Seriously Good Software


Book Description

Summary Serious developers know that code can always be improved. With each iteration, you make optimizations—small and large—that can have a huge impact on your application’s speed, size, resilience, and maintainability. In Seriously Good Software: Code that Works, Survives, and Wins, author, teacher, and Java expert Marco Faella teaches you techniques for writing better code. You’ll start with a simple application and follow it through seven careful refactorings, each designed to explore another dimension of quality. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the technology Great code blends the skill of a programmer with the time-tested techniques and best practices embraced by the entire development community. Although each application has its own context and character, some dimensions of quality are always important. This book concentrates on seven pillars of seriously good software: speed, memory usage, reliability, readability, thread safety, generality, and elegance. The Java-based examples demonstrate techniques that apply to any OO language. About the book Seriously Good Software is a handbook for any professional developer serious about improving application quality. It explores fundamental dimensions of code quality by enhancing a simple implementation into a robust, professional-quality application. Questions, exercises, and Java-based examples ensure you’ll get a firm grasp of the concepts as you go. When you finish the last version of the book’s central project, you’ll be able to confidently choose the right optimizations for your code. What's inside Evaluating software qualities Assessing trade-offs and interactions Fulfilling different objectives in a single task Java-based exercises you can apply in any OO language About the reader For developers with basic object-oriented programming skills and intermediate Java skills. About the author Marco Faella teaches advanced programming at a major Italian university. His published work includes peer-reviewed research articles, a Java certification manual, and a video course. Table of Contents *Part 1: Preliminaries * 1 Software qualities and a problem to solve 2 Reference implementation *Part 2: Software Qualities* 3 Need for speed: Time efficiency 4 Precious memory: Space efficiency 5 Self-conscious code: Reliability through monitoring 6 Lie to me: Reliability through testing 7 Coding aloud: Readability 8 Many cooks in the kitchen: Thread safety 9 Please recycle: Reusability




Serious Python


Book Description

An indispensable collection of practical tips and real-world advice for tackling common Python problems and taking your code to the next level. Features interviews with high-profile Python developers who share their tips, tricks, best practices, and real-world advice gleaned from years of experience. Sharpen your Python skills as you dive deep into the Python programming language with Serious Python. You'll cover a range of advanced topics like multithreading and memorization, get advice from experts on things like designing APIs and dealing with databases, and learn Python internals to help you gain a deeper understanding of the language itself. Written for developers and experienced programmers, Serious Python brings together over 15 years of Python experience to teach you how to avoid common mistakes, write code more efficiently, and build better programs in less time. As you make your way through the book's extensive tutorials, you'll learn how to start a project and tackle topics like versioning, layouts, coding style, and automated checks. You'll learn how to package your software for distribution, optimize performance, use the right data structures, define functions efficiently, pick the right libraries, build future-proof programs, and optimize your programs down to the bytecode. You'll also learn how to: - Make and use effective decorators and methods, including abstract, static, and class methods - Employ Python for functional programming using generators, pure functions, and functional functions - Extend flake8 to work with the abstract syntax tree (AST) to introduce more sophisticated automatic checks into your programs - Apply dynamic performance analysis to identify bottlenecks in your code - Work with relational databases and effectively manage and stream data with PostgreSQL If you've been looking for a way to take your Python skills from good to great, Serious Python will help you get there. Learn from the experts and get seriously good at Python with Serious Python!




The Missing README


Book Description

Key concepts and best practices for new software engineers — stuff critical to your workplace success that you weren’t taught in school. For new software engineers, knowing how to program is only half the battle. You’ll quickly find that many of the skills and processes key to your success are not taught in any school or bootcamp. The Missing README fills in that gap—a distillation of workplace lessons, best practices, and engineering fundamentals that the authors have taught rookie developers at top companies for more than a decade. Early chapters explain what to expect when you begin your career at a company. The book’s middle section expands your technical education, teaching you how to work with existing codebases, address and prevent technical debt, write production-grade software, manage dependencies, test effectively, do code reviews, safely deploy software, design evolvable architectures, and handle incidents when you’re on-call. Additional chapters cover planning and interpersonal skills such as Agile planning, working effectively with your manager, and growing to senior levels and beyond. You’ll learn: How to use the legacy code change algorithm, and leave code cleaner than you found it How to write operable code with logging, metrics, configuration, and defensive programming How to write deterministic tests, submit code reviews, and give feedback on other people’s code The technical design process, including experiments, problem definition, documentation, and collaboration What to do when you are on-call, and how to navigate production incidents Architectural techniques that make code change easier Agile development practices like sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives This is the book your tech lead wishes every new engineer would read before they start. By the end, you’ll know what it takes to transition into the workplace–from CS classes or bootcamps to professional software engineering.




Code Craft


Book Description

A guide to writing computer code covers such topics as variable naming, presentation style, error handling, and security.




