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Writing Idiomatic Python 2.7.3
Jeff Knupp - 2013
Each idiom comes with a detailed description, example code showing the "wrong" way to do it, and code for the idiomatic, "Pythonic" alternative. *This version of the book is for Python 2.7.3+. There is also a Python 3.3+ version available.* "Writing Idiomatic Python" contains the most common and important Python idioms in a format that maximizes identification and understanding. Each idiom is presented as a recommendation to write some commonly used piece of code. It is followed by an explanation of why the idiom is important. It also contains two code samples: the "Harmful" way to write it and the "Idiomatic" way. * The "Harmful" way helps you identify the idiom in your own code. * The "Idiomatic" way shows you how to easily translate that code into idiomatic Python. This book is perfect for you: * If you're coming to Python from another programming language * If you're learning Python as a first programming language * If you're looking to increase the readability, maintainability, and correctness of your Python code What is "Idiomatic" Python? Every programming language has its own idioms. Programming language idioms are nothing more than the generally accepted way of writing a certain piece of code. Consistently writing idiomatic code has a number of important benefits: * Others can read and understand your code easily * Others can maintain and enhance your code with minimal effort * Your code will contain fewer bugs * Your code will teach others to write correct code without any effort on your part
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.
Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process
Kenneth S. Rubin - 2012
Leading Scrum coach and trainer Kenny Rubin illuminates the values, principles, and practices of Scrum, and describes flexible, proven approaches that can help you implement it far more effectively. Whether you are new to Scrum or years into your use, this book will introduce, clarify, and deepen your Scrum knowledge at the team, product, and portfolio levels. Drawing from Rubin's experience helping hundreds of organizations succeed with Scrum, this book provides easy-to-digest descriptions enhanced by more than two hundred illustrations based on an entirely new visual icon language for describing Scrum's roles, artifacts, and activities.
Essential Scrum
will provide every team member, manager, and executive with a common understanding of Scrum, a shared vocabulary they can use in applying it, and practical knowledge for deriving maximum value from it.
The Nature of Code
Daniel Shiffman - 2012
Readers will progress from building a basic physics engine to creating intelligent moving objects and complex systems, setting the foundation for further experiments in generative design. Subjects covered include forces, trigonometry, fractals, cellular automata, self-organization, and genetic algorithms. The book's examples are written in Processing, an open-source language and development environment built on top of the Java programming language. On the book's website (http://www.natureofcode.com), the examples run in the browser via Processing's JavaScript mode.
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
Alan Cooper - 1999
Cooper details many of these meta functions to explain his central thesis: programmers need to seriously re-evaluate the many user-hostile concepts deeply embedded within the software development process. Rather than provide users with a straightforward set of options, programmers often pile on the bells and whistles and ignore or de-prioritise lingering bugs. For the average user, increased functionality is a great burden, adding to the recurrent chorus that plays: "computers are hard, mysterious, unwieldy things." (An average user, Cooper asserts, who doesn't think that way or who has memorised all the esoteric commands and now lords it over others, has simply been desensitised by too many years of badly designed software.) Cooper's writing style is often overblown, with a pantheon of cutesy terminology (i.e. "dancing bearware") and insider back-patting. (When presenting software to Bill Gates, he reports that Gates replied: "How did you do that?" to which he writes: "I love stumping Bill!") More seriously, he is also unable to see beyond software development's importance--a sin he accuses programmers of throughout the book. Even with that in mind, the central questions Cooper asks are too important to ignore: Are we making users happier? Are we improving the process by which they get work done? Are we making their work hours more effective? Cooper looks to programmers, business managers and what he calls "interaction designers" to question current assumptions and mindsets. Plainly, he asserts that the goal of computer usage should be "not to make anyone feel stupid." Our distance from that goal reinforces the need to rethink entrenched priorities in software planning. -- Jennifer Buckendorff, Amazon.com
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
Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks: When Threads Unravel
Paul Butcher - 2014
Concurrency and parallelism are the keys, and Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks equips you for this new world. See how emerging technologies such as actors and functional programming address issues with traditional threads and locks development. Learn how to exploit the parallelism in your computer's GPU and leverage clusters of machines with MapReduce and Stream Processing. And do it all with the confidence that comes from using tools that help you write crystal clear, high-quality code. This book will show you how to exploit different parallel architectures to improve your code's performance, scalability, and resilience. Learn about the perils of traditional threads and locks programming and how to overcome them through careful design and by working with the standard library. See how actors enable software running on geographically distributed computers to collaborate, handle failure, and create systems that stay up 24/7/365. Understand why shared mutable state is the enemy of robust concurrent code, and see how functional programming together with technologies such as Software Transactional Memory (STM) and automatic parallelism help you tame it. You'll learn about the untapped potential within every GPU and how GPGPU software can unleash it. You'll see how to use MapReduce to harness massive clusters to solve previously intractible problems, and how, in concert with Stream Processing, big data can be tamed. With an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the different models and hardware architectures, you'll be empowered to tackle any problem with confidence.What You Need: The example code can be compiled and executed on *nix, OS X, or Windows. Instructions on how to download the supporting build systems are given in each chapter.
