can happen. Now there are really three ways of dealing with routes from a teaching point of view. The first way is to just ignore the problem. Just use the generated routes. Avoid any situations that are likely to cause difficulties. Replace that part of the book with some reference material on 15 different ways of formatting text. That would probably feel very good. You'd read the book and learn how to do a few cool things, but a few months down the line when you inherit somebody else's broken code, you'd probably feel completely lost. The second way is to simply write down the rules. Just tell people. Say "The order of the rules matters and the matching algorithm takes into account the HTTP method verb contained in the request". The problem with that approach is that people probably won't remember it. Heck, they probably won't even read it. I just wrote the sentence and I nearly fell asleep half way through. So what's the Head First approach? Well we don't just avoid the issue. And we don't just tell you the rules. Instead we show you how the rules work. How do we do that? We use mistakes. And failure. We give you code that breaks the rules. And then we ask you why you think it happened. We take you through that sense of failure because then — if you come across a similar gnarly problem in the Real World your brain will contain the association between the failure and the solution. It's a tough old 21st Century World out there. And you need to make the most of your ancient cretaceous brain to live in it. <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/KKEw88vC7qo" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3371 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2008/12/the-power-of-mishtakes.html December Newsletter tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2008:/headfirst//46.34681 2008-12-17T17:17:59Z 2008-12-17T17:19:05Z

We sent out our December Newsletter recently. Sign up here to receive future newsletters via email....

Caitrin McCullough https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/hfnewsletter/2008/12/newsletter.html"><img src="https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/images/coffee_saucer2.png"></a> We sent out our <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/hfnewsletter/2008/12/newsletter.html">December Newsletter</a> recently. <a href="https://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#head_first">Sign up here to receive future newsletters via email.</a> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/9BnfGUopogk" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 text https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2008/12/december-newsletter-1.html Head First Rails Code Posted tag:blogs.oreilly.com,2008:/headfirst//46.34497 2008-12-02T17:09:16Z 2008-12-02T17:15:54Z

We posted code downloads for all the chapters of Head First Rails currently available in Rough Cuts. Get them here!...

Caitrin McCullough https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 <img src="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/Images/blog/magnify.png">We posted code downloads for all the chapters of <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfrails/index.php">Head First Rails</a> currently available in <a href="https://oreilly.com/roughcuts/faq.csp">Rough Cuts</a>. <a href="https://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfrails/index.php#code">Get them here!</a> <img src="https://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/oreilly/headfirstlabs/~4/dyUP0L8YNAc" height="1" width="1"/> https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3219 https://blogs.oreilly.com/headfirst/2008/12/head-first-rails-code-posted.html

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