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.

    Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls “an intellectual Wild West.”The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.

    Though it may not seem this way for those who have been in the field for most of their careers, in the overall scheme of professions, software builders are relative "newbies." In the short history of the software field, a lot of facts have been identified, and a lot of fallacies promulgated. Those facts and fallacies are what this book is about. There's a problem with those facts-and, as you might imagine, those fallacies. Many of these fundamentally important facts are learned by a software engineer, but over the short lifespan of the software field, all too many of them have been forgotten. While reading Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering , you may experience moments of "Oh, yes, I had forgotten that," alongside some "Is that really true?" thoughts. The author of this book doesn't shy away from controversy. In fact, each of the facts and fallacies is accompanied by a discussion of whatever controversy envelops it. You may find yourself agreeing with a lot of the facts and fallacies, yet emotionally disturbed by a few of them! Whether you agree or disagree, you will learn why the author has been called "the premier curmudgeon of software practice." These facts and fallacies are fundamental to the software building field-forget or neglect them at your peril!

    These 30 short chapters each deal with a particular programming problem drawn from sources as diverse as games and puzzles, intriguing combinatorial tasks, and more familiar areas such as data compression and string matching. Each pearl starts with the statement of the problem expressed using the functional programming language Haskell, a powerful yet succinct language for capturing algorithmic ideas clearly and simply. The novel aspect of the book is that each solution is calculated from an initial formulation of the problem in Haskell by appealing to the laws of functional programming. Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design will appeal to the aspiring functional programmer, students and teachers interested in the principles of algorithm design, and anyone seeking to master the techniques of reasoning about programs in an equational style.

    Max explains to you why programmers suck, and how to suck less as a programmer. There's just too much complex stuff in the world. Complex stuff can't be used, and it breaks too easily. Complexity is stupid. Simplicity is smart.Understanding Software covers many areas of programming, from how to write simple code to profound insights into programming, and then how to suck less at what you do! You'll discover the problems with software complexity, the root of its causes, and how to use simplicity to create great software. You'll examine debugging like you've never done before, and how to get a handle on being happy while working in teams.Max brings a selection of carefully crafted essays, thoughts, and advice about working and succeeding in the software industry, from his legendary blog Code Simplicity. Max has crafted forty-three essays which have the power to help you avoid complexity and embrace simplicity, so you can be a happier and more successful developer.Max's technical knowledge, insight, and kindness, has earned him code guru status, and his ideas will inspire you and help refresh your approach to the challenges of being a developer. What you will learn See how to bring simplicity and success to your programming world Clues to complexity - and how to build excellent software Simplicity and software design Principles for programmers The secrets of rockstar programmers Max's views and interpretation of the Software industry Why Programmers suck and how to suck less as a programmer Software design in two sentences What is a bug? Go deep into debugging About the Author Max Kanat-Alexander is the Technical Lead for Code Health at Google, where he does various work that helps other software engineers be more productive, including writing developer tools, creating educational programs, guiding refactoring efforts, and more.His roles at Google have included Tech Lead for YouTube on the Xbox, work on the Java JDK, JVM, and other aspects of Java for Google, and Technical Lead for Engineering Practices for YouTube, where he's supported developers across all of YouTube in best practices and engineering productivity. Max is a former Chief Architect of the Bugzilla Project, where he was one of the two main developers of the well-known Bugzilla Bug-Tracking System, used by thousands of organizations worldwide. Max also writes the legendary programming industry blog, Code Simplicity, where he challenges Complexity and embraces Simplicity for the programming industry.Max has been involved for several years at Google with enabling developers to work more effectively and helping shape engineering practice, and in this highly readable collection of essays you can share the best of his experience. Table of Contents Part One: Principles for Programmers Part Two: Software Complexity and its Causes Part Three: Simplicity and Software Design Part Four: Debugging Part Five:

    Akka uses Actors-independently executing processes that communicate via message passing—as the foundation for fault-tolerant applications where individual actors can fail without crashing everything. Perfect for high-volume applications that need to scale rapidly, Akka is an efficient foundation for event-driven systems that want to scale elastically up and out on demand, both on multi-core processors and across server nodes.Akka in Action is a comprehensive tutorial on building message-oriented systems using Akka. The book takes a hands-on approach, where each new concept is followed by an example that shows you how it works, how to implement the code, and how to (unit) test it. You'll learn to test and deploy an actor system and scale it up and out, showing off Akka's fault tolerance. As you move along, you'll explore a message-oriented event-driven application in Akka. You'll also tackle key issues like how to model immutable messages and domain models, and apply patterns like Event Sourcing, and CQRS. The book concludes with practical advice on how to tune and customize a system built with Akka.

    This book not only examines content creation and the concepts behind development, but it also give readers a background on the evolution of game development and how it has become what it is today. GAME DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIALS also includes chapters on project management, development team roles and responsibilities, development cycle, marketing, maintenance, and the future of game development. With the same engaging writing style and examples that made the first two editions so popular, this new edition features all the latest games and game technology. Coverage of new game-related technology, development techniques, and the latest research in the field make this an invaluable resource for anyone entering the exciting, competitive, ever-changing world of game development.

    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"

    And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines. It’s a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story—and along the way, you’ll discover you’ve gained a real context for understanding today’s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, CODE will charm you—and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.

