And this may sound weirdly obvious, but every single one of those pieces of software was written by a programmer. Programmers are thus among the most quietly influential people on the planet. As we live in a world made of software, they're the architects. The decisions they make guide our behavior. When they make something newly easy to do, we do a lot more of it. If they make it hard or impossible to do something, we do less of it.If we want to understand how today's world works, we ought to understand something about coders. Who exactly are the people that are building today's world? What makes them tick? What type of personality is drawn to writing software? And perhaps most interestingly -- what does it do to them?One of the first pieces of coding a newbie learns is the program to make the computer say "Hello, world!" Like that piece of code, Clive Thompson's book is a delightful place to begin to understand this vocation, which is both a profession and a way of life, and which essentially didn't exist little more than a generation ago, but now is considered just about the only safe bet we can make about what the future holds. Thompson takes us close to some of the great coders of our time, and unpacks the surprising history of the field, beginning with the first great coders, who were women. Ironically, if we're going to traffic in stereotypes, women are arguably "naturally" better at coding than men, but they were written out of the history, and shoved out of the seats, for reasons that are illuminating. Now programming is indeed, if not a pure brotopia, at least an awfully homogenous community, which attracts people from a very narrow band of backgrounds and personality types. As Thompson learns, the consequences of that are significant - not least being a fetish for disruption at scale that doesn't leave much time for pondering larger moral issues of collateral damage. At the same time, coding is a marvelous new art form that has improved the world in innumerable ways, and Thompson reckons deeply, as no one before him has, with what great coding in fact looks like, who creates it, and where they come from. To get as close to his subject has he can, he picks up the thread of his own long-abandoned coding practice, and tries his mightiest to up his game, with some surprising results.More and more, any serious engagement with the world demands an engagement with code and its consequences, and to understand code, we must understand coders. In that regard, Clive Thompson's Hello, World! is a marvelous and delightful master class.

    This is official Amazon Web Services (AWS) documentation for Amazon Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).This guide explains the infrastructure provided by the Amazon EC2 web service, and steps you through how to configure and manage your virtual servers using the AWS Management Console (an easy-to-use graphical interface), the Amazon EC2 API, or web tools and utilities.Amazon EC2 provides resizable computing capacity—literally, server instances in Amazon's data centers—that you use to build and host your software systems.

    The Internet has brought together large communities of people who share ideas, tips, and blueprints for making everything from unmanned aerial vehicles to pedal- powered iPhone chargers to an automatic cat feeder jury-rigged from a VCR. DIY is a direct reflection of our basic human desire to invent and improve, long suppressed by the availability of cheap, mass-produced products that have drowned us in bland convenience and cultivated our most wasteful habits. Frauenfelder spent a year trying a variety of offbeat projects such as keeping chickens and bees, tricking out his espresso machine, whittling wooden spoons, making guitars out of cigar boxes, and doing citizen science with his daughters in the garage. His whole family found that DIY helped them take control of their lives, offering a path that was simple, direct, and clear. Working with their hands and minds helped them feel more engaged with the world around them. Frauenfelder also reveals how DIY is changing our culture for the better. He profiles fascinating "alpha makers" leading various DIY movements and grills them for their best tips and insights. Beginning his journey with hands as smooth as those of a typical geek, Frauenfelder offers a unique perspective on how earning a few calluses can be far more rewarding and satisfying than another trip to the mall.

    This one's a keeper." --Robert C. Martin "If you want to be an expert in the state of the art in TDD, you need to understand the ideas in this book."--Michael Feathers Test-Driven Development (TDD) is now an established technique for delivering better software faster. TDD is based on a simple idea: Write tests for your code before you write the code itself. However, this simple idea takes skill and judgment to do well. Now there's a practical guide to TDD that takes you beyond the basic concepts. Drawing on a decade of experience building real-world systems, two TDD pioneers show how to let tests guide your development and "grow" software that is coherent, reliable, and maintainable. Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce describe the processes they use, the design principles they strive to achieve, and some of the tools that help them get the job done. Through an extended worked example, you'll learn how TDD works at multiple levels, using tests to drive the features and the object-oriented structure of the code, and using Mock Objects to discover and then describe relationships between objects. Along the way, the book systematically addresses challenges that development teams encounter with TDD--from integrating TDD into your processes to testing your most difficult features. Coverage includes - Implementing TDD effectively: getting started, and maintaining your momentum throughout the project - Creating cleaner, more expressive, more sustainable code - Using tests to stay relentlessly focused on sustaining quality - Understanding how TDD, Mock Objects, and Object-Oriented Design come together in the context of a real software development project - Using Mock Objects to guide object-oriented designs - Succeeding where TDD is difficult: managing complex test data, and testing persistence and concurrency

    In this captivating guided journal, readers are encouraged to explore their world as both artists and scientists. The mission Smith proposes? To document and observe the world around you. As if you've never seen it before. Take notes. Collect things you find on your travels. Document findings. Notice patterns. Copy. Trace. Focus on one thing at a time. Record what you are drawn to. With a series of interactive prompts and a beautifully hand-illustrated two-color package, readers will enjoy exploring and discovering the world through this gorgeous book.

