Issue: Newsletters

When agile teams don’t get immediate results, it’s tempting for them to fall back into old habits that make success even less likely. In Being Agile, Leslie Ekas and Scott Will present eleven powerful techniques for rapidly gaining substantial value from agile, making agile methods stick, and launching a “virtuous circle” of continuous improvement. Drawing on their experience helping more than 100 teams transition to agile, the authors review its key principles, identif...y corresponding practices, and offer breakthrough approaches for implementing them. Using their techniques, you can break typical waterfall patterns and go beyond merely “doing agile” to actually thinking and being agile.See More

To leverage the full power of XML, companies need shared vocabularies to base their documents and scripts upon. XML Schema makes it possible to create those shared vocabularies-and Definitive XML Schema is the authoritative guide to the standard! Written by Priscilla Walmsley, a member of the W3C working group that created XML Schema, this book explains the W3C Recommendation with unprecedented insight and clarity–and introduces practical techniques for writing schemas t...o support any B2B, Web service, or content processing application.See More

Learning iOS Developmentis the perfect first book for every new iOS 7 developer. It delivers a complete foundation for iOS development, including an introduction to the Objective-C language, Xcode development tools, best-practice user interface development, and best practices for all aspects of app development and deployment. Throughout Learning iOS Development, you explore the iOS development process as you create and expand a handy car valet app. The hands-on pro...jects enable you to create meaningful code as soon as possible, building confidence and mastery. The annotated code listings work with all the latest iOS technology, so you'll be ready to jump into this exciting development field. With Learning iOS Development, it's easy to learn at your own pace, on your own--or to deepen the knowledge you may be gaining in a classroom or workplace. See More

The agile software movement has now been around for a full decade. As coauthor of the original Agile Manifesto, Jim Highsmith has been at its heart since the beginning. He's spent the past decade helping hundreds of organizations transition to agile/lean. When it comes to agile, he's seen it all–in a variety of industries, worldwide. Now, in Adaptive Leadership, he has compiled, updated, and extended his best writings about agile and lean methods for a management audi...ence. Highsmith doesn't just reveal what’s working and what isn't; he offers a powerful new vision for extending agility across the enterprise. Drawing on what's been learned in application development, this guide shows how to use adaptive leadership techniques to transform the way you deliver complete solutions, whatever form they take. You'll learn how enterprise agility can enable the ambitious organizational missions that matter most; how leaders can deliver a continuous stream of value; how to think disruptively about opportunities, and how to respond quickly by creating more adaptive, innovative organizations.See More

A rapid, easy-to-understand approach to delivering a secure, resilient, easy-to-manage, SLA-driven cloud experience. Designing Networks and Services for the Cloud helps you understand the design and architecture of networks and network services that enable the delivery of business-grade cloud services. Drawing on more than 40 years of experience in network and cloud design, validation, and deployment, the authors demonstrate how networks spanning from the Enterprise b...ranch/HQ and the service provider Next-Generation Networks (NGN) to the data center fabric play a key role in addressing the primary inhibitors to cloud adoption–security, performance, and management complexity. See More

This series introduces five steps for solving memory problems in .NET. We start with understanding symptoms and getting set up, then walk through the four main types of memory issue we hear about from the community and our customers. We'll present some of the theory behind fixing the issues, as well as details of how people have solved them in practice. In this article, we're giving an introduction to the types of problem you might encounter, and the general troublesh...ooting workflow that will help.See More

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, learn how to build rich, robust mobile apps that run on smartphones, tablets, and other devices and interact with users in powerful new ways. Using this book’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll master leading-edge practical skills you can use whether you’re developing for the iPad/iPhone or Android. Discover how to quickly build new mobile apps and upgrade older apps, provide cutting-edge media content, leverage advan...ced features ranging from geolocation to the semantic web, and even simplify complex back-end development. Each lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success!See More

Windows Phone 8 Development Succinctly by Matteo Pagani is one of the latest titles in Syncfusion's acclaimed Succinctly series of technical e-books. It introduces the platform and many of its features to get new developers up and running with their own Windows Phone applications. Go from displaying a simple "Hello World" message to creating an app thoroughly integrated with the operating system and hardware to to deliver a unique user experience. This book can be downlo...aded in its entirety for free from Syncfusion's Technology Resource Portal.See More

Visual Studio 2013 brings many new improvements to the popular integrated development environment, including the long-awaited synchronized settings and notifications. With author Alessandro Del Sole as your guide, you will learn how to harness these features for increased productivity and efficiency. For novices and returning experts alike, Visual Studio 2013 Succinctly offers a point of entry into one of Microsoft's most powerful tools.

