Publisher: Packt Publishing
Founded in 2004 in Birmingham, UK, Packt's mission is to help the world put software to work in new ways, through the delivery of effective learning and information services to IT professionals. Working towards that vision, we have published over 6,500 books and videos so far, providing IT professionals with the actionable knowledge they need to get the job done - whether that's specific learning on an emerging technology or optimizing key skills in more established tools. As part of our mission, we have also awarded over $1,000,000 through our Open Source Project Royalty scheme, helping numerous projects become household names along the way.
5689
Ebook

Julia 1.0 Programming Complete Reference Guide. Discover Julia, a high-performance language for technical computing

Ivo Balbaert, Adrian Salceanu

Julia offers the high productivity and ease of use of Python and R with the lightning-fast speed of C++. There’s never been a better time to learn this language, thanks to its large-scale adoption across a wide range of domains, including fintech, biotech and artificial intelligence (AI).You will begin by learning how to set up a running Julia platform, before exploring its various built-in types. This Learning Path walks you through two important collection types: arrays and matrices. You’ll be taken through how type conversions and promotions work, and in further chapters you'll study how Julia interacts with operating systems and other languages. You’ll also learn about the use of macros, what makes Julia suitable for numerical and scientific computing, and how to run external programs.Once you have grasped the basics, this Learning Path goes on to how to analyze the Iris dataset using DataFrames. While building a web scraper and a web app, you’ll explore the use of functions, methods, and multiple dispatches. In the final chapters, you'll delve into machine learning, where you'll build a book recommender system.By the end of this Learning Path, you’ll be well versed with Julia and have the skills you need to leverage its high speed and efficiency for your applications.This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products:• Julia 1.0 Programming - Second Edition by Ivo Balbaert• Julia Programming Projects by Adrian Salceanu

5690
Ebook

Learn T-SQL Querying. A guide to developing efficient and elegant T-SQL code - Second Edition

Pedro Lopes, Pam Lahoud

Data professionals seeking to excel in Transact-SQL for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database often lack comprehensive resources. Learn T-SQL Querying second edition focuses on indexing queries and crafting elegant T-SQL code enabling data professionals gain mastery in modern SQL Server versions (2022) and Azure SQL Database. The book covers new topics like logical statement processing flow, data access using indexes, and best practices for tuning T-SQL queries.Starting with query processing fundamentals, the book lays a foundation for writing performant T-SQL queries. You’ll explore the mechanics of the Query Optimizer and Query Execution Plans, learning to analyze execution plans for insights into current performance and scalability. Using dynamic management views (DMVs) and dynamic management functions (DMFs), you’ll build diagnostic queries. The book covers indexing and delves into SQL Server’s built-in tools to expedite resolution of T-SQL query performance and scalability issues. Hands-on examples will guide you to avoid UDF pitfalls and understand features like predicate SARGability, Query Store, and Query Tuning Assistant. By the end of this book, you‘ll have developed the ability to identify query performance bottlenecks, recognize anti-patterns, and avoid pitfalls

5691
Ebook

Hands-On Gradient Boosting with XGBoost and scikit-learn. Perform accessible machine learning and extreme gradient boosting with Python

Corey Wade, Kevin Glynn

XGBoost is an industry-proven, open-source software library that provides a gradient boosting framework for scaling billions of data points quickly and efficiently.The book introduces machine learning and XGBoost in scikit-learn before building up to the theory behind gradient boosting. You’ll cover decision trees and analyze bagging in the machine learning context, learning hyperparameters that extend to XGBoost along the way. You’ll build gradient boosting models from scratch and extend gradient boosting to big data while recognizing speed limitations using timers. Details in XGBoost are explored with a focus on speed enhancements and deriving parameters mathematically. With the help of detailed case studies, you’ll practice building and fine-tuning XGBoost classifiers and regressors using scikit-learn and the original Python API. You'll leverage XGBoost hyperparameters to improve scores, correct missing values, scale imbalanced datasets, and fine-tune alternative base learners. Finally, you'll apply advanced XGBoost techniques like building non-correlated ensembles, stacking models, and preparing models for industry deployment using sparse matrices, customized transformers, and pipelines.By the end of the book, you’ll be able to build high-performing machine learning models using XGBoost with minimal errors and maximum speed.

