Unity Animation Essentials. Bring your characters to life with the latest features of Unity and Mecanim

Alan Thorn

Learning Libgdx Game Development. Are your games limited to one platform? Use our practical guide to libGDX and before long you'll be developing games that run across multiple platforms, enjoying an increased audience and revenue

Andreas Oehlke, Andreas Oehlke

Game development is a field of interdisciplinary skills, which also makes it a very complex topic in many respects. One decision that usually needs to be made at the beginning of a game development processis to define the kind of computer system or platform the game will be developed for. This does not pose any problems in general but as soon as the game should also be able to run on multiple platforms it will become a developer's nightmare to maintain several distinct copies of the same game. This is where the libGDX multi-platform game development framework comes to the rescue!Learning Libgdx Game Development is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with all the information you need to know about the libGDX framework as well as game development in general so you can start developing your own games for multiple platforms. You will gradually acquire deeper knowledge of both, libGDX and game development while you work through twelve easy-to-follow chapters.Learning Libgdx Game Development will walk you through a complete game development cycle by creating an example game that is extended with new features over several chapters. These chapters handle specific topics such as organizing resources, managing game scenes and transitions, actors, a menu system, using an advanced physics engine and many more. The chapters are filled with screenshots and/or diagrams to facilitate comprehension.Learning Libgdx Game Development is the book for you if you want to learn how to write your game code once and run it on a multitude of platforms using libGDX.

Architecting Google Cloud Solutions. Learn to design robust and future-proof solutions with Google Cloud technologies

Victor Dantas

Google has been one of the top players in the public cloud domain thanks to its agility and performance capabilities. This book will help you design, develop, and manage robust, secure, and dynamic solutions to successfully meet your business needs.You'll learn how to plan and design network, compute, storage, and big data systems that incorporate security and compliance from the ground up. The chapters will cover simple to complex use cases for devising solutions to business problems, before focusing on how to leverage Google Cloud's Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) capabilities for designing modern no-operations platforms. Throughout this book, you'll discover how to design for scalability, resiliency, and high availability. Later, you'll find out how to use Google Cloud to design modern applications using microservices architecture, automation, and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) practices. The concluding chapters then demonstrate how to apply machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to derive insights from your data. Finally, you will discover best practices for operating and monitoring your cloud solutions, as well as performing troubleshooting and quality assurance.By the end of this Google Cloud book, you'll be able to design robust enterprise-grade solutions using Google Cloud Platform.

MicroPython Projects. A do-it-yourself guide for embedded developers to build a range of applications using Python

Jacob Beningo

With the increasing complexity of embedded systems seen over the past few years, developers are looking for ways to manage them easily by solving problems without spending a lot of time on finding supported peripherals. MicroPython is an efficient and lean implementation of the Python 3 programming language, which is optimized to run on microcontrollers. MicroPython Projects will guide you in building and managing your embedded systems with ease.This book is a comprehensive project-based guide that will help you build a wide range of projects and give you the confidence to design complex projects spanning new areas of technology such as electronic applications, automation devices, and IoT applications. While building seven engaging projects, you'll learn how to enable devices to communicate with each other, access and control devices over a TCP/IP socket, and store and retrieve data. The complexity will increase progressively as you work on different projects, covering areas such as driver design, sensor interfacing, and MicroPython kernel customization.By the end of this MicroPython book, you'll be able to develop industry-standard embedded systems and keep up with the evolution of the Internet of Things.

Transitioning to Java. Kickstart your polyglot programming journey by getting a clear understanding of Java

Geertjan Wielenga, Ken Fogel, Geertjan Wielenga

This comprehensive guide will help non-Java developers already using different languages transition from their current language to all things Java. The chapters are designed in a way that re-enforces a developer’s existing knowledge of object-oriented methodologies as they apply to Java.This book has been divided into four sections, with each section touching upon different aspects that’ll enable your effective transition. The first section helps you get to grips with the Java development environment and the Maven build tool for modern Java applications. In the second section, you’ll learn about Java language fundamentals, along with exploring object-oriented programming (OOP) methodologies and functional programming and discovering how to implement software design patterns in Java. The third section shows you how to code in Java on different platforms and helps you get familiar with the challenges faced on these platforms. In the fourth section, you’ll find out how you can manage and package your Java code.By the end of this Java programming book, you’ll have learned the core concepts of Java that’ll help you successfully transition from a different language to Java.

