Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming Review

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Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming ReviewIf you are a person who cares at all about the art, craft, or science of software development, you will not be able to put this book down.
Seibel (a hacker-turned-writer himself) talked to some big names in our field. Topics covered include: How do you learn to be a programmer? How do you perfect your skills? How important is formal education? Which programming languages are good and which are terrible? What kinds of tools do great programmers use? (Which text editors? IDEs? Debuggers?) How do you reason about a program, bottom-up or top-down? What's the best way to collaborate with other coders? etc. etc.
As you might expect, the interviewees agree in some areas and wildly disagree in others, but there are insights aplenty. Some answers may surprise you, like how many of these coders shun formal debuggers and use mostly print statements, or how many of them shun IDEs for Emacs (or even pen-and-paper).
Aside from the broad questions, Seibel gets the interviewees to open up about what it was like to work on the projects they are famous for. These stories are engaging and entertaining. Any coder who has stayed up till 4AM squashing bugs will find kindred spirits in these books. And the stories are somehow inspiring, as you realize that even great programmers suffer through the same frustrations and ups and downs that all of the rest of us go through.
Those interviewed also share insights into what they think of our modern world of programming. Most agree that we live in complicated and troubled times as we battle layer upon layer of software complexity. This book has lessons to be learned from the very brief history of our field, and advice for the future ("Keep it simple!").
This book is deliciously buzzword-free and the programmers interviewed give their honest (sometimes brutally honest) opinions about what they love and what they hate.
The author and all of those interviewed share a passion for programming and it's hard not to be swept up into it. Very good book.Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming OverviewPatterned after the best selling Founders at Work, Coders at Work represents two years of interviews with some of the top programmers of our times. Readers will find out what their work habits are, coding preferences, language preferences, style choices and idiosyncrasies in the fascinating look at how some of the best in the world do their work.

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Big Java Review

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Big Java ReviewFirst, this is unmistakably a book for entry-level programmers. The experienced might find other books more useful -- this one starts with basic principles.
That said, I still found it useful enough to keep my copy after I was through with the course that required it.
The writing is very clear, with numerous examples. Concepts from variables to multithreading are generally explained in an easy-to-follow manner. The book is nicely laid out and well-indexed, too, and the combination of traits makes it a good quick-reference tool for a refresher.
It is, however, lacking in depth of technical detail. This makes it easily accessible to new programmers, but experienced ones will want to have other references handy.
Big Java OverviewNo one brews up a better Java guide than Cay Horstmann and in this Third Edition of Big Java he's perfected his recipe. Thoroughly updated to include Java 6, the Third Edition of Horstmann's bestselling text helps you absorb computing concepts and programming principles, develop strong problem-solving skills, and become a better programmer, all while exploring the elements of Java that are needed to write real-life programs.
A top-notch introductory text for beginners, Big Java, Third Edition is also a thorough reference for students and professionals alike to Java technologies, Internet programming, database access, and many other areas of computer science.
Features of the Third Edition:
The 'Objects Gradual' approach leads you into object-oriented thinking step-by-step, from using classes, implementing simple methods, all the way to designing your own object-oriented programs.
A strong emphasis on test-driven development encourages you to consider outcomes as you write programming code so you design better, more usable programs
Helpful "Testing Track" introduces techniques and tools step by step, ensuring that you master one before moving on to the next
New teaching and learning tools in WileyPLUS--including a unique assignment checker that enables you to test your programming problems online before you submit them for a grade
Graphics topics are developed gradually throughout the text, conveniently highlighted in separate color-coded sections
Updated coverage is fully compatible with Java 5 and includes a discussion of the latest Java 6 features


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Python Essential Reference (4th Edition) Review

