Hands-On Visual Studio 2022. A developer's guide to new features and best practices with .NET 8 and VS 2022 for maximum productivity - Second Edition

Hector Uriel Perez Rojas, Miguel Angel Teheran Garcia

Visual Studio 2022 is widely recognized as the best IDE for application development across various domains. This book is a comprehensive guide for both beginners and experienced .NET developers who wish to familiarize themselves with its basic, advanced, and new features.This book is divided into three sections: the first is an overview of Visual Studio, the second part explores tools for productivity within the IDE, and the third delves into integration with GitHub and Visual Studio extensions.In this second edition, we’ve also expanded the chapters on the use of Visual Studio to environments beyond web development, such as Azure, Desktop, .NET MAUI, and others. Updates to the IDE introduced since the release year of the first edition of the book in 2022 have also been included, such as the use of GPT-based extensions like GitHub Copilot and GitHub Copilot Chat, as well as profiling tools.The book reviews breakpoint groups, a new way to configure breakpoints, as well as tools for web development, such as Browser Link, Dev Tunnels, and Web API Endpoints Explorer. For more advanced developers, the book addresses the topic of developing extensions through the use of the new Visual Studio SDK. By the end of this book, you’ll have a better understanding of Visual Studio 2022 and how to use it to its fullest potential.

Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development. Get to know techniques and approaches to procedurally generate game content in C++ using Simple and Fast Multimedia Library

Dale Green

Procedural generation is a growing trend in game development. It allows developers to create games that are bigger and more dynamic, giving the games a higher level of replayability. Procedural generation isn’t just one technique, it’s a collection of techniques and approaches that are used together to create dynamic systems and objects. C++ is the industry-standard programming language to write computer games. It’s at the heart of most engines, and is incredibly powerful. SFML is an easy-to-use, cross-platform, and open-source multimedia library. Access to computer hardware is broken into succinct modules, making it a great choice if you want to develop cross-platform games with ease.Using C++ and SFML technologies, this book will guide you through the techniques and approaches used to generate content procedurally within game development. Throughout the course of this book, we’ll look at examples of these technologies, starting with setting up a roguelike project using the C++ template. We’ll then move on to using RNG with C++ data types and randomly scattering objects within a game map. We will create simple console examples to implement in a real game by creating unique and randomised game items, dynamic sprites, and effects, and procedurally generating game events. Then we will walk you through generating random game maps. At the end, we will have a retrospective look at the project. By the end of the book, not only will you have a solid understanding of procedural generation, but you’ll also have a working roguelike game that you will have extended using the examples provided.

TensorFlow 2 Reinforcement Learning Cookbook. Over 50 recipes to help you build, train, and deploy learning agents for real-world applications

Palanisamy P

With deep reinforcement learning, you can build intelligent agents, products, and services that can go beyond computer vision or perception to perform actions. TensorFlow 2.x is the latest major release of the most popular deep learning framework used to develop and train deep neural networks (DNNs). This book contains easy-to-follow recipes for leveraging TensorFlow 2.x to develop artificial intelligence applications.Starting with an introduction to the fundamentals of deep reinforcement learning and TensorFlow 2.x, the book covers OpenAI Gym, model-based RL, model-free RL, and how to develop basic agents. You'll discover how to implement advanced deep reinforcement learning algorithms such as actor-critic, deep deterministic policy gradients, deep-Q networks, proximal policy optimization, and deep recurrent Q-networks for training your RL agents. As you advance, you’ll explore the applications of reinforcement learning by building cryptocurrency trading agents, stock/share trading agents, and intelligent agents for automating task completion. Finally, you'll find out how to deploy deep reinforcement learning agents to the cloud and build cross-platform apps using TensorFlow 2.x.By the end of this TensorFlow book, you'll have gained a solid understanding of deep reinforcement learning algorithms and their implementations from scratch.