Modern Full-Stack React Projects. Build, maintain, and deploy modern web apps using MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js

Daniel Bugl, Matthias Zronek

Understanding full-stack development is vital as companies aim to bridge the gap between frontend and backend development. Recent trends show deeper integration between the two, opening numerous possibilities for building real-world web applications, through server-side technologies like Node.js, Express, and MongoDB. Written by the author of Learning Redux and Learn React Hooks, and CEO of TouchLay, Modern Full-Stack React Projects will guide you through the entire process of advancing from a frontend developer to a full-stack developer. Starting with how to set up robust projects that can be maintained for a long time, you’ll then progress toward developing a backend system and integrating it with the frontend. Throughout the book, you’ll learn how to build, test, and deploy a blog application and a chat application. You’ll also explore MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js (MERN) stack, best practices for frontend and backend development, different full-stack architectures, unit and end-to-end testing, and deployment of full-stack web applications. Once you get to grips with the essential concepts, you’ll progress to learn how to use Next.js, an enterprise-grade full-stack web framework for React. By the end, you’ll be well-versed in the MERN stack and all set to create performant and scalable full-stack web applications.

Mastering IPython 4.0. Complete guide to interactive and parallel computing using IPython 4.0

Thomas Bitterman

IPython is an interactive computational environment in which you can combine code execution, rich text, mathematics, plots, and rich media.This book will get IPython developers up to date with the latest advancements in IPython and dive deep into interactive computing with IPython. This an advanced guide on interactive and parallel computing with IPython will explore advanced visualizations and high-performance computing with IPython in detail. You will quickly brush up your knowledge of IPython kernels and wrapper kernels, then we'?ll move to advanced concepts such as testing, Sphinx, JS events, interactive work, and the ZMQ cluster. The book will cover topics such as IPython Console Lexer, advanced configuration, and third-party tools.By the end of this book, you will be able to use IPython for interactive and parallel computing in a high-performance computing environment.

Microsoft XNA 4.0 Game Development Cookbook. This book goes further than the basic manuals to help you exploit Microsoft XNA to create fantastic virtual worlds and effects in your 2D or 3D games. Includes 35 essential recipes for game developers

Luke Drumm

Microsoft XNA attempts to free game developers from writing repetitive boilerplate code, allowing them to focus on producing enjoyable gameplay rather than tedious and complicated setup. The Framework has reduced the once steep learning curve for game development, transforming it into something more attainable, and this cookbook will help you to take full advantage of XNA to bring reality into your virtual worlds.Microsoft XNA 4.0 Game Development Cookbook is the perfect resource for propelling your game development capabilities from the simple 2D demo towards engaging and exciting, professional looking games. With a diverse selection of game-related topics covered, discover how to create rich 2D and 3D worlds filled with interesting characters, detailed scenery and dynamic special effects applicable to PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7 game play.There is no shortage of introductory texts available for XNA, a number of which are fantastic for getting started with simple 2D games, but Microsoft XNA 4.0 Game Development Cookbookù will help you take the steps to start producing games that have deeper gameplay, compelling graphics and that little bit of extra polish! The book's recipes will get you up and going quickly with the next level of game features such as 3D graphics, AI, and network play.With this practical cookbook to hand, even the more experienced developer will be better equipped to achieve high level tasks with XNA in a quick and efficient manner.

Django 3 Web Development Cookbook. Actionable solutions to common problems in Python web development - Fourth Edition

Aidas Bendoraitis, Jake Kronika

Django is a web framework for perfectionists with deadlines, designed to help you build manageable medium and large web projects in a short time span. This fourth edition of the Django Web Development Cookbook is updated with Django 3's latest features to guide you effectively through the development process.This Django book starts by helping you create a virtual environment and project structure for building Python web apps. You'll learn how to build models, views, forms, and templates for your web apps and then integrate JavaScript in your Django apps to add more features. As you advance, you'll create responsive multilingual websites, ready to be shared on social networks. The book will take you through uploading and processing images, rendering data in HTML5, PDF, and Excel, using and creating APIs, and navigating different data types in Django. You'll become well-versed in security best practices and caching techniques to enhance your website's security and speed. This edition not only helps you work with the PostgreSQL database but also the MySQL database. You'll also discover advanced recipes for using Django with Docker and Ansible in development, staging, and production environments.By the end of this book, you will have become proficient in using Django's powerful features and will be equipped to create robust websites.