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Python Essential Reference (4th Edition) ReviewThe author of Python Essential Reference is David Beazley, who among other occupations created the open-source SWIG tool and the WAD mixed-languages debugger. His background is pervading throughout the book, in which the reader gets a clear sense of what is happening behind the Python programming language and learns how to use it efficiently instead of considering it as a black box.
The first 20 pages give an overview of the language and although it is called a "tutorial introduction", it should be understood that its purpose is for a programmer to see what Python looks like, and not for a novice to get their first programming course.
The next 156 pages offer a thorough review of the language and its environment. This is a very interesting part and should not be skipped even by people who already know Python. I said "review" but an experienced programmer should be able to learn the language by reading those chapters and putting them into practice with extra exercises.
Instead of simply describing the language, the author also hands out tricks of the trade, showing how to acquire good coding habits while using an sensible approach regarding the performance, which is often essential in a dynamic language. The fourth edition is focusing on version 2.6 but offers some historical perspective by pointing out several elements that were recently improved, or which are about to change in upcoming versions.
The first part of the book concludes with useful recommendations on program debugging and profiling.
The second part contains 388 pages and goes through the Python library, presenting the essential modules together with examples, notes and advices. After all, this is a reference, so we shouldn't expect any less.
Last but not least, the third part comprises 30 pages of precious information on Python/C interface for extending the language or embedding it in larger applications.
An appendix introduces version 3 for those who are ready to make the leap.
For the sake of completeness, if I were to make any reproach or wish for improvement, it would probably be on the overall presentation (and would be a very minor one). The style in the code excerpts could be more consistent in the first part of the book, and the second part could do with more emphasis on the ... reference ... character of the text, perhaps by providing a more convenient way to navigate through the different modules and by using more obvious styles for the different parts. I sometimes had the impression of reading a long listing of modules and methods instead of looking through a reference book. While the contents is superior to other references like "Python in a Nutshell", I found it easier to retrieve what I needed with the latter - a bit on the brink of obsolescence today - than I do now with the former.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone desirous of improving their programming skills in Python, or having to write optimized code because performance is an issue.Python Essential Reference (4th Edition) OverviewPython Essential Reference is the definitive reference guide to the Python programming language — the one authoritative handbook that reliably untangles and explains both the core Python language and the most essential parts of the Python library.Designed for the professional programmer, the book is concise, to the point, and highly accessible. It also includes detailed information on the Python library and many advanced subjects that is not available in either the official Python documentation or any other single reference source.

Thoroughly updated to reflect the significant new programming language features and library modules that have been introduced in Python 2.6 and Python 3, the fourth edition of Python Essential Reference is the definitive guide for programmers who need to modernize existing Python code or who are planning an eventual migration to Python 3. Programmers starting a new Python project will find detailed coverage of contemporary Python programming idioms.

This fourth edition of Python Essential Reference features numerous improvements, additions, and updates:

Coverage of new language features, libraries, and modules
Practical coverage of Python's more advanced features including generators, coroutines, closures, metaclasses, and decorators
Expanded coverage of library modules related to concurrent programming including threads, subprocesses, and the new multiprocessing module
Up-to-the-minute coverage of how to use Python 2.6's forward compatibility mode to evaluate code for Python 3 compatibility
Improved organization for even faster answers and better usability
Updates to reflect modern Python programming style and idioms
Updated and improved example code
Deep coverage of low-level system and networking library modules — including options not covered in the standard documentation



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Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 Review

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Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 ReviewI've had this book for more than two weeks now and I should tell this book not much detail enough than the free ejb tutorial from sun site. The coverage is too shallow in detail and the authors comfortably skipped several newer features and using java persistance api in relation with using hibernate framework. if you are look to familiarise with ejb 3.0 this book will be nothing but a disappointment.Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 OverviewAn invaluable tutorial on the dramatic changes to Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0Featuring myriad changes from its previous versions, EJB 3.0 boasts a very different programming and deployment model, with nearly every aspect of development affected. Even the most experienced EBJ and J2EE developers will need to relearn how to best use EJB to develop mission-critical applications. This author team of experts has taken their combined skills in architecture, development, consulting, and knowledge transfer to explain the various changes to EJB 3.0 as well as the rationale behind these changes. You'll learn the concepts and techniques for authoring distributed, enterprise components in Java from the ground up.Covering basic through advanced subjects, Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 is more than 50 percent new and revised. Four new chapters and one new appendix cover the latest features of this new release, and in-depth coverage of the Java Persistence API and the entities defined therein is provided. The authors' main goal is to get you programming with EJB immediately. To that end, you'll learn:* How to implement EJB 3.0 beans, with emphasis on session beans (stateful and stateless) and message-driven beans* Both basic and advanced concepts (such as inheritance, relationships, and so on) of Java Persistence API defined entities* How to develop and deploy EJB 3.0 Web services* How to secure EJB applications* How to integrate EJB applications with the outside world via the Java EE Connector technology* Tips and techniques for designing and deploying EJB for better performance* How clustering in large-scale EJB systems works* Best practices for EJB application design, development, and testingThe companion Web site provides all the source code, updates to the source code examples, and a PDF version of the book.Wiley Technology Publishing Timely. Practical. Reliable.Visit the companion Web site at www.wiley.com/go/sriganesh