Building Maintainable Software
Joost Visser - 2015
Be part of the solution. With this practical book, you'll learn 10 easy-to-follow guidelines for delivering software that's easy to maintain and adapt. These guidelines have been derived from analyzing hundreds of real-world systems.Written by consultants from the Software Improvement Group (SIG), this book provides clear and concise explanations, with advice for turning the guidelines into practice. Examples are written in Java, but this guide is equally useful for developers working in other programming languages.10 Coding Guidelines- Write short units of code: limit the length of methods and constructors- Write simple units of code: limit the number of branch points per method- Write code once, rather than risk copying buggy code- Keep unit interfaces small by extracting parameters into objects- Separate concerns to avoid building large classes- Couple architecture components loosely- Balance the number and size of top-level components in your code- Keep your codebase as small as possible- Automate tests for your codebase- Write clean code, avoiding "code smells" that indicate deeper problemsWhy you should read this bookTaken in isolation, the guidelines presented in this book are well-known. In fact, many well-known tools for code analysis check a number of the guidelines presented here. The following three characteristics set this book apart from other books on software development: We have selected the ten most important guidelines from experience.We teach how to comply with these ten guidelines.We present statistics and examples from real-world systems.This book is part our Training on Software Maintainability - and subsequent Certification on Quality Software Development program. For more information about this program, please contact training@sig.eu.
Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It
Andy Oram - 2010
But which claims are verifiable, and which are merely wishful thinking? In this book, leading thinkers such as Steve McConnell, Barry Boehm, and Barbara Kitchenham offer essays that uncover the truth and unmask myths commonly held among the software development community. Their insights may surprise you.Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others?Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster?Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software?Do design patterns actually make better software?What effect does personality have on pair programming?What matters more: how far apart people are geographically, or how far apart they are in the org chart?Contributors include:Jorge Aranda Tom Ball Victor R. Basili Andrew Begel Christian Bird Barry Boehm Marcelo Cataldo Steven Clarke Jason Cohen Robert DeLine Madeline Diep Hakan Erdogmus Michael Godfrey Mark Guzdial Jo E. Hannay Ahmed E. Hassan Israel Herraiz Kim Sebastian Herzig Cory Kapser Barbara Kitchenham Andrew Ko Lucas Layman Steve McConnell Tim Menzies Gail Murphy Nachi Nagappan Thomas J. Ostrand Dewayne Perry Marian Petre Lutz Prechelt Rahul Premraj Forrest Shull Beth Simon Diomidis Spinellis Neil Thomas Walter Tichy Burak Turhan Elaine J. Weyuker Michele A. Whitecraft Laurie Williams Wendy M. Williams Andreas Zeller Thomas Zimmermann
Functional Programming in JavaScript
Luis Atencio - 2016
Through concrete examples and jargon-free explanations, this book teaches you how to apply functional programming to real-life development tasks. The book includes insightful comparisons to object-oriented or imperative programming, which will allow you to ease into functional design. Moreover, you'll learn a repertoire of techniques including function chaining and pipelining, recursion, currying, binding, functional composition, lazy evaluation, fluent error handling, memoization, and much more. By the end of the book, you'll think about application design in a fresh new way.About the technologyAs web developers build increasingly complex applications in JavaScript, the code base for these projects can become exponentially larger and harder to maintain. The result? Application performance suffers, and readability and extensibility are severely compromised. For applications like these, Functional Programming provides a saner approach, allowing you to write elegant, readable code that raises the level of abstraction while being less prone to errors. Although not a "pure" functional language, JavaScript's native functional capabilities unlock access to proven functional programming techniques and practices.What's insideFoundations of functional programming and designExplore JavaScript's functional programming capabilities and the functional library ecosystemCreate more reliable code by embracing immutabilityLearn to write code that's easier to reason aboutSeparate core logic from program structure to write extensible codeAdopt a new approach to error handling and testingApply functional programming to solve real-world problemsAbout the readerReaders need to be comfortable with JavaScript programming and object-oriented design. No previous experience with functional programming is required.About the authorLuis Atencio is a Staff Software Engineer for Citrix Systems in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. He develops and architects applications leveraging Java, PHP, and JavaScript platforms. Luis is very involved in the community and has presented at local meet-ups. He blogs about software engineering at luisatencio.net and writes articles for PHP magazines and DZone. Follow Luis on twitter at @luijar.
