Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering


Robert L. Glass - 2002
    Though it may not seem this way for those who have been in the field for most of their careers, in the overall scheme of professions, software builders are relative "newbies." In the short history of the software field, a lot of facts have been identified, and a lot of fallacies promulgated. Those facts and fallacies are what this book is about. There's a problem with those facts-and, as you might imagine, those fallacies. Many of these fundamentally important facts are learned by a software engineer, but over the short lifespan of the software field, all too many of them have been forgotten. While reading Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering , you may experience moments of "Oh, yes, I had forgotten that," alongside some "Is that really true?" thoughts. The author of this book doesn't shy away from controversy. In fact, each of the facts and fallacies is accompanied by a discussion of whatever controversy envelops it. You may find yourself agreeing with a lot of the facts and fallacies, yet emotionally disturbed by a few of them! Whether you agree or disagree, you will learn why the author has been called "the premier curmudgeon of software practice." These facts and fallacies are fundamental to the software building field-forget or neglect them at your peril!

Writing Secure Code


Michael Howard - 2001
    You need to assume it will run in the most hostile environments imaginable -- and design, code, and test accordingly. Writing Secure Code, Second Edition shows you how. This edition draws on the lessons learned and taught throughout Microsoft during the firm s massive 2002 Windows Security Push. It s a huge upgrade to the respected First Edition, with new coverage across the board. Michael Howard and David LeBlanc first help you define what security means to your customers -- and implement a three-pronged strategy for securing design, defaults, and deployment. There s especially useful coverage of threat modeling -- decomposing your application, identifying threats, ranking them, and mitigating them. Then, it s on to in-depth coverage of today s key security issues from the developer s standpoint. Everyone knows buffer overruns are bad: Here s a full chapter on avoiding them. You ll learn how to establish appropriate access controls and default to running with least privilege. There s detailed coverage of overcoming attacks on cryptography (for example, avoiding poor random numbers and bit-flipping attacks). You ll learn countermeasures for virtually every form of user input attack, from malicious database updates to cross-site scripting. We ve just scratched the surface: There are authoritative techniques for securing sockets and RPC, protecting against DOS attacks, building safer .NET applications, reviewing and testing code, adding privacy features, and even writing high-quality security documentation. Following these techniques won t just improve security -- it ll dramatically improve robustness and reliability, too. Bill CamardaBill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.

SQL Antipatterns


Bill Karwin - 2010
    Now he's sharing his collection of antipatterns--the most common errors he's identified in those thousands of requests for help. Most developers aren't SQL experts, and most of the SQL that gets used is inefficient, hard to maintain, and sometimes just plain wrong. This book shows you all the common mistakes, and then leads you through the best fixes. What's more, it shows you what's behind these fixes, so you'll learn a lot about relational databases along the way. Each chapter in this book helps you identify, explain, and correct a unique and dangerous antipattern. The four parts of the book group the anti​patterns in terms of logical database design, physical database design, queries, and application development. The chances are good that your application's database layer already contains problems such as Index Shotgun, Keyless Entry, Fear of the Unknown, and Spaghetti Query. This book will help you and your team find them. Even better, it will also show you how to fix them, and how to avoid these and other problems in the future. SQL Antipatterns gives you a rare glimpse into an SQL expert's playbook. Now you can stamp out these common database errors once and for all. Whatever platform or programming language you use, whether you're a junior programmer or a Ph.D., SQL Antipatterns will show you how to design and build databases, how to write better database queries, and how to integrate SQL programming with your application like an expert. You'll also learn the best and most current technology for full-text search, how to design code that is resistant to SQL injection attacks, and other techniques for success.

