Thinking in Java


Bruce Eckel - 1998
    The author's take on the essence of Java as a new programming language and the thorough introduction to Java's features make this a worthwhile tutorial. Thinking in Java begins a little esoterically, with the author's reflections on why Java is new and better. (This book's choice of font for chapter headings is remarkably hard on the eyes.) The author outlines his thoughts on why Java will make you a better programmer, without all the complexity. The book is better when he presents actual language features. There's a tutorial to basic Java types, keywords, and operators. The guide includes extensive source code that is sometimes daunting (as with the author's sample code for all the Java operators in one listing.) As such, this text will be most useful for the experienced developer. The text then moves on to class design issues, when to use inheritance and composition, and related topics of information hiding and polymorphism. (The treatment of inner classes and scoping will likely seem a bit overdone for most readers.) The chapter on Java collection classes for both Java Developer's Kit (JDK) 1.1 and the new classes, such as sets, lists, and maps, are much better. There's material in this chapter that you are unlikely to find anywhere else. Chapters on exception handling and programming with type information are also worthwhile, as are the chapters on the new Swing interface classes and network programming. Although it adopts somewhat of a mixed-bag approach, Thinking in Java contains some excellent material for the object-oriented developer who wants to see what all the fuss is about with Java.

Learning SPARQL


Bob DuCharme - 2011
    With this concise book, you will learn how to use the latest version of this W3C standard to retrieve and manipulate the increasing amount of public and private data available via SPARQL endpoints. Several open source and commercial tools already support SPARQL, and this introduction gets you started right away.Begin with how to write and run simple SPARQL 1.1 queries, then dive into the language's powerful features and capabilities for manipulating the data you retrieve. Learn what you need to know to add to, update, and delete data in RDF datasets, and give web applications access to this data.Understand SPARQL’s connection with RDF, the semantic web, and related specificationsQuery and combine data from local and remote sourcesCopy, convert, and create new RDF dataLearn how datatype metadata, standardized functions, and extension functions contribute to your queriesIncorporate SPARQL queries into web-based applications

Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought


Drew Neil - 2012
    It's available on almost every OS--if you master the techniques in this book, you'll never need another text editor. Practical Vim shows you 120 vim recipes so you can quickly learn the editor's core functionality and tackle your trickiest editing and writing tasks. Vim, like its classic ancestor vi, is a serious tool for programmers, web developers, and sysadmins. No other text editor comes close to Vim for speed and efficiency; it runs on almost every system imaginable and supports most coding and markup languages. Learn how to edit text the "Vim way:" complete a series of repetitive changes with The Dot Formula, using one keystroke to strike the target, followed by one keystroke to execute the change. Automate complex tasks by recording your keystrokes as a macro. Run the same command on a selection of lines, or a set of files. Discover the "very magic" switch, which makes Vim's regular expression syntax more like Perl's. Build complex patterns by iterating on your search history. Search inside multiple files, then run Vim's substitute command on the result set for a project-wide search and replace. All without installing a single plugin! You'll learn how to navigate text documents as fast as the eye moves--with only a few keystrokes. Jump from a method call to its definition with a single command. Use Vim's jumplist, so that you can always follow the breadcrumb trail back to the file you were working on before. Discover a multilingual spell-checker that does what it's told.Practical Vim will show you new ways to work with Vim more efficiently, whether you're a beginner or an intermediate Vim user. All this, without having to touch the mouse.What You Need: Vim version 7

The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .NET


Roy Osherove - 2009
    It guides you step by step from simple tests to tests that are maintainable, readable, and trustworthy. It covers advanced subjects like mocks, stubs, and frameworks such as Typemock Isolator and Rhino Mocks. And you'll learn about advanced test patterns and organization, working with legacy code and even untestable code. The book discusses tools you need when testing databases and other technologies. It's written for .NET developers but others will also benefit from this book.Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.Table of ContentsThe basics of unit testingA first unit testUsing stubs to break dependenciesInteraction testing using mock objectsIsolation (mock object) frameworksTest hierarchies and organizationThe pillars of good testsIntegrating unit testing into the organizationWorking with legacy code

The Art of Multiprocessor Programming


Maurice Herlihy - 2008
    To leverage the performance and power of multiprocessor programming, also known as multicore programming, programmers need to learn the new principles, algorithms, and tools.The book will be of immediate use to programmers working with the new architectures. For example, the next generation of computer game consoles will all be multiprocessor-based, and the game industry is currently struggling to understand how to address the programming challenges presented by these machines. This change in the industry is so fundamental that it is certain to require a significant response by universities, and courses on multicore programming will become a staple of computer science curriculums.This book includes fully-developed Java examples detailing data structures, synchronization techniques, transactional memory, and more.Students in multiprocessor and multicore programming courses and engineers working with multiprocessor and multicore systems will find this book quite useful.

