Addison-Wesley

Agile testing; a practical guide for testers and agile teams.

For agile testers, quality assurance professionals, and teams, as well as managers and customers, this guide describes agile testing to help organizations make the transition to agile development for successfully delivering software. The authors define the concept and explain how it differs from traditional approaches to software quality and testing, summarize principles and values, and discuss organizational challenges, types, quadrants, and categories of testing, automation, and the activities of testers. Crispin is a tester and leads tutorials and workshops on the topic. Gregory is a coach and tester, and runs an agile quality process consultancy and training firm. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Creating visual experiences with Flex 3.0.

This guide is designed for programmers and IT professionals who are disappointed with the current Flex 3.0 and AIR user interface applications and require a more dynamic, visually-pleasing presentation. Sanchez and McIntosh are noted experts in software architecture and design, and they focus on the technical implementation of Flex in order to enhance skins, styling, transitions, filters and graphics of the software using tools such as Adobe, CSS and ActionScript 3.0. By purchasing this book, users gain access to additional online tools and resources, and are notified of updates to Flex 3.0 as they become available. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Flex on Rails; building rich internet applications with Adobe Flex 3.0 and Rails 2.

This tutorial takes software developers from basics to advanced topics in building applications with Flex and Rails, and introduces related technologies such as Ruby AMF and Juggernaut. The first section provides a broad introduction to areas like data transfer, testing, and using Flaunt to test a Flex with Rails application. The second section is in the form of a 'cookbook,' with code recipes, short discussions, and how-to's for advanced techniques such as building Flex with Rake, reusing commands with Prana sequences, and communicating between Flex and JavaScript. Some experience with Flex or Rails is assumed. The authors are software architects and consultants. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Programming in Python 3; a complete introduction to the Python language.

This tutorial and language reference shows how to develop in the cross-platform language Python, using procedural and object-oriented programming paradigms. The first chapter is designed to allow readers to begin writing small but useful Python programs right away, with coverage of eight key elements of Python. Advanced topics covered include client/server applications and database programming. In addition to computing professionals, the book will interest hobbyist programmers, students, scientists, and engineers. Readers should have some experience programming in any language; some exercises assume a basic knowledge of HTML markup. Downloadable code — compatible with the final version of Python 3 on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X — is available on a companion web site. Summerfield is a trainer and consultant. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Programming principles and practice using C++.

Writing primarily for those who have never programmed before, Stroustrup, the designer and original implementer of C++, introduces basic concepts of real world programming, focusing on programming first and treating C++ as a tool. The first half of the book covers a basic principles, design and programming techniques, language features, and libraries. The second half explores more specialized topics, such as text processing and testing, and provides about 130 pages of reference material. Learning features include a color layout with color-coded tips and warnings, and chapter-ending review sections with questions, key terms, and exercises. A web site provides code and other supplements, such as slides for lectures, an instructor's guide, implementations of libraries used in the book, and solutions to selected exercises. According to the author, the book leaves out much of what a computer science student is traditionally exposed to (even hardware is ignored); with its focus on how to construct working software, it is not a traditional text for a Computer Science 101 course. It can be taught alongside other texts or other courses as part of a first-year computer science program. The author teaches computer science at Texas A&M University. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Python web development with Django.

Forcier, Bissex, and Chun — all experienced Django and Python developers — offer a practical guide for Web developers on the use of the Python-based Django framework to build powerful Web solutions. Coverage includes an introductory overview of Python, Django, and Web development concepts, followed by the basic components of the framework — models, views, templates — and how they work together; discussion of four distinct Django applications; and advanced Django techniques and features. A companion website contains a large amount of auxiliary material and is referenced throughout the text. Forcier is with a New York-based interactive agency and Web development company; Bissex (Web development, Hallmark Institute of Photography) created and maintains the Django community pastebin site; and Chun is a consultant specializing in software engineering and technical training. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Scaling lean & agile development; thinking and organizational tools for large-scale Scrum.

Larman is a management and product development consultant for an international consulting and offshore outsourcing company; Vodde is an independent product-development consultant and large-scale Scrum coach. They offer software engineers and organizational and team management a practical text discussing the key thinking and organizational tools needed to plant the seeds of product development success in a fertile lean and agile enterprise. Coverage includes lean thinking and development combined with agile practices and methods; systems thinking; queuing theory and large-scale development processes; moving from single-function and component teams to stable, cross-functional, cross-component Scrum feature teams with end-to-end responsibility for features; organizational redesign to a lean and agile enterprise that delivers value fast; and large-scale Scrum for multi-hundred-person product groups. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Securing PHP web applications.

T. Ballad, a web developer and noted technology writer, has teamed with W. Ballad, an expert in information technology, to provide this guide to blocking hackers in PHP web applications. Designed specifically for web developers who have little or no experience in software security, this book offer explicit instructions on how to write "rock-solid" code that will defend a PHP application against session hijacking, fixation, poisoning attacks and other security breaches. Code examples, real-life scenarios and practical checklists are also included to ensure the enforcement of strict authentification and file system access. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Software language engineering; creating domain-specific languages using metamodels.

Written for software practitioners and developers, this guide to Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) offers a complete tutorial on how these specifications work and how to design and apply them to fit applications in finance, macro scripting, image generation and more. Kleppe is an IT consultant with over 20 years of experience in the field, and she explains how to understand and describe language semantics, use metamodels to generate grammars, integrate object-oriented modeling with graph theory and build code generators for new programming languages. Comparisons are also provided between DSLs and general-purpose languages, frameworks and APIs. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Software pipelines and SOA; releasing the power of multi-core processing.

Isaacson, a software consultant and noted technology writer, explains how SOA environments can benefit from the Software Pipeline model by providing a more flexible application for parallel processing. Written for IT personnel who need to extract better performance from multi-core servers, this book describes the steps for removing bottle necks in existing server processes regardless of the industry or programming language. Code examples are provided for implementing the author's "Pipelines Patterns" for SOA, and a companion website offers additional source codes, sample templates and tools. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)