Author Frederik Dietz uses AngularJS Succinctly to outline common tasks and challenges for developers using Angular.js. With his help, novices and experts alike will find a reference that clearly outlines a variety of challenges, their solutions, and technical explanations for how the challenges are overcome. Whether you are a novice looking to understand Angular.js or an expert seeking a reference guide, AngularJS Succinctly is indispensable.

Java retains its object-oriented roots, but has added many functional programming constructs to help it better manage parallel processing. Java expert Steven Haines reviews the must-know features added to Java SE 8.

This chapter introduces direct manipulation interfaces that go far beyond prebuilt controls. By the time you finish reading this chapter, you'll have read about many different ways you can implement gesture control in your own applications.

You won't need a hammer or a screwdriver; maybe you'll need a tape measure—though preferably one in digital form on the top and side of your computer screen. Like any job, there's an established set of tools that most interaction and interface designers use to create their projects. Programs such as Photoshop, Balsamiq, xScope, and others are critical components of the interface-building process. In this chapter you'll find a general strategic outlay for planning the des...ign of a mobile application. Using the steps and techniques presented, you'll be prepared for the different phases a design evolves through during its infancy, before a programmer writes the first lines of code.See More

In Node.js Succinctly, Microsoft MVP Agus Kurniawan leads you through the fundamentals of using Node.js to speed up your JavaScript-based applications. This informative e-book will take you from Hello World to "if…then" decisions, all the way to real-time data monitoring. You'll learn how to use Node.js to build modules, declare JSON data objects, and create entire web-based applications. The basics of socket and database programming with Node.js are also covered.

This chapter begins by presenting two patterns that you can use for servlet/JSP web development. Then, it shows how to use the second pattern, which is known as the MVC pattern, to structure a web application. There are several advantages to this approach, and it's generally considered a best practice.

Markus shows us why virtualization gets a bad reputation and how to clean it up.

The sizing and positioning of elements is called layout. Within the parent/child relationship between elements, this chapter focuses on the children, examining the common ways that you can control layout on a child-by-child basis.

We have been helping customers convert Visual FoxPro systems to different platforms (mainly .NET and SQL Server, but there are others) for the better part of two decades. During that time, we have provided numerous articles, presentations, and training classes. Articles range from high-level road maps to in-depth, detailed technical articles. As time has passed, VFP conversion techniques and options have evolved. With that, we feel it is time to take a look at the big picture once again.

High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight.

Master a powerful and flexible ORM with support for database engines including Microsoft SQL, Oracle, MySQL, and more.

Stephen B. Morris describes how to get started with MongoDB and Python. As usual with Python, you can get productive quickly, without worrying about complex IDEs. MongoDB has a simple data model and easy-to-understand semantics, giving you a handy on-ramp to this interesting technology.

Reduce the amount of work needed to produce well-designed solutions by mastering Microsoft Prism 4!

In Part 1 of a two-part series, Jesse Smith gives you a solid introduction to AngularJS and how the framework is used to create simple web applications.

In Part 2 of this series, programming expert Jesse Smith continues his discussion of AngularJS by exploring modules and services.

In Part 3 of a 4-part series, programming expert Jesse Smith shows you how to use web forms validation the easy way with AngularJS to validate and prepare data before posting to a database.