Code Simplicity: The Fundamentals of Software


Max Kanat-Alexander - 2012
    This book contains the fundamental laws of software development, the primary pieces of understanding that make the difference between a mid-level/junior programmer and the high-level senior software engineer. The book exists to help all programmers understand the process of writing software, on a very fundamental level that can be applied to any programming language or project, from here into eternity. Code Simplicity is also written in such a way that even non-technical managers of software teams can gain an understanding of what the “right way” and the “wrong way” is (and why they are right and wrong) when it comes to software design. The focus of the book is primarily on “software design,” the process of creating a plan for a software project and making technical decisions about the pattern and structure of a system.

The Art of Readable Code


Dustin Boswell - 2010
    Over the past five years, authors Dustin Boswell and Trevor Foucher have analyzed hundreds of examples of "bad code" (much of it their own) to determine why they’re bad and how they could be improved. Their conclusion? You need to write code that minimizes the time it would take someone else to understand it—even if that someone else is you.This book focuses on basic principles and practical techniques you can apply every time you write code. Using easy-to-digest code examples from different languages, each chapter dives into a different aspect of coding, and demonstrates how you can make your code easy to understand.Simplify naming, commenting, and formatting with tips that apply to every line of codeRefine your program’s loops, logic, and variables to reduce complexity and confusionAttack problems at the function level, such as reorganizing blocks of code to do one task at a timeWrite effective test code that is thorough and concise—as well as readable"Being aware of how the code you create affects those who look at it later is an important part of developing software. The authors did a great job in taking you through the different aspects of this challenge, explaining the details with instructive examples." —Michael Hunger, passionate Software Developer

Python Tricks: A Buffet of Awesome Python Features


Dan Bader - 2017
    Discover the “hidden gold” in Python’s standard library and start writing clean and Pythonic code today. Who Should Read This Book: If you’re wondering which lesser known parts in Python you should know about, you’ll get a roadmap with this book. Discover cool (yet practical!) Python tricks and blow your coworkers’ minds in your next code review. If you’ve got experience with legacy versions of Python, the book will get you up to speed with modern patterns and features introduced in Python 3 and backported to Python 2. If you’ve worked with other programming languages and you want to get up to speed with Python, you’ll pick up the idioms and practical tips you need to become a confident and effective Pythonista. If you want to make Python your own and learn how to write clean and Pythonic code, you’ll discover best practices and little-known tricks to round out your knowledge. What Python Developers Say About The Book: "I kept thinking that I wished I had access to a book like this when I started learning Python many years ago." — Mariatta Wijaya, Python Core Developer"This book makes you write better Python code!" — Bob Belderbos, Software Developer at Oracle"Far from being just a shallow collection of snippets, this book will leave the attentive reader with a deeper understanding of the inner workings of Python as well as an appreciation for its beauty." — Ben Felder, Pythonista"It's like having a seasoned tutor explaining, well, tricks!" — Daniel Meyer, Sr. Desktop Administrator at Tesla Inc.

Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software


Scott Rosenberg - 2007
    Along the way, we encounter black holes, turtles, snakes, dragons, axe-sharpening, and yak-shaving—and take a guided tour through the theories and methods, both brilliant and misguided, that litter the history of software development, from the famous ‘mythical man-month’ to Extreme Programming. Not just for technophiles but for anyone captivated by the drama of invention, Dreaming in Code offers a window into both the information age and the workings of the human mind.