5692
Ebook

The Ultimate iOS Interview Playbook. Conquer Swift, frameworks, design patterns, and app architecture for your dream job

Avi Tsadok

As an iOS developer, you must possess a diverse skill set encompassing Swift coding, design knowledge, and mastery of development tools. And while the demand for iOS developers remains high, the competition for landing your dream job has intensified in recent years. Being a skilled iOS developer is no longer enough — acing interviews is now just as essential as having technical expertise.In The Ultimate iOS Interview Playbook, you'll discover innovative ways to stand out as an iOS developer and pass every job interview. It will guide you to build your developer brand and present your skills to potential employers. This comprehensive guide covers over 100 interview questions, from Swift fundamentals and frameworks to complex design patterns and app architecture. You'll learn how to approach coding assessments like a pro and avoid red flags that could hinder your chances of success.Drawing from the author’s experience of interviewing hundreds of iOS developers and having been a candidate themself, this book addresses the challenges of showcasing your skills and knowledge within a limited timeframe.By the end of this book, you'll be ready to excel in any iOS interview, demonstrating your strengths and confidently tackling even the most challenging questions, ultimately paving the way to secure the job you've always wanted.

5693
Ebook

Learning Linux Shell Scripting. Unleash the power of shell scripts to solve real-world problems by breaking through the practice of writing tedious code

Ganesh Sanjiv Naik

Linux is the one of the most powerful and universally adopted OSes. Shell is a program that gives the user direct interaction with the operating system. Scripts are collections of commands that are stored in a file. The shell can read this file and act on the commands as if they were typed on the keyboard. Shell scripting is used to automate day-to-day administration, and for testing or product development tasks.This book covers Bash, GNU Bourne Again SHell, preparing you to work in the exciting world of Linux shell scripting. We start with an introduction to the Shell environment and explain basic commands used in Shell. Next we move on to check, kill, and control the execution of processes in Linux OS. Further, we teach you about the filter tools available in Linux and explain standard output and standard errors devices.Then we will ensure you understand Shell’s interpretation of commands and get a firmer grasp so you use them in practice. Next, you’ll experience some real-world essentials such as debugging and perform Shell arithmetic fluently. Then you’ll take a step ahead and learn new and advanced topics in Shell scripting, such as starting up a system and customizing a Linux system. Finally, you’ll get to understand the capabilities of scripting and learn about Grep, Stream Editor, and Awk.

5694
Ebook

Incident Response with Threat Intelligence. Practical insights into developing an incident response capability through intelligence-based threat hunting

Roberto Martinez

With constantly evolving cyber threats, developing a cybersecurity incident response capability to identify and contain threats is indispensable for any organization regardless of its size. This book covers theoretical concepts and a variety of real-life scenarios that will help you to apply these concepts within your organization.Starting with the basics of incident response, the book introduces you to professional practices and advanced concepts for integrating threat hunting and threat intelligence procedures in the identification, contention, and eradication stages of the incident response cycle. As you progress through the chapters, you'll cover the different aspects of developing an incident response program. You'll learn the implementation and use of platforms such as TheHive and ELK and tools for evidence collection such as Velociraptor and KAPE before getting to grips with the integration of frameworks such as Cyber Kill Chain and MITRE ATT&CK for analysis and investigation. You'll also explore methodologies and tools for cyber threat hunting with Sigma and YARA rules.By the end of this book, you'll have learned everything you need to respond to cybersecurity incidents using threat intelligence.

5695
Ebook

PLCs for Beginners. An introductory guide to building robust PLC programs with Structured Text

M. T. White

With the rise of smart factories and advanced technology, the demand for PLC programmers with expertise beyond ladder logic is surging. Written by M.T. White, a seasoned DevOps engineer and adjunct CIS instructor, this guide offers insights from the author’s extensive experience in PLC and HMI programming across industries. This book introduces a fresh approach to PLC programming, preparing you for future automation challenges through computer science and text-based programming.Starting with the basic components of PLCs and their integration with other modules, this book gives you a clear understanding of system functionality and helps you master PLC program execution by learning about flow and essential components for effective programming. You'll understand program design with pseudocode and flowcharts, vital for planning programs, and cover Boolean logic intricacies, harnessing logical functions and truth tables for precise control statements. The book gives you a comprehensive grasp of Structured Text, its syntax and features crucial for efficient programming. The book also focuses on advanced topics like cybersecurity in PLC systems and leveraging generative AI (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, to enhance productivity.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to design real-world projects using pseudocode and flowcharts, and implement those designs in Structured Text.

5696
Ebook

Mastering Sass. An expert’s guide to practical knowledge on leveraging SASS and COMPASS

