said
Well written, but not for the newbie. These projects assume you have some previous coding knowledge, which is great for those of us that do. Some of the projects (the Wiimote ones, namely) do require several pieces of additional equipment, which can be expensive, but it is well worth it to write some cool little programs to use them for purposes other than the Wii! If you are a bored Coder, pick up this book!
said
There are many of us who began programming because it was fun and exciting. Being a developer as a career, however, can sometimes suck the life out of us with the day to day routines we go through. This book is a great way to cure that problem because you can put your skills to use, and do something fun at the same time without it ever feeling like a chore.
There are 3 basic areas of focus in the book: Gaming, Web projects, and hardware projects. The projects differ from each other, so you never feel like you're doing the same thing twice. It's also great because you don't have to read the book in order; just find something that interests you, and code away. The chapters contain summaries in the beginning to let you know approximately how long the project will take, the software you'll need before starting, and any costs involved (usually for hardware chapters).
Since I've always been curious about learning XNA, I'd have to say the Alien Attack chapter was my favorite. It's very easy to follow, and the great thing is that it walks you step-by-step so that you can build the project as you're reading, and learn how everything works. It covers topics like creating the sprites, animation, interaction with other sprites, and user input. It even shows you how to run the code on the XBOX 360 and the Zune without doing any code changes.
A few other really cool chapters were the chapters involving the Wiimote, the PeerCast application, and the animated holiday lights. If you've ever played around with the wiimote, you probably know that it brings a new way to interact with games. By allowing the wiimote to be used on a PC, the possibilities are endless. The authors show some exciting ways to make use of this, and teach you enough so that you can use the wiimote in your own applications.
In my opinion, there's really something fun for everyone in this book. I highly recommend it. After reading it and working through the examples, you'll be able to apply what you've learned and create some of your own exciting projects.
said
A friend purchased this for me as a gift. It was a joy to read, and not what I expected from an IT book. The projects were fun, and quite helpful for me since I'm learning to code.
If you're on the fence, I recommend you check it out.
hackersoft said
Coding 4 Fun is one of these strange books that's not really a tutorial on a specific topic like most IT books are but it shows you some of the things you can actually accomplish with relatively little work. Hopefully the ideas and solutions presented in the book will give you ideas on how to enhance or further use either the technologies that it covers in the book or go out and research your ideas for integrating new technologies.
Some of the projects covered in the book are hardware projects which if you're not comfortable using a soldering iron then perhaps you shouldn't try whilst others are pure software solutions. The range of topics covered is very diverse from programming a game using XNA for the Xbox 360 or Popfly to turning your computer into a streaming media machine to creating an interactive whiteboard with a Wii remote control.
As the title suggests these are all fun projects for home computer enthusiasts and not something you would likely use in the workplace. The average length of each project presented in the book is 3-6 hours.
The book is laid out very well, with a quick introduction to each chapter explaining what you will need, roughly how long the project should take, the rough cost (if any) etc. Followed by a quick introduction as to what you should get out of the project then onto the actual project itself. Each project is split into manageable chunks with good reasonable explanations given. The explanations aren't in-depth but give you enough information that you can hop onto the web for a fuller explanation if you like (for example in the WHSMail project it does not cover the API calls that you are actually making but gives you enough information that you can go to MSDN and find the specific API and related ones if you wish). The authors take you through the project step by step and include diagrams and photographs where necessary. These are especially helpful on the hardware projects.
Overall this is a great book for coders that are looking for something to do or to give them ideas about what is possible in a relatively short time period. My main concern about this book is that it may have limited appeal and isn't really a reference manual. That is not to say that the content of the book isn't worthwhile but I've marked down my rating taking this into consideration.
johnpapa-net said
This book is an excellent compilation of numerous great topics, two of which are my favorites regarding using the Wii controller with the .NET Library (written by Brian Peek, one of the authors). Each chapter of the book focuses on a different topic and explains how the reader can follow along at home and try these out. Its a completely different take on a technical book as it shows how much fun programming can be.
I really enjoyed reading the book and trying some of the more creative examples. A definite recommendation.
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