“Two thumbs up”

–Gregory V. Wilson, Dr. Dobbs Journal (October 2004)

No one can disparage the ability to write good code. At its highest levels, it is an art.

But no one can confuse writing good code with developing good software. The difference–in terms of challenges, skills, and compensation–is immense.

Coder to Developer helps you excel at the many non-coding tasks entailed, from start to finish, in just about any successful development project. What’s more, it equips you with the mindset and self-assurance required to pull it all together, so that you see every piece of your work as part of a coherent process. Inside, you’ll find plenty of technical guidance on such topics as:

Choosing and using a source code control system
Code generation tools–when and why
Preventing bugs with unit testing
Tracking, fixing, and learning from bugs
Application activity logging
Streamlining and systematizing the build process
Traditional installations and alternative approaches

To pull all of this together, the author has provided the source code for Download Tracker, a tool for organizing your collection of downloaded code, that’s used for examples throughout this book. The code is provided in various states of completion, reflecting every stage of development, so that you can dig deep into the actual process of building software. But you’ll also develop “softer” skills, in areas such as team management, open source collaboration, user and developer documentation, and intellectual property protection. If you want to become someone who can deliver not just good code but also a good product, this book is the place to start. If you must build successful software projects, it’s essential reading.

The Rational Unified Process is a powerful tool for improving software development — but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Today’s development organizations need to extend RUP to cover the entire IT lifecycle, including the cross-project and enterprise issues it largely ignores. The Enterprise Unified Process (EUP) does precisely that, enabling you to deliver systems that meet all the needs of today’s businesses. Now, EUP’s creator and architects present the definitive introduction to EUP, and demonstrate how to use it in your environment.The Enterprise Unified Process
systematically identifies the business and technical problems that RUP fails to address, and shows how EUP fills those gaps. Using actual examples and case studies, the authors introduce processes and disciplines for producing new software, implementing strategic reuse, “sunsetting” obsolete code and systems, managing software portfolios,
and much more. Their independent, “tool agnostic” coverage will be indispensable no matter which RUP products or platforms you’ve invested in.

If you’ve asked someone the secret to writing efficient, well-written software, the answer that you’ve probably gotten is “learn assembly language programming.” By learning assembly language programming, you learn how the machine really operates and that knowledge will help you write better high-level language code. A dirty little secret assembly language programmers rarely admit to, however, is that what you really need to learn is machine organization, not assembly language programming. Write Great Code Vol I, the first in a series from assembly language expert Randall Hyde, dives right into machine organization without the extra overhead of learning assembly language programming at the same time. And since Write Great Code Vol I concentrates on the machine organization, not assembly language, the reader will learn in greater depth those subjects that are language-independent and of concern to a high level language programmer. Write Great Code Vol I will help programmers make wiser choices with respect to programming statements and data types when writing software, no matter which language they use.

Eclipse is more than a state-of-the-art IDE: its Rich Client Platform (RCP) plug-ins form an outstanding foundation for any desktop application, from chat applications to enterprise software front-ends. In Eclipse Rich Client Platform, two leaders of the Eclipse RCP project show exactly how to leverage Eclipse for rapid, efficient, ross-platform desktop development.

In addition to explaining the power of Eclipse as a desktop application development platform, the authors walk step-by-step through developing a fully featured, branded
RCP application. They introduce a wide range of techniques, including developing pluggable and dynamically extensible systems, using third-party code libraries, and packaging applications for diverse environments. You’ll build, refine, and refactor a complete prototype; customize the user interface; add Help and Update features; and build, brand, and ship the finished software.

• For every Java developer, regardless of previous Eclipse experience
• Thoroughly covers Eclipse 3.1’s new RCP features and its extensive new
  tools for designing, coding, and packaging RCP applications
• Presents techniques for branding and customizing the look and feel of RCP applications
• Shows how to overcome the challenges and “rough edges” of RCP development
• Discusses the similarities and differences between RCP and conventional plug-in development
• Includes an overview of OSGi, the base execution framework for Eclipse

Unleashing the Power of Integrated Service Delivery

Harris Kern’s Enterprise Computing Institute Solutions for IT Professionals

Delighting IT customers: the real-world, start-to-finish guide

IT Services is the first 100% customer-focused guide to satisfying the consumers of your company’s IT services � and building the loyalty your IT organization needs. In this book, three leading IT professionals present a fully integrated, comprehensive approach to service delivery in today’s global, distributed environments.