Learning NServiceBus. Build reliable and scalable distributed software systems using the industry leading .NET Enterprise Service Bus

David Boike

Raspberry Pi Super Cluster. As a Raspberry Pi enthusiast have you ever considered increasing their performance with parallel computing? Discover just how easy it can be with the right help – this guide takes you through the process from start to finish

Andrew K. Dennis

A cluster is a type of parallel/distributed processing system which consists of a collection of interconnected stand-alone computers cooperatively working together. Using Raspberry Pi computers, you can build a two-node parallel computing cluster which enhances performance and availability.This practical, example-oriented guide will teach you how to set up the hardware and operating systems of multiple Raspberry Pi computers to create your own cluster. It will then navigate you through how to install the necessary software to write your own programs such as Hadoop and MPICH before moving on to cover topics such as MapReduce. Throughout this book, you will explore the technology with the help of practical examples and tutorials to help you learn quickly and efficiently.Starting from a pile of hardware, with this book, you will be guided through exciting tutorials that will help you turn your hardware into your own super-computing cluster. You'll start out by learning how to set up your Raspberry Pi cluster's hardware. Following this, you will be taken through how to install the operating system, and you will also be given a taste of what parallel computing is about. With your Raspberry Pi cluster successfully set up, you will then install software such as MPI and Hadoop. Having reviewed some examples and written some programs that explore these two technologies, you will then wrap up with some fun ancillary projects. Finally, you will be provided with useful links to help take your projects to the next step.

Implementing Event-Driven Microservices Architecture in .NET 7. Develop event-based distributed apps that can scale with ever-changing business demands using C# 11 and .NET 7

Donovan Brown, Joshua Garverick, Omar Dean McIver

This book will guide you through various hands-on practical examples for implementing event-driven microservices architecture using C# 11 and .NET 7. It has been divided into three distinct sections, each focusing on different aspects of this implementation.The first section will cover the new features of .NET 7 that will make developing applications using EDA patterns easier, the sample application that will be used throughout the book, and how the core tenets of domain-driven design (DDD) are implemented in .NET 7.The second section will review the various components of a local environment setup, the containerization of code, testing, deployment, and the observability of microservices using an EDA approach.The third section will guide you through the need for scalability and service resilience within the application, along with implementation details related to elastic and autoscale components. You’ll also cover how proper telemetry helps to automatically drive scaling events. In addition, the topic of observability is revisited using examples of service discovery and microservice inventories.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to identify and catalog domains, events, and bounded contexts to be used for the design and development of a resilient microservices architecture.

Microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud. Build resilient and scalable microservices using Spring Cloud, Istio, and Kubernetes - Second Edition

Magnus Larsson

Want to build and deploy microservices, but don’t know where to start? Welcome to Microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud.This edition features the most recent versions of Spring, Java, Kubernetes, and Istio, demonstrating faster and simpler handling of Spring Boot, local Kubernetes clusters, and Istio installation. The expanded scope includes native compilation of Spring-based microservices, support for Mac and Windows with WSL2, and an introduction to Helm 3 for packaging and deployment. A revamped security chapter now follows the OAuth 2.1 specification and makes use of the newly launched Spring Authorization Server from the Spring team.You’ll start with a set of simple cooperating microservices, then add persistence and resilience, make your microservices reactive, and document their APIs using OpenAPI.Next, you’ll learn how fundamental design patterns are applied to add important functionality, such as service discovery with Netflix Eureka and edge servers with Spring Cloud Gateway. You’ll deploy your microservices using Kubernetes and adopt Istio, then explore centralized log management using the Elasticsearch, Fluentd, and Kibana (EFK) stack, and then monitor microservices using Prometheus and Grafana.By the end of this book, you'll be building scalable and robust microservices using Spring Boot and Spring Cloud.

Getting Started with Electronic Projects. Build thrilling and intricate electronic projects using LM555, ZigBee, and BeagleBone

William Pretty, Kevin Dunglas

Instant OSGi Starter. The essential guide to modular development with OSGi

Johan Edstrom, Johan Edstorm, Jamie Goodyear

OSGi is a tried and true modularity standard for Java. It has in recent years gained a lot of traction and tooling; becoming frequently used in Enterprise containers and distributed software systems. Instant OSGi Starter is where you should start before beginning your first OSGi based project. You'll be exposed to the core concepts, gain practical experience with the most important features, and learn about the basic tenets of modular code practices. This book begins with the fundamental tools needed for building modular applications, top features with basic tenets of modular core practices and provides useful insights into resources and the community.As this book progresses you will be able to get started programming in OSGi whilst looking at the default three layer design so the application will be architected towards modularity and simplicity.Through exploring several tools and technologies and browsing the communities you will be able to work towards modular programming in OSGi.

Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook. Realize the full potential of Windows Azure with this superb Cookbook that has over 80 recipes for building advanced, scalable cloud-based services. Simply pick the solutions you need to answer your requirements immediately

Neil Mackenzie

The Windows Azure platform is Microsoft's Platform-as-a-Service environment for hosting services and data in the cloud. It provides developers with on-demand computing, storage, and service connectivity capabilities that facilitate the hosting of highly scalable services in Windows Azure datacenters across the globe.This practical cookbook will show you advanced development techniques for building highly scalable cloud-based services using the Windows Azure platform. It contains over 80 practical, task-based, and immediately usable recipes covering a wide range of advanced development techniques for building highly scalable services to solve particular problems/scenarios when developing these services on the Windows Azure platform.Packed with reusable, real-world recipes, the book starts by explaining the various access control mechanisms used in the Windows Azure platform. Next you will see the advanced features of Windows Azure Blob storage, Windows Azure Table storage, and Windows Azure Queues. The book then dives deep into topics such as developing Windows Azure hosted services, using Windows Azure Diagnostics, managing hosted services with the Service Management API, using SQL Azure and the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus. You will see how to use several of the latest features such as VM roles, Windows Azure Connect, startup tasks, and the Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service.

Podman for DevOps. Containerization reimagined with Podman and its companion tools

Alessandro Arrichiello, Gianni Salinetti, Brent J. Baude

As containers have become the new de facto standard for packaging applications and their dependencies, understanding how to implement, build, and manage them is now an essential skill for developers, system administrators, and SRE/operations teams. Podman and its companion tools Buildah and Skopeo make a great toolset to boost the development, execution, and management of containerized applications.Starting with the basic concepts of containerization and its underlying technology, this book will help you get your first container up and running with Podman. You'll explore the complete toolkit and go over the development of new containers, their lifecycle management, troubleshooting, and security aspects. Together with Podman, the book illustrates Buildah and Skopeo to complete the tools ecosystem and cover the complete workflow for building, releasing, and managing optimized container images. Podman for DevOps provides a comprehensive view of the full-stack container technology and its relationship with the operating system foundations, along with crucial topics such as networking, monitoring, and integration with systemd, docker-compose, and Kubernetes.By the end of this DevOps book, you'll have developed the skills needed to build and package your applications inside containers as well as to deploy, manage, and integrate them with system services.

AWS Cloud Projects. Strengthen your AWS skills through practical projects, from websites to advanced AI applications

Ivo Pinto, Pedro Santos

Tired of resumes getting lost in the pile? This book is your roadmap to building an in-demand AWS portfolio that grabs attention and gets you hired.This comprehensive guide unlocks AWS’s full potential through eight real-world projects designed for developers of all levels. Inside, you'll find invaluable guidance for crafting stunning websites with S3, CloudFront, and Route53. You’ll build robust and scalable applications, such as recipe-sharing platforms, using DynamoDB and Elastic Load Balancing. For streamlined efficiency, the book will teach you how to develop serverless architectures with AWS Lambda and Cognito. Gradually, you’ll infuse your projects with artificial intelligence by creating a photo analyzer powered by Amazon Rekognition. You’ll also automate complex workflows for seamless content translation using Translate, CodePipeline, and CodeBuild. Later, you’ll construct intelligent virtual assistants with Amazon Lex and Bedrock to answer web development queries. The book will also show you how to visualize your data with insightful dashboards built using Athena, Glue, and QuickSight.By the end of this book, you’ll have a portfolio of AWS projects to showcase your cloud skills, making you stand out in today’s competitive job market.

Information Theory. A Tutorial Introduction to the Principles and Applications of Information Theory

James V Stone

This book offers a comprehensive journey through the fascinating world of information theory, beginning with the fundamental question: what is information? Early chapters introduce key concepts like entropy, binary representation, and data compression, providing a clear and accessible foundation. Readers explore Shannon's source coding theorem and practical tools like Huffman coding to understand how information is quantified and optimized.Building on these basics, the book delves into advanced topics such as the noisy channel coding theorem, mutual information, and error correction techniques. It examines entropy in continuous systems, channel capacity, and rate-distortion theory, making complex ideas accessible through real-world examples. Connections between information and thermodynamics are also explored, including Maxwell’s Demon, the Landauer Limit, and the second law of thermodynamics.The final chapters tie information theory to biology and artificial intelligence, investigating its role in evolution, the human genome, and brain computation. With practical examples throughout, this book balances theoretical depth with hands-on learning, making it an essential resource for mastering information theory. A basic mathematical foundation will be beneficial but is not required to engage with the material.

