The Deadline: A Novel about Project Management


Tom DeMarco - 1997
    Rizzoli- Ex-General Markov- Abdul Jamid- The Sinister Minister Belok- The Numbers Man- QuickerStill- Morovia's First Programmer- Think Fast!- Planning for the Summer Games- The Guru of Conflict Resolution- Maestro Diyeniar- Interlude- Part and Whole- Standing on Ceremony- Endgame Begins- The Year's Hottest IPO- Passing Through Riga on the Way Home

Problem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People


Ken Watanabe - 2007
    His goal was to help shift the focus in Japanese education from memorization to critical thinking, by adapting some of the techniques he had learned as an elite McKinsey consultant.He was amazed to discover that adults were hungry for his fun and easy guide to problem solving and decision making. The book became a surprise Japanese bestseller, with more than 370,000 in print after six months. Now American businesspeople can also use it to master some powerful skills.Watanabe uses sample scenarios to illustrate his techniques, which include logic trees and matrixes. A rock band figures out how to drive up concert attendance. An aspiring animator budgets for a new computer purchase. Students decide which high school they will attend.Illustrated with diagrams and quirky drawings, the book is simple enough for a middleschooler to understand but sophisticated enough for business leaders to apply to their most challenging problems.

UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language


Martin Fowler - 1997
    This third edition is the best resource for quick, no-nonsense insights into understanding and using UML 2.0 and prior versions of the UML. Some readers will want to quickly get up to speed with the UML 2.0 and learn the essentials of the UML. Others will use this book as a handy, quick reference to the most common parts of the UML. The author delivers on both of these promises in a short, concise, and focused presentation. This book describes all the major UML diagram types, what they're used for, and the basic notation involved in creating and deciphering them. These diagrams include class, sequence, object, package, deployment, use case, state machine, activity, communication, composite structure, component, interaction overview, and timing diagrams. The examples are clear and the explanations cut to the fundamental design logic. Includes a quick reference to the most useful parts of the UML notation and a useful summary of diagram types that were added to the UML 2.0. If you are like most developers, you don't have time to keep up with all the new innovations in software engineering. This new edition of Fowler's classic work gets you acquainted with some of the best thinking about efficient object-oriented software design using the UML--in a convenient format that will be essential to anyone who designs software professionally.

Programming Pearls


Jon L. Bentley - 1986
    Jon has done a wonderful job of updating the material. I am very impressed at how fresh the new examples seem." - Steve McConnell, author, Code CompleteWhen programmers list their favorite books, Jon Bentley's collection of programming pearls is commonly included among the classics. Just as natural pearls grow from grains of sand that irritate oysters, programming pearls have grown from real problems that have irritated real programmers. With origins beyond solid engineering, in the realm of insight and creativity, Bentley's pearls offer unique and clever solutions to those nagging problems. Illustrated by programs designed as much for fun as for instruction, the book is filled with lucid and witty descriptions of practical programming techniques and fundamental design principles. It is not at all surprising that Programming Pearls has been so highly valued by programmers at every level of experience. In this revision, the first in 14 years, Bentley has substantially updated his essays to reflect current programming methods and environments. In addition, there are three new essays on (1) testing, debugging, and timing; (2) set representations; and (3) string problems. All the original programs have been rewritten, and an equal amount of new code has been generated. Implementations of all the programs, in C or C++, are now available on the Web.What remains the same in this new edition is Bentley's focus on the hard core of programming problems and his delivery of workable solutions to those problems. Whether you are new to Bentley's classic or are revisiting his work for some fresh insight, this book is sure to make your own list of favorites.

Learn Python The Hard Way


Zed A. Shaw - 2010
    The title says it is the hard way to learn to writecode but it’s actually not. It’s the “hard” way only in that it’s the way people used to teach things. In this book youwill do something incredibly simple that all programmers actually do to learn a language: 1. Go through each exercise. 2. Type in each sample exactly. 3. Make it run.That’s it. This will be very difficult at first, but stick with it. If you go through this book, and do each exercise for1-2 hours a night, then you’ll have a good foundation for moving on to another book. You might not really learn“programming” from this book, but you will learn the foundation skills you need to start learning the language.This book’s job is to teach you the three most basic essential skills that a beginning programmer needs to know:Reading And Writing, Attention To Detail, Spotting Differences.

