Beautiful Visualization: Looking at Data through the Eyes of Experts


Julie Steele - 2010
    Think of the familiar map of the New York City subway system, or a diagram of the human brain. Successful visualizations are beautiful not only for their aesthetic design, but also for elegant layers of detail that efficiently generate insight and new understanding.This book examines the methods of two dozen visualization experts who approach their projects from a variety of perspectives -- as artists, designers, commentators, scientists, analysts, statisticians, and more. Together they demonstrate how visualization can help us make sense of the world.Explore the importance of storytelling with a simple visualization exerciseLearn how color conveys information that our brains recognize before we're fully aware of itDiscover how the books we buy and the people we associate with reveal clues to our deeper selvesRecognize a method to the madness of air travel with a visualization of civilian air trafficFind out how researchers investigate unknown phenomena, from initial sketches to published papers Contributors include:Nick Bilton, Michael E. Driscoll, Jonathan Feinberg, Danyel Fisher, Jessica Hagy, Gregor Hochmuth, Todd Holloway, Noah Iliinsky, Eddie Jabbour, Valdean Klump, Aaron Koblin, Robert Kosara, Valdis Krebs, JoAnn Kuchera-Morin et al., Andrew Odewahn, Adam Perer, Anders Persson, Maximilian Schich, Matthias Shapiro, Julie Steele, Moritz Stefaner, Jer Thorp, Fernanda Viegas, Martin Wattenberg, and Michael Young.

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams


Tom DeMarco - 1987
    The answers aren't easy -- just incredibly successful.

The Imposter's Handbook


Rob Conery - 2016
    New languages, new frameworks, new ways of doing things - a constant struggle just to stay current in the industry. This left no time to learn the foundational concepts and skills that come with a degree in Computer Science.

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software


Eric Evans - 2003
    "His book is very compatible with XP. It is not about drawing pictures of a domain; it is about how you think of it, the language you use to talk about it, and how you organize your software to reflect your improving understanding of it. Eric thinks that learning about your problem domain is as likely to happen at the end of your project as at the beginning, and so refactoring is a big part of his technique. "The book is a fun read. Eric has lots of interesting stories, and he has a way with words. I see this book as essential reading for software developers--it is a future classic." --Ralph Johnson, author of Design Patterns "If you don't think you are getting value from your investment in object-oriented programming, this book will tell you what you've forgotten to do. "Eric Evans convincingly argues for the importance of domain modeling as the central focus of development and provides a solid framework and set of techniques for accomplishing it. This is timeless wisdom, and will hold up long after the methodologies du jour have gone out of fashion." --Dave Collins, author of Designing Object-Oriented User Interfaces "Eric weaves real-world experience modeling--and building--business applications into a practical, useful book. Written from the perspective of a trusted practitioner, Eric's descriptions of ubiquitous language, the benefits of sharing models with users, object life-cycle management, logical and physical application structuring, and the process and results of deep refactoring are major contributions to our field." --Luke Hohmann, author of Beyond Software Architecture "This book belongs on the shelf of every thoughtful software developer." --Kent Beck "What Eric has managed to capture is a part of the design process that experienced object designers have always used, but that we have been singularly unsuccessful as a group in conveying to the rest of the industry. We've given away bits and pieces of this knowledge...but we've never organized and systematized the principles of building domain logic. This book is important." --Kyle Brown, author of Enterprise Java(TM) Programming with IBM(R) WebSphere(R) The software development community widely acknowledges that domain modeling is central to software design. Through domain models, software developers are able to express rich functionality and translate it into a software implementation that truly serves the needs of its users. But despite its obvious importance, there are few practical resources that explain how to incorporate effective domain modeling into the software development process. Domain-Driven Design fills that need. This is not a book about specific technologies. It offers readers a systematic approach to domain-driven design, presenting an extensive set of design best practices, experience-based techniques, and fundamental principles that facilitate the development of software projects facing complex domains. Intertwining design and development practice, this book incorporates numerous examples based on actual projects to illustrate the application of domain-driven design to real-world software development. Readers learn how to use a domain model to make a complex development effort more focused and dynamic. A core of best practices and standard patterns provides a common language for the development team. A shift in emphasis--refactoring not just the code but the model underlying the code--in combination with the frequent iterations of Agile development leads to deeper insight into domains and enhanced communication between domain expert and programmer. Domain-Driven Design then builds on this foundation, and addresses modeling and design for complex systems and larger organizations.Specific topics covered include:Getting all team members to speak the same language Connecting model and implementation more deeply Sharpening key distinctions in a model Managing the lifecycle of a domain object Writing domain code that is safe to combine in elaborate ways Making complex code obvious and predictable Formulating a domain vision statement Distilling the core of a complex domain Digging out implicit concepts needed in the model Applying analysis patterns Relating design patterns to the model Maintaining model integrity in a large system Dealing with coexisting models on the same project Organizing systems with large-scale structures Recognizing and responding to modeling breakthroughs With this book in hand, object-oriented developers, system analysts, and designers will have the guidance they need to organize and focus their work, create rich and useful domain models, and leverage those models into quality, long-lasting software implementations.