Building UIs with Wijmo. Wijmo lets you use widgets on your websites for more flexibility and ease of use in the user interface. This book shows you how with a refreshingly logical and example-led approach that makes learning a pleasure

Yuguang Zhang

Until recently, writing applications using JavaScript and HTML was difficult, because developers had to make the user interface by themselves; however, this started changing with the introduction of JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, jQuery UI, and KnockoutJS. An extension of jQuery UI, Wijmo adds features and widgets on top of jQuery UI and makes it easier to add user interface widgets to HTML documents.Building UIs with Wijmo gives you a tour of what Wijmo offers at a glance. With code recipes and well-explained examples, you will be able to use Wijmo in no time. The book gives details on options not explained in the documentation and helps you avoid those that don't work. The examples only feature the necessary code, with recommendations and best practices.This book introduces Wijmo, grouping widgets by their common application area or usage. It walks the user through the features of the dialog widget with examples as an introduction to the library. Then, widgets for forms, images, tootips, and other topics are explored.Features only available in the Wijmo dialog widget compared to the jQuery UI widget are thoroughly explained with examples. Common form components such as checkboxes, dropdowns, and inputs have Wijmo counterparts which keep the theme consistent and add functionalities. When Wijmo is used with Knockout, the UI automatically refreshes when the data changes. This book takes it further with WebSockets for two way communication between the server and client. With Building UIs with Wijmo, you will learn all the common web development components in Wijmo. You will get started using Wijmo in no time.

Hands-On SAS For Data Analysis. A practical guide to performing effective queries, data visualization, and reporting techniques

Harish Gulati

SAS is one of the leading enterprise tools in the world today when it comes to data management and analysis. It enables the fast and easy processing of data and helps you gain valuable business insights for effective decision-making. This book will serve as a comprehensive guide that will prepare you for the SAS certification exam.After a quick overview of the SAS architecture and components, the book will take you through the different approaches to importing and reading data from different sources using SAS. You will then cover SAS Base and 4GL, understanding data management and analysis, along with exploring SAS functions for data manipulation and transformation. Next, you'll discover SQL procedures and get up to speed on creating and validating queries. In the concluding chapters, you'll learn all about data visualization, right from creating bar charts and sample geographic maps through to assigning patterns and formats. In addition to this, the book will focus on macro programming and its advanced aspects.By the end of this book, you will be well versed in SAS programming and have the skills you need to easily handle and manage your data-related problems in SAS.

Generating Creative Images With DALL-E 3. Create accurate images with effective prompting for real-world applications

Holly Picano

Unveil the extraordinary capabilities of the groundbreaking AI model, DALL-E 3, as it transforms text prompts into accurate images. This book addresses the challenge of creating meaningful images by writing prompts, guiding you step by step through creating stunning visual art regardless of your skill level.Prepare to delve deep into the inner workings of DALL-E 3's architecture and training process. With clear explanations, practical tutorials, and real-world examples that can be easily applied, you’ll unlock secrets to creating awe-inspiring AI-generated art, from fine art prints to digital designs. This book provides comprehensive insights into various lens options, camera angles, lighting techniques, and art movements, helping you integrate AI capabilities with your artistic skills. You’ll also learn to create NFTs that can be monetized and gain invaluable insights into designing compelling covers, all within the ethical boundaries of AI-generated art. And with the invaluable prompt cheat sheet by your side, you’ll hone your skills in formulating captivating prompts for diverse purposes.By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to produce generative AI art at a rapid pace and relatively low cost and push the boundaries of imagination with DALL-E 3.

ETL with Azure Cookbook. Practical recipes for building modern ETL solutions to load and transform data from any source

Christian Cote, Matija Lah, Madina Saitakhmetova

ETL is one of the most common and tedious procedures for moving and processing data from one database to another. With the help of this book, you will be able to speed up the process by designing effective ETL solutions using the Azure services available for handling and transforming any data to suit your requirements.With this cookbook, you’ll become well versed in all the features of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to perform data migration and ETL tasks that integrate with Azure. You’ll learn how to transform data in Azure and understand how legacy systems perform ETL on-premises using SSIS. Later chapters will get you up to speed with connecting and retrieving data from SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters, and even show you how to extend and customize the SSIS toolbox using custom-developed tasks and transforms. This ETL book also contains practical recipes for moving and transforming data with Azure services, such as Data Factory and Azure Databricks, and lets you explore various options for migrating SSIS packages to Azure. Toward the end, you’ll find out how to profile data in the cloud and automate service creation with Business Intelligence Markup Language (BIML).By the end of this book, you’ll have developed the skills you need to create and automate ETL solutions on-premises as well as in Azure.

Building Web Services with Microsoft Azure. Quickly develop scalable, REST-based applications or services and learn how to manage them using Microsoft Azure

Alexander Belotserkovskiy, Nikhil Sachdeva, Alex Belotserkovskiy, Stephen Kaufman