Implementing Azure DevOps Solutions. Learn about Azure DevOps Services to successfully apply DevOps strategies

Henry Been, Maik van der Gaag

Implementing Azure DevOps Solutions helps DevOps engineers and administrators to leverage Azure DevOps Services to master practices such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), containerization, and zero downtime deployments.This book starts with the basics of continuous integration, continuous delivery, and automated deployments. You will then learn how to apply configuration management and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) along with managing databases in DevOps scenarios. Next, you will delve into fitting security and compliance with DevOps. As you advance, you will explore how to instrument applications, and gather metrics to understand application usage and user behavior. The latter part of this book will help you implement a container build strategy and manage Azure Kubernetes Services. Lastly, you will understand how to create your own Azure DevOps organization, along with covering quick tips and tricks to confidently apply effective DevOps practices.By the end of this book, you’ll have gained the knowledge you need to ensure seamless application deployments and business continuity.

JMeter Cookbook. 70 insightful and practical recipes to help you successfully use Apache JMeter

Bayo Erinle

Democratizing RPA with Power Automate Desktop. Boost your productivity by implementing best practices for automating repetitive desktop processes

Peter Krause

Whether you want to organize simple files or perform more complex consolidations between different Office programs and remote-control applications that don't allow outside access, Power Automate Desktop helps meet these challenges. This book shows you how to leverage this workflow automation platform by explaining the underlying RPA concepts in a step-by-step way.You’ll start with simple flows that can be easily recorded and further processed using the built-in recorder. Later, you’ll learn how to use the more advanced actions to automate folder and file management and enable Office programs to interact with each other. You’ll also get to grips with integrating desktop flows into other cloud environments and further enhance their value using AI. As you progress, you’ll understand how flows can run unattended and how they are managed in the Power Platform, as well as key concepts such as creating, modifying, debugging, and error-handling UI flows. Finally, the book will guide you to use Process Automation Designer (PAD) in conjunction with your frequently used desktop systems to automate routine tasks.By the end of this book, you’ll have become a Power Automate Desktop expert, automating both professional and personal tasks.

Mastering jBPM6. Design, build, and deploy business process-centric applications using the cutting-edge jBPM technology stack

Simone Fiorini, Arun V Gopalakrishnan

BPEL and Java Cookbook. Written by an SOA guru to help you orchestrate web services, the 100 recipes in this book will make integrating Java and BPEL a smooth process. Using the examples you'll avoid common problems and learn sophisticated techniques

Jurij Laznik

The Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) has become the de-facto standard for orchestrating web services. BPEL and web services are both clamped into Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). Development of efficient SOA composites too often requires usage of other technologies or languages, like Java. This Cookbook explains through the use of examples how to efficiently integrate BPEL with custom Java functionality.If you need to use BPEL programming to develop web services in SOA development, this book is for you.BPEL and Java Cookbook will show you how to efficiently integrate custom Java functionality into BPEL processes. Based on practical examples, this book shows you the solutions to a number of issues developers come across when designing SOA composite applications. The integration between the two technologies is shown two-fold; the book focuses on the ways that Java utilizes the BPEL and vice-versa.With this book, you will take a journey through a number of recipes that solve particular problems with developing SOA composite applications. Each chapter works on a different set of recipes in a specific area. The recipes cover the whole lifecycle of developing SOA composites: from specification, through design, testing and deployment.BPEL and Java Cookbook starts off with recipes that cover initiation of BPEL from Java and vice-versa. It then moves on to logging and tracing facilities, validation and transformation of BPEL servers, embedding of third-party Java libraries into BPEL. It also covers manipulation with variables in BPEL different techniques of Java code wrapping for web service usage and utilization of XML fa?ßades.After reading BPEL and Java Cookbook you will be able to circumvent many of the issues that developers experience during SOA composite application development. 

