Joining the professional web designers and programmers are new audiences who need to know a little bit of code at work (update a content management system or e-commerce store) and those who want to make their personal blogs more attractive. Many books teaching HTML and CSS are dry and only written for those who want to become programmers, which is why this book takes an entirely new approach. • Introduces HTML and CSS in a way that makes them accessible to everyone—hobbyists, students, and professionals—and it’s full-color throughout • Utilizes information graphics and lifestyle photography to explain the topics in a simple way that is engaging • Boasts a unique structure that allows you to progress through the chapters from beginning to end or just dip into topics of particular interest at your leisureThis educational book is one that you will enjoy picking up, reading, then referring back to. It will make you wish other technical topics were presented in such a simple, attractive and engaging way!

    But if code isn't clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn't have to be that way. Noted software expert Robert C. Martin presents a revolutionary paradigm with Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship . Martin has teamed up with his colleagues from Object Mentor to distill their best agile practice of cleaning code on the fly into a book that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman and make you a better programmer but only if you work at it. What kind of work will you be doing? You'll be reading code - lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what's right about that code, and what's wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft. Clean Code is divided into three parts. The first describes the principles, patterns, and practices of writing clean code. The second part consists of several case studies of increasing complexity. Each case study is an exercise in cleaning up code - of transforming a code base that has some problems into one that is sound and efficient. The third part is the payoff: a single chapter containing a list of heuristics and "smells" gathered while creating the case studies. The result is a knowledge base that describes the way we think when we write, read, and clean code. Readers will come away from this book understanding ‣ How to tell the difference between good and bad code‣ How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code‣ How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes‣ How to format code for maximum readability ‣ How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic ‣ How to unit test and practice test-driven development This book is a must for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst with an interest in producing better code.

    This book aims to minimize the complexity of user-centered design for the Web with explanations and illustrations that focus on ideas rather than tools or techniques.

    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

    How do you present large volumes of information to people who need to find what they're looking for quickly? This classic primer shows information architects, designers, and web site developers how to build large-scale and maintainable web sites that are appealing and easy to navigate. The new edition is thoroughly updated to address emerging technologies -- with recent examples, new scenarios, and information on best practices -- while maintaining its focus on fundamentals. With topics that range from aesthetics to mechanics, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web explains how to create interfaces that users can understand right away. Inside, you'll find:* An overview of information architecture for both newcomers and experienced practitioners* The fundamental components of an architecture, illustrating the interconnected nature of these systems. Updated, with updates for tagging, folksonomies, social classification, and guided navigation* Tools, techniques, and methods that take you from research to strategy and design to implementation. This edition discusses blueprints, wireframes and the role of diagrams in the design phase* A series of short essays that provide practical tips and philosophical advice for those who work on information architecture* The business context of practicing and promoting information architecture, including recent lessons on how to handle enterprise architecture* Case studies on the evolution of two large and very different information architectures, illustrating best practices along the way* How do you document the rich interfaces of web applications? How do you design for multiple platforms and mobile devices? With emphasis on goals and approaches over tactics or technologies, this enormously popular book gives you knowledge about information architecture with a framework that allows you to learn new approaches -- and unlearn outmoded ones.

    Python is considered easy to learn, but there's no quicker way to mastery of the language than learning from an expert teacher. This edition of "Learning Python" puts you in the hands of two expert teachers, Mark Lutz and David Ascher, whose friendly, well-structured prose has guided many a programmer to proficiency with the language. "Learning Python," Second Edition, offers programmers a comprehensive learning tool for Python and object-oriented programming. Thoroughly updated for the numerous language and class presentation changes that have taken place since the release of the first edition in 1999, this guide introduces the basic elements of the latest release of Python 2.3 and covers new features, such as list comprehensions, nested scopes, and iterators/generators. Beyond language features, this edition of "Learning Python" also includes new context for less-experienced programmers, including fresh overviews of object-oriented programming and dynamic typing, new discussions of program launch and configuration options, new coverage of documentation sources, and more. There are also new use cases throughout to make the application of language features more concrete. The first part of "Learning Python" gives programmers all the information they'll need to understand and construct programs in the Python language, including types, operators, statements, classes, functions, modules and exceptions. The authors then present more advanced material, showing how Python performs common tasks by offering real applications and the libraries available for those applications. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises that will test your Python skills and measure your understanding."Learning Python," Second Edition is a self-paced book that allows readers to focus on the core Python language in depth. As you work through the book, you'll gain a deep and complete understanding of the Python language that will help you to understand the larger application-level examples that you'll encounter on your own. If you're interested in learning Python--and want to do so quickly and efficiently--then "Learning Python," Second Edition is your best choice.

