QuickStart Guide to (Ultra-)High Performance Visualizations

Almost excellent. A second edition could easily push it to five stars.

I picked this up after getting stuck on a project and it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. Some of the diagrams are dense and I had to reread a few sections, though that may just be me. The author clearly knows the subject deeply and has thought hard about how to teach it. The author clearly knows the subject deeply and has thought hard about how to teach it. A good addition to a technical library, as long as you know what you are buying.

It does the job, though it took some patience to get through.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. The explanations are careful without being condescending, which is a difficult balance to strike. The author avoids over-explaining, which keeps the pace up but means you need to pay attention. Three stars feels about right. It will stay on my shelf, but it will not be the first one I reach for.

Outstanding. I kept finding reasons to come back to it.

I read this over a couple of weekends alongside a small side project, which turned out to be the ideal way to approach it. The chapters on data visualization are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. The writing is direct and does not waste space on filler, which I value in a technical book. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. Worth the money and the reading time, without hesitation.