    The authors' enthusiasm for their subject is compelling as they present abstract concepts in a humorous and easy-to-grasp fashion. Together, these books will open new doors of thought to anyone who wants to find out what computing is really about. The Little Schemer introduces computing as an extension of arithmetic and algebra; things that everyone studies in grade school and high school. It introduces programs as recursive functions and briefly discusses the limits of what computers can do. The authors use the programming language Scheme, and interesting foods to illustrate these abstract ideas. The Seasoned Schemer informs the reader about additional dimensions of computing: functions as values, change of state, and exceptional cases. The Little LISPer has been a popular introduction to LISP for many years. It had appeared in French and Japanese. The Little Schemer and The Seasoned Schemer are worthy successors and will prove equally popular as textbooks for Scheme courses as well as companion texts for any complete introductory course in Computer Science.

    this book also features tips on choosing baby friendly fabrics and includes a comprehensive technique section glossary and resource guide. hardcover spiral bound 176 pages. imported.

    This is necessary because, in the words of Michael Polanyi, "we can know more than we can tell." Our design choices are not the result of an ineluctable chain of logic; they come from a deeper place, one which is visceral and inarticulate.Polanyi calls this "tacit knowledge", a thing which we only understand as part of something else. When we speak, we do not focus on making sounds, we focus on our words. We understand the muscular act of speech, but would struggle to explain it.To write software, we must learn where to draw boundaries. Good software is built through effective indirection. We seem to have decided that this skill can only be learned through practice; it cannot be taught, except by example. Our decisions may improve with time, but not our ability to explain them. It's true that the study of these questions cannot yield a closed-form solution for judging software design. We can make our software simple, but we cannot do the same to its problem domain, its users, or the physical world. Our tacit knowledge of this environment will always inform our designs.This doesn't mean that we can simply ignore our design process. Polanyi tells us that tacit knowledge only suffices until we fail, and the software industry is awash with failure. Our designs may never be provably correct, but we can give voice to the intuition that shaped them. Our process may always be visceral, but it doesn't have to be inarticulate.And so this book does not offer knowledge, it offers clarity. It is aimed at readers who know Clojure, but struggle to articulate the rationale of their designs to themselves and others. Readers who use other languages, but have a passing familiarity with Clojure, may also find this book useful.

    And this book will teach you all you need to know to be immediately productive with MySQL. By working through 30 highly focused hands-on lessons, your MySQL Crash Course will be both easier and more effective than you'd have thought possible. Learn how to: Retrieve and sort data Filter data using comparisons, regular expressions, full text search, and much more Join relational data Create and alter tables Insert, update, and delete data Leverage the power of stored procedures and triggers Use views and Cursors Manage transactional processing Create user accounts and manage security via access control Ben Forta is Macromedia's Senior Technical Evangelist, and has almost 20 years of experience in the computer industry in product development, support, training, and product marketing. Ben is the author of the best-selling Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes (now in its third edition, and translated into over a dozen languages), ColdFusion Web Application Construction Kit, and Advanced ColdFusion Development (both published by Que Publishing), Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes, as well as books on SQL, Flash, JSP, HomeSite, WAP, Windows 2000, and other subjects.

    Tech companies in general lack the experience, tools, texts, and frameworks to do it well. And the handful of books that share tips and tricks of engineering management don t explain how to supervise employees in the face of growth and change.In this book, author Camille Fournier takes you through the stages of technical management, from mentoring interns to working with the senior staff. You ll get actionable advice for approaching various obstacles in your path, whether you re a new manager, a mentor, or a more experienced leader looking for fresh advice. Pick up this book and learn how to become a better manager and leader in your organization. * Discover how to manage small teams and large/multi-level teams * Understand how to build and bootstrap a unifying culture in teams * Deal with people problems and learn how to mentor other managers and new leaders * Learn how to manage yourself: avoid common pitfalls that challenge many leaders * Obtain several practices that you can incorporate and practice along the way

    Find the motivation to change what's not working for you. Choose a smart solution for organizing and storing your stash. Turn scrapbooking into a sustainable hobby that fits comfortably into your life. Learn real organization solutions that work for you.

    With just the simple tools around you—your imagination, basic art supplies, household objects, and natural materials—you can transform your family life, and have so much more fun! Amanda Soule has charmed many with her tales of creativity and parenting on her blog, SouleMama. Here she shares ideas and projects with the same warm tone and down-to-earth voice. Perfect for all families, the wide range of projects presented here offers ideas for imaginative play, art and crafts, nature explorations, and family celebrations. This book embraces a whole new way of living that will engage your children’s imagination, celebrate their achievements, and help you to express love and gratitude for each other as a family.

    The Sleep Sense Program -- Proven Strategies For Teaching Your Child To Sleep Through The Night, has helped over 10,000 families quickly and easily solve their children's sleep problems.

    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.

    He addresses many topics—what it means to be creative, how to find a mentor and serve as an apprentice, the wisdom of maintaining a creative network, coping with critics and the foibles of success, and the specific pitfalls of contemporary culture—all in the service of guiding admirers who have followed his career and newcomers not yet acquainted with his story. Whether discussing his own life or channeling the lessons he’s learned from forefathers such as George Clinton, collaborators like D’Angelo, or like-minded artists including Ava DuVernay, David Byrne, Björk, and others, Questlove speaks with the candor and enthusiasm that fans have come to expect. Creative Quest is many things—above all, a wise and wide-ranging conversation around the eternal mystery of creativity.