Software Design, Testing & Engineering Books - Page 6

The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners (Technology in Action)

Jacob Habgood, Mark Overmars

Amazon Price: $26.39 List Price: $39.99 Usually ships in 4 to 7 weeks By: Apress Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $18.00

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Games & Strategy Guides -> General AAS
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Graphic Design -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Game Makers Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool. This book covers a range of genres, including action, adventure, and puzzle gamescomplete with professional quality sound effects and visuals. It discusses game design theory and features practical examples of how this can be applied to making games that are more fun to play.

Game Maker allows games to be created using a simple drag-and-drop interface, so you dont need to have any prior coding experience. It includes an optional programming language for adding advanced features to your games, when you feel ready to do so. You can obtain more information by visiting book.gamemaker.nl.

The authors include the creator of the Game Maker tool and a former professional game programmer, so youll glean understanding from their expertise. The book also includes a CD containing Game Maker software and all of the game projects that are created in the bookplus a host of professional-quality graphics and sound effects that you can use in your own games.

Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job, 2nd Edition (Programmer to Programmer)

John Mongan, Noah Suojanen, Eric Giguère

Amazon Price: $19.79 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wrox Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $12.49

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Job Hunting & Careers -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Programming Interviews Exposed
2nd Edition

The pressure is on during the interview process but with the right preparation, you can walk away with your dream job. This classic book uncovers what interviews are really like at America's top software and computer companies and provides you with the tools to succeed in any situation. The authors take you step-by-step through new problems and complex brainteasers they were asked during recent technical interviews.

50 interview scenarios are presented along with in-depth analysis of the possible solutions. The problem-solving process is clearly illustrated so you'll be able to easily apply what you've learned during crunch time. You'll also find expert tips on what questions to ask, how to approach a problem, and how to recover if you become stuck. All of this will help you ace the interview and get the job you want.

What you will learn from this book

* Tips for effectively completing the job application
*

Ways to prepare for the entire programming interview process
*

How to find the kind of programming job that fits you best
*

Strategies for choosing a solution and what your approach says about you
*

How to improve your interviewing skills so that you can respond to any question or situation
*

Techniques for solving knowledge-based problems, logic puzzles, and programming problems

Who this book is for

This book is for programmers and developers applying for jobs in the software industry or in IT departments of major corporations.

Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision with the OpenCV Library

Gary Bradski, Adrian Kaehler

Amazon Price: $43.99 List Price: $49.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $34.93

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Computer Vision
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Robotics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Hardware -> Microprocessors & System Design -> DSPs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Learning OpenCV puts you right in the middle of the rapidly expanding field of computer vision. Written by the creators of OpenCV, the widely used free open-source library, this book introduces you to computer vision and demonstrates how you can quickly build applications that enable computers to "see" and make decisions based on the data. Computer vision is everywhere -- in security systems, manufacturing inspection systems, medical image analysis, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and more. It helps robot cars drive by themselves, stitches Google maps and Google Earth together, checks the pixels on your laptop's LCD screen, and makes sure the stitches in your shirt are OK. OpenCV provides an easy-to-use computer vision infrastructure along with a comprehensive library containing more than 500 functions that can run vision code in real time. With Learning OpenCV, any developer or hobbyist can get up and running with the framework quickly, whether it's to build simple or sophisticated vision applications. The book includes: A thorough introduction to OpenCV Getting input from cameras Transforming images Shape matching Pattern recognition, including face detection Segmenting images Tracking and motion in 2 and 3 dimensions Machine learning algorithms

Hands-on exercises at the end of each chapter help you absorb the concepts, and an appendix explains how to set up an OpenCV project in Visual Studio. OpenCV is written in performance optimized C/C++ code, runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, and is free for commercial and research use under a BSD license. Getting machines to see is a challenging but entertaining goal. If you're intrigued by the possibilities, Learning OpenCV gets you started onbuilding computer vision applications of your own.

