A list of book releases compiled by Dr. Dobb’s to keep you up-to-date on software development tools and techniques.
Well Played 1.0
by Drew Davidson et alia
What makes a game good? or bad? or better? Video games can be “well played” in two senses. On the one hand, well played is to games as well read is to books. On the other hand, well played as in well done. This book is full of in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. 22 contributors (developers, scholars, reviewers and bloggers) look at video games through both senses of “well played.” The goal is to help develop and define a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis.
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/newreleases
The Merb Way
by Foy Savas
Thousands of Ruby and Rails developers are discovering the extraordinary scalability, agility, flexibility, and performance offered by the new Merb MVC framework. This book is the first comprehensive guide to using, extending, and deploying Merb. It can either be read cover-to-cover as a tutorial or used for modular coverage that makes it an ideal task reference. Foy Savas systematically covers everything developers need to know to build production-quality Merb applications, offering detailed code examples for jumpstarting virtually any project. Savas is not only involved in the Merb project as an open source contributor: He uses Merb every day as a professional developer. Drawing on his extensive practical expertise, he delves deeply into the Merb framework’s architecture and source code, revealing its elegance and offering powerful best practices for using it. To maximize this book’s practical value, he also covers the tools most widely used alongside Merb, including the DataMapper ORM, the RSpec tester (and associated behavior-driven development techniques), and several leading Merb plugins.
http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321606388
Metaprogramming Ruby
by Paolo Perrotta
This ebook will guide you through the relationship between Ruby and metaprogramming—how you can use it to remove duplication in your code and write elegant, beautiful programs. It describes metaprogramming as an essential component of Ruby. Once you understand the principles of Ruby, including the object model, scopes, and eigenclasses, you’re on your way to applying metaprogramming both in your daily work and in your fun, after-hours projects. Learning metaprogramming doesn’t have to be difficult or boring. By taking you on a Monday-through-Friday workweek adventure with a pair of programmers, Paolo Perrotta helps make mastering the art of metaprogramming both straightforward and entertaining.
http://pragprog.com/titles/ppmetr/