    Advocates of NoSQL databases claim they can be used to build systems that are more performant, scale better, and are easier to program." ""NoSQL Distilled" is a concise but thorough introduction to this rapidly emerging technology. Pramod J. Sadalage and Martin Fowler explain how NoSQL databases work and the ways that they may be a superior alternative to a traditional RDBMS. The authors provide a fast-paced guide to the concepts you need to know in order to evaluate whether NoSQL databases are right for your needs and, if so, which technologies you should explore further. The first part of the book concentrates on core concepts, including schemaless data models, aggregates, new distribution models, the CAP theorem, and map-reduce. In the second part, the authors explore architectural and design issues associated with implementing NoSQL. They also present realistic use cases that demonstrate NoSQL databases at work and feature representative examples using Riak, MongoDB, Cassandra, and Neo4j. In addition, by drawing on Pramod Sadalage's pioneering work, "NoSQL Distilled" shows how to implement evolutionary design with schema migration: an essential technique for applying NoSQL databases. The book concludes by describing how NoSQL is ushering in a new age of Polyglot Persistence, where multiple data-storage worlds coexist, and architects can choose the technology best optimized for each type of data access.

    Using the concise, scenario-driven style pioneered in Scott Meyers' best-selling Effective C++, Matt Galloway brings together 52 Objective-C best practices, tips, shortcuts, and realistic code examples that are available nowhere else. Through real-world examples, Galloway uncovers little-known Objective-C quirks, pitfalls, and intricacies that powerfully impact code behavior and performance. You'll learn how to choose the most efficient and effective way to accomplish key tasks when multiple options exist, and how to write code that's easier to understand, maintain, and improve. Galloway goes far beyond the core language, helping you integrate and leverage key Foundation framework classes and modern system libraries, such as Grand Central Dispatch. Coverage includes Optimizing interactions and relationships between Objective-C objects Mastering interface and API design: writing classes that feel "right at home" Using protocols and categories to write maintainable, bug-resistant code Avoiding memory leaks that can still occur even with Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) Writing modular, powerful code with Blocks and Grand Central Dispatch Leveraging differences between Objective-C protocols and multiple inheritance in other languages Improving code by more effectively using arrays, dictionaries, and sets Uncovering surprising power in the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks

    Whether it's a data format like JSON, a network protocol like SMTP, a server configuration file for Apache, a PostScript/PDF file, or a simple spreadsheet macro language--ANTLR v4 and this book will demystify the process. ANTLR v4 has been rewritten from scratch to make it easier than ever to build parsers and the language applications built on top. This completely rewritten new edition of the bestselling Definitive ANTLR Reference shows you how to take advantage of these new features. Build your own languages with ANTLR v4, using ANTLR's new advanced parsing technology. In this book, you'll learn how ANTLR automatically builds a data structure representing the input (parse tree) and generates code that can walk the tree (visitor). You can use that combination to implement data readers, language interpreters, and translators. You'll start by learning how to identify grammar patterns in language reference manuals and then slowly start building increasingly complex grammars. Next, you'll build applications based upon those grammars by walking the automatically generated parse trees. Then you'll tackle some nasty language problems by parsing files containing more than one language (such as XML, Java, and Javadoc). You'll also see how to take absolute control over parsing by embedding Java actions into the grammar. You'll learn directly from well-known parsing expert Terence Parr, the ANTLR creator and project lead. You'll master ANTLR grammar construction and learn how to build language tools using the built-in parse tree visitor mechanism. The book teaches using real-world examples and shows you how to use ANTLR to build such things as a data file reader, a JSON to XML translator, an R parser, and a Java class->interface extractor. This book is your ticket to becoming a parsing guru!What You Need: ANTLR 4.0 and above. Java development tools. Ant build system optional (needed for building ANTLR from source)

    Drawing heavily on the author's own real-world experiences, the book stresses design and analysis. Coverage is divided into two parts, the first being a general guide to techniques for the design and analysis of computer algorithms. The second is a reference section, which includes a catalog of the 75 most important algorithmic problems. By browsing this catalog, readers can quickly identify what the problem they have encountered is called, what is known about it, and how they should proceed if they need to solve it. This book is ideal for the working professional who uses algorithms on a daily basis and has need for a handy reference. This work can also readily be used in an upper-division course or as a student reference guide. THE ALGORITHM DESIGN MANUAL comes with a CD-ROM that contains: * a complete hypertext version of the full printed book. * the source code and URLs for all cited implementations. * over 30 hours of audio lectures on the design and analysis of algorithms are provided, all keyed to on-line lecture notes.

    A guide for creating manuals, online help, and Web publications showing correct grammar, punctuation, and common misspellings of computer topics and terms.

    The principal enhancement in Java 8 was the addition of functional programming constructs to Java's object-oriented roots. Java 7, 8, and 9 also introduced language features, such as the try-with-resources statement, the diamond operator for generic types, default and static methods in interfaces, the @SafeVarargs annotation, and modules. New library features include pervasive use of functional interfaces and streams, the java.time package for manipulating dates and times, and numerous minor enhancements such as convenience factory methods for collections. In this new edition of Effective Java, Bloch updates the work to take advantage of these new language and library features, and provides specific best practices for their use. Java's increased support for multiple paradigms increases the need for best-practices advice, and this book delivers. As in previous editions, each chapter consists of several "items," each presented in the form of a short, standalone essay that provides specific advice, insight into Java platform subtleties, and updated code examples. The comprehensive descriptions and explanations for each item illuminate what to do, what not to do, and why. Coverage includes:Updated techniques and best practices on classic topics, including objects, classes, methods, libraries, and generics How to avoid the traps and pitfalls of commonly misunderstood subtleties of the platform Focus on the language and its most fundamental libraries, such as java.lang and java.util