You’ll discover how to establish processes, service and cost models, performance measurements, and “stretch” goals that achieve clear business benefits-and then transform those goals into reality.

• Proven results, benchmarks, and case studies � not just theory!
• Linking goal-setting, process development, and metrics to the goals of the enterprise � step-by-step
• Gaining buy-in from management, internal customers, and external suppliers
• Building stable, predictable and cost-effective application support infrastructures
• Structuring support services for maximum effectiveness

Applicable to both in-house and outsourced operations, IT Services offers a total roadmap for executives building enterprise-wide operations centers; practical help for managers seeking to deliver cost-effective support; and invaluable insight for IT “customers” who need to know what they can expect from their technology professionals.

This technological manual explores how software engineering principles
can be used in tandem with software development tools to produce
economical and reliable software that is faster and more accurate.
Tools and techniques provided include the Unified Process for GIS
application development, service-based approaches to business and
information technology alignment, and an integrated model of
application and software security. Current methods and future
possibilities for software design are covered.

In today�s global economy, there are clear advantages to developing
applications that can meet the needs of users across a wide variety of
languages, countries, and cultures. Discover how to develop for the
whole world with the second edition of this classic guide�now
completely revised and updated to cover the latest techniques and
insights, and designed for anyone who wants to write world-ready code
for the Microsoft� Windows� 2000 and Windows XP platforms. It explains
how to localize applications easily and inexpensively, determine
important culture-specific issues, avoid international pitfalls and
legal issues, use the best available technologies and coding practices,
and more. It covers all of the essentials for developing international
software�while revealing the hard-earned collective wisdom of the
Microsoft international teams. Topics covered include:

� Introduction: Understanding internationalization and designing a world-ready program
� Globalization: Unicode; locale and cultural awareness; text input, output, and display; multilingual user interface (MUI)
� Localizability: Software localizability guidelines, mirroring, and content localizability guidelines
�
Localization and testing: Localization, testing for world-readiness,
sample international test cases, and testing localizability with
pseudolocalization
� Tools and technologies: Graphics Device
Interface Plus (GDI+), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Microsoft
Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft Office, MLang, Microsoft
Layer for Unicode (MSLU), The Microsoft .NET Framework, OpenType�
Fonts, RichEdit, Microsoft SQL Server�, Text Services Framework (TSF),
Uniscribe, Microsoft Visual Studio� .NET, Extensible Markup Language
(XML)

“If you are new to shaders, there is no better way to learn the topic
than to have an expert guide you from beginning to end. Ron Fosner is
that guide and his well-crafted book will help you to become a
competent shader programmer.”

Dave Eberly, President, Magic Software, Inc., and author of 3D Game Engine Design.

“Real-Time
Shader Programming by Ron Fosner has everything you need: well-written
background sections, insightful comments, and lots of useful and
well-explained code from which to build your own shaders.”

Franz Lanzinger, President, Actual Entertainment, Inc.

“Fosner’sReal-Time
Shader Programming provides a timely and complete resource that will
introduce newcomers to the excitement of writing their own custom
shaders, but will also grow with them and remain an essential reference
companion for even the seasoned shader developer.”

Martin
Reddy, Graphics Software Engineer at “a Large Animation Studio in
Northern California” and author of Level of Detail for Computer
Graphics

To even try to keep pace with the rapid evolution of game development,
you need a strong foundation in core programming techniques-not a hefty
volume on one narrow topic or one that devotes itself to API-specific
implementations. Finally, there’s a guide that delivers! As a professor
at the Spanish university that offered that country’s first master’s
degree in video game creation, author Daniel Sanchez-Crespo
recognizes that there’s a core programming curriculum every game
designer should be well versed in-and he’s outlined it in these pages!
By focusing on time-tested coding techniques-and providing code samples
that use C++, and the OpenGL and DirectX APIs-Daniel has
produced a guide whose shelf life will extend long beyond the latest
industry trend. Code design, data structures, design patterns, AI,
scripting engines, 3D pipelines, texture mapping, and more: They’re all
covered here-in clear, coherent fashion and with a focus on the
essentials that will have you referring back to this volume for years
to come.