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation
Jon Erickson - 2003
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.
The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary
Eric S. Raymond - 1999
According to the August Forrester Report, 56 percent of IT managers interviewed at Global 2,500 companies are already using some type of open source software in their infrastructure and another 6 percent will install it in the next two years. This revolutionary model for collaborative software development is being embraced and studied by many of the biggest players in the high-tech industry, from Sun Microsystems to IBM to Intel.The Cathedral & the Bazaar is a must for anyone who cares about the future of the computer industry or the dynamics of the information economy. Already, billions of dollars have been made and lost based on the ideas in this book. Its conclusions will be studied, debated, and implemented for years to come. According to Bob Young, "This is Eric Raymond's great contribution to the success of the open source revolution, to the adoption of Linux-based operating systems, and to the success of open source users and the companies that supply them."The interest in open source software development has grown enormously in the past year. This revised and expanded paperback edition includes new material on open source developments in 1999 and 2000. Raymond's clear and effective writing style accurately describing the benefits of open source software has been key to its success. With major vendors creating acceptance for open source within companies, independent vendors will become the open source story in 2001.
Programming JavaScript Applications: Robust Web Architecture With Node, HTML5, and Modern JS Libraries
Eric Elliott - 2012
By applying the design patterns outlined in this book, you’ll learn how to write flexible and resilient code that’s easier—not harder—to work with as your code base grows.JavaScript has become one of the most widely used—and essential—programming languages for the Web, on both the client-side and server-side. In the real world, JavaScript applications are fragile, and when you change them things often break. Author Eric Elliott shows you how to add features without creating bugs or negatively impacting the rest of your code during the course of building a large JavaScript application.Examine the anatomy of a modern JavaScript applicationLearn best practices for code organization, modularity, and reuseApply Model-View-Controller architectures to client-side web developmentDelve into client-side (browser) and server-side (Node) approachesUse Node to design and program RESTful APIsLearn the processes teams use to build, test, deploy, and scale large JavaScript applicationsExpand your application’s reach through platform targets and internationalization
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.
Pragmatic Guide to Git
Travis Swicegood - 2010
Git tasks displayed on two-page spreads provide all the context you need, without the extra fluff. Get up to speed on Git right now with Pragmatic Guide to Git. Task-oriented two-page spreads get you up and running with minimal fuss. Each left-hand page dives into the underlying implementation for each task. The right-hand page contains commands that focus on the task at hand, and cross references to other tasks that are related. You'll find what you need fast. Git is rapidly becoming the de-facto standard for the open source community. Its excellent merging capabilities, coupled with its speed and relative ease of use, make it an indispensable tool for any developer. New Git users will learn the basic tasks needed to work with Git every day, including working with remote repositories, dealing with branches and tags, exploring the history, and fixing problems when things go wrong. If you're already familiar with Git, this book will be your go-to reference for Git commands and best practices. You won't find a more practical approach to learning Git than Pragmatic Guide to Git.