Microsoft Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA


John Walkenbach - 2013
    Naturally, that means John Walkenbach returns with a new edition of his bestselling VBA Programming book and covers all the methods and tools you need to know in order to program with Excel. With this comprehensive guide, Mr. Spreadsheet shows you how to maximize your Excel experience using professional spreadsheet application development tips from his own personal bookshelf.Featuring a complete introduction to Visual Basic for Applications and fully updated for the latest features of Excel 2013, this essential reference includes an analysis of Excel application development and is packed with procedures, tips, and ideas for expanding Excel's capabilities with VBA.Offers an analysis of Excel application development and a complete introduction to VBA Features invaluable advice from Mr. Spreadsheet himself, bestselling author John Walkenbach, who demonstrates all the techniques you need to create Excel applications, both large and small Covers navigating the Excel interface, formatting worksheets, interacting with other Office applications, working with collaboration tools, and using sample workbooks and John Walkenbach's award-winning Power Utility Pak to help enhance your Excel skills Provides tips, tricks, and techniques for expanding Excel's capabilities with VBA that you wont find anywhere else Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA is packed with procedures, tips, and ideas for achieving Excel excellence with VBA.

R Cookbook: Proven Recipes for Data Analysis, Statistics, and Graphics


Paul Teetor - 2011
    The R language provides everything you need to do statistical work, but its structure can be difficult to master. This collection of concise, task-oriented recipes makes you productive with R immediately, with solutions ranging from basic tasks to input and output, general statistics, graphics, and linear regression.Each recipe addresses a specific problem, with a discussion that explains the solution and offers insight into how it works. If you're a beginner, R Cookbook will help get you started. If you're an experienced data programmer, it will jog your memory and expand your horizons. You'll get the job done faster and learn more about R in the process.Create vectors, handle variables, and perform other basic functionsInput and output dataTackle data structures such as matrices, lists, factors, and data framesWork with probability, probability distributions, and random variablesCalculate statistics and confidence intervals, and perform statistical testsCreate a variety of graphic displaysBuild statistical models with linear regressions and analysis of variance (ANOVA)Explore advanced statistical techniques, such as finding clusters in your dataWonderfully readable, R Cookbook serves not only as a solutions manual of sorts, but as a truly enjoyable way to explore the R language--one practical example at a time.--Jeffrey Ryan, software consultant and R package author

OS X 10.10 Yosemite: The Ars Technica Review


John Siracusa - 2014
    Siracusa's overview, wrap-up, and critique of everything new in OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Cassandra: The Definitive Guide


Eben Hewitt - 2010
    Cassandra: The Definitive Guide provides the technical details and practical examples you need to assess this database management system and put it to work in a production environment.Author Eben Hewitt demonstrates the advantages of Cassandra's nonrelational design, and pays special attention to data modeling. If you're a developer, DBA, application architect, or manager looking to solve a database scaling issue or future-proof your application, this guide shows you how to harness Cassandra's speed and flexibility.Understand the tenets of Cassandra's column-oriented structureLearn how to write, update, and read Cassandra dataDiscover how to add or remove nodes from the cluster as your application requiresExamine a working application that translates from a relational model to Cassandra's data modelUse examples for writing clients in Java, Python, and C#Use the JMX interface to monitor a cluster's usage, memory patterns, and moreTune memory settings, data storage, and caching for better performance

Java Performance: The Definitive Guide


Scott Oaks - 2014
    Multicore machines and 64-bit operating systems are now standard even for casual users, and Java itself has introduced new features to manage applications. The base JVM has kept pace with those developments and offers a very different performance profile in its current versions. By guiding you through this changing landscape, Java Performance: The Definitive Guide helps you gain the best performance from your Java applications.You’ll explore JVM features that traditionally affected performance—including the just-in-time compiler, garbage collection, and language features—before diving in to aspects of Java 7 and 8 designed for maximum performance in today's applications. You’ll learn features such as the G1 garbage collector to maximize your application’s throughput without causing it to pause, and the Java Flight Recorder, which enables you to see application performance details without the need for separate, specialized profiling tools.Whether you’re new to Java and need to understand the basics of tuning the JVM, or a seasoned developer looking to eek out that last 10% of application performance, this is the book you want.

