With the 97 short and extremely useful tips for programmers in this book, you'll expand your skills by adopting new approaches to old problems, learning appropriate best practices, and honing your craft through sound advice.With contributions from some of the most experienced and respected practitioners in the industry--including Michael Feathers, Pete Goodliffe, Diomidis Spinellis, Cay Horstmann, Verity Stob, and many more--this book contains practical knowledge and principles that you can apply to all kinds of projects.A few of the 97 things you should know:"Code in the Language of the Domain" by Dan North"Write Tests for People" by Gerard Meszaros"Convenience Is Not an -ility" by Gregor Hohpe"Know Your IDE" by Heinz Kabutz"A Message to the Future" by Linda Rising"The Boy Scout Rule" by Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)"Beware the Share" by Udi Dahan

    But what if you could have your computer do them for you?In "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python," you'll learn how to use Python to write programs that do in minutes what would take you hours to do by hand no prior programming experience required. Once you've mastered the basics of programming, you'll create Python programs that effortlessly perform useful and impressive feats of automation to: Search for text in a file or across multiple filesCreate, update, move, and rename files and foldersSearch the Web and download online contentUpdate and format data in Excel spreadsheets of any sizeSplit, merge, watermark, and encrypt PDFsSend reminder emails and text notificationsFill out online formsStep-by-step instructions walk you through each program, and practice projects at the end of each chapter challenge you to improve those programs and use your newfound skills to automate similar tasks.Don't spend your time doing work a well-trained monkey could do. Even if you've never written a line of code, you can make your computer do the grunt work. Learn how in "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python.""

    And it’s still short, profusely illustrated…and best of all–fun to read.If you’ve read it before, you’ll rediscover what made Don’t Make Me Think so essential to Web designers and developers around the world. If you’ve never read it, you’ll see why so many people have said it should be required reading for anyone working on Web sites.

    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.

    It has become adevelopment platform in it own right. Applications written using Excel are partof many corporations' core suites of business-critical applications. In spite ofthis, Excel is too often thought of as a hobbyist's platform. While there arenumerous titles on Excel and VBA, until now there have been none thatprovide an overall explanation of how to develop professional-quality Excel-basedapplications. All three authors are professional Excel developers who runtheir own companies developing Excel-based apps for clients ranging fromindividuals to the largest multinational corporations. In this book they showhow anyone from power users to professional developers can increase thespeed and usefulness of their Excel-based apps.

    With the "You Don’t Know JS" book series, you’ll get a more complete understanding of JavaScript, including trickier parts of the language that many experienced JavaScript programmers simply avoid.The series’ first book, Up & Going, provides the necessary background for those of you with limited programming experience. By learning the basic building blocks of programming, as well as JavaScript’s core mechanisms, you’ll be prepared to dive into the other, more in-depth books in the series—and be well on your way toward true JavaScript.With this book you will: Learn the essential programming building blocks, including operators, types, variables, conditionals, loops, and functions Become familiar with JavaScript's core mechanisms such as values, function closures, this, and prototypes Get an overview of other books in the series—and learn why it’s important to understand all parts of JavaScript

    It's a beautifully written tutorial that begins with the basic steps to get your first Ruby program up and running and goes on to explore sophisticated topics like callable objects, reflection, and threading. Whether the topic is simple or tough, the book's easy-to-follow examples and explanations will give you immediate confidence as you build your Ruby programming skills.The Well-Grounded Rubyist is a thoroughly revised and updated edition of the best-selling Ruby for Rails. In this new book, expert author David A. Black moves beyond Rails and presents a broader view of Ruby. It covers Ruby 1.9, and keeps the same sharp focus and clear writing that made Ruby for Rails stand out.Starting with the basics, The Well-Grounded Rubyist explains Ruby objects and their interactions from the ground up. In the middle chapters, the book turns to an examination of Ruby's built-in, core classes, showing the reader how to manipulate strings, numbers, arrays, ranges, hashes, sets, and more. Regular expressions get attention, as do file and other I/O operations.Along the way, the reader is introduced to numerous tools included in the standard Ruby distribution--tools like the task manager Rake and the interactive Ruby console-based interpreter Irb--that facilitate Ruby development and make it an integrated and pleasant experience.The book encompasses advanced topics, like the design of Ruby's class and module system, and the use of Ruby threads, taking even the new Rubyist deep into the language and giving every reader the foundations necessary to use, explore, and enjoy this unusually popular and versatile language.It's no wonder one reader commented: "The technical depth is just right to not distract beginners, yet detailed enough for more advanced readers."Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

     Rails(TM) AntiPatterns identifies these widespread Rails code and design problems, explains why they're bad and why they happen--and shows exactly what to do instead.The book is organized into concise, modular chapters--each outlines a single common AntiPattern and offers detailed, cookbook-style code solutions that were previously difficult or impossible to find. Leading Rails developers Chad Pytel and Tammer Saleh also offer specific guidance for refactoring existing bad code or design to reflect sound object-oriented principles and established Rails best practices. With their help, developers, architects, and testers can dramatically improve new and existing applications, avoid future problems, and establish superior Rails coding standards throughout their organizations.This book will help you understand, avoid, and solve problems withModel layer code, from general object-oriented programming violations to complex SQL and excessive redundancy Domain modeling, including schema and database issues such as normalization and serialization View layer tools and conventions Controller-layer code, including RESTful code Service-related APIs, including timeouts, exceptions, backgrounding, and response codes Third-party code, including plug-ins and gems Testing, from test suites to test-driven development processes Scaling and deployment Database issues, including migrations and validations System design for "graceful degradation" in the real world

    Clojure's clean, careful design lets you write programs that get right to the essence of a problem, without a lot of clutter and ceremony. Clojure is Lisp reloaded. Clojure has the power inherent in Lisp, but is not constrained by the history of Lisp. Clojure is a functional language. Data structures are immutable, and functions tend to be side-effect free. This makes it easier to write correct programs, and to compose large programs from smaller ones. Clojure is concurrent. Rather than error-prone locking, Clojure provides software transactional memory. Clojure embraces Java. Calling from Clojure to Java is direct, and goes through no translation layer. Clojure is fast. Wherever you need it, you can get the exact same performance that you could get from hand-written Java code. Many other languages offer some of these features, but the combination of them all makes Clojure sparkle. Programming Clojure shows you why these features are so important, and how you can use Clojure to build powerful programs quickly.