Java Concurrency in Practice


Brian Goetz - 2005
    Now this same team provides the best explanation yet of these new features, and of concurrency in general. Concurrency is no longer a subject for advanced users only. Every Java developer should read this book."--Martin BuchholzJDK Concurrency Czar, Sun Microsystems"For the past 30 years, computer performance has been driven by Moore's Law; from now on, it will be driven by Amdahl's Law. Writing code that effectively exploits multiple processors can be very challenging. Java Concurrency in Practice provides you with the concepts and techniques needed to write safe and scalable Java programs for today's--and tomorrow's--systems."--Doron RajwanResearch Scientist, Intel Corp"This is the book you need if you're writing--or designing, or debugging, or maintaining, or contemplating--multithreaded Java programs. If you've ever had to synchronize a method and you weren't sure why, you owe it to yourself and your users to read this book, cover to cover."--Ted NewardAuthor of Effective Enterprise Java"Brian addresses the fundamental issues and complexities of concurrency with uncommon clarity. This book is a must-read for anyone who uses threads and cares about performance."--Kirk PepperdineCTO, JavaPerformanceTuning.com"This book covers a very deep and subtle topic in a very clear and concise way, making it the perfect Java Concurrency reference manual. Each page is filled with the problems (and solutions!) that programmers struggle with every day. Effectively exploiting concurrency is becoming more and more important now that Moore's Law is delivering more cores but not faster cores, and this book will show you how to do it."--Dr. Cliff ClickSenior Software Engineer, Azul Systems"I have a strong interest in concurrency, and have probably written more thread deadlocks and made more synchronization mistakes than most programmers. Brian's book is the most readable on the topic of threading and concurrency in Java, and deals with this difficult subject with a wonderful hands-on approach. This is a book I am recommending to all my readers of The Java Specialists' Newsletter, because it is interesting, useful, and relevant to the problems facing Java developers today."--Dr. Heinz KabutzThe Java Specialists' Newsletter"I've focused a career on simplifying simple problems, but this book ambitiously and effectively works to simplify a complex but critical subject: concurrency. Java Concurrency in Practice is revolutionary in its approach, smooth and easy in style, and timely in its delivery--it's destined to be a very important book."--Bruce TateAuthor of Beyond Java" Java Concurrency in Practice is an invaluable compilation of threading know-how for Java developers. I found reading this book intellectually exciting, in part because it is an excellent introduction to Java's concurrency API, but mostly because it captures in a thorough and accessible way expert knowledge on threading not easily found elsewhere."--Bill VennersAuthor of Inside the Java Virtual MachineThreads are a fundamental part of the Java platform. As multicore processors become the norm, using concurrency effectively becomes essential for building high-performance applications. Java SE 5 and 6 are a huge step forward for the development of concurrent applications, with improvements to the Java Virtual Machine to support high-performance, highly scalable concurrent classes and a rich set of new concurrency building blocks. In Java Concurrency in Practice , the creators of these new facilities explain not only how they work and how to use them, but also the motivation and design patterns behind them.However, developing, testing, and debugging multithreaded programs can still be very difficult; it is all too easy to create concurrent programs that appear to work, but fail when it matters most: in production, under heavy load. Java Concurrency in Practice arms readers with both the theoretical underpinnings and concrete techniques for building reliable, scalable, maintainable concurrent applications. Rather than simply offering an inventory of concurrency APIs and mechanisms, it provides design rules, patterns, and mental models that make it easier to build concurrent programs that are both correct and performant.This book covers:Basic concepts of concurrency and thread safety Techniques for building and composing thread-safe classes Using the concurrency building blocks in java.util.concurrent Performance optimization dos and don'ts Testing concurrent programs Advanced topics such as atomic variables, nonblocking algorithms, and the Java Memory Model

Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases Through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation


Jez Humble - 2010
    This groundbreaking new book sets out the principles and technical practices that enable rapid, incremental delivery of high quality, valuable new functionality to users. Through automation of the build, deployment, and testing process, and improved collaboration between developers, testers, and operations, delivery teams can get changes released in a matter of hours-- sometimes even minutes-no matter what the size of a project or the complexity of its code base. Jez Humble and David Farley begin by presenting the foundations of a rapid, reliable, low-risk delivery process. Next, they introduce the "deployment pipeline," an automated process for managing all changes, from check-in to release. Finally, they discuss the "ecosystem" needed to support continuous delivery, from infrastructure, data and configuration management to governance. The authors introduce state-of-the-art techniques, including automated infrastructure management and data migration, and the use of virtualization. For each, they review key issues, identify best practices, and demonstrate how to mitigate risks. Coverage includes - Automating all facets of building, integrating, testing, and deploying software - Implementing deployment pipelines at team and organizational levels - Improving collaboration between developers, testers, and operations - Developing features incrementally on large and distributed teams - Implementing an effective configuration management strategy - Automating acceptance testing, from analysis to implementation - Testing capacity and other non-functional requirements - Implementing continuous deployment and zero-downtime releases - Managing infrastructure, data, components and dependencies - Navigating risk management, compliance, and auditing Whether you're a developer, systems administrator, tester, or manager, this book will help your organization move from idea to release faster than ever--so you can deliver value to your business rapidly and reliably.

Test-Driven Development: By Example


Kent Beck - 2002
    While some fear is healthy (often viewed as a conscience that tells programmers to be careful!), the author believes that byproducts of fear include tentative, grumpy, and uncommunicative programmers who are unable to absorb constructive criticism. When programming teams buy into TDD, they immediately see positive results. They eliminate the fear involved in their jobs, and are better equipped to tackle the difficult challenges that face them. TDD eliminates tentative traits, it teaches programmers to communicate, and it encourages team members to seek out criticism However, even the author admits that grumpiness must be worked out individually! In short, the premise behind TDD is that code should be continually tested and refactored. Kent Beck teaches programmers by example, so they can painlessly and dramatically increase the quality of their work.

Learning Ruby


Michael J. Fitzgerald - 2007
    Written for both experienced and new programmers alike, Learning Ruby is a just-get-in-and-drive book -- a hands-on tutorial that offers lots of Ruby programs and lets you know how and why they work, just enough to get you rolling down the road. Interest in Ruby stems from the popularity of Rails, the web development framework that's attracting new devotees and refugees from Java and PHP. But there are plenty of other uses for this versatile language. The best way to learn is to just try the code! You'll find examples on nearly every page of this book that you can imitate and hack. Briefly, this book:Outlines many of the most important features of Ruby Demonstrates how to use conditionals, and how to manipulate strings in Ruby. Includes a section on regular expressions Describes how to use operators, basic math, functions from the Math module, rational numbers, etc. Talks you through Ruby arrays, and demonstrates hashes in detail Explains how to process files with Ruby Discusses Ruby classes and modules (mixins) in detail, including a brief introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP) Introduces processing XML, the Tk toolkit, RubyGems, reflection, RDoc, embedded Ruby, metaprogramming, exception handling, and other topics Acquaints you with some of the essentials of Rails, and includes a short Rails tutorial. Each chapter concludes with a set of review questions, and appendices provide you with a glossary of terms related to Ruby programming, plus reference material from the book in one convenient location. If you want to take Ruby out for a drive, Learning Ruby holds the keys.

HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide


Chuck Musciano - 1996
    For nearly a decade, hundreds of thousands of web developers have turned to HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide to master standards-based web development. Truly a definitive guide, the book combines a unique balance of tutorial material with a comprehensive reference that even the most experienced web professionals keep close at hand. From basic syntax and semantics to guidelines aimed at helping you develop your own distinctive style, this classic is all you need to become fluent in the language of web design.The new sixth edition guides you through every element of HTML and XHTML in detail, explaining how each element works and how it interacts with other elements. You'll also find detailed discussions of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), which is intricately related to web page development. The most all-inclusive, up-to-date book on these languages available, this edition covers HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, and CSS2, with a preview of the upcoming XHTML2 and CSS3. Other topics include the newer initiatives in XHTML (XForms, XFrames, and modularization) and the essentials of XML for advanced readers. You'll learn how to:Use style sheets to control your document's appearance Work with programmatically generated HTML Create tables, both simple and complex Use frames to coordinate sets of documents Design and build interactive forms and dynamic documents Insert images, sound files, video, Java applets, and JavaScript programs Create documents that look good on a variety of browsersThe authors apply a natural learning approach that uses straightforward language and plenty of examples. Throughout the book, they offer suggestions for style and composition to help you decide how to best use HTML and XHTML to accomplish a variety of tasks. You'll learn what works and what doesn't, and what makes sense to those who view your web pages and what might be confusing. Written for anyone who wants to learn the language of the Web--from casual users to the full-time design professionals--this is the single most important book on HTML and XHTML you can own.Bill Kennedy is chief technical officer of MobileRobots, Inc. When not hacking new HTML pages or writing about them, "Dr. Bill" (Ph.D. in biophysics from Loyola University of Chicago) is out promoting the company's line of mobile, autonomous robots that can be used for artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic research, and education.Chuck Musciano began his career as a compiler writer and crafter of tools at Harris Corporations' Advanced Technology Group and is now a manager of Unix Systems in Harris' Corporate Data Center.

PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance


Gregory Smith - 2010
    You could spend years discovering solutions to them all, step by step as you encounter them. Or you can just look in here. All successful database applications are destined to eventually run into issues scaling up their performance. Peek into the future of your PostgreSQL database's problems today. Know the warning signs to look for, and how to avoid the most common issues before they even happen. Surprisingly, most PostgreSQL database applications evolve in the same way: Choose the right hardware. Tune the operating system and server memory use. Optimize queries against the database, with the right indexes. Monitor every layer, from hardware to queries, using some tools that are inside PostgreSQL and others that are external. Using monitoring insight, continuously rework the design and configuration. On reaching the limits of a single server, break things up; connection pooling, caching, partitioning, and replication can all help handle increasing database workloads. The path to a high performance database system isn't always easy. But it doesn't have to be mysterious with the right guide. This book is a clear, step-by-step guide to optimizing and scaling up PostgreSQL database servers. - Publisher.

HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites


Jon Duckett - 2011
    Joining the professional web designers and programmers are new audiences who need to know a little bit of code at work (update a content management system or e-commerce store) and those who want to make their personal blogs more attractive. Many books teaching HTML and CSS are dry and only written for those who want to become programmers, which is why this book takes an entirely new approach. • Introduces HTML and CSS in a way that makes them accessible to everyone—hobbyists, students, and professionals—and it’s full-color throughout • Utilizes information graphics and lifestyle photography to explain the topics in a simple way that is engaging • Boasts a unique structure that allows you to progress through the chapters from beginning to end or just dip into topics of particular interest at your leisureThis educational book is one that you will enjoy picking up, reading, then referring back to. It will make you wish other technical topics were presented in such a simple, attractive and engaging way!

