For years, Joel Spolsky has done exactly this at www.joelonsoftware.com. Now, for the first time, you can own a collection of the most important essays from his site in one book, with exclusive commentary and new insights from joel.

    This book explains the technical aspects of hacking, including stack based overflows, heap based overflows, string exploits, return-into-libc, shellcode, and cryptographic attacks on 802.11b.

    It provides a compact, readable introduction to Git for new users, as well as a reference to common commands and procedures for those of you with Git experience.Written for Git version 1.8.2, this handy task-oriented guide is organized around the basic version control functions you need, such as making commits, fixing mistakes, merging, and searching history.Examine the state of your project at earlier points in timeLearn the basics of creating and making changes to a repositoryCreate branches so many people can work on a project simultaneouslyMerge branches and reconcile the changes among themClone an existing repository and share changes with push/pull commandsExamine and change your repository’s commit historyAccess remote repositories, using different network protocolsGet recipes for accomplishing a variety of common tasks

    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.

    Each mini-chapter adds one feature to the ray tracer, and by the end the reader can produce the image on the book cover. Details of basic ray tracing code architecture and C++ classes are given.

    But this high-level language is relatively difficult to master, even if you already know the C programming language.The 2nd edition of Practical C++ Programming is a complete introduction to the C++ language for programmers who are learning C++. Reflecting the latest changes to the C++ standard, this 2nd edition takes a useful down-to-earth approach, placing a strong emphasis on how to design clean, elegant code.In short, to-the-point chapters, all aspects of programming are covered including style, software engineering, programming design, object-oriented design, and debugging. It also covers common mistakes and how to find (and avoid) them. End of chapter exercises help you ensure you've mastered the material.Practical C++ Programming thoroughly covers: C++ Syntax Coding standards and style Creation and use of object classes Templates Debugging and optimization Use of the C++ preprocessor File input/output Steve Oualline's clear, easy-going writing style and hands-on approach to learning make Practical C++ Programming a nearly painless way to master this complex but powerful programming language.

    Now, internationally renowned performance expert Brendan Gregg has brought together proven methodologies, tools, and metrics for analyzing and tuning even the most complex environments. Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud focuses on Linux(R) and Unix(R) performance, while illuminating performance issues that are relevant to all operating systems. You'll gain deep insight into how systems work and perform, and learn methodologies for analyzing and improving system and application performance. Gregg presents examples from bare-metal systems and virtualized cloud tenants running Linux-based Ubuntu(R), Fedora(R), CentOS, and the illumos-based Joyent(R) SmartOS(TM) and OmniTI OmniOS(R). He systematically covers modern systems performance, including the "traditional" analysis of CPUs, memory, disks, and networks, and new areas including cloud computing and dynamic tracing. This book also helps you identify and fix the "unknown unknowns" of complex performance: bottlenecks that emerge from elements and interactions you were not aware of. The text concludes with a detailed case study, showing how a real cloud customer issue was analyzed from start to finish. Coverage includes - Modern performance analysis and tuning: terminology, concepts, models, methods, and techniques - Dynamic tracing techniques and tools, including examples of DTrace, SystemTap, and perf - Kernel internals: uncovering what the OS is doing - Using system observability tools, interfaces, and frameworks - Understanding and monitoring application performance - Optimizing CPUs: processors, cores, hardware threads, caches, interconnects, and kernel scheduling - Memory optimization: virtual memory, paging, swapping, memory architectures, busses, address spaces, and allocators - File system I/O, including caching - Storage devices/controllers, disk I/O workloads, RAID, and kernel I/O - Network-related performance issues: protocols, sockets, interfaces, and physical connections - Performance implications of OS and hardware-based virtualization, and new issues encountered with cloud computing - Benchmarking: getting accurate results and avoiding common mistakes This guide is indispensable for anyone who operates enterprise or cloud environments: system, network, database, and web admins; developers; and other professionals. For students and others new to optimization, it also provides exercises reflecting Gregg's extensive instructional experience.

    Instead of relying on a rigid plan, it should be intelligence, insight, experience and a "nose for where the bugs are hiding" that guide testers. This book helps testers develop this insight. The techniques presented here allow testers to go off-script. Full description

    It's the expertise you need when your start-up gets an unexpected spike in web traffic, or when a new feature causes your mature application to fail. In this collection of essays and interviews, web veterans such as Theo Schlossnagle, Baron Schwartz, and Alistair Croll offer insights into this evolving field. You'll learn stories from the trenches--from builders of some of the biggest sites on the Web--on what's necessary to help a site thrive.Learn the skills needed in web operations, and why they're gained through experience rather than schoolingUnderstand why it's important to gather metrics from both your application and infrastructureConsider common approaches to database architectures and the pitfalls that come with increasing scaleLearn how to handle the human side of outages and degradationsFind out how one company avoided disaster after a huge traffic delugeDiscover what went wrong after a problem occurs, and how to prevent it from happening againContributors include:John AllspawHeather ChampMichael ChristianRichard CookAlistair CrollPatrick DeboisEric FlorenzanoPaul HammondJustin HuffAdam JacobJacob LoomisMatt MassieBrian MoonAnoop NagwaniSean PowerEric RiesTheo SchlossnagleBaron SchwartzAndrew Shafer

    The text relates the fundamentals to three real-world examples: Intel's 8085, Motorola's 6800, and the 6502 chip used by Apple Computers. This edition includes a student version of the TASM cross-assembler software program, experiments for Digital Computer Electronics and more.

