Methodologies Aren't Enough2. Ambiguity in Stating Requirements3. Sources of Ambiguity4. The Tried but Untrue Use of Direct QuestionsPart II: Ways to Get Started5. Starting Points6. Context-Free Questions7. Getting the Right People Involved8. Making Meetings Work for Everybody9. Reducing Ambiguity from Start to FinishPart III: Exploring the Possibilities10. Idea-Generation Meetings11. Right-Brain Methods12. The Project's Name13. Facilitating in the Face of ConflictPart IV: Clarifying Expectations14. Functions15. Attributes16. Constraints17. Preferences18. ExpectationsPart V: Greatly Improving the Odds of Success19. Ambiguity Metrics20. Technical Reviews21. Measuring Satisfaction22. Test Cases23. Studying Existing Products24. Making Agreements25. EndingBibliographyIndex

    Plenty of books describe what agile development is or why it helps software projects succeed, but very few combine information for developers, managers, testers, and customers into a single package that they can apply directly. This book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors' many years of experience with Extreme Programming (XP). You get a gestalt view of the agile development process, including comprehensive guidance for non-technical readers and hands-on technical practices for developers and testers. The Art of Agile Development gives you clear answers to questions such as:How can we adopt agile development? Do we really need to pair program? What metrics should we report? What if I can't get my customer to participate? How much documentation should we write? When do we design and architect? As a non-developer, how should I work with my agile team? Where is my product roadmap? How does QA fit in? The book teaches you how to adopt XP practices, describes each practice in detail, then discusses principles that will allow you to modify XP and create your own agile method. In particular, this book tackles the difficult aspects of agile development: the need for cooperation and trust among team members. Whether you're currently part of an agile team, working with an agile team, or interested in agile development, this book provides the practical tips you need to start practicing agile development. As your experience grows, the book will grow with you, providing exercises and information that will teach you first to understand the rules of agile development, break them, and ultimately abandon rules altogether as you master the art of agile development. "Jim Shore and Shane Warden expertly explain the practices and benefits of Extreme Programming. They offer advice from their real-world experiences in leading teams. They answer questions about the practices and show contraindications - ways that a practice may be mis-applied. They offer alternatives you can try if there are impediments to applying a practice, such as the lack of an on-site customer. --Ken Pugh, Author of Jolt Award Winner, Prefactoring "I will leave a copy of this book with every team I visit." --Brian Marick, Exampler Consulting

    When Ruby first burst onto the scene in the Western world, the Pragmatic Programmers were there with the definitive reference manual, Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide.Now in its second edition, author Dave Thomas has expanded the famous Pickaxe book with over 200 pages of new content, covering all the improved language features of Ruby 1.8 and standard library modules. The Pickaxe contains four major sections:An acclaimed tutorial on using Ruby.The definitive reference to the language.Complete documentation on all built-in classes, modules, and methodsComplete descriptions of all 98 standard libraries.If you enjoyed the First Edition, you'll appreciate the expanded content, including enhanced coverage of installation, packaging, documenting Ruby source code, threading and synchronization, and enhancing Ruby's capabilities using C-language extensions. Programming for the World Wide Web is easy in Ruby, with new chapters on XML/RPC, SOAP, distributed Ruby, templating systems, and other web services. There's even a new chapter on unit testing.This is the definitive reference manual for Ruby, including a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules (including more than 250 significant changes since the First Edition). Coverage of other features has grown tremendously, including details on how to harness the sophisticated capabilities of irb, so you can dynamically examine and experiment with your running code. Ruby is a wonderfully powerful and useful language, and whenever I'm working with it this book is at my side --Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist, ThoughtWorks

    With full coverage of 100% of exam objectives, this invaluable guide reinforces what you know, teaches you what you don't know, and gives you the hands-on practice you need to boost your skills. Written by expert Java developers, this book goes beyond mere exam prep with the insight, explanations and perspectives that come from years of experience. You'll review the basics of object-oriented programming, understand functional programming, apply your knowledge to database work, and much more. From the basic to the advanced, this guide walks you through everything you need to know to confidently take the OCP 1Z0-809 Exam and upgrade exams 1Z0-810 and 1Z0-813.Java 8 represents the biggest changes to the language to date, and the latest exam now requires that you demonstrate functional programming competence in order to pass. This guide has you covered, with clear explanations and expert advice.Understand abstract classes, interfaces, and class design Learn object-oriented design principles and patterns Delve into functional programming, advanced strings, and localization Master IO, NIO, and JDBC with expert-led database practice If you're ready to take the next step in your IT career, OCP: Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 8 Programmer II Study Guide is your ideal companion on the road to certification.