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The Essential Guide Flash CS4 AIR Development (Friends of ed Adobe Learning Library) Review

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The Essential Guide Flash CS4 AIR Development (Friends of ed Adobe Learning Library) ReviewUntil now, if you wanted to create a desktop application, you needed to use a programming language such as C# and Visual Studio. Another option was to use a web language such as PHP and have your pseudo desktop application run through a web browser on your desktop. But with the newest release of Adobe Flash CS4 and AIR, we now have a much easier way to build desktop applications that perform the same across Linus, Mac OS and Windows. This book by Marco Casorio is a good way to learn the basics of working with Flash CS4, ActionScript 3 and AIR together. As you progress through the book, you learn how to build AIR projects, piece by piece, from layout design and creating each part of the application to debugging and publishing. You will need a good foundation of ActionScript 3 and have Flash CS4 and AIR 1.5 installed on your computer. You can download sample files for the book at the author's companion site flashcs4air.comtaste.com.
Casorio begins by discussing the new features in Flash CS4 and the AIR SDK. Next, you take a look at a few simple applications, a media player and a weather widget. You also discuss the startup process for building your application including the XML descriptor file, digital certificate and publishing parameters. Moving on, you begin to work with OOP classes that control the main features of your application window and its contents. The supporting examples are a photo gallery and a text editor that uses Flash components.
All applications have menus with commands to perform tasks such as controlling files on your local system. Casorio covers the many types of menus that you might want to add to your application and how to use ActionScript classes to create and program these menus. You also learn how to use the XMLMenu class to generate your custom menu from XML.
Moving on, you learn how to program your application to communicate with your local file system and control files, folders, dialog boxes, the clipboard and the drag and drop function. From here, you advance to the operating system and learn tasks such as launching an application on login or from a webpage, associating file types with your application and programming system alerts for both Windows and Mac. You will also learn about the AIR Webkit engine, the Acrobat Reader plug-in and how to control multimedia files.
Although most people will be reading this book to learn about making desktop applications, the author covers how to work with the AIR HTML engine to load, cache, display and manipulate HTML and JavaScript. You will use a template application as a starting point for creating applications with functions such as monitoring connectivity for working both on and off the web. Next, you will cover how to manipulate a database from your application. Finally, you will learn your options for publishing, distributing and installing your application.
Marco Casorio is an Adobe developer and consultant. He has authored several books on Adobe AIR and Flex.The Essential Guide Flash CS4 AIR Development (Friends of ed Adobe Learning Library) OverviewThe Essential Guide to AIR development with Flash shows Flash and ActionScript developers how to take their applications to the desktop with Adobe's hot new product, AIR. This book uses the latest version of Flash, along with the new, 1.1 version of AIR. It includes full coverage of everything Flash programmers need to know to create compelling Rich Internet Applications with AIR.

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Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management Review

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Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management ReviewI'm a technical person but have very little DB experience and purchased the book because I had to for a college class. I feel the book was simply OK. Some points were made well others I had to read several times. Over all the explanations were not as concise as I would like but in all fairness DB concepts are hard to explain. The overall layout was good however I think there should have been more attention during the intro to familiarize the reader with DB's and the related concepts before delving in to the details of each phase of DB creation.
My only real gripe is that a new revision is published every year and the previous version of the $100 + dollar book becomes worthless. To save money I bought the previous version and found all the material I needed. However for the final exam the instructor of the online class gave us page numbers to use as reference so I was forced to buy the latest version which was the same book with a few new references...
If you are buying this book for reference or if you are buying this because you are taking a face to face class I recommend that you buy the previous version required by the instructor at a greatly reduced cost. You may be able to do this w/ an online class if the professor (or classmates) are flexible and willing to help reconcile the different page numbers.
Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management OverviewDatabase Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management, Eighth Edition, a market-leader for database texts, gives readers a solid foundation in practical database design and implementation. The book provides in-depth coverage of database design, demonstrating that the key to successful database implementation is in proper design of databases to fit within a larger strategic view of the data environment. Updates for the eighth edition include additional Unified Modeling Language coverage, expanded coverage of SQL Server functions, all-new business intelligence coverage, and added coverage of data security. With a strong hands-on component that includes real-world examples and exercises, this book will help students develop database design skills that have valuable and meaningful application in the real world.