Head First Python


Book Description

Want to learn the Python language without slogging your way through how-to manuals? With Head First Python, you’ll quickly grasp Python’s fundamentals, working with the built-in data structures and functions. Then you’ll move on to building your very own webapp, exploring database management, exception handling, and data wrangling. If you’re intrigued by what you can do with context managers, decorators, comprehensions, and generators, it’s all here. This second edition is a complete learning experience that will help you become a bonafide Python programmer in no time. Why does this book look so different? Based on the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory, Head First Pythonuses a visually rich format to engage your mind, rather than a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep. Why waste your time struggling with new concepts? This multi-sensory learning experience is designed for the way your brain really works.




Code Complete


Book Description

Widely considered one of the best practical guides to programming, Steve McConnell’s original CODE COMPLETE has been helping developers write better software for more than a decade. Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices—and hundreds of new code samples—illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking—and help you build the highest quality code. Discover the timeless techniques and strategies that help you: Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity Reap the benefits of collaborative development Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors Exploit opportunities to refactor—or evolve—code, and do it safely Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project Debug problems quickly and effectively Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project




Cutting Code


Book Description

Software has often been marginalized in accounts of digital cultures and network societies. Although software is everywhere, it is hard to say what it actually is. Cutting Code: Software and Sociality is one of the first books to treat software seriously as a full-blown cultural process and as a subtly powerful material in contemporary communication. From deCSS to Java, from Linux to Extreme Programming, this book analyses software artworks, operating systems, commercial products, infrastructures, and programming practices. It explores social forms, identities, materialities, and power relations associated with software, and it asks how software provokes the re-thinking of production, consumption and distribution as entwined cultural processes. Cutting Code argues that analysis of code as a mosaic of algorithms, protocols, infrastructures, and programming conventions offers valuable insights into how contemporary social formations invent new kinds of personhood and new ways of acting.




Developer Hegemony


Book Description

It’s been said that software is eating the planet. The modern economy—the world itself—relies on technology. Demand for the people who can produce it far outweighs the supply. So why do developers occupy largely subordinate roles in the corporate structure? Developer Hegemony explores the past, present, and future of the corporation and what it means for developers. While it outlines problems with the modern corporate structure, it’s ultimately a play-by-play of how to leave the corporate carnival and control your own destiny. And it’s an emboldening, specific vision of what software development looks like in the world of developer hegemony—one where developers band together into partner firms of “efficiencers,” finally able to command the pay, respect, and freedom that’s earned by solving problems no one else can. Developers, if you grow tired of being treated like geeks who can only be trusted to take orders and churn out code, consider this your call to arms. Bring about the autonomous future that’s rightfully yours. It’s time for developer hegemony.




Rust for Rustaceans


Book Description

Master professional-level coding in Rust. For developers who’ve mastered the basics, this book is the next step on your way to professional-level programming in Rust. It covers everything you need to build and maintain larger code bases, write powerful and flexible applications and libraries, and confidently expand the scope and complexity of your projects. Author Jon Gjengset takes you deep into the Rust programming language, dissecting core topics like ownership, traits, concurrency, and unsafe code. You’ll explore key concepts like type layout and trait coherence, delve into the inner workings of concurrent programming and asynchrony with async/await, and take a tour of the world of no_std programming. Gjengset also provides expert guidance on API design, testing strategies, and error handling, and will help develop your understanding of foreign function interfaces, object safety, procedural macros, and much more. You'll Learn: How to design reliable, idiomatic, and ergonomic Rust programs based on best principles Effective use of declarative and procedural macros, and the difference between them How asynchrony works in Rust – all the way from the Pin and Waker types used in manual implementations of Futures, to how async/await saves you from thinking about most of those words What it means for code to be unsafe, and best practices for writing and interacting with unsafe functions and traits How to organize and configure more complex Rust projects so that they integrate nicely with the rest of the ecosystem How to write Rust code that can interoperate with non-Rust libraries and systems, or run in constrained and embedded environments Brimming with practical, pragmatic insights that you can immediately apply, Rust for Rustaceans helps you do more with Rust, while also teaching you its underlying mechanisms.




Eloquent Ruby


Book Description

It’s easy to write correct Ruby code, but to gain the fluency needed to write great Ruby code, you must go beyond syntax and absorb the “Ruby way” of thinking and problem solving. In Eloquent Ruby, Russ Olsen helps you write Ruby like true Rubyists do–so you can leverage its immense, surprising power. Olsen draws on years of experience internalizing the Ruby culture and teaching Ruby to other programmers. He guides you to the “Ah Ha!” moments when it suddenly becomes clear why Ruby works the way it does, and how you can take advantage of this language’s elegance and expressiveness. Eloquent Ruby starts small, answering tactical questions focused on a single statement, method, test, or bug. You’ll learn how to write code that actually looks like Ruby (not Java or C#); why Ruby has so many control structures; how to use strings, expressions, and symbols; and what dynamic typing is really good for. Next, the book addresses bigger questions related to building methods and classes. You’ll discover why Ruby classes contain so many tiny methods, when to use operator overloading, and when to avoid it. Olsen explains how to write Ruby code that writes its own code–and why you’ll want to. He concludes with powerful project-level features and techniques ranging from gems to Domain Specific Languages. A part of the renowned Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series, Eloquent Ruby will help you “put on your Ruby-colored glasses” and get results that make you a true believer.