    Each chapter addresses de-facto standards, popular technologies, and design principles applicable to a wide variety of systems. Complete with chapter summaries, end-of-chapter exercises and bibliographies, Distributed Operating Systems concludes with a set of case studies that provide real-world insights into four distributed operating systems.

    It has conquered developer mindshare at startups and enterprises alike with its focus of simplicity, convention and clean, maintainable code. The latest version, Rails 4, continues the tradition of enhanced performance, security and developer productivity, with improvements that enable professional developers to focus on what matters most: delivering business value quickly and consistently.The Rails™ 4 Way is the only comprehensive, authoritative guide to delivering production-quality code with Rails 4. Pioneering Rails expert Obie Fernandez and his team of leading Rails experts illuminate the entire set of Rails APIs, along with the idioms, design approaches, and libraries that make developing applications with Rails so powerful. Drawing on their unsurpassed experience and track record, they address the real challenges development teams face, showing how to use Rails to maximize your productivity.Using numerous detailed code examples, the author systematically cover Rails key capabilities and subsystems, making this book a reference that you depend on everyday. He presents advanced Rails programming techniques that have been proven effective in day-to-day usage on dozens of production Rails systems and offers important insights into behavior-driven development and production considerations such as scalability. Dive deep into the subtleties of the asset pipeline and other advanced Rails topics such as security and scalability. The Rails 4 Way is your best guide for making Rails do exactly what you want it to do.

    

    What makes an operating system modern? According to author Andrew Tanenbaum, it is the awareness of high-demand computer applications--primarily in the areas of multimedia, parallel and distributed computing, and security. The development of faster and more advanced hardware has driven progress in software, including enhancements to the operating system. It is one thing to run an old operating system on current hardware, and another to effectively leverage current hardware to best serve modern software applications. If you don't believe it, install Windows 3.0 on a modern PC and try surfing the Internet or burning a CD. Readers familiar with Tanenbaum's previous text, Operating Systems, know the author is a great proponent of simple design and hands-on experimentation. His earlier book came bundled with the source code for an operating system called Minux, a simple variant of Unix and the platform used by Linus Torvalds to develop Linux. Although this book does not come with any source code, he illustrates many of his points with code fragments (C, usually with Unix system calls). The first half of Modern Operating Systems focuses on traditional operating systems concepts: processes, deadlocks, memory management, I/O, and file systems. There is nothing groundbreaking in these early chapters, but all topics are well covered, each including sections on current research and a set of student problems. It is enlightening to read Tanenbaum's explanations of the design decisions made by past operating systems gurus, including his view that additional research on the problem of deadlocks is impractical except for "keeping otherwise unemployed graph theorists off the streets." It is the second half of the book that differentiates itself from older operating systems texts. Here, each chapter describes an element of what constitutes a modern operating system--awareness of multimedia applications, multiple processors, computer networks, and a high level of security. The chapter on multimedia functionality focuses on such features as handling massive files and providing video-on-demand. Included in the discussion on multiprocessor platforms are clustered computers and distributed computing. Finally, the importance of security is discussed--a lively enumeration of the scores of ways operating systems can be vulnerable to attack, from password security to computer viruses and Internet worms. Included at the end of the book are case studies of two popular operating systems: Unix/Linux and Windows 2000. There is a bias toward the Unix/Linux approach, not surprising given the author's experience and academic bent, but this bias does not detract from Tanenbaum's analysis. Both operating systems are dissected, describing how each implements processes, file systems, memory management, and other operating system fundamentals. Tanenbaum's mantra is simple, accessible operating system design. Given that modern operating systems have extensive features, he is forced to reconcile physical size with simplicity. Toward this end, he makes frequent references to the Frederick Brooks classic The Mythical Man-Month for wisdom on managing large, complex software development projects. He finds both Windows 2000 and Unix/Linux guilty of being too complicated--with a particular skewering of Windows 2000 and its "mammoth Win32 API." A primary culprit is the attempt to make operating systems more "user-friendly," which Tanenbaum views as an excuse for bloated code. The solution is to have smart people, the smallest possible team, and well-defined interactions between various operating systems components. Future operating system design will benefit if the advice in this book is taken to heart. --Pete Ostenson

    That means you can't tap into the full power of Rails unless you master the Ruby language. ""Ruby for Rails,"" written by Ruby expert David Black (with a forward by David Heinemeier Hansson), helps Rails developers achieve Ruby mastery. Each chapter deepens your Ruby knowledge and shows you how it connects to Rails. You'll gain confidence working with objects and classes and learn how to leverage Ruby's elegant, expressive syntax for Rails application power. And you'll become a better Rails developer through a deep understanding of the design of Rails itself and how to take advantage of it.Newcomers to Ruby will find a Rails-oriented Ruby introduction that's easy to read and that includes dynamic programming techniques, an exploration of Ruby objects, classes, and data structures, and many neat examples of Ruby and Rails code in action. ""Ruby for Rails"": the Ruby guide for Rails developers!What's Inside Classes, modules, and objects Collection handling and filtering String and regular expression manipulation Exploration of the Rails source code Ruby dynamics Many more programming concepts and techniques!