The Effective Engineer: How to Leverage Your Efforts In Software Engineering to Make a Disproportionate and Meaningful Impact


Edmond Lau - 2015
    I'm going to share that mindset with you — along with hundreds of actionable techniques and proven habits — so you can shortcut those years.Introducing The Effective Engineer — the only book designed specifically for today's software engineers, based on extensive interviews with engineering leaders at top tech companies, and packed with hundreds of techniques to accelerate your career.For two years, I embarked on a quest seeking an answer to one question:How do the most effective engineers make their efforts, their teams, and their careers more successful?I interviewed and collected stories from engineering VPs, directors, managers, and other leaders at today's top software companies: established, household names like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; rapidly growing mid-sized companies like Dropbox, Square, Box, Airbnb, and Etsy; and startups like Reddit, Stripe, Instagram, and Lyft.These leaders shared stories about the most valuable insights they've learned and the most common and costly mistakes that they've seen engineers — sometimes themselves — make.This is just a small sampling of the hard questions I posed to them:- What engineering qualities correlate with future success?- What have you done that has paid off the highest returns?- What separates the most effective engineers you've worked with from everyone else?- What's the most valuable lesson your team has learned in the past year?- What advice do you give to new engineers on your team? Everyone's story is different, but many of the lessons share common themes.You'll get to hear stories like:- How did Instagram's team of 5 engineers build and support a service that grew to over 40 million users by the time the company was acquired?- How and why did Quora deploy code to production 40 to 50 times per day?- How did the team behind Google Docs become the fastest acquisition to rewrite its software to run on Google's infrastructure?- How does Etsy use continuous experimentation to design features that are guaranteed to increase revenue at launch?- How did Facebook's small infrastructure team effectively operate thousands of database servers?- How did Dropbox go from barely hiring any new engineers to nearly tripling its team size year-over-year? What's more, I've distilled their stories into actionable habits and lessons that you can follow step-by-step to make your career and your team more successful.The skills used by effective engineers are all learnable.And I'll teach them to you. With The Effective Engineer, I'll teach you a unifying framework called leverage — the value produced per unit of time invested — that you can use to identify the activities that produce disproportionate results.Here's a sneak peek at some of the lessons you'll learn. You'll learn how to:- Prioritize the right projects and tasks to increase your impact.- Earn more leeway from your peers and managers on your projects.- Spend less time maintaining and fixing software and more time building and shipping new features.- Produce more accurate software estimates.- Validate your ideas cheaply to reduce wasted work.- Navigate organizational and people-related bottlenecks.- Find the appropriate level of code reviews, testing, abstraction, and technical debt to balance speed and quality.- Shorten your debugging workflow to increase your iteration speed.

Computer Networks


Andrew S. Tanenbaum - 1981
    In this revision, the author takes a structured approach to explaining how networks function.

A Theory of Fun for Game Design


Raph Koster - 2004
    It features a novel way of teaching interactive designers how to create and improve their designs to incorporate the highest degree of fun. As the book shows, designing for fun is all about making interactive products like games highly entertaining, engaging, and addictive. The book's unique approach of providing a highly visual storyboard approach combined with a narrative on the art and practice of designing for fun is sure to be a hit with game and interactive designers.At first glance A Theory of Fun for Game Design is a book that will truly inspire and challenge game designers to think in new ways; however, its universal message will influence designers from all walks of life. This book captures the real essence of what drives us to seek out products and experiences that are truly fun and entertaining. The author masterfully presents his engaging theory by showing readers how many designs are lacking because they are predictable and not engaging enough. He then explains how great designers use different types of elements in new ways to make designs more fun and compelling. Anyone who is interested in design will enjoy how the book works on two levels--as a quick inspiration guide to game design, or as an informative discussion that details the insightful thinking from a great mind in the game industry.

Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems


Betsy Beyer - 2016
    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

Code Complete


Steve McConnell - 1993
    Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices--and hundreds of new code samples--illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking--and help you build the highest quality code. Discover the timeless techniques and strategies that help you: Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity Reap the benefits of collaborative development Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors Exploit opportunities to refactor--or evolve--code, and do it safely Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project Debug problems quickly and effectively Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project

Fluent Python: Clear, Concise, and Effective Programming


Luciano Ramalho - 2015
    With this hands-on guide, you'll learn how to write effective, idiomatic Python code by leveraging its best and possibly most neglected features. Author Luciano Ramalho takes you through Python's core language features and libraries, and shows you how to make your code shorter, faster, and more readable at the same time.Many experienced programmers try to bend Python to fit patterns they learned from other languages, and never discover Python features outside of their experience. With this book, those Python programmers will thoroughly learn how to become proficient in Python 3.This book covers:Python data model: understand how special methods are the key to the consistent behavior of objectsData structures: take full advantage of built-in types, and understand the text vs bytes duality in the Unicode ageFunctions as objects: view Python functions as first-class objects, and understand how this affects popular design patternsObject-oriented idioms: build classes by learning about references, mutability, interfaces, operator overloading, and multiple inheritanceControl flow: leverage context managers, generators, coroutines, and concurrency with the concurrent.futures and asyncio packagesMetaprogramming: understand how properties, attribute descriptors, class decorators, and metaclasses work"

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering


Frederick P. Brooks Jr. - 1975
    With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now, 45 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice, both for readers already familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time.The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years."

Problem Solving with C++: The Object of Programming


Walter J. Savitch - 1995
    It introduces the use of classes; shows how to write ADTs that maximize the perfomance of C++ in creating reusable code; and provides coverage of all important OO functions, including inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation.

Doing Data Science


Cathy O'Neil - 2013
    But how can you get started working in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary field that’s so clouded in hype? This insightful book, based on Columbia University’s Introduction to Data Science class, tells you what you need to know.In many of these chapter-long lectures, data scientists from companies such as Google, Microsoft, and eBay share new algorithms, methods, and models by presenting case studies and the code they use. If you’re familiar with linear algebra, probability, and statistics, and have programming experience, this book is an ideal introduction to data science.Topics include:Statistical inference, exploratory data analysis, and the data science processAlgorithmsSpam filters, Naive Bayes, and data wranglingLogistic regressionFinancial modelingRecommendation engines and causalityData visualizationSocial networks and data journalismData engineering, MapReduce, Pregel, and HadoopDoing Data Science is collaboration between course instructor Rachel Schutt, Senior VP of Data Science at News Corp, and data science consultant Cathy O’Neil, a senior data scientist at Johnson Research Labs, who attended and blogged about the course.

Learning SQL


Alan Beaulieu - 2005
    If you're working with a relational database--whether you're writing applications, performing administrative tasks, or generating reports--you need to know how to interact with your data. Even if you are using a tool that generates SQL for you, such as a reporting tool, there may still be cases where you need to bypass the automatic generation feature and write your own SQL statements.To help you attain this fundamental SQL knowledge, look to "Learning SQL," an introductory guide to SQL, designed primarily for developers just cutting their teeth on the language."Learning SQL" moves you quickly through the basics and then on to some of the more commonly used advanced features. Among the topics discussed: The history of the computerized databaseSQL Data Statements--those used to create, manipulate, and retrieve data stored in your database; example statements include select, update, insert, and deleteSQL Schema Statements--those used to create database objects, such as tables, indexes, and constraintsHow data sets can interact with queriesThe importance of subqueriesData conversion and manipulation via SQL's built-in functionsHow conditional logic can be used in Data StatementsBest of all, "Learning SQL" talks to you in a real-world manner, discussing various platform differences that you're likely to encounter and offering a series of chapter exercises that walk you through the learning process. Whenever possible, the book sticks to the features included in the ANSI SQL standards. This means you'll be able to apply what you learn to any of several different databases; the book covers MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle Database, but the features and syntax should apply just as well (perhaps with some tweaking) to IBM DB2, Sybase Adaptive Server, and PostgreSQL.Put the power and flexibility of SQL to work. With "Learning SQL" you can master this important skill and know that the SQL statements you write are indeed correct.