Linux in a Nutshell


Ellen Siever - 1999
    Simultaneously becoming more user friendly and more powerful as a back-end system, Linux has achieved new plateaus: the newer filesystems have solidified, new commands and tools have appeared and become standard, and the desktop--including new desktop environments--have proved to be viable, stable, and readily accessible to even those who don't consider themselves computer gurus. Whether you're using Linux for personal software projects, for a small office or home office (often termed the SOHO environment), to provide services to a small group of colleagues, or to administer a site responsible for millions of email and web connections each day, you need quick access to information on a wide range of tools. This book covers all aspects of administering and making effective use of Linux systems. Among its topics are booting, package management, and revision control. But foremost in Linux in a Nutshell are the utilities and commands that make Linux one of the most powerful and flexible systems available.Now in its fifth edition, Linux in a Nutshell brings users up-to-date with the current state of Linux. Considered by many to be the most complete and authoritative command reference for Linux available, the book covers all substantial user, programming, administration, and networking commands for the most common Linux distributions.Comprehensive but concise, the fifth edition has been updated to cover new features of major Linux distributions. Configuration information for the rapidly growing commercial network services and community update services is one of the subjects covered for the first time.But that's just the beginning. The book covers editors, shells, and LILO and GRUB boot options. There's also coverage of Apache, Samba, Postfix, sendmail, CVS, Subversion, Emacs, vi, sed, gawk, and much more. Everything that system administrators, developers, and power users need to know about Linux is referenced here, and they will turn to this book again and again.

Embedded Android: Porting, Extending, and Customizing


Karim Yaghmour - 2011
    You'll also receive updates when significant changes are made, as well as the final ebook version. Embedded Android is for Developers wanting to create embedded systems based on Android and for those wanting to port Android to new hardware, or creating a custom development environment. Hackers and moders will also find this an indispensible guide to how Android works.

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design


Jason Beaird - 2007
    A simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites.Understand the design process, from discovery to implementation Understand what makes "good design" Developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette Use textures, lines, points, shapes, volumes and depth Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images And much more Throughout the book, you'll follow an example design, from concept to completion, learning along the way. The book's full-color layout and large format (8" x 10") make The Principles Of Beautiful Wed Design a pleasure to read.Editorial Reviews"The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is a good book to kick start your graphic-design journey. The biggest benefit that I got from this book is the knowledge to learn from great designs as opposed to just admiring them in a state of awe." - Slashdot.org"Jason is a great writer, and the book is quite easy to read. It's put together wonderfully, including many full color screenshots and other forms of imagery that make the book a pleasure to read. I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone in Web design." - MondayByNoon"Jason Beaird covers web design in a way that non-designers can understand. He walks you through all of the aspects of design development from initial meeting to finished product. If you are just getting into web development, this is a must read." - Blogcritics.org"This is a thoroughly practical guide to web design that is very well written: good technical depth in easy-to-understand language with excellent illustrations and graphics that support the text. For many users it will be the only web-design text they will need. For those who want to further advance their skills and knowledge it will provide a sound foundation." - PC Update"His "Don't just tell, show!" style makes this book accessible to everyone... It strikes a carefully thought-out balance between describing principles and illustrating them. It is clear and well structured, with practical examples in every chapter." - Mitch Wheat

sed & awk


Dale Dougherty - 1990
    The most common operation done with sed is substitution, replacing one block of text with another. awk is a complete programming language. Unlike many conventional languages, awk is "data driven" -- you specify what kind of data you are interested in and the operations to be performed when that data is found. awk does many things for you, including automatically opening and closing data files, reading records, breaking the records up into fields, and counting the records. While awk provides the features of most conventional programming languages, it also includes some unconventional features, such as extended regular expression matching and associative arrays. sed & awk describes both programs in detail and includes a chapter of example sed and awk scripts. This edition covers features of sed and awk that are mandated by the POSIX standard. This most notably affects awk, where POSIX standardized a new variable, CONVFMT, and new functions, toupper() and tolower(). The CONVFMT variable specifies the conversion format to use when converting numbers to strings (awk used to use OFMT for this purpose). The toupper() and tolower() functions each take a (presumably mixed case) string argument and return a new version of the string with all letters translated to the corresponding case. In addition, this edition covers GNU sed, newly available since the first edition. It also updates the first edition coverage of Bell Labs nawk and GNU awk (gawk), covers mawk, an additional freely available implementation of awk, and briefly discusses three commercial versions of awk, MKS awk, Thompson Automation awk (tawk), and Videosoft (VSAwk).