The Guru's Guide to Transact-Sql


Ken Henderson - 2000
    Beginners and intermediate developers will appreciate the comprehensive tutorial that walks step-by-step through building a real client/server database, from concept to deployment and beyond -- and points out key pitfalls to avoid throughout the process. Experienced users will appreciate the book's comprehensive coverage of the Transact-SQL language, from basic to advanced level; detailed ODBC database access information; expert coverage of concurrency control, and more. The book includes thorough, up-to-the-minute guidance on building multi-tier applications; SQL Server performance tuning; and other crucial issues for advanced developers. For all database developers, system administrators, and Web application developers who interact with databases in Microsoft-centric environments.

The Passionate Programmer


Chad Fowler - 2009
    In this book, you'll learn how to become an entrepreneur, driving your career in the direction of your choosing. You'll learn how to build your software development career step by step, following the same path that you would follow if you were building, marketing, and selling a product. After all, your skills themselves are a product. The choices you make about which technologies to focus on and which business domains to master have at least as much impact on your success as your technical knowledge itself--don't let those choices be accidental. We'll walk through all aspects of the decision-making process, so you can ensure that you're investing your time and energy in the right areas. You'll develop a structured plan for keeping your mind engaged and your skills fresh. You'll learn how to assess your skills in terms of where they fit on the value chain, driving you away from commodity skills and toward those that are in high demand. Through a mix of high-level, thought-provoking essays and tactical "Act on It" sections, you will come away with concrete plans you can put into action immediately. You'll also get a chance to read the perspectives of several highly successful members of our industry from a variety of career paths. As with any product or service, if nobody knows what you're selling, nobody will buy. We'll walk through the often-neglected world of marketing, and you'll create a plan to market yourself both inside your company and to the industry in general. Above all, you'll see how you can set the direction of your career, leading to a more fulfilling and remarkable professional life.

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code


Martin Fowler - 1999
    Significant numbers of poorly designed programs have been created by less-experienced developers, resulting in applications that are inefficient and hard to maintain and extend. Increasingly, software system professionals are discovering just how difficult it is to work with these inherited, non-optimal applications. For several years, expert-level object programmers have employed a growing collection of techniques to improve the structural integrity and performance of such existing software programs. Referred to as refactoring, these practices have remained in the domain of experts because no attempt has been made to transcribe the lore into a form that all developers could use... until now. In Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Software, renowned object technology mentor Martin Fowler breaks new ground, demystifying these master practices and demonstrating how software practitioners can realize the significant benefits of this new process.

SQL in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference


Kevin E. Kline - 2000
    For SQL programmers, analysts, and database administrators, the new second edition of SQL in a Nutshell is the essential date language reference for the world's top SQL database products. SQL in a Nutshell is a lean, focused, and thoroughly comprehensive reference for those who live in a deadline-driven world.This invaluable desktop quick reference drills down and documents every SQL command and how to use it in both commercial (Oracle, DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server) and open source implementations (PostgreSQL, and MySQL). It describes every command and reference and includes the command syntax (by vendor, if the syntax differs across implementations), a clear description, and practical examples that illustrate important concepts and uses. And it also explains how the leading commercial and open sources database product implement SQL. This wealth of information is packed into a succinct, comprehensive, and extraordinarily easy-to-use format that covers the SQL syntax of no less than 4 different databases.When you need fast, accurate, detailed, and up-to-date SQL information, SQL in a Nutshell, Second Edition will be the quick reference you'll reach for every time. SQL in a Nutshell is small enough to keep by your keyboard, and concise (as well as clearly organized) enough that you can look up the syntax you need quickly without having to wade through a lot of useless fluff. You won't want to work on a project involving SQL without it.

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 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

Mining the Social Web: Analyzing Data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Other Social Media Sites


Matthew A. Russell - 2011
    You’ll learn how to combine social web data, analysis techniques, and visualization to find what you’ve been looking for in the social haystack—as well as useful information you didn’t know existed.Each standalone chapter introduces techniques for mining data in different areas of the social Web, including blogs and email. All you need to get started is a programming background and a willingness to learn basic Python tools.Get a straightforward synopsis of the social web landscapeUse adaptable scripts on GitHub to harvest data from social network APIs such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+Learn how to employ easy-to-use Python tools to slice and dice the data you collectExplore social connections in microformats with the XHTML Friends NetworkApply advanced mining techniques such as TF-IDF, cosine similarity, collocation analysis, document summarization, and clique detectionBuild interactive visualizations with web technologies based upon HTML5 and JavaScript toolkits"A rich, compact, useful, practical introduction to a galaxy of tools, techniques, and theories for exploring structured and unstructured data." --Alex Martelli, Senior Staff Engineer, Google