The Scheme Programming Language


R. Kent Dybvig - 1987
    Many exercises are presented to help reinforce the lessons learned, and answers to the exercises are given in a new appendix.Most of the remaining chapters are dedicated to the reference material, which describes in detail the standard features of Scheme included in the Revised$^5$ Report on Scheme and the ANSI/IEEE standard for Scheme.Numerous examples are presented throughout the introductory and reference portions of the text, and a unique set of extended example programs and applications, with additional exercises, are presented in the final chapter. Reinforcing the book's utility as a reference text are appendices that present the formal syntax of Scheme, a summary of standard forms and procedures, and a bibliography of Scheme resources.The Scheme Programming Language stands alone as an introduction to and essential reference for Scheme programmers. it is also useful as a supplementary text for any course that uses Scheme.The Scheme Programming Language is illustrated by artist Jean-Pierre Hébert, who writes Scheme programs to extend his ability to create sophisticated works of digital art.R. Kent Dybvig is Professor of Computer Science at Indiana University and principal developer of Chez Scheme.

Working with UNIX Processes


Jesse Storimer - 2011
    Want to impress your coworkers and write the fastest, most efficient, stable code you ever have? Don't reinvent the wheel. Reuse decades of research into battle-tested, highly optimized, and proven techniques available on any Unix system.This book will teach you what you need to know so that you can write your own servers, debug your entire stack when things go awry, and understand how things are working under the hood.http://www.jstorimer.com/products/wor...

Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide


Dave Thomas - 2000
    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

On LISP: Advanced Techniques for Common LISP


Paul Graham - 1993
    On Lisp explains the reasons behind Lisp's growing popularity as a mainstream programming language. On Lisp is a comprehensive study of advanced Lisp techniques, with bottom-up programming as the unifying theme. It gives the first complete description of macros and macro applications. The book also covers important subjects related to bottom-up programming, including functional programming, rapid prototyping, interactive development, and embedded languages. The final chapter takes a deeper look at object-oriented programming than previous Lisp books, showing the step-by-step construction of a working model of the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS). As well as an indispensable reference, On Lisp is a source of software. Its examples form a library of functions and macros that readers will be able to use in their own Lisp programs.

Async in C# 5.0


Alex Davies - 2012
    Along with a clear introduction to asynchronous programming, you get an in-depth look at how the async feature works and why you might want to use it in your application.Written for experienced C# programmers—yet approachable for beginners—this book is packed with code examples that you can extend for your own projects.Write your own asynchronous code, and learn how async saves you from this messy choreDiscover new performance possibilities in ASP.NET web server codeExplore how async and WinRT work together in Windows 8 applicationsLearn the importance of the await keyword in async methodsUnderstand which .NET thread is running your code—and at what points in the programUse the Task-based Asynchronous Pattern (TAP) to write asynchronous APIs in .NETTake advantage of parallel computing in modern machinesMeasure async code performance by comparing it with alternatives

Game Programming Patterns


Robert Nystrom - 2011
    Commercial game development expert Robert Nystrom presents an array of general solutions to problems encountered in game development. For example, you'll learn how double-buffering enables a player to perceive smooth and realistic motion, and how the service locator pattern can help you provide access to services such as sound without coupling your code to any particular sound driver or sound hardware. Games have much in common with other software, but also a number of unique constraints. Some of the patterns in this book are well-known in other domains of software development. Other of the patterns are unique to gaming. In either case, Robert Nystrom bridges from the ivory tower world of software architecture to the in-the-trenches reality of hardcore game programming. You'll learn the patterns and the general problems that they solve. You'll come away able to apply powerful and reusable architectural solutions that enable you to produce higher quality games with less effort than before. Applies classic design patterns to game programming. Introduces new patterns specific to game programming. Brings abstract software architecture down to Earth with approachable writing and an emphasis on simple code that shows each pattern in practice. What you'll learn Overcome architectural challenges unique to game programming Apply lessons from the larger software world to games. Tie different parts of a game (graphics, sound, AI) into a cohesive whole. Create elegant and maintainable architecture. Achieve good, low-level performance. Gain insight into professional, game development. Who this book is forGame Programming Patterns is aimed at professional game programmers who, while successful in shipping games, are frustrated at how hard it sometimes is to add and modify features when a game is under development. Game Programming Patterns shows how to apply modern software practices to the problem of game development while still maintaining the blazing-fast performance demanded by hard-core gamers. Game Programming Patterns also appeals to those learning about game programming in their spare time. Hobbyists and aspiring professionals alike will find much to learn in this book about pathfinding, collision detection, and other game-programming problem domains.