    Now this same team provides the best explanation yet of these new features, and of concurrency in general. Concurrency is no longer a subject for advanced users only. Every Java developer should read this book."--Martin BuchholzJDK Concurrency Czar, Sun Microsystems"For the past 30 years, computer performance has been driven by Moore's Law; from now on, it will be driven by Amdahl's Law. Writing code that effectively exploits multiple processors can be very challenging. Java Concurrency in Practice provides you with the concepts and techniques needed to write safe and scalable Java programs for today's--and tomorrow's--systems."--Doron RajwanResearch Scientist, Intel Corp"This is the book you need if you're writing--or designing, or debugging, or maintaining, or contemplating--multithreaded Java programs. If you've ever had to synchronize a method and you weren't sure why, you owe it to yourself and your users to read this book, cover to cover."--Ted NewardAuthor of Effective Enterprise Java"Brian addresses the fundamental issues and complexities of concurrency with uncommon clarity. This book is a must-read for anyone who uses threads and cares about performance."--Kirk PepperdineCTO, JavaPerformanceTuning.com"This book covers a very deep and subtle topic in a very clear and concise way, making it the perfect Java Concurrency reference manual. Each page is filled with the problems (and solutions!) that programmers struggle with every day. Effectively exploiting concurrency is becoming more and more important now that Moore's Law is delivering more cores but not faster cores, and this book will show you how to do it."--Dr. Cliff ClickSenior Software Engineer, Azul Systems"I have a strong interest in concurrency, and have probably written more thread deadlocks and made more synchronization mistakes than most programmers. Brian's book is the most readable on the topic of threading and concurrency in Java, and deals with this difficult subject with a wonderful hands-on approach. This is a book I am recommending to all my readers of The Java Specialists' Newsletter, because it is interesting, useful, and relevant to the problems facing Java developers today."--Dr. Heinz KabutzThe Java Specialists' Newsletter"I've focused a career on simplifying simple problems, but this book ambitiously and effectively works to simplify a complex but critical subject: concurrency. Java Concurrency in Practice is revolutionary in its approach, smooth and easy in style, and timely in its delivery--it's destined to be a very important book."--Bruce TateAuthor of Beyond Java" Java Concurrency in Practice is an invaluable compilation of threading know-how for Java developers. I found reading this book intellectually exciting, in part because it is an excellent introduction to Java's concurrency API, but mostly because it captures in a thorough and accessible way expert knowledge on threading not easily found elsewhere."--Bill VennersAuthor of Inside the Java Virtual MachineThreads are a fundamental part of the Java platform. As multicore processors become the norm, using concurrency effectively becomes essential for building high-performance applications. Java SE 5 and 6 are a huge step forward for the development of concurrent applications, with improvements to the Java Virtual Machine to support high-performance, highly scalable concurrent classes and a rich set of new concurrency building blocks. In Java Concurrency in Practice , the creators of these new facilities explain not only how they work and how to use them, but also the motivation and design patterns behind them.However, developing, testing, and debugging multithreaded programs can still be very difficult; it is all too easy to create concurrent programs that appear to work, but fail when it matters most: in production, under heavy load. Java Concurrency in Practice arms readers with both the theoretical underpinnings and concrete techniques for building reliable, scalable, maintainable concurrent applications. Rather than simply offering an inventory of concurrency APIs and mechanisms, it provides design rules, patterns, and mental models that make it easier to build concurrent programs that are both correct and performant.This book covers:Basic concepts of concurrency and thread safety Techniques for building and composing thread-safe classes Using the concurrency building blocks in java.util.concurrent Performance optimization dos and don'ts Testing concurrent programs Advanced topics such as atomic variables, nonblocking algorithms, and the Java Memory Model

