Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations


Nicole Forsgren - 2018
    Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance—and what drives it—using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research. Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.

Feynman Lectures On Computation


Richard P. Feynman - 1996
    Feynman gave his famous course on computation at the California Institute of Technology, he asked Tony Hey to adapt his lecture notes into a book. Although led by Feynman, the course also featured, as occasional guest speakers, some of the most brilliant men in science at that time, including Marvin Minsky, Charles Bennett, and John Hopfield. Although the lectures are now thirteen years old, most of the material is timeless and presents a “Feynmanesque” overview of many standard and some not-so-standard topics in computer science such as reversible logic gates and quantum computers.

Python for Data Analysis


Wes McKinney - 2011
    It is also a practical, modern introduction to scientific computing in Python, tailored for data-intensive applications. This is a book about the parts of the Python language and libraries you'll need to effectively solve a broad set of data analysis problems. This book is not an exposition on analytical methods using Python as the implementation language.Written by Wes McKinney, the main author of the pandas library, this hands-on book is packed with practical cases studies. It's ideal for analysts new to Python and for Python programmers new to scientific computing.Use the IPython interactive shell as your primary development environmentLearn basic and advanced NumPy (Numerical Python) featuresGet started with data analysis tools in the pandas libraryUse high-performance tools to load, clean, transform, merge, and reshape dataCreate scatter plots and static or interactive visualizations with matplotlibApply the pandas groupby facility to slice, dice, and summarize datasetsMeasure data by points in time, whether it's specific instances, fixed periods, or intervalsLearn how to solve problems in web analytics, social sciences, finance, and economics, through detailed examples

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.

Kotlin in Action


Dmitry Jemerov - 2016
    It offers on expressiveness and safety without compromising simplicity, seamless interoperability with existing Java code, and great tooling support. Because Kotlin generates regular Java bytecode and works together with existing Java libraries and frameworks, it can be used almost everywhere where Java is used today - for server-side development, Android apps, and much more.Kotlin in Action takes experienced Java developers from the language basics all the way through building applications to run on the JVM and Android devices. Written by core developers of Kotlin, this example-rich book begins by teaching you the basic syntax of the Kotlin language. Then you’ll learn how to use features that let you build reusable abstractions, higher-level functions, libraries, and even entire domain specific languages. Finally, you’ll focus on details of applying Kotlin in real-world projects, such as build system integration, Android support and concurrent programming.

Real World OCaml: Functional programming for the masses


Yaron Minsky - 2013
    Through the book’s many examples, you’ll quickly learn how OCaml stands out as a tool for writing fast, succinct, and readable systems code.Real World OCaml takes you through the concepts of the language at a brisk pace, and then helps you explore the tools and techniques that make OCaml an effective and practical tool. In the book’s third section, you’ll delve deep into the details of the compiler toolchain and OCaml’s simple and efficient runtime system.Learn the foundations of the language, such as higher-order functions, algebraic data types, and modulesExplore advanced features such as functors, first-class modules, and objectsLeverage Core, a comprehensive general-purpose standard library for OCamlDesign effective and reusable libraries, making the most of OCaml’s approach to abstraction and modularityTackle practical programming problems from command-line parsing to asynchronous network programmingExamine profiling and interactive debugging techniques with tools such as GNU gdb

Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks: When Threads Unravel


Paul Butcher - 2014
    Concurrency and parallelism are the keys, and Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks equips you for this new world. See how emerging technologies such as actors and functional programming address issues with traditional threads and locks development. Learn how to exploit the parallelism in your computer's GPU and leverage clusters of machines with MapReduce and Stream Processing. And do it all with the confidence that comes from using tools that help you write crystal clear, high-quality code. This book will show you how to exploit different parallel architectures to improve your code's performance, scalability, and resilience. Learn about the perils of traditional threads and locks programming and how to overcome them through careful design and by working with the standard library. See how actors enable software running on geographically distributed computers to collaborate, handle failure, and create systems that stay up 24/7/365. Understand why shared mutable state is the enemy of robust concurrent code, and see how functional programming together with technologies such as Software Transactional Memory (STM) and automatic parallelism help you tame it. You'll learn about the untapped potential within every GPU and how GPGPU software can unleash it. You'll see how to use MapReduce to harness massive clusters to solve previously intractible problems, and how, in concert with Stream Processing, big data can be tamed. With an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the different models and hardware architectures, you'll be empowered to tackle any problem with confidence.What You Need: The example code can be compiled and executed on *nix, OS X, or Windows. Instructions on how to download the supporting build systems are given in each chapter.

