It’s time we stand face-to-digital-face with the true powers and limitations of the algorithms that already automate important decisions in healthcare, transportation, crime, and commerce. Hello World is indispensable preparation for the moral quandaries of a world run by code, and with the unfailingly entertaining Hannah Fry as our guide, we’ll be discussing these issues long after the last page is turned.

    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.

    The Web is awash in Ruby code that is now virtually impossible to change or extend. This text helps you solve that problem by using powerful real-world object-oriented design techniques, which it thoroughly explains using simple and practical Ruby examples. Sandi Metz has distilled a lifetime of conversations and presentations about object-oriented design into a set of Ruby-focused practices for crafting manageable, extensible, and pleasing code. She shows you how to build new applications that can survive success and repair existing applications that have become impossible to change. Each technique is illustrated with extended examples, all downloadable from the companion Web site, poodr.info. The first title to focus squarely on object-oriented Ruby application design, Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby will guide you to superior outcomes, whatever your previous Ruby experience. Novice Ruby programmers will find specific rules to live by; intermediate Ruby programmers will find valuable principles they can flexibly interpret and apply; and advanced Ruby programmers will find a common language they can use to lead development and guide their colleagues. This guide will help you Understand how object-oriented programming can help you craft Ruby code that is easier to maintain and upgrade Decide what belongs in a single Ruby class Avoid entangling objects that should be kept separate Define flexible interfaces among objects Reduce programming overhead costs with duck typing Successfully apply inheritance Build objects via composition Design cost-effective tests Solve common problems associated with poorly designed Ruby code

    As they helped grow Google from a young start-up to a global icon, they relearned everything they knew about management. How Google Works is the sum of those experiences distilled into a fun, easy-to-read primer on corporate culture, strategy, talent, decision-making, communication, innovation, and dealing with disruption.The authors explain how the confluence of three seismic changes - the internet, mobile, and cloud computing - has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers. The companies that will thrive in this ever-changing landscape will be the ones that create superior products and attract a new breed of multifaceted employees whom the authors dub 'smart creatives'. The management maxims ('Consensus requires dissension', 'Exile knaves but fight for divas', 'Think 10X, not 10%') are illustrated with previously unreported anecdotes from Google's corporate history.'Back in 2010, Eric and I created an internal class for Google managers,' says Rosenberg. 'The class slides all read 'Google confidential' until an employee suggested we uphold the spirit of openness and share them with the world. This book codifies the recipe for our secret sauce: how Google innovates and how it empowers employees to succeed.'

    Written by noted experts with years of real-world experience building very large systems, this book covers every aspect of MySQL performance in detail, and focuses on robustness, security, and data integrity.High Performance MySQL teaches you advanced techniques in depth so you can bring out MySQL's full power. Learn how to design schemas, indexes, queries and advanced MySQL features for maximum performance, and get detailed guidance for tuning your MySQL server, operating system, and hardware to their fullest potential. You'll also learn practical, safe, high-performance ways to scale your applications with replication, load balancing, high availability, and failover. This second edition is completely revised and greatly expanded, with deeper coverage in all areas. Major additions include: Emphasis throughout on both performance and reliability Thorough coverage of storage engines, including in-depth tuning and optimizations for the InnoDB storage engine Effects of new features in MySQL 5.0 and 5.1, including stored procedures, partitioned databases, triggers, and views A detailed discussion on how to build very large, highly scalable systems with MySQL New options for backups and replication Optimization of advanced querying features, such as full-text searches Four new appendices The book also includes chapters on benchmarking, profiling, backups, security, and tools and techniques to help you measure, monitor, and manage your MySQL installations.