    Salesforce.com (more than 50%) and Twitter (more than 75% fall into this category. Ebay gets more than 8 billion API calls a month. Facebook and Google, have dozens of APIs that enable both free services and e-commerce, get more than 5 billion API calls each day. Other companies like NetFlix have expanded their service of streaming movies over the the web to dozens of devices using API. At peak times, more than 20 percent of all traffic is accounted for by Netflix through its APIs. Companies like Sears and E-Trade are opening up their catalogs and other services to allow developers and entrepreneurs to create new marketing experiences. Making an API work to create a new channel is not just a matter of technology. An API must be considered in terms of business strategy, marketing, and operations as well as the technical aspects of programming. This book, written by Greg Brail, CTO of Apigee, and Brian Mulloy, VP of Products, captures the knowledge of all these areas gained by Apigee, the leading company in supporting the rollout of high traffic APIs.

    New languages, new frameworks, new ways of doing things - a constant struggle just to stay current in the industry. This left no time to learn the foundational concepts and skills that come with a degree in Computer Science.

    But you don't need to commit every XML syntax, API, or XSLT transformation to memory; you only need to know where to find it. And if it's a detail that has to do with XML or its companion standards, you'll find it--clear, concise, useful, and well-organized--in the updated third edition of XML in a Nutshell.With XML in a Nutshell beside your keyboard, you'll be able to: Quick-reference syntax rules and usage examples for the core XML technologies, including XML, DTDs, Xpath, XSLT, SAX, and DOM Develop an understanding of well-formed XML, DTDs, namespaces, Unicode, and W3C XML Schema Gain a working knowledge of key technologies used for narrative XML documents such as web pages, books, and articles technologies like XSLT, Xpath, Xlink, Xpointer, CSS, and XSL-FO Build data-intensive XML applications Understand the tools and APIs necessary to build data-intensive XML applications and process XML documents, including the event-based Simple API for XML (SAX2) and the tree-oriented Document Object Model (DOM) This powerful new edition is the comprehensive XML reference. Serious users of XML will find coverage on just about everything they need, from fundamental syntax rules, to details of DTD and XML Schema creation, to XSLT transformations, to APIs used for processing XML documents. XML in a Nutshell also covers XML 1.1, as well as updates to SAX2 and DOM Level 3 coverage. If you need explanation of how a technology works, or just need to quickly find the precise syntax for a particular piece, XML in a Nutshell puts the information at your fingertips.Simply put, XML in a Nutshell is the critical, must-have reference for any XML developer.

    With this concise book, you will quickly gain working knowledge of Sinatra and its minimalist approach to building both standalone and modular web applications. Sinatra serves as a lightweight wrapper around Rack middleware, with syntax that maps closely to functions exposed by HTTP verbs, which makes it ideal for web services and APIs. If you have experience building applications with Ruby, you’ll quickly learn language fundamentals and see under-the-hood techniques, with the help of several practical examples. Then you’ll get hands-on experience with Sinatra by building your own blog engine. Learn Sinatra’s core concepts, and get started by building a simple application Create views, manage sessions, and work with Sinatra route definitions Become familiar with the language’s internals, and take a closer look at Rack Use different subclass methods for building flexible and robust architectures Put Sinatra to work: build a blog that takes advantage of service hooks provided by the GitHub API

    Historically and etymologically richer than its predecessor, it supplies additional background on existing entries and clarifies the murky origins of several important jargon terms (overturning a few long-standing folk etymologies) while still retaining its high giggle value.Sample definitionhacker n. [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term is {cracker}.The term 'hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see {network, the} and {Internet address}). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see {hacker ethic, the}).It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled {bogus}). See also {wannabee}.

    Whittaker defines both in-the-small techniques for individual testers and in-the-large techniques to supercharge test teams. He also introduces a hybrid strategy for injecting exploratory concepts into traditional scripted testing. You'll learn when to use each, and how to use them all successfully.Concise, entertaining, and actionable, this book introduces robust techniques that have been used extensively by real testers on shipping software, illuminating their actual experiences with these techniques, and the results they've achieved. Writing for testers, QA specialists, developers, program managers, and architects alike, Whittaker answers crucial questions such as:- Why do some bugs remain invisible to automated testing--and how can I uncover them?- What techniques will help me consistently discover and eliminate "show stopper" bugs?- How do I make manual testing more effective--and less boring and unpleasant?- What's the most effective high-level test strategy for each project?- Which inputs should I test when I can't test them all?- Which test cases will provide the best feature coverage?- How can I get better results by combining exploratory testing with traditional script or scenario-based testing?- How do I reflect feedback from the development process, such as code changes?