Functional programming is fundamentally different from imperative programming. As such, it provides a unique approach to solving problems—one that requires developers to transform how they think about software design and implementation. With Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly by Marc Clifton, you will learn many of the basic concepts involved with functional programming, such as currying, partial application, function pipelines, recursion, and continuations.... By book's end, you will learn how to combine functional and imperative programming to get the most out of your solutions.See More

Windows Azure network services provide the foundation for building hybrid cloud solutions for your business. Windows Azure Virtual Network lets you securely connect your cloud infrastructure to your on-premises datacenter. Windows Azure Traffic Manager allows you to control how user traffic is distributed to cloud services. Windows Azure also includes a name resolution service you can use for internal hostname resolution within a cloud service. This chapter provides an ...overview of the different network services in Windows Azure and includes insights from product team experts concerning how these services relate to one another, what you can do with them, and how you can use them.See More

Learn to write applications that support different languages and cultures, with an emphasis on .NET development.

In the last chapter, you learned about some of the SQL statements that you can use to work with the data in a relational database. Before you learn the details of coding these statements, however, you need to learn how to work with an Oracle database and how to use Oracle SQL Developer to enter and execute SQL statements. It's also helpful to know how to use the SQL Reference manual.

This section teaches you the essential SQL coding skills for working with the data in an Oracle database. The first four chapters show you how to retrieve data from a database using the SELECT statement. In chapter 3, you’ll learn how to code the basic clauses of the SELECT statement to retrieve data from a single table.

After a decade of innovation in technology and practice, SOA is now a mainstream computing discipline, capable of transforming IT enterprises and optimizing business automation. In Next Generation SOA, top-selling SOA author Thomas Erl and a team of experts present a plain-English tour of SOA, service-orientation, and the key service technologies being used to build sophisticated contemporary service-oriented solutions.

Since 1996, Dreamweaver has been the leading product for web developers who want to build web pages by using a visual interface instead of writing the HTML code themselves. Now, Dreamweaver CC 2014 takes that to a new level, with tools that make it easier than ever to take advantage of today's best web design practices, like the use of HTML5 semantics, external style sheets, CSS3, and Responsive Web Design. But any program that's so comprehensive is going to be comple...x! So the trick is mastering what all of Dreamweaver's windows, panels, toolbars, and web technologies do, and then incorporating all that with the design skills that you need to create your own websites. That's where this book comes in. Unlike other Dreamweaver books, this one blends all of the skills that you need to build inviting, standards-compliant, and accessible websites today.See More

Learn the new and improved features in the latest version of Twitter Bootstrap. Author Peter Shaw builds on his work on Twitter Bootstrap 2 Succinctly to provide up-to-date information on the latest version of the software. With Twitter Bootstrap 3 Succinctly, developers will transition smoothly into the newest version of Twitter Bootstrap, which boasts an emphasis on mobile development.

In the last chapter, you learned some basic CSS properties for formatting text. Now, you’ll learn the properties for controlling the spacing between elements and for displaying borders and backgrounds. Specifically, you'll learn how to use the CSS box model for those purposes.

LINQ speeds up coding and database queries in C#. This guide takes us through the concepts and practical use.

In CSS3 Succinctly, author Peter Shaw provides an overview of the latest features available for custom cascading style sheets. You’ll learn to style several components of an HTML document, including color, size, layout, font, position, and more. Basic content generation, gradients, and calculations are also covered.

If you are a developer of embeddable software, or are looking to follow best practices, you have a few options for how to architect security within your own product. In this article, Izenda Software Architect Mason Costa compares available methods and uses the example of abstracting security to demonstrate not only best practices, but as a way for programmers to provide extensibility while avoiding the burdens posed by custom implementations.

In this book, we will look at a popular integration platform called RabbitMQ. RabbitMQ is a powerful message broker and queuing system that allows you to integrate systems together so that they are robust, reliable, and can scale with your business. We will focus on .NET and C# in this book but RabbitMQ is a cross-platform system with client libraries for most popular development platforms. This makes RabbitMQ a compelling solution for integrating systems developed in... any number of languages and platforms.See More

Most systems do not exist in isolation, instead they must interact with other systems in some fashion. Furthermore, there is very little "greenfield" development where you build a new system from scratch, instead the vast majority of software development is more along the lines of "brownfield" efforts where you improve upon an existing system(s). When you are building a system you must identify the potential interactions it will have with other existing computing assets,... and identify what you will build upon, to reuse those legacy assets effectively. The documentation which describes how to interface to an external system is referred to as a contract model in Agile Modeling. If the contract model(s) exist, and are up-to-date, then you should consider yourself lucky. In many organizations legacy systems are poorly documented, if documented at all, leaving it up to the first team to come along to update the documentation at least to the level at which they require it. This effort is often referred to as "legacy system analysis".See More

This section gets you started quickly with Java programming. First, chapter 1 introduces you to some concepts and terms that apply to Java development. In addition, it shows you how to use the NetBeans IDE to open and run existing projects.