    The cause of their failure was a complete mystery.Five months later, a seemingly unrelated event occurred. A computer security firm in Belarus was called in to troubleshoot some computers in Iran that were caught in a reboot loop—crashing and rebooting repeatedly. At first, technicians with the firm believed the malicious code they found on the machines was a simple, routine piece of malware. But as they and other experts around the world investigated, they discovered a virus of unparalleled complexity and mysterious provenance and intent. They had, they soon learned, stumbled upon the world’s first digital weapon.Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or worm built before: It was the first attack that reached beyond the computers it targeted to physically destroy the equipment those computers controlled. It was an ingenious attack, jointly engineered by the United States and Israel, that worked exactly as planned, until the rebooting machines gave it all away. And the discovery of Stuxnet was just the beginning: Once the digital weapon was uncovered and deciphered, it provided clues to other tools lurking in the wild. Soon, security experts found and exposed not one but three highly sophisticated digital spy tools that came from the same labs that created Stuxnet. The discoveries gave the world its first look at the scope and sophistication of nation-state surveillance and warfare in the digital age.Kim Zetter, a senior reporter at Wired, has covered hackers and computer security since 1999 and is one of the top journalists in the world on this beat. She was among the first reporters to cover Stuxnet after its discovery and has authored many of the most comprehensive articles about it. In COUNTDOWN TO ZERO DAY: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon, Zetter expands on this work to show how the code was designed and unleashed and how its use opened a Pandora’s Box, ushering in an age of digital warfare in which any country’s infrastructure—power grids, nuclear plants, oil pipelines, dams—is vulnerable to the same kind of attack with potentially devastating results. A sophisticated digital strike on portions of the power grid, for example, could plunge half the U.S. into darkness for weeks or longer, having a domino effect on all other critical infrastructures dependent on electricity.

    By using objects early to solve interesting problems and defining objects later in the course, Building Java Programs develops programming knowledge for a broad audience. Introduction to Java Programming, Primitive Data and Definite Loops, Introduction to Parameters and Objects, Conditional Execution, Program Logic and Indefinite Loops, File Processing, Arrays, Defining Classes, Inheritance and Interfaces, ArrayLists, Java Collections Framework, Recursion, Searching and Sorting, Graphical User Interfaces. For all readers interested in introductory programming.

    But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize.Author Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the internet what it is today. Learn from Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, who wove numbers into the first program for a mechanical computer in 1842. Seek inspiration from Grace Hopper, the tenacious mathematician who democratized computing by leading the charge for machine-independent programming languages after World War II. Meet Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, the one-woman Google who kept the earliest version of the Internet online, and Stacy Horn, who ran one of the first-ever social networks on a shoestring out of her New York City apartment in the 1980s. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.Join the ranks of the pioneers who defied social convention and the longest odds to become database poets, information-wranglers, hypertext dreamers, and glass ceiling-shattering dot com-era entrepreneurs.

    In Turing’s Cathedral, George Dyson focuses on a small group of men and women, led by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who built one of the first computers to realize Alan Turing’s vision of a Universal Machine. Their work would break the distinction between numbers that mean things and numbers that do things—and our universe would never be the same. Using five kilobytes of memory (the amount allocated to displaying the cursor on a computer desktop of today), they achieved unprecedented success in both weather prediction and nuclear weapons design, while tackling, in their spare time, problems ranging from the evolution of viruses to the evolution of stars. Dyson’s account, both historic and prophetic, sheds important new light on how the digital universe exploded in the aftermath of World War II. The proliferation of both codes and machines was paralleled by two historic developments: the decoding of self-replicating sequences in biology and the invention of the hydrogen bomb. It’s no coincidence that the most destructive and the most constructive of human inventions appeared at exactly the same time.  How did code take over the world? In retracing how Alan Turing’s one-dimensional model became John von Neumann’s two-dimensional implementation, Turing’s Cathedral offers a series of provocative suggestions as to where the digital universe, now fully three-dimensional, may be heading next.

    Now, in his first book, written more than two decades after the web was created, Lanier offers this provocative and cautionary look at the way it is transforming our lives for better and for worse.The current design and function of the web have become so familiar that it is easy to forget that they grew out of programming decisions made decades ago. The web’s first designers made crucial choices (such as making one’s presence anonymous) that have had enormous—and often unintended—consequences. What’s more, these designs quickly became “locked in,” a permanent part of the web’s very structure. Lanier discusses the technical and cultural problems that can grow out of poorly considered digital design and warns that our financial markets and sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are elevating the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and judgment of individuals. Lanier also shows:How 1960s antigovernment paranoia influenced the design of the online world and enabled trolling and trivialization in online discourseHow file sharing is killing the artistic middle class;How a belief in a technological “rapture” motivates some of the most influential technologistsWhy a new humanistic technology is necessary. Controversial and fascinating, You Are Not a Gadget is a deeply felt defense of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.