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Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries Review

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Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries ReviewEver wondered what iPods, Windows, Xboxes, PDAs and smartphones have in common? This book provides a useful analysis of the successful business practices that cut across all of these industries and have made their pioneers extremely rich and famous. I found it very insightful and surprisingly well-written - there are lots of well-chosen anecdotes which help the reader cope with the complexity of the subject.Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries OverviewSoftware platforms are the invisible engines that have created, touched,or transformed nearly every major industry for the past quarter century. They powereverything from mobile phones and automobile navigation systems to search enginesand web portals. They have been the source of enormous value to consumers and helpedsome entrepreneurs build great fortunes. And they are likely to drive change thatwill dwarf the business and technology revolution we have seen to this point.Invisible Engines examines the business dynamics and strategies used by firms thatrecognize the transformative power unleashed by this new revolution--a revolutionthat will change both new and old industries.The authors argue that in order tounderstand the successes of software platforms, we must first understand their roleas a technological meeting ground where application developers and end usersconverge. Apple, Microsoft, and Google, for example, charge developers little ornothing for using their platforms and make most of their money from end users; SonyPlayStation and other game consoles, by contrast, subsidize users and make moremoney from developers, who pay royalties for access to the code they need to writegames. More applications attract more users, and more users attract moreapplications. And more applications and more users lead to more profits.InvisibleEngines explores this story through the lens of the companies that have masteredthis platform-balancing act. It offers detailed studies of the personal computer,video game console, personal digital assistant, smart mobile phone, and digitalmedia software platform industries, focusing on the business decisions made byindustry players to drive profits and stay a step ahead of the competition. Shorterdiscussions of Internet-based software platforms provide an important glimpse into afuture in which the way we buy, pay, watch, listen, learn, and communicate willchange forever. An electronic version of this book is available under a CreativeCommons license.

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Programming Language Pragmatics, Third Edition Review

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Programming Language Pragmatics, Third Edition ReviewOver the years the Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (2nd Edition) (also knwon as the dragon book) has become the de facto standard for introducing compilers and related topics at universities. This is very unfortunate because "Programming Language Pragmatics" is in a completely different league and should be the one used instead. It gives the student (or the self taught) a complete and through overview of parsing, grammar, automata theory and other key language constructs. What really differentiates this book from others (and most notably the (in)famous "Dragon Book") is that it does so in a easy to understand manner and with lots of well written examples.
Many people find compiler and language theory to be dark magic, and it would be wrong not to acknowledge that these subjects are considerably harder than say creating a web page in PHP or writing a small Java/C# program. But much of the confusion also stems from the long history of porly written books which all have lacked explaining key areas or assumed that the readers just know some obscure CS topics beforehand. This book does not travel down that road, it is well written, contains both simple and advanced examples and is simply a delightful read.Programming Language Pragmatics, Third Edition Overview

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Guide to J2EE: Enterprise Java Review

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Guide to J2EE: Enterprise Java ReviewThe book gives a detailed tour of J2EE, circa 2003. It describes the high level functionality that is possible, on top of using Java as your base language. The authors choose Tomcat as the Web application server, and jBoss as the EJB application server because these are popular, open source and free. However, they point out that other servers can be used. Namely IBM's Websphere and BEA's WebLogic. Both are J2EE compliant. So if you are using these, you can still gain from much of the example code in the book and its accompanying website. While the design advice should carry over unchanged.
All the J2EE standards are explained. JMS, RMI, JNDI... Plus also being able to use Java to read and write XML. This latter topic is perhaps not really enterprise level stuff. I'd regard it as more on the lower level of J2SE. Simply because even if you are doing a non-networked application, and so perhaps not using J2EE at all, XML capability can still be good in using data files.
Now in 2005, Java J2SE is at version 1.5. But the book's details about deploying under J2SE 1.4 are valid. 1.5 is essentially a superset of 1.4.Guide to J2EE: Enterprise Java OverviewEnterprise Java expertsJohn Hunt and Chris Loftus takethe reader through the core technologies that make up the Enterprise Edition of the Java 2 platform (J2EE). They cover all the aspects of J2EE that both the professional and student needs to know to build multi-tier enterprise applications in Java. This includes the various technologies, design methodology, and design patterns. The text contains fully worked examples, built up throughout the book, which enables the reader to quickly develop multi-tier applications. An invaluable text for those who want to build enterprise wide applications in Java.