Effective Angular. Develop applications of any size by effectively using Angular with Nx, RxJS, NgRx, and Cypress

Roberto Heckers

Angular is an open-source, front-end framework used to build web applications using TypeScript. Angular is a component-based framework, which means you build apps by developing and composing reusable components. This framework has all the built-in features needed to develop complex, feature-rich web apps. Written by an Angular specialist working with some of the top companies in the Netherlands, this book teaches you how to harness the full potential of the Angular framework.You’ll explore different front-end architecture designs and set up a scalable environment for Angular applications and libraries using Nx, before taking a deep dive into the framework's newest and most powerful features. Next, you’ll learn to manipulate the Document Object Model (DOM) with Angular directives, pipes, and animations, and build reusable components like a pro. The book spotlights best practices and flags potential pitfalls at every step of the way. You’ll also learn design patterns that fit well when using the Angular framework, reactive programming with RxJS and Angular signals, and how to manage application states effectively. The book teaches you about accessibility, testing, and optimizing your app for deployment.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use Angular effectively to build enterprise-ready, scalable front-end applications.

Python for ArcGIS Pro. Automate cartography and data analysis using ArcPy, ArcGIS API for Python, Notebooks, and pandas

Silas Toms, Bill Parker, Dr. Christopher Tucker, René Rubalcava

Integrating Python into your day-to-day ArcGIS work is highly recommended when dealing with large amounts of geospatial data. Python for ArcGIS Pro aims to help you get your work done faster, with greater repeatability and higher confidence in your results.Starting from programming basics and building in complexity, two experienced ArcGIS professionals-turned-Python programmers teach you how to incorporate scripting at each step: automating the production of maps for print, managing data between ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online, creating custom script tools for sharing, and then running data analysis and visualization on top of the ArcGIS geospatial library, all using Python.You’ll use ArcGIS Pro Notebooks to explore and analyze geospatial data, and write data engineering scripts to manage ongoing data processing and data transfers. This exercise-based book also includes three rich real-world case studies, giving you an opportunity to apply and extend the concepts you studied earlier.Irrespective of your expertise level with Esri software or the Python language, you’ll benefit from this book’s hands-on approach, which takes you through the major uses of Python for ArcGIS Pro to boost your ArcGIS productivity.

3D Printing with SketchUp. Use SketchUp to generate print-ready models and transform your project from concept to reality - Second Edition

Aaron Dietzen aka 'The SketchUp Guy'

Working with the amazing 3D printing technology and getting access to the printing hardware is now easier than ever before. While there are many other resources that cover the general process of 3D printing, this book is the ultimate guide to creating models for 3D printing using SketchUp.You’ll start with a basic understanding of how SketchUp is used in the 3D printing workflow and jump into the steps to create a print-ready model using only SketchUp. This 3D printing book will guide you in using SketchUp to modify existing 3D files and cover additional tools that make SketchUp an even more powerful modeling tool. As you advance, you’ll learn how to transform 2D images into 3D printable solids, how to create multi-part prints that can be assembled without the use of fasteners or glue, and how to make sure your model, whether designed from scratch or assembled from preexisting geometry, is ready to be made real via your 3D printer.By the end of this book, you’ll have the confidence to bring your design ideas to life by generating your own 3D print-ready models with SketchUp.

Practical WebAssembly. Explore the fundamentals of WebAssembly programming using Rust

Sendil Kumar Nellaiyapen

Rust is an open source language tuned toward safety, concurrency, and performance. WebAssembly brings all the capabilities of the native world into the JavaScript world. Together, Rust and WebAssembly provide a way to create robust and performant web applications. They help make your web applications blazingly fast and have small binaries. Developers working with JavaScript will be able to put their knowledge to work with this practical guide to developing faster and maintainable code.Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, examples, and self-assessment questions, you’ll begin by exploring WebAssembly, using the various tools provided by the ecosystem, and understanding how to use WebAssembly and JavaScript together to build a high-performing application. You’ll then learn binary code to work with a variety of tools that help you to convert native code into WebAssembly. The book will introduce you to the world of Rust and the ecosystem that makes it easy to build/ship WebAssembly-based applications.By the end of this WebAssembly Rust book, you’ll be able to create and ship your own WebAssembly applications using Rust and JavaScript, understand how to debug, and use the right tools to optimize and deliver high-performing applications.