When it comes to Web development, JavaScript frameworks have moved front and center in the mainstream in the last year and a half or so. When looking at building modern Web applications, the bar has been raised significantly by what is possible in large part due to the more accessible mainstream frameworks that are available today to build rich client and mobile Web applications. Although full featured end to end front end JavaScript frameworks have been around for quite... a bit longer than just the last couple of years, it seems in the last year and half they really established themselves in the Web developer mainstream with extremely wide ranging uptake that happened very quickly. Clearly these JavaScript frameworks have a hit a nerve with the developer mainstream, scratching an itch that developers have wanted to scratch for some time, but didn't quite have the tools to do so easily. Frameworks have filled that niche and caused a lot of developers that previously avoided complex JavaScript development to jump in head first.See More

In Part 1 of this series I talked about the current state of JavaScript frameworks and how in many ways JavaScript frameworks have become the new baseline for developing client centric Web applications or Single Page Applications. Due to the complexities involved in building complex client side applications using JavaScript and HTML, frameworks have just about become a necessity to effectively building any non-trivial application.

One of the most effective ways to obtain feedback from beta testers is to ask them for it in the form of tasks. A task is a specific activity you can assign to your beta testers that they can perform and report back to you on. You can request testers do everything from installing the product, to updating to a newer version of your software, to requesting feedback on a specific product feature/bug.

You rely on your testers to give you relevant, high-quality feedback about your product. This requires fostering a relationship with them so they feel that they’re being heard and valued.

Brand evangelists can be a powerful force for your product. A brand evangelist is a customer who’s not only a big fan of you and the products you sell, but often makes it their mission to refer or recommend your products to everyone around them.

Learn how to create objects, test and modify their class and instance variables, call an object’s methods, and convert objects from one class to another.

OOP is a powerful concept that solves many problems found in software development. OOP is not the holy grail of programming, but, as we will see throughout this book, it can help in writing code that is easy to read, easy to maintain, easy to update, and easy to expand.

This chapter introduces you to the concepts and terms that you need for developing web applications with PHP. This chapter also shows you how to deploy, edit, and test a PHP application. When you finish this chapter, you’ll have all the background you need for learning how to write the code for PHP applications.

This is the latest edition of our best-selling C# book. It focuses on how to develop professional Windows Forms applications with C#. But along the way, it teaches you the C# language and core skills that you’ll use to develop any C# application...whether for Windows, the web, or mobile devices.

Xamarin is a toolset that allows you to write native mobile apps in C# and run them on both iOS and Android devices. What makes Xamarin stand out from other cross-platform tools is that it gives you the ability to share large portions of code across these two platforms while still letting you write native apps that can take full advantage of the device and OS features specific to each platform. And since Xamarin was recently acquired by Microsoft, you can be sure the eco...system will continue to grow - Xamarin has become a hugely important part of Microsoft's "any developer, any platform" mantra. Xamarin in Action teaches you how to build Xamarin apps on iOS and Android from scratch while maximizing code re-use. This layer-by-layer guide starts by showing you the MVVM design pattern and explaining how it increases code sharing. Next, you'll start building an app from the ground up. You'll learn all the different layers inside a well written Xamarin app and discover how most of your code can be shared between iOS and Android. You'll look at how this code sharing can be best designed to allow unit testing of your business layer as well as your UI logic. Then you'll dig in to code that can’t be shared, like user interface code that's device specific. Finally, you'll learn how to take your app from final code to a tested and deployed version on the relevant store. By the end, you'll be able to build a high quality production-ready Xamarin app on iOS and Android from scratch with a high level of code reuse. See More