Fluent Python: Clear, Concise, and Effective Programming


Luciano Ramalho - 2015
    With this hands-on guide, you'll learn how to write effective, idiomatic Python code by leveraging its best and possibly most neglected features. Author Luciano Ramalho takes you through Python's core language features and libraries, and shows you how to make your code shorter, faster, and more readable at the same time.Many experienced programmers try to bend Python to fit patterns they learned from other languages, and never discover Python features outside of their experience. With this book, those Python programmers will thoroughly learn how to become proficient in Python 3.This book covers:Python data model: understand how special methods are the key to the consistent behavior of objectsData structures: take full advantage of built-in types, and understand the text vs bytes duality in the Unicode ageFunctions as objects: view Python functions as first-class objects, and understand how this affects popular design patternsObject-oriented idioms: build classes by learning about references, mutability, interfaces, operator overloading, and multiple inheritanceControl flow: leverage context managers, generators, coroutines, and concurrency with the concurrent.futures and asyncio packagesMetaprogramming: understand how properties, attribute descriptors, class decorators, and metaclasses work"

Python 3 Object Oriented Programming


Dusty Phillips - 2010
    Many examples are taken from real-world projects. The book focuses on high-level design as well as the gritty details of the Python syntax. The provided exercises inspire the reader to think about his or her own code, rather than providing solved problems. If you're new to Object Oriented Programming techniques, or if you have basic Python skills and wish to learn in depth how and when to correctly apply Object Oriented Programming in Python, this is the book for you. If you are an object-oriented programmer for other languages, you too will find this book a useful introduction to Python, as it uses terminology you are already familiar with. Python 2 programmers seeking a leg up in the new world of Python 3 will also find the book beneficial, and you need not necessarily know Python 2.

Writing Effective Use Cases


Alistair Cockburn - 2000
    Cockburn begins by answering the most basic questions facing anyone interested in use cases: What does a use case look like? When do I write one? Next, he introduces each key element of use cases: actors, stakeholders, design scope, goal levels, scenarios, and more. Writing Effective Use Cases contains detailed guidelines, formats, and project standards for creating use cases -- as well as a detailed chapter on style, containing specific do's and don'ts. Cockburn shows how use cases fit together with requirements gathering, business processing reengineering, and other key issues facing software professionals. The book includes practice exercises with solutions, as well as a detailed appendix on how to use these techniques with UML. For all application developers, object technology practitioners, software system designers, architects, and analysts.

Excel 2013 Bible


John Walkenbach - 2013
    Known as Mr. Spreadsheet, Walkenbach shows you how to maximize the power of Excel 2013 while bringing you up to speed on the latest features. This perennial bestseller is fully updated to cover all the new features of Excel 2013, including how to navigate the user interface, take advantage of various file formats, master formulas, analyze data with PivotTables, and more.Whether you're an Excel beginner who is looking to get more savvy or an advanced user looking to become a power user, this latest edition provides you with comprehensive coverage as well as helpful tips, tricks, and techniques that you won't find anywhere else.Shares the invaluable insight of Excel guru and bestselling author Mr. Spreadsheet John Walkenbach as he guides you through every aspect of Excel 2013 Provides essential coverage of all the newest features of Excel 2013 Presents material in a clear, concise, logical format that is ideal for all levels of Excel experience Features a website that includes downloadable templates and worksheets from the book Chart your path to fantastic formulas and stellar spreadsheets with Excel 2013 Bible!

Database Systems: A Practical Approach to Design, Implementation and Management


Thomas M. Connolly - 1995
    Meant for students and professionals, it includes explanations using case studies. The design methodology is divided into conceptual, logical, and physical.

Lucene in Action


Erik Hatcher - 2004
    It describes how to index your data, including types you definitely need to know such as MS Word, PDF, HTML, and XML. It introduces you to searching, sorting, filtering, and highlighting search results.Lucene powers search in surprising placesWhat's Inside- How to integrate Lucene into your applications- Ready-to-use framework for rich document handling- Case studies including Nutch, TheServerSide, jGuru, etc.- Lucene ports to Perl, Python, C#/.Net, and C++- Sorting, filtering, term vectors, multiple, and remote index searching- The new SpanQuery family, extending query parser, hit collecting- Performance testing and tuning- Lucene add-ons (hit highlighting, synonym lookup, and others)

A Theory of Fun for Game Design


Raph Koster - 2004
    It features a novel way of teaching interactive designers how to create and improve their designs to incorporate the highest degree of fun. As the book shows, designing for fun is all about making interactive products like games highly entertaining, engaging, and addictive. The book's unique approach of providing a highly visual storyboard approach combined with a narrative on the art and practice of designing for fun is sure to be a hit with game and interactive designers.At first glance A Theory of Fun for Game Design is a book that will truly inspire and challenge game designers to think in new ways; however, its universal message will influence designers from all walks of life. This book captures the real essence of what drives us to seek out products and experiences that are truly fun and entertaining. The author masterfully presents his engaging theory by showing readers how many designs are lacking because they are predictable and not engaging enough. He then explains how great designers use different types of elements in new ways to make designs more fun and compelling. Anyone who is interested in design will enjoy how the book works on two levels--as a quick inspiration guide to game design, or as an informative discussion that details the insightful thinking from a great mind in the game industry.

Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age


Paul Graham - 2004
    Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls “an intellectual Wild West.”The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.

Cloud Architecture Patterns: Using Microsoft Azure


Bill Wilder - 2012
    You’ll learn how each of these platform-agnostic patterns work, when they might be useful in the cloud, and what impact they’ll have on your application architecture. You’ll also see an example of each pattern applied to an application built with Windows Azure.The patterns are organized into four major topics, such as scalability and handling failure, and primer chapters provide background on each topic. With the information in this book, you’ll be able to make informed decisions for designing effective cloud-native applications that maximize the value of cloud services, while also paying attention to user experience and operational efficiency.Learn about architectural patterns for:Scalability. Discover the advantages of horizontal scaling. Patterns covered include Horizontally Scaling Compute, Queue-Centric Workflow, and Auto-Scaling.Big data. Learn how to handle large amounts of data across a distributed system. Eventual consistency is explained, along with the MapReduce and Database Sharding patterns.Handling failure. Understand how multitenant cloud services and commodity hardware influence your applications. Patterns covered include Busy Signal and Node Failure.Distributed users. Learn how to overcome delays due to network latency when building applications for a geographically distributed user base. Patterns covered include Colocation, Valet Key, CDN, and Multi-Site Deployment.

Software Architecture in Practice


Len Bass - 2003
    Distinct from the details of implementation, algorithm, and data representation, an architecture holds the key to achieving system quality, is a reusable asset that can be applied to subsequent systems, and is crucial to a software organization's business strategy.Drawing on their own extensive experience, the authors cover the essential technical topics for designing, specifying, and validating a system. They also emphasize the importance of the business context in which large systems are designed. Their aim is to present software architecture in a real-world setting, reflecting both the opportunities and constraints that companies encounter. To that end, case studies that describe successful architectures illustrate key points of both technical and organizational discussions.Topics new to this edition include: Architecture design and analysis, including the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) Capturing quality requirements and achieving them through quality scenarios and tactics Using architecture reconstruction to recover undocumented architectures Documenting architectures using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) New case studies, including Web-based examples and a wireless Enterprise JavaBeans™ (EJB) system designed to support wearable computers The financial aspects of architectures, including use of the Cost Benefit Analysis Method (CBAM) to make decisions If you design, develop, or manage the building of large software systems (or plan to do so), or if you are interested in acquiring such systems for your corporation or government agency, use Software Architecture in Practice, Second Edition, to get up to speed on the current state of software architecture.

Access 2010: The Missing Manual


Matthew MacDonald - 2010
    With this book’s easy step-by-step process, you’ll quickly learn how to build and maintain a complete Access database, using Access 2013’s new, simpler user interface and templates. You also get practices and tips from the pros for good database design—ideal whether you’re using Access for school, business, or at home.The important stuff you need to know:Build a database with ease. Store information to track numbers, products, documents, and more.Customize the interface. Build your own forms to make data entry a snap.Find what you need fast. Search, sort, and summarize huge amounts of information.Put your data to use. Turn raw info into printed reports with attractive formatting.Share your data. Collaborate online with SharePoint and the Access web database.Dive into Access programming. Get tricks and techniques to automate common tasks.Create rich data connections. Build dynamic links with SQL Server, SharePoint, and other systems.

Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time


Titus Winters - 2020
    With this book, you'll get a candid and insightful look at how software is constructed and maintained by some of the world's leading practitioners.Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, and Hyrum K. Wright, software engineers and a technical writer at Google, reframe how software engineering is practiced and taught: from an emphasis on programming to an emphasis on software engineering, which roughly translates to programming over time.You'll learn:Fundamental differences between software engineering and programmingHow an organization effectively manages a living codebase and efficiently responds to inevitable changeWhy culture (and recognizing it) is important, and how processes, practices, and tools come into play