Mastering Modern Web Penetration Testing. Master the art of conducting modern pen testing attacks and techniques on your web application before the hacker does!

Prakhar Prasad, Rafay Baloch

Web penetration testing is a growing, fast-moving, and absolutely critical field in information security. This book executes modern web application attacks and utilises cutting-edge hacking techniques with an enhanced knowledge of web application security.We will cover web hacking techniques so you can explore the attack vectors during penetration tests. The book encompasses the latest technologies such as OAuth 2.0, Web API testing methodologies and XML vectors used by hackers. Some lesser discussed attack vectors such as RPO (relative path overwrite), DOM clobbering, PHP Object Injection and etc. has been covered in this book.We'll explain various old school techniques in depth such as XSS, CSRF, SQL Injection through the ever-dependable SQLMap and reconnaissance. Websites nowadays provide APIs to allow integration with third party applications, thereby exposing a lot of attack surface, we cover testing of these APIs using real-life examples. This pragmatic guide will be a great benefit and will help you prepare fully secure applications.

Instant IntroJs. Learn how to work with the IntroJs library to create useful, step-by-step help and introductions for websites and applications

Ehsan Arasteh, Afshin Mehrabani

IntroJs is a JavaScript and CSS3 library, used to create simple step-by-step help pages or introductions for websites and applications to show the users new features or whole application parts quickly and concisely. Instant IntroJs is a reference to get started with IntroJs right away.Instant IntroJs teaches you how to work with key IntroJs methods and events to create awesome step-by-step introductions. This book contains numerous examples of introductions and help pages with detailed explanations. It also shows you how to customize the library with your preferred stylesheet or integrate it with other server-side frameworks.Instant IntroJs teaches you how to work with the IntroJs API, methods, and events to create step-by-step introductions for websites and applications.This book will give you the knowledge to make the preferred changes to IntroJs in order to build a customized introduction. Instant IntroJs provides many examples of introductions and helps you with using HTML attributes and JSON configurations, as well as some descriptions about how to use and integrate IntroJs with other server-side libraries, such as Ruby on Rails and PHP Yii. You will be provided with information about the latest features of IntroJs that include multi-page introductions, creating introductions using JSON configuration and HTML attributes, methods to change or customize the library, and more.Instant IntroJs provides full and detailed examples of step-by-step introductions to help you easily learn and use the latest version of the IntroJs library.

Software Testing Strategies. A testing guide for the 2020s

Matthew Heusser, Michael Larsen

In today’s world, software is everywhere—from entertainment apps to mission-critical systems that support our health, finance, and infrastructure. Testing plays a vital role in ensuring these systems work reliably. Whether you're a software developer, hobbyist, or IT professional, this book will guide you in mastering the art of testing. It’s about asking the right What if? questions, uncovering vulnerabilities, and ensuring software performs as expected throughout its lifecycle. Testing isn't just about automation; it’s a human-driven, creative process that requires skill, and a deep understanding of software behavior. With practical examples and expert insights, this book helps you craft your own test strategies and explore novel approaches to problem-solving in the testing world. With its help, you’ll hone your testing skills with techniques and methodologies rather than tool-based solutions. Authored by experts Matt Heusser and Michael Larson, the book provides valuable strategies for making testing both effective and engaging. Matt is known for his leadership in project rescue initiatives, while Michael’s work in accessibility testing has helped shape industry standards. By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped to enhance your testing practices and ensure high-quality software in an ever-evolving tech landscape.

Responsive Web Design by Example : Beginner's Guide. Build powerful and engaging responsive websites with ease

Thoriq Firdaus