The Ruby Programming Language

David Flanagan, Yukihiro Matsumoto

Amazon Price: $26.39 List Price: $39.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $17.98

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Programming -> Languages & Tools -> General AAS
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Programming -> Software Design, Testing & Engineering -> Object-Oriented Design

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Ruby Programming Language is the authoritative guide to Ruby and provides comprehensive coverage of versions 1.8 and 1.9 of the language. It was written (and illustrated!) by an all-star team: David Flanagan, bestselling author of programming language "bibles" (including JavaScript: The Definitive Guide and Java in a Nutshell) and committer to the Ruby Subversion repository. Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, creator, designer and lead developer of Ruby and author of Ruby in a Nutshell, which has been expanded and revised to become this book. why the lucky stiff, artist and Ruby programmer extraordinaire. This book begins with a quick-start tutorial to the language, and then explains the language in detail from the bottom up: from lexical and syntactic structure to datatypes to expressions and statements and on through methods, blocks, lambdas, closures, classes and modules. The book also includes a long and thorough introduction to the rich API of the Ruby platform, demonstrating -- with heavily-commented example code -- Ruby's facilities for text processing, numeric manipulation, collections, input/output, networking, and concurrency. An entire chapter is devoted to Ruby's metaprogramming capabilities. The Ruby Programming Language documents the Ruby language definitively but without the formality of a language specification. It is written for experienced programmers who are new to Ruby, and for current Ruby programmers who want to challenge their understanding and increase their mastery of the language.

Agile Software Development with Scrum (Series in Agile Software Development)

Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle

Amazon Price: $36.04 List Price: $43.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Prentice Hall Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $25.99

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Programming -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good but not great 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is a good book with lots of valuable information around the empirical nature of Scrum. For someone who was central to creating Scrum, the book doesn't offer much more.

It's broken up into three parts: Overview of Scrum / Why it works / Case studies.

The overview of Scrum is poor at best. There are much simpler ways to communicate it. If you don't know anything about Scrum then this book probably won't help get you started.

The "Why it works" chapters were much more interesting and valuable. It takes you through the epirical nature of scrum and why previous methodologies have failed. The most interesting part is the brief exposition around the psychological, anthropological and systematical viewpoints around Scrum. Like much of the book, this could have been written better and with more indepth information, but still meets a basic need.

The case studies and ancillary information in the last few chapters feel hasty and are of little value. Many of the examples (although based on actual events) feel contrived and are simplified so much that they aren't highly illuminating.

Overall the book wasn't the greatest but it did provide me with some value. The editing is quite poor and there are numerous mistakes throughout. The general layout of the page is also problematic and makes it difficult to read.

Most laughable however are the images and graphics. They look like they were made in MSPaint and screen capped into the book.

User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development (Addison-Wesley Signature Series)

Mike Cohn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Good book, too much fluff 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

As you'll read in other reviews this book does a great job of laying the foundation on how to implement XP as a development process using user stories, iterations, and other concepts used in XP.

Where the book goes a little overboard is with some drawn out stories and examples that could be cut down. In reality I think this book could almost have 1/3 less long and been a 5 star book.

Editorial Review:

The concept of user stories has its roots as one of the main tenets of Extreme Programming. In simple terms, user stories represent an effective means of gathering requirements from the customer (roughly akin to use cases). This book describes user stories and demonstrates how they can be used to properly plan, manage, and test software development projects. The book highlights both successful and unsuccessful implementations of the concept, and provides sets of questions and exercises that drive home its main points. After absorbing the lessons in this book, readers will be able to introduce user stories in their organizations as an effective means of determining precisely what is required of a software application.

MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294): Microsoft® Windows Server(TM) 2003 Core Requirements, Second Edition

Dan Holme, Orin Thomas, J.C. Mackin, Ian McLean, Craig Zacker

Amazon Price: $125.99 List Price: $199.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Microsoft Press - Model: 9780735622906 Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $118.36

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Certification Central -> Exams -> MCSE
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Certification Central -> Publisher -> Microsoft Press
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Certification Central -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Get in-depth training and practice with the skills measured by the core exams for MCSE certification for Windows Server 2003—all in one box! Covering Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, and 70-294, these four, all-new Microsoft study guides pack the tools and features that exam candidates want most—including in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content; rigorous, objective-by-objective reviews; exam tips from expert, exam-certified authors; and a robust testing suite. They also provide real-world scenarios, case study examples, and troubleshooting labs for skills and experience that you can apply to the job.

Ace your exam preparation and ramp up quickly on Windows Server 2003 by working at your own pace through the lessons, hands-on exercises, and practice tests. The flexible, best-of-class test engine on CD features 300 practice questions per exam and pre-assessment and post-assessment capabilities. Choose timed or untimed testing mode, generate random tests, or focus on discrete objectives or chapters, and get detailed explanations for right and wrong answers—including pointers back to the book for further study. You also get a 120-day evaluation version of Windows Server 2003 and a 15 percent exam discount voucher good toward all four exams—making this kit an exceptional value and a great career investment.

Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone: Creating Compelling Dynamic User Interfaces (Pragmatic Programmers)

Bill Dudney

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Rich content for begginers 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is a good choice for people who has knowledge of Objective-C, but has no knowledge of CoreAnimation. This is because this book explains the samples it has inside of it but explains it assuming you know Objective-C.
The sample codes are very clear and the way the author wrote the book makes it very easy to understand.
There is a thing I don't like it very much. There are many of the Figures and Graphs that are too way big!. I wish I could have instead of such a big figures maybe a more detailed information, or just saving some pages would be OK. I don't think they did a good use of the space. But the content is OK.
Another thing is ... Even tough CoreAnimation API is not mac OS X or iPhone OS exclusive I was expecting more iPhone samples (As the title might suggest). Yeah, the principle is the same but I was just a little bit disappointed when realizing "only 12 pages out of 182" are exclusive dedicated to iPhone - CoreAudio programming.

Editorial Review:

Mac OS X Leopard introduces a fantastic new technology that makes writing applications with animated and cinematic user interfaces much easier. We'll explore this new technology by starting with the familiar concepts you already know from the pre-Leopard development kits.

Then we'll see how they apply to the new frameworks and APIs. We'll build on your existing knowledge of Cocoa and bring you efficiently up to speed on what Core Animation is all about.

With this book in hand, you can add Core Animation to your Cocoa applications, and make stunning user interfaces that your user's will be showing off to their friends.

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight(TM) 1.0 (PRO-Developer)

Laurence Moroney

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Microsoft -> Web Browsers

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Get a first look at Microsoft Silverlight with this practical introduction. This ideal reference delivers pragmatic advice, from in an insider s perspective, of how the tool was developed from concept to release. An expert on Silverlight and a Technical Evangelist on the Silverlight team delivers a first look at the new cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in and details the relationships among Silverlight and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 technologies. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are Web applications that have the features and functionality of full desktop applications. Processing tasks are performed on the client, but data is stored on the server, allowing a much richer experience. With Silverlight, RIAs install quickly via a small, on-demand plug-in. This book shows how the first release of Silverlight will help simplify development and deployment of RIAs. Includes a companion Web site with code samples in Visual C# and Visual Basic.

Key Book Benefits

Delivers practical advice, grounded in an insider s view of how the tool was developed from concept (Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere) to release

Provides context about the relationships among Silverlight and the various .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 technologies

Places RIAs in context for Web and Windows® developers

Features a companion Web site with code samples in Visual C# and Visual Basic

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series)

Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, Don Roberts

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Programming -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 139 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A must read for any serious developer. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book is required reading for anyone who is serious about software development. If you want to go from good to great then do yourself a favor and get this book.

Must have in any developers collection 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I was referred to this book from a colleague after a quick discussion on "Replace temp with Query" in our projects code base.

I thought I knew it all as a software developer, but reading this book, I soon came to realize that as a software developer I was leaving a legacy of code that was not at the standard it should be.

This book opened my eyes to some really simple concepts, for example, when trying to understand code someone else has written (or yourself in some cases) take the time to re-factor the code (i.e. Extract Method) so that the code is understandable, since most of the work is spent in trying to understand the code in the first place. This concept of modifying code as you understand it is superb.

I must say I was skeptical at first but the benefits are really starting to show. This book is written with the knowledge of Martin Fowler, and as such is written with experience of what it is like to be a developer in a commercial environment, for example, trying to explain to management the trade-offs of re-factoring first instead of "tacking on" that new feature. Something that is difficult in any environment.

This book will by no means solve your problems, but it will empower you with a new found love to make the IT project(s) you work on better (i.e. not thinking of the now but the future) practice some of the smaller concepts this book presents on a daily basis and the rewards are well worth it, break those bad habits today.

Editorial Review:

Refactoring is about improving the design of existing code. It is the process of changing a software system in such a way that it does not alter the external behavior of the code, yet improves its internal structure. With refactoring you can even take a bad design and rework it into a good one. This book offers a thorough discussion of the principles of refactoring, including where to spot opportunities for refactoring, and how to set up the required tests. There is also a catalog of more than 40 proven refactorings with details as to when and why to use the refactoring, step by step instructions for implementing it, and an example illustrating how it works The book is written using Java as its principle language, but the ideas are applicable to any OO language.