Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach


Mark Richards - 2020
    Until now. This practical guide provides the first comprehensive overview of software architecture's many aspects. You'll examine architectural characteristics, architectural patterns, component determination, diagramming and presenting architecture, evolutionary architecture, and many other topics.Authors Neal Ford and Mark Richards help you learn through examples in a variety of popular programming languages, such as Java, C#, JavaScript, and others. You'll focus on architecture principles with examples that apply across all technology stacks.

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."

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

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.

Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know(r)


P.W. Singer - 2013
    Today, our entire modern way of life, from communication to commerce to conflict, fundamentally depends on the Internet. And the cybersecurity issues that result challenge literally everyone: politicians wrestling with everything from cybercrime to online freedom; generals protecting the nation from new forms of attack, while planning new cyberwars; business executives defending firms from once unimaginable threats, and looking to make money off of them; lawyers and ethicists building new frameworks for right and wrong. Most of all, cybersecurity issues affect us as individuals. We face new questions in everything from our rights and responsibilities as citizens of both the online and real world to simply how to protect ourselves and our families from a new type of danger. And yet, there is perhaps no issue that has grown so important, so quickly, and that touches so many, that remains so poorly understood.In Cybersecurity and CyberWar: What Everyone Needs to Know�, New York Times best-selling author P. W. Singer and noted cyber expert Allan Friedman team up to provide the kind of easy-to-read, yet deeply informative resource book that has been missing on this crucial issue of 21st century life. Written in a lively, accessible style, filled with engaging stories and illustrative anecdotes, the book is structured around the key question areas of cyberspace and its security: how it all works, why it all matters, and what can we do? Along the way, they take readers on a tour of the important (and entertaining) issues and characters of cybersecurity, from the "Anonymous" hacker group and the Stuxnet computer virus to the new cyber units of the Chinese and U.S. militaries. Cybersecurity and CyberWar: What Everyone Needs to Know� is the definitive account on the subject for us all, which comes not a moment too soon.What Everyone Needs to Know� is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation


Blake J. Harris - 2014
    Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But that would all change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a man who knew nothing about videogames and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo.The battle was vicious, relentless, and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan.Based on over two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It's the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry.

The Road Ahead


Bill Gates - 1995
    Includes a compact disc which is playable on CD-ROM and audio CD players.

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"

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire


James Wallace - 1992
    Part entrepreneur, part enfant terrible, Gates has become the most powerful -- and feared -- player in the computer industry, and arguably the richest man in America. In Hard Drive, investigative reporters Wallace and Erickson follow Gates from his days as an unkempt thirteen-year-old computer hacker to his present-day status as a ruthless billionaire CEO. More than simply a "revenge of the nerds" story though, this is a balanced analysis of a business triumph, and a stunningly driven personality. The authors have spoken to everyone who knows anything about Bill Gates and Microsoft -- from childhood friends to employees and business rivals who reveal the heights, and limits, of his wizardry. From Gates's singular accomplishments to his equally extraordinary brattiness, arrogance, and hostility (the atmosphere is so intense at Microsoft that stressed-out programmers have been known to ease the tension of their eighty-hour workweeks by exploding homemade bombs), this is a uniquely revealing glimpse of the person who has emerged as the undisputed king of a notoriously brutal industry.

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous


Gabriella Coleman - 2014
    She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that the tricky story of her inside–outside status as Anon confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece forms one of the themes of this witty and entirely engrossing book.The narrative brims with details unearthed from within a notoriously mysterious subculture, whose semi-legendary tricksters—such as Topiary, tflow, Anachaos, and Sabu—emerge as complex, diverse, politically and culturally sophisticated people. Propelled by years of chats and encounters with a multitude of hackers, including imprisoned activist Jeremy Hammond and the double agent who helped put him away, Hector Monsegur, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is filled with insights into the meaning of digital activism and little understood facets of culture in the Internet age, including the history of “trolling,” the ethics and metaphysics of hacking, and the origins and manifold meanings of “the lulz.”

Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley


Antonio García Martínez - 2016
    Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test online services’ robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder). One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team, turning its users’ data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark “Zuck” Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel.Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,” García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master


Andy Hunt - 1999
    It covers topics ranging from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse. Read this book, and you'll learn how toFight software rot; Avoid the trap of duplicating knowledge; Write flexible, dynamic, and adaptable code; Avoid programming by coincidence; Bullet-proof your code with contracts, assertions, and exceptions; Capture real requirements; Test ruthlessly and effectively; Delight your users; Build teams of pragmatic programmers; and Make your developments more precise with automation. Written as a series of self-contained sections and filled with entertaining anecdotes, thoughtful examples, and interesting analogies, The Pragmatic Programmer illustrates the best practices and major pitfalls of many different aspects of software development. Whether you're a new coder, an experienced programmer, or a manager responsible for software projects, use these lessons daily, and you'll quickly see improvements in personal productivity, accuracy, and job satisfaction. You'll learn skills and develop habits and attitudes that form the foundation for long-term success in your career. You'll become a Pragmatic Programmer.

SQL and Relational Theory: How to Write Accurate SQL Code


C.J. Date - 2009
    On the other hand, if you're not well versed in the theory, you can fall into several traps. In SQL and Relational Theory, author C.J. Date demonstrates how you can apply relational theory directly to your use of SQL. With numerous examples and clear explanations of the reasoning behind them, you'll learn how to deal with common SQL dilemmas, such as:Should database access granted be through views instead of base tables? Nulls in your database are causing you to get wrong answers. Why? What can you do about it? Could you write an SQL query to find employees who have never been in the same department for more than six months at a time? SQL supports "quantified comparisons," but they're better avoided. Why? How do you avoid them? Constraints are crucially important, but most SQL products don't support them properly. What can you do to resolve this situation? Database theory and practice have evolved since Edgar Codd originally defined the relational model back in 1969. Independent of any SQL products, SQL and Relational Theory draws on decades of research to present the most up-to-date treatment of the material available anywhere. Anyone with a modest to advanced background in SQL will benefit from the many insights in this book.

The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone


Brian Merchant - 2017
    But packed within its slim profile is the fascinating, untold story of scientific, technological, and business breakthroughs--global in scope, sometimes centuries in the making, and coming from vastly different disciplines--that enabled Apple to create the most profitable product in history.For all the time we spend swiping, tapping, and staring at iPhones, you think there would be few things we didn't know about these gadgets. But think again. is a Magic School Bus trip inside the iPhone--traveling into its guts, peeling back its layers, and launching explorations that take us to the driest place on earth and a Mongolian lake of toxic sludge, down the Silk Road, into 19th century photography, and all the way back to Cupertino, California, where members of the original design team reflect on the earth-shattering work they did.As multifaceted as the invention it follows, The One Device is a roving, wide-lens approach to tech history that engages the imagination as it explores the marvel of engineering that millions of us use each day.

The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas that Make Computers Work


William Daniel Hillis - 1998
    What they don't realize—and what Daniel Hillis's short book brilliantly demonstrates—is that computers' seemingly complex operations can be broken down into a few simple parts that perform the same simple procedures over and over again.Computer wizard Hillis offers an easy-to-follow explanation of how data is processed that makes the operations of a computer seem as straightforward as those of a bicycle. Avoiding technobabble or discussions of advanced hardware, the lucid explanations and colorful anecdotes in The Pattern on the Stone go straight to the heart of what computers really do.Hillis proceeds from an outline of basic logic to clear descriptions of programming languages, algorithms, and memory. He then takes readers in simple steps up to the most exciting developments in computing today—quantum computing, parallel computing, neural networks, and self-organizing systems.Written clearly and succinctly by one of the world's leading computer scientists, The Pattern on the Stone is an indispensable guide to understanding the workings of that most ubiquitous and important of machines: the computer.