Mastering Regular Expressions


Jeffrey E.F. Friedl - 1997
    They are now standard features in a wide range of languages and popular tools, including Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, VB.NET and C# (and any language using the .NET Framework), PHP, and MySQL.If you don't use regular expressions yet, you will discover in this book a whole new world of mastery over your data. If you already use them, you'll appreciate this book's unprecedented detail and breadth of coverage. If you think you know all you need to know about regularexpressions, this book is a stunning eye-opener.As this book shows, a command of regular expressions is an invaluable skill. Regular expressions allow you to code complex and subtle text processing that you never imagined could be automated. Regular expressions can save you time and aggravation. They can be used to craft elegant solutions to a wide range of problems. Once you've mastered regular expressions, they'll become an invaluable part of your toolkit. You will wonder how you ever got by without them.Yet despite their wide availability, flexibility, and unparalleled power, regular expressions are frequently underutilized. Yet what is power in the hands of an expert can be fraught with peril for the unwary. Mastering Regular Expressions will help you navigate the minefield to becoming an expert and help you optimize your use of regular expressions.Mastering Regular Expressions, Third Edition, now includes a full chapter devoted to PHP and its powerful and expressive suite of regular expression functions, in addition to enhanced PHP coverage in the central "core" chapters. Furthermore, this edition has been updated throughout to reflect advances in other languages, including expanded in-depth coverage of Sun's java.util.regex package, which has emerged as the standard Java regex implementation.Topics include:A comparison of features among different versions of many languages and toolsHow the regular expression engine worksOptimization (major savings available here!)Matching just what you want, but not what you don't wantSections and chapters on individual languagesWritten in the lucid, entertaining tone that makes a complex, dry topic become crystal-clear to programmers, and sprinkled with solutions to complex real-world problems, Mastering Regular Expressions, Third Edition offers a wealth information that you can put to immediateuse.Reviews of this new edition and the second edition: "There isn't a better (or more useful) book available on regular expressions."--Zak Greant, Managing Director, eZ Systems"A real tour-de-force of a book which not only covers the mechanics of regexes in extraordinary detail but also talks about efficiency and the use of regexes in Perl, Java, and .NET...If you use regular expressions as part of your professional work (even if you already have a good book on whatever language you're programming in) I would strongly recommend this book to you."--Dr. Chris Brown, Linux Format"The author does an outstanding job leading the reader from regexnovice to master. The book is extremely easy to read and chock full ofuseful and relevant examples...Regular expressions are valuable toolsthat every developer should have in their toolbox. Mastering RegularExpressions is the definitive guide to the subject, and an outstandingresource that belongs on every programmer's bookshelf. Ten out of TenHorseshoes."--Jason Menard, Java Ranch

Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers


John MacCormick - 2012
    A simple web search picks out a handful of relevant needles from the world's biggest haystack: the billions of pages on the World Wide Web. Uploading a photo to Facebook transmits millions of pieces of information over numerous error-prone network links, yet somehow a perfect copy of the photo arrives intact. Without even knowing it, we use public-key cryptography to transmit secret information like credit card numbers; and we use digital signatures to verify the identity of the websites we visit. How do our computers perform these tasks with such ease? This is the first book to answer that question in language anyone can understand, revealing the extraordinary ideas that power our PCs, laptops, and smartphones. Using vivid examples, John MacCormick explains the fundamental "tricks" behind nine types of computer algorithms, including artificial intelligence (where we learn about the "nearest neighbor trick" and "twenty questions trick"), Google's famous PageRank algorithm (which uses the "random surfer trick"), data compression, error correction, and much more. These revolutionary algorithms have changed our world: this book unlocks their secrets, and lays bare the incredible ideas that our computers use every day.

Quantum Computing Since Democritus


Scott Aaronson - 2013
    Full of insights, arguments and philosophical perspectives, the book covers an amazing array of topics. Beginning in antiquity with Democritus, it progresses through logic and set theory, computability and complexity theory, quantum computing, cryptography, the information content of quantum states and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. There are also extended discussions about time travel, Newcomb's Paradox, the anthropic principle and the views of Roger Penrose. Aaronson's informal style makes this fascinating book accessible to readers with scientific backgrounds, as well as students and researchers working in physics, computer science, mathematics and philosophy.