    From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world’s most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.

    Written for 11- to 15-year-olds and assuming no prior computing knowledge, this book uses the wildly successful, low-cost, credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi computer to explain fundamental computing concepts. Young people will enjoy going through the book's nine fun projects while they learn basic programming and system administration skills, starting with the very basics of how to plug in the board and turn it on. Each project includes a lively and informative video to reinforce the lessons. It's perfect for young, eager self-learners—your kids can jump in, set up their Raspberry Pi, and go through the lessons on their own. Written by Carrie Anne Philbin, a high school teacher of computing who advises the U.K. government on the revised ICT Curriculum Teaches 11- to 15-year-olds programming and system administration skills using Raspberry Pi Features 9 fun projects accompanied by lively and helpful videos Raspberry Pi is a $35/£25 credit-card-sized computer created by the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation; over a million have been sold Help your children have fun and learn computing skills at the same time with Adventures in Raspberry Pi.

    This book is indispensable for anyone who is serious about using jQuery for non-trivial applications." -- Raffaele Cecco, longtime developer of video games, including Cybernoid, Exolon, and StormlordjQuery is the "write less, do more" JavaScript library. Its powerful features and ease of use have made it the most popular client-side JavaScript framework for the Web. This book is jQuery's trusty companion: the definitive "read less, learn more" guide to the library.jQuery Pocket Reference explains everything you need to know about jQuery, completely and comprehensively. You'll learn how to:Select and manipulate document elementsAlter document structureHandle and trigger eventsCreate visual effects and animationsScript HTTP with Ajax utilitiesUse jQuery's selectors and selection methods, utilities, plugins and moreThe 25-page quick reference summarizes the library, listing all jQuery methods and functions, with signatures and descriptions.

    The language features full support for regular expressions, object-oriented modules, network programming, and process management. Perl is extensible, and supports modular, cross-platform development.In "Effective Perl Programming," Perl experts Joseph Hall and Randal Schwartz share programming solutions, techniques, programming pointers, rules of thumb, and the pitfalls to avoid, enabling you to make the most of Perl's power and capabilities.The authors will help you develop a knack for the right ways to do things. They show you how to solve problems with Perl, and how to debug and improve your Perl programs. Offering examples, they help you learn good Perl style. Geared for programmers who have already acquired Perl basics, the book will extend your skill range, providing the tactics and deeper understanding you need to create Perl programs that are more elegant, effective, and succinct. This book also speaks to those who want to become more fluent, expressive, and individualistic Perl programmers.To help you design and write effective Perl progams, Effective Perl Programming includes: Perl basics Idiomatic Perl Regular expressions Subroutines References Debugging Usage of packages and modules Object-oriented programming Useful and interesting Perl miscellanyNumerous thought-provoking examples appear throughout the book, highlighting many of the subtleties that make Perl such a fascinating, fun, and effective language to work with.

    Leading networking authority Douglas Comer presents a wide-ranging, self-contained tour of the concepts, principles, and technologies that enable today's Internet to support applications ranging from web browsing to telephony and multimedia. This Fifth Edition has been thoroughly reorganized, revised, and updated: it includes extensive new coverage of topics ranging from wireless protocols to network performance, while reducing or eliminating coverage of older protocols and technologies. Comer begins by illuminating the applications and facilities offered by today's Internet. Next, he systematically introduces the underlying network technologies and protocols that make them possible: low-level data communications; packet switching, LAN, and WAN technologies; and Internet protocols such as TCP, IP, UDP, and IPv6. With these concepts and technologies established, he introduces several of the most important contemporary issues faced by network implementers and managers, including quality of service, Internet telephony, multimedia, network security, and network management. Comer has carefully designed this book to support both top-down and bottom-up teaching approaches. Students need no background in operating systems, and no sophisticated math: Comer relies throughout on figures, drawings, examples, and analogies, "not" mathematical proofs.