    This book is an insider's guide to these little understood topics.Author Jeremy Zawodny has managed large numbers of MySQL servers for mission-critical work at Yahoo!, maintained years of contacts with the MySQL AB team, and presents regularly at conferences. Jeremy and Derek have spent months experimenting, interviewing major users of MySQL, talking to MySQL AB, benchmarking, and writing some of their own tools in order to produce the information in this book.In "High Performance MySQL" you will learn about MySQL indexing and optimization in depth so you can make better use of these key features. You will learn practical replication, backup, and load-balancing strategies with information that goes beyond available tools to discuss their effects in real-life environments. And you'll learn the supporting techniques you need to carry out these tasks, including advanced configuration, benchmarking, and investigating logs.Topics include: A review of configuration and setup optionsStorage engines and table typesBenchmarkingIndexesQuery OptimizationApplication DesignServer PerformanceReplicationLoad-balancingBackup and RecoverySecurity

    Writing code that handles unexpected errors and still works is really hard. Most of us learn by trial and error. This short book removes the uncertainty. With over 100 pages of content and dozens of working examples, you’ll learn everything from the mechanics of how exceptions work to how to design a robust failure management architecture for your app or library. Whether you are a Ruby novice or a seasoned veteran, Exceptional Ruby will help you write cleaner, more resilient Ruby code.

    In this unique collection, you'll learn about the processes that led to specific design decisions, including the goals they had in mind, the trade-offs they had to make, and how their experiences have left an impact on programming today. Masterminds of Programming includes individual interviews with:Adin D. Falkoff: APL Thomas E. Kurtz: BASIC Charles H. Moore: FORTH Robin Milner: ML Donald D. Chamberlin: SQL Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan: AWK Charles Geschke and John Warnock: PostScript Bjarne Stroustrup: C++ Bertrand Meyer: Eiffel Brad Cox and Tom Love: Objective-C Larry Wall: Perl Simon Peyton Jones, Paul Hudak, Philip Wadler, and John Hughes: Haskell Guido van Rossum: Python Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo and Roberto Ierusalimschy: Lua James Gosling: Java Grady Booch, Ivar Jacobson, and James Rumbaugh: UML Anders Hejlsberg: Delphi inventor and lead developer of C# If you're interested in the people whose vision and hard work helped shape the computer industry, you'll find Masterminds of Programming fascinating.

    And then we wonder why software is notorious for being delivered late and full of bugs, while other engineers routinely deliver finished bridges, automobiles, electrical appliances, etc., on time and with only minor defects. This book sets out to redress this imbalance. Members of my advanced development team at Adobe who took the course based on the same material all benefited greatly from the time invested. It may appear as a highly technical text intended only for computer scientists, but it should be required reading for all practicing software engineers." --Martin Newell, Adobe Fellow"The book contains some of the most beautiful code I have ever seen." --Bjarne Stroustrup, Designer of C++"I am happy to see the content of Alex's course, the development and teaching of which I strongly supported as the CTO of Silicon Graphics, now available to all programmers in this elegant little book." --Forest Baskett, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates"Paul's patience and architectural experience helped to organize Alex's mathematical approach into a tightly-structured edifice--an impressive feat!" --Robert W. Taylor, Founder of Xerox PARC CSL and DEC Systems Research Center Elements of Programming provides a different understanding of programming than is presented elsewhere. Its major premise is that practical programming, like other areas of science and engineering, must be based on a solid mathematical foundation. The book shows that algorithms implemented in a real programming language, such as C++, can operate in the most general mathematical setting. For example, the fast exponentiation algorithm is defined to work with any associative operation. Using abstract algorithms leads to efficient, reliable, secure, and economical software.This is not an easy book. Nor is it a compilation of tips and tricks for incremental improvements in your programming skills. The book's value is more fundamental and, ultimately, more critical for insight into programming. To benefit fully, you will need to work through it from beginning to end, reading the code, proving the lemmas, and doing the exercises. When finished, you will see how the application of the deductive method to your programs assures that your system's software components will work together and behave as they must.The book presents a number of algorithms and requirements for types on which they are defined. The code for these descriptions--also available on the Web--is written in a small subset of C++ meant to be accessible to any experienced programmer. This subset is defined in a special language appendix coauthored by Sean Parent and Bjarne Stroustrup.Whether you are a software developer, or any other professional for whom programming is an important activity, or a committed student, you will come to understand what the book's experienced authors have been teaching and demonstrating for years--that mathematics is good for programming, and that theory is good for practice.

    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.

    With the many upgraded features, C# is more expressive than ever. However, an in depth understanding is required to get the most out of the language.C# in Depth, Second Edition is a thoroughly revised, up-to-date book that covers the new features of C# 4 as well as Code Contracts. In it, you'll see the subtleties of C# programming in action, learning how to work with high-value features that you'll be glad to have in your toolkit. The book helps readers avoid hidden pitfalls of C# programming by understanding "behind the scenes" issues.Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.