Database Design for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design


Michael J. Hernandez - 1996
    You d be up to your neck in normal forms before you even had a chance to wade. When Michael J. Hernandez needed a database design book to teach mere mortals like himself, there were none. So he began a personal quest to learn enough to write one. And he did.Now in its Second Edition, Database Design for Mere Mortals is a miracle for today s generation of database users who don t have the background -- or the time -- to learn database design the hard way. It s also a secret pleasure for working pros who are occasionally still trying to figure out what they were taught.Drawing on 13 years of database teaching experience, Hernandez has organized database design into several key principles that are surprisingly easy to understand and remember. He illuminates those principles using examples that are generic enough to help you with virtually any application.Hernandez s goals are simple. You ll learn how to create a sound database structure as easily as possible. You ll learn how to optimize your structure for efficiency and data integrity. You ll learn how to avoid problems like missing, incorrect, mismatched, or inaccurate data. You ll learn how to relate tables together to make it possible to get whatever answers you need in the future -- even if you haven t thought of the questions yet.If -- as is often the case -- you already have a database, Hernandez explains how to analyze it -- and leverage it. You ll learn how to identify new information requirements, determine new business rules that need to be applied, and apply them.Hernandez starts with an introduction to databases, relational databases, and the idea and objectives of database design. Next, you ll walk through the key elements of the database design process: establishing table structures and relationships, assigning primary keys, setting field specifications, and setting up views. Hernandez s extensive coverage of data integrity includes a full chapter on establishing business rules and using validation tables.Hernandez surveys bad design techniques in a chapter on what not to do -- and finally, helps you identify those rare instances when it makes sense to bend or even break the conventional rules of database design.There s plenty that s new in this edition. Hernandez has gone over his text and illustrations with a fine-tooth comb to improve their already impressive clarity. You ll find updates to reflect new advances in technology, including web database applications. There are expanded and improved discussions of nulls and many-to-many relationships; multivalued fields; primary keys; and SQL data type fields. There s a new Quick Reference database design flowchart. A new glossary. New review questions at the end of every chapter.Finally, it s worth mentioning what this book isn t. It isn t a guide to any specific database platform -- so you can use it whether you re running Access, SQL Server, or Oracle, MySQL or PostgreSQL. And it isn t an SQL guide. (If that s what you need, Michael J. Hernandez has also coauthored the superb SQL Queries for Mere Mortals). But if database design is what you need to learn, this book s worth its weight in gold. Bill CamardaBill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.

Elements of Clojure


Zachary Tellman - 2019
    This is necessary because, in the words of Michael Polanyi, "we can know more than we can tell." Our design choices are not the result of an ineluctable chain of logic; they come from a deeper place, one which is visceral and inarticulate.Polanyi calls this "tacit knowledge", a thing which we only understand as part of something else. When we speak, we do not focus on making sounds, we focus on our words. We understand the muscular act of speech, but would struggle to explain it.To write software, we must learn where to draw boundaries. Good software is built through effective indirection. We seem to have decided that this skill can only be learned through practice; it cannot be taught, except by example. Our decisions may improve with time, but not our ability to explain them. It's true that the study of these questions cannot yield a closed-form solution for judging software design. We can make our software simple, but we cannot do the same to its problem domain, its users, or the physical world. Our tacit knowledge of this environment will always inform our designs.This doesn't mean that we can simply ignore our design process. Polanyi tells us that tacit knowledge only suffices until we fail, and the software industry is awash with failure. Our designs may never be provably correct, but we can give voice to the intuition that shaped them. Our process may always be visceral, but it doesn't have to be inarticulate.And so this book does not offer knowledge, it offers clarity. It is aimed at readers who know Clojure, but struggle to articulate the rationale of their designs to themselves and others. Readers who use other languages, but have a passing familiarity with Clojure, may also find this book useful.

Microservice Patterns


Chris Richardson - 2017
    However, successful applications have a habit of growing. Eventually the development team ends up in what is known as monolithic hell. All aspects of software development and deployment become painfully slow. The solution is to adopt the microservice architecture, which structures an application as a services, organized around business capabilities. This architecture accelerates software development and enables continuous delivery and deployment of complex software applications.Microservice Patterns teaches enterprise developers and architects how to build applications with the microservice architecture. Rather than simply advocating for the use the microservice architecture, this clearly-written guide takes a balanced, pragmatic approach. You'll discover that the microservice architecture is not a silver bullet and has both benefits and drawbacks. Along the way, you'll learn a pattern language that will enable you to solve the issues that arise when using the microservice architecture. This book also teaches you how to refactor a monolithic application to a microservice architecture.

An Introduction to Statistical Learning: With Applications in R


Gareth James - 2013
    This book presents some of the most important modeling and prediction techniques, along with relevant applications. Topics include linear regression, classification, resampling methods, shrinkage approaches, tree- based methods, support vector machines, clustering, and more. Color graphics and real-world examples are used to illustrate the methods presented. Since the goal of this textbook is to facilitate the use of these statistical learning techniques by practitioners in science, industry, and other fields, each chapter contains a tutorial on implementing the analyses and methods presented in R, an extremely popular open source statistical software platform. Two of the authors co-wrote The Elements of Statistical Learning (Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman, 2nd edition 2009), a popular reference book for statistics and machine learning researchers. An Introduction to Statistical Learning covers many of the same topics, but at a level accessible to a much broader audience. This book is targeted at statisticians and non-statisticians alike who wish to use cutting-edge statistical learning techniques to analyze their data. The text assumes only a previous course in linear regression and no knowledge of matrix algebra.

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 Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming


Kees Doets - 2004
    Haskell emerged in the last decade as a standard for lazy functional programming, a programming style where arguments are evaluated only when the value is actually needed. Haskell is a marvellous demonstration tool for logic and maths because its functional character allows implementations to remain very close to the concepts that get implemented, while the laziness permits smooth handling of infinite data structures.This book does not assume the reader to have previous experience with either programming or construction of formal proofs, but acquaintance with mathematical notation, at the level of secondary school mathematics is presumed. Everything one needs to know about mathematical reasoning or programming is explained as we go along. After proper digestion of the material in this book the reader will be able to write interesting programs, reason about their correctness, and document them in a clear fashion. The reader will also have learned how to set up mathematical proofs in a structured way, and how to read and digest mathematical proofs written by others.

Grokking Simplicity: Taming complex software with functional thinking


Eric Normand - 2019
    Grokking Simplicity is a friendly, practical guide that will change the way you approach software design and development. It introduces a unique approach to functional programming that explains why certain features of software are prone to complexity, and teaches you the functional techniques you can use to simplify these systems so that they’re easier to test and debug.

The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses


Jesse Schell - 2008
    The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality video games. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses—one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer—and will understand how to do it.