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Beginning Programming For Dummies Review

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Beginning Programming For Dummies ReviewYes, the humor and drawings can be corny and silly but overall this book is at least as good as Greg Perry's 'Teach yourself programming in 24 hours' (SAMS, 1998). As well as giving a solid grounding in venerable old QBASIC (hopefully then the reader can try their hand at VB, VBA, VbScript), Wallace's book presents bits of Java, Pascal, C/CC+ presented throughtout, and lots of useful websites. Definitely worth a look!Beginning Programming For Dummies Overview

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Developing Web Services with Apache Axis Review

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Developing Web Services with Apache Axis ReviewWith all the 5 star reviews here I really had my hopes up for this book. I really, really wanted to like it and, to some degree, I did.
This is a very short book. I'm not complaining, I remember the day when excellent technical books were only 200 pages. However, these small outstanding references were kind of like Unix tools - they covered one subject and covered it well. Mr. Tong, on the other hand attempts to teach us Tomcat, Eclipse, Axis, and PKI in a 165 page book.
While I personally didn't need the tutorials on Tomcat, Eclipse, or PKI I thought they were very well done. Unfortunately I didn't feel this way about the Axis portion of the book. When reading the information about Axis it mostly seemed to me to be:
1. Do this.
2. Now do this.
3. Press enter.
4. See, it worked.
OK, so it worked. I still have very little understanding of why it worked or what other options Axis has to offer.
I also felt the book gave the impression that Tomcat-Eclipse-Axis were joined at the hip. I would have prefered to learn the workings of Axis so that I would be comfortable using it on WebLogic or WebSphere. Maybe using Netbeans as my IDE or maybe just using a command line. In my opinion, Mr. Tong does not deliver this kind of Axis understanding.
Lastly, I'd like to comment on the grammer used in the book. It is clear that Mr. Tong is not a native Engling speaker. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Tong certainly speaks English better than I speak a second language. However, I believe editing by a native English speaker would improve the readability of the book. I didn't really have any big problems understanding the text but the grammer does make it hard to read. In many cases I had to read a sentence several times to get the point.Developing Web Services with Apache Axis OverviewAxis, Apache Axis, Web services, SOAP, WSDL, Computer, Science, Technology, Internet, World, Wide, Web, Programming

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Java™ Platform Performance: Strategies and Tactics Review

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Java™ Platform Performance: Strategies and Tactics ReviewThe table of contents is deceptive, because all of the important optimization topics are covered, including the Java-specific ones. The problem is, most of these topics are not covered in any depth beyond a simple introduction. I like terse books and believe most books about computers these days are way too fat; my hats are off to Addison Wesley for controlling that tendency with well edited books in this series. This book is thin at 230 pages, but unfortunately, a lot of that is filler of the "let me tell you what I'm going to tell you, tell you, and then tell you what I told you variety.
The advice is generally sound, such as "use a profiler to decide what to optimize", but all too often the advice stops there. One learns that linked lists are fast for deletes and array lists are fast for random access. But what if neither has the performance characteristics you need?
I would recommend Jon Bentley's "Programming Pearls" for someone who really wants to get a feel for optimization through a number of tight case studies. The examples may be C, but they're insightful and more applicable to the problems you're likely to face than the ones encountered when writing the Swing or Collections classes themselves. Then go out and use a serious optimizer like Quantify, which is essentially what the authors of this book suggest. At that point, you'll wonder why the authors stopped their review of Collections with Sun's built-in implementations.
The code for running mulitple programs and controlling class loading in Chapter 6, though I have not tried it, is interesting and something I'd not seen elsewhere. Other diversions, such as timers and threading in Swing are covered elsewhere. What would have been helpful is a detailed look at debugging threading performance, say through object, resource or thread pooling (an idea dismissed earlier for "small objects").
One glaring omission is a serious micro-benchmarking of basic operations. I found the comparison of speed when using final vs. non-final classes or methods to be startling in practice, and numbers here would help. Similarly, access times for hash tables vs. arrays, simple object construction times, floating point vs. integer arithmetic times, object variable vs. local variable access, etc. There are some wonderful micro-benchmark applets on the web with this functionality. What you'll learn is that up-casting takes forever, so any use of built-in collections/iterators for performance-critical operations will do you in.
I found the constant sales pitch for the Sun HotSpot (TM) Virtual Machine a bit tiring. It concludes with a recapitulation of the marketing materials in Appendix B. It is alternately described as "highly optimized", "state-of-the-art", having a "superior memory allocator", "ultra-fast", having "excellent multiprocessor performance characteristics", having "agressive inlining", having "excellent paging", etc. etc. The appendix devoted to HotSpot (TM) is particularly noteworty for its omission of any profiling information!Java™ Platform Performance: Strategies and Tactics OverviewDirect from Sun's Java(t) Performance Team, this is a comprehensive field manual full of battle-tested strategies and tactics for developing high-performance applications and applets with Java technology. It covers every aspect of Java performance, including speed, scalability, RAM footprint, startup time, and user-perceived performance factors. Part I covers the crucial process issues associated with Java optimization, outlining how performance tuning fits into the software development process, showing how to use benchmarks and profiling tools to identify hot spots and bottlenecks, and presenting general strategies for enhancing the performance of Java technology-based systems. In Part II, the authors present a wide array of concrete optimization techniques. The book contains detailed appendices on garbage collection and the Java HotSpot(t) Virtual Machine, written to address key performance questions.