    Drawing heavily on the author's own real-world experiences, the book stresses design and analysis. Coverage is divided into two parts, the first being a general guide to techniques for the design and analysis of computer algorithms. The second is a reference section, which includes a catalog of the 75 most important algorithmic problems. By browsing this catalog, readers can quickly identify what the problem they have encountered is called, what is known about it, and how they should proceed if they need to solve it. This book is ideal for the working professional who uses algorithms on a daily basis and has need for a handy reference. This work can also readily be used in an upper-division course or as a student reference guide. THE ALGORITHM DESIGN MANUAL comes with a CD-ROM that contains: * a complete hypertext version of the full printed book. * the source code and URLs for all cited implementations. * over 30 hours of audio lectures on the design and analysis of algorithms are provided, all keyed to on-line lecture notes.

    Each chapter is relatively self-contained and can be used as a unit of study. The algorithms are described in English and in a pseudocode designed to be readable by anyone who has done a little programming. The explanations have been kept elementary without sacrificing depth of coverage or mathematical rigor.

    Did you design your system to survivef a sudden rush of visitors from Digg or Slashdot? Or an influx of real world customers from 100 different countries? Are you ready for a world filled with flakey networks, tangled databases, and impatient users?If you're a developer and don't want to be on call for 3AM for the rest of your life, this book will help.In Release It!, Michael T. Nygard shows you how to design and architect your application for the harsh realities it will face. You'll learn how to design your application for maximum uptime, performance, and return on investment.Mike explains that many problems with systems today start with the design.

    While some fear is healthy (often viewed as a conscience that tells programmers to be careful!), the author believes that byproducts of fear include tentative, grumpy, and uncommunicative programmers who are unable to absorb constructive criticism. When programming teams buy into TDD, they immediately see positive results. They eliminate the fear involved in their jobs, and are better equipped to tackle the difficult challenges that face them. TDD eliminates tentative traits, it teaches programmers to communicate, and it encourages team members to seek out criticism However, even the author admits that grumpiness must be worked out individually! In short, the premise behind TDD is that code should be continually tested and refactored. Kent Beck teaches programmers by example, so they can painlessly and dramatically increase the quality of their work.

    In Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski draws on original research, his considerable experience at Yahoo! and eBay, and the perspectives of many of the field's leading designers to show you everything you need to know about designing effective and engaging Web forms.

    But the state-of-the-art has moved forward dramatically since Meyers last updated this book in 1997. (For instance, there s now STL. Design patterns. Even new functionality being added through TR1 and Boost.) So Meyers has done a top-to-bottom rewrite, identifying the 55 most valuable techniques you need now to be exceptionally effective with C++. Over half of this edition s content is new. Templates broadly impact C++ development, and you ll find them everywhere. There s extensive coverage of multithreaded systems. There s an entirely new chapter on resource management. You ll find substantial new coverage of exceptions. Much is gained, but nothing s lost: You ll find the same depth of practical insight that first made Effective C++ a classic all those years ago. Bill Camarda, from the July 2005 href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/newslet... Only

    So, why does conventional wisdom insist that software engineers focus primarily on the design and development of large-scale computing systems?In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google's Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You'll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient--lessons directly applicable to your organization.This book is divided into four sections: Introduction--Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practicesPrinciples--Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE)Practices--Understand the theory and practice of an SRE's day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systemsManagement--Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use

    And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines. It’s a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story—and along the way, you’ll discover you’ve gained a real context for understanding today’s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, CODE will charm you—and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.