    As the size and complexity of commercial software have grown, the gap between academic computer science and industry has widened. It's an open secret that there is little engineering in software engineering, which continues to rely not on codified scientific knowledge but on intuition and experience.Barr, who worked as a programmer for more than twenty years, describes how the industry has evolved, from the era of mainframes and Fortran to today's embrace of the cloud. He explains bugs and why software has so many of them, and why today's interconnected computers offer fertile ground for viruses and worms. The difference between good and bad software can be a single line of code, and Barr includes code to illustrate the consequences of seemingly inconsequential choices by programmers. Looking to the future, Barr writes that the best prospect for improving software engineering is the move to the cloud. When software is a service and not a product, companies will have more incentive to make it good rather than "good enough to ship."

    Intended for developers who are already familiar with the Apex language, and experienced Java and C# developers who are moving to Apex, this book starts where the Force.com documentation leaves off. Instead of trying to cover all of the features of the platform, Advanced Apex programming focuses entirely on the Apex language and core design patterns. You’ll learn how to truly think in Apex – to embrace limits and bulk patterns. You’ll see how to develop architectures for efficient and reliable trigger handling, and for asynchronous operations. You’ll discover that best practices differ radically depending on whether you are building software for a specific organization or for a managed package. And you’ll find approaches for incorporating testing and diagnostic code that can dramatically improve the reliability and deployment of Apex software, and reduce your lifecycle and support costs. Based on his experience both as a consultant and as architect of a major AppExchange package, Dan Appleman focuses on the real-world problems and issues that are faced by Apex developers every day, along with the obscure problems and surprises that can sneak up on you if you are unprepared.

    One slogan of Perl is that it makes easy things easy and hard things possible. "Intermediate Perl" is about making the leap from the easy things to the hard ones.Originally released in 2003 as "Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules" and revised and updated for Perl 5.8, this book offers a gentle but thorough introduction to intermediate programming in Perl. Written by the authors of the best-selling "Learning Perl," it picks up where that book left off. Topics include: Packages and namespacesReferences and scopingManipulating complex data structuresObject-oriented programmingWriting and using modulesTesting Perl codeContributing to CPANFollowing the successful format of "Learning Perl," we designed each chapter in the book to be small enough to be read in just an hour or two, ending with a series of exercises to help you practice what you've learned. To use the book, you just need to be familiar with the material in "Learning Perl" and have ambition to go further.Perl is a different language to different people. It is a quick scripting tool for some, and a fully-featured object-oriented language for others. It is used for everything from performing quick global replacements on text files, to crunching huge, complex sets of scientific data that take weeks to process. Perl is what you make of it. But regardless of what you use Perl for, this book helps you do it more effectively, efficiently, and elegantly."Intermediate Perl" is about learning to use Perl as a programming language, and not just a scripting language. This is the book that turns the Perl dabbler into the Perl programmer.

    Their discussion ranges from the history of the field's intellectual foundations to the most recent developments and applications.Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach to learning whereby an agent tries to maximize the total amount of reward it receives when interacting with a complex, uncertain environment. In Reinforcement Learning, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the key ideas and algorithms of reinforcement learning. Their discussion ranges from the history of the field's intellectual foundations to the most recent developments and applications. The only necessary mathematical background is familiarity with elementary concepts of probability.The book is divided into three parts. Part I defines the reinforcement learning problem in terms of Markov decision processes. Part II provides basic solution methods: dynamic programming, Monte Carlo methods, and temporal-difference learning. Part III presents a unified view of the solution methods and incorporates artificial neural networks, eligibility traces, and planning; the two final chapters present case studies and consider the future of reinforcement learning.

    In it, you’ll learn how to bypass configuration steps so you can focus on your application’s behavior. Spring expert Craig Walls uses interesting and practical examples to teach you both how to use the default settings effectively and how to override and customize Spring Boot for your unique environment. Along the way, you’ll pick up insights from Craig’s years of Spring development experience.