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Reliable Distributed Systems: Technologies, Web Services, and Applications Review

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Reliable Distributed Systems: Technologies, Web Services, and Applications ReviewThis book is neither a book in distributed applications neither a book about web services. It is true thta the author makes an introduction of both and in the case of the web services he takes a look to the latest standards related to reliability.
From my point of view, the book talks about how to enhace the reliability of a distributed software application using static and dynamic groups.
The author thinks that solving the life cycle problem of the nodes in a distributed aplication (create and destroy nodes, joint and leave groups, heart beat, and so on) is the necessary step towards a reliable distributed application.
I think it is an interesting point, however I am not convinced at all. Perhaps, I should read it again.
I really recommend it. For a more straight forward introduction to the subject perhaps is better to start with the classics Tanenbaum or Colouris books.Reliable Distributed Systems: Technologies, Web Services, and Applications OverviewExplains fault tolerance in clear terms, with concrete examples drawn from real-world settings Highly practical focus aimed at building "mission-critical" networked applications that remain secure

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Real-Time Java Platform Programming Review

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Real-Time Java Platform Programming ReviewJava programs have the reputation of being slow. Performance is thought to be
Java's trade off for cross platform portability and higher developer
productivity. Real-time systems demand on time responses and in many cases,
should not fail. At the first glimpse, Java seems quite unsuitable for
real-time systems. Well, if you think so, you might want to read Peter C.
Dibble's book "Real-Time Java Platform Programming".
In fact, real-time specification is the first Java Specification Request
(JSR001) in the Java Community Process and the reference implementation just
came out in early 2002. So, this is a very timely book for this very important
new application area of the Java platform.
The focus of this book is not well known Java syntax and API functions. This
book spends a lot of pages discussing what are real-time systems, what are the
requirements and why Java 2 Standard Edition is NOT up to the task. As a
result, we can learn important things about real-time system design and the
philosophy behind the real-time Java specifications. Java is only a tool. A
real-time system engineer should first know the system design so that he can
apply Java to the new situation. I find the approach of this book very
effective.
Back to the question we raised in the first paragraph: It turns out that
performance is not THAT important for a real-time system. We can have a slow
real-time system but it has to give consistent and predictable results
everytime it runs. That consistency allows us to design systems that we know
will meet the deadline. One of Java's core problems in real-time applications
is the unpredictable behavior of the garbage collector. The book have lengthy
discussions on new algorithms on memory management and the real-time Java
approach to this problem.
Of course, garbage collector design and memory management is an example of many
real-time system design aspects covered by this book. Other important issues
include threads and synchronization. I find this book very readable for both
Java programmers interested in real-time system engineering and real-time
engineers interested in Java tools.
This book could be even better if the author can organize scattered sample code
segments into a consistent sample application and use it to demonstrate
different usages of the real-time Java platform. Also, the author did not cover
the installation and basics of the reference implementation. Nor did he cover
real application scenarios on real devices or simulators. That makes it a bit
difficult to understand the context of the examples.Real-Time Java Platform Programming Overview

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