Book Reading Update

Today I returned three books to the MSU Library. I received Effective STL, The Pragmatic Programmer, and Code Complete 2nd Edition through the Michigan eLibrary, otherwise known as MeL.

MeL offers the ability to check out a book from any public library in Michigan through your local public library.

The checkout policies will differ from your local library, for example at Michigan State I can check out a book for six months due to my graduate student standing, whereas with MeL I can only check out a book for three weeks (with an optional three week renewal). Also, any overdue fines at MSU are voided when the book is returned, whereas MeL charges $2/day late fees.

If you live in Michigan I highly recommend you take a look at MeL if you can’t find the book you are looking for in your local library.

After returning the books, I checked out two books from the MSU Libraries:

1. Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language by Douglas Hofstadter
2. Data Mining Techniques: For Marketing, Sales, and Customer Relationship Management by Micahel J. A. Berry and Gordon S. Linoff

I first learned of Le Ton beau de Marot while reading through a discussion about the Linux port of Google Chrome. From Wikipedia:

Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, published by Basic Books in 1997, is a book by Douglas Hofstadter in which he explores the meaning, strengths, failings, and beauty of translation. Hofstadter himself refers to it as “my ruminations on the art of translation“.

…

Translation between frames of reference — languages, cultures, modes of expression, or indeed between one person’s thoughts and another — becomes an element in many of the same concepts Hofstadter has addressed in prior works, such as reference and self-reference, structure and function, and artificial intelligence.

The second book I checked out was recommended by Kurt Thearling. I am going to take a Data Mining course in the Fall at MSU as part of my Masters in Computer Science, and I wanted to get a good understanding of Data Mining before the course starts. From Kurt:

An excellent introduction to the techniques of data mining as well as the application of data mining to real world business problems. This is the first book that I recommend to anyone interested in learning about data mining.

I am currently in the process of finishing up Peopleware, and after such I am planning on reading Le Ton beau de Marot.