Luke Watts

CSS and Sass add elegance and excellence to the basic language, and consist of a CSS-compatible syntax that allows you to use variables, nested rules, mixins, inline imports, and much more.This book will start with an overview of the features in Sass and Compass, most of which you'll already be familiar; however, this will ensure you know what’s expected as the book goes deeper into Sass and Compass. Next you will learn CSS and HTML concepts that are vital to a good Sass workflow. After all, Sass exists to simplify writing CSS, but it won’t teach you how to make clean, scalable, reusable CSS. For that, you need to understand some basic concepts of OOCSS, SMACCS, and Atomic Design.Once you’ve brushed up on the important concepts, it’s time to write some Sass. Mainly you’ll write a few functions and mixins that really leverage control flow using @if / @else loops and you’ll learn how to figure out when and why things are going wrong before they bring you to a stop. Moving further, you’ll learn how to use @debug, @warn and @error to properly handle errors. You’ll also learn about Gulp and how to use it to automate your workflow and reduce your repetitive tasks. And finally you’ll learn about sourcemaps. With sourcemaps, you’ll be able to write, debug, and view your Sass and Compass all from within the browser. It’ll even LiveReload too! As a bonus, you’ll take a look at that funky Flexbox, currently all the rage! You’ll learn how powerful and flexible it really is, and how you can use it with Compass. Best of all, it falls back very gracefully indeed! In fact, you’ll be able to apply it to any existing project without having to change a line of the original CSS.

5697
Ebook

Clip Studio Paint by Example. Understand how to use CSP in a faster and more productive way for concept art, illustrations, and comics

Ludovico Serra

Clip Studio Paint is powerful art software that can help you create artistic work with its in-built material organizer, 3D integration, and group work features. It also provides other features that can speed up the workflow of illustrators, concept artists, and comic artists. With Clip Studio Paint by Example, you’ll learn how to use CSP effectively for a wide variety of artistic purposes.The book starts by helping you create the right workspace for concept art, illustration, and comics. You’ll create a brush, set up a canvas, and develop an auto-auction. Along with covering how to work with CS Modeler that comes bundled with CSP, this book shows you how to import and rig characters easily. You’ll then create reusable changeable scenes and a 3D human character in Blender before exploring concept art, illustrations, comics, and how to create your own portfolio. The book features a glossary with brief explanations of all the main CSP functions. The focus of the book is not on drawing or painting but on helping you enhance your artistic skills using Clip Studio Paint to create an impressive portfolio.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use the impressive capabilities of CSP to create beautiful digital art in a productive way.

5698
Ebook

Mastering Blockchain Programming with Solidity. Write production-ready smart contracts for Ethereum blockchain with Solidity

Jitendra Chittoda

Solidity is among the most popular and contract-oriented programming languages used for writing decentralized applications (DApps) on Ethereum blockchain. If you’re looking to perfect your skills in writing professional-grade smart contracts using Solidity, this book can help.You will get started with a detailed introduction to blockchain, smart contracts, and Ethereum, while also gaining useful insights into the Solidity programming language. A dedicated section will then take you through the different Ethereum Request for Comments (ERC) standards, including ERC-20, ERC-223, and ERC-721, and demonstrate how you can choose among these standards while writing smart contracts. As you approach later chapters, you will cover the different smart contracts available for use in libraries such as OpenZeppelin. You’ll also learn to use different open source tools to test, review and improve the quality of your code and make it production-ready. Toward the end of this book, you’ll get to grips with techniques such as adding security to smart contracts, and gain insights into various security considerations. By the end of this book, you will have the skills you need to write secure, production-ready smart contracts in Solidity from scratch for decentralized applications on Ethereum blockchain.

5699
Ebook

Mastering Adobe Animate 2023. A comprehensive guide to designing modern, animated, and interactive content using Animate - Third Edition

Joseph Labrecque

Adobe Animate is a platform-agnostic asset creation application that enables you to create motion design and vector animations while facilitating interactivity across other Adobe software such as After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator. This book comes packed with explanations of essential concepts and step-by-step walk-throughs of practical examples, guiding you in using Animate to create immersive experiences and breaking the walls of creative limitations.In this third edition, you’ll begin by getting up to speed with the features of Adobe Animate. You'll learn how to set up Animate as a creative platform and explore the enhancements introduced in its most recent versions. The book will show you how to consume and produce media assets for different platforms through the publish and export workflows. You'll explore advanced rigging workflows and discover how to create more dynamic animations with complex depth and movement techniques. As the book demonstrates different ways of channeling your creativity through Animate, you'll be able to build projects such as games, virtual reality experiences, generative art, and apps for various platforms. Finally, this graphic design book covers the different methods used to extend the software to meet various user requirements.By the end of this book, you'll be able to produce a variety of media assets, motion graphic designs, animated artifacts, and interactive content pieces for platforms such as HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, and mobile devices.

5700
Ebook

CISA - Certified Information Systems Auditor Study Guide. Aligned with the CISA Review Manual 2024 with over 1000 practice questions to ace the exam - Third Edition

Hemang Doshi, Javen Khoo Ai Wee

Following on from the success of its bestselling predecessor, this third edition of the CISA - Certified Information Systems Auditor Study Guide serves as your go-to resource for acing the CISA exam. Written by renowned CISA expert Hemang Doshi, this guide equips you with practical skills and in-depth knowledge to excel in information systems auditing, setting the foundation for a thriving career.Fully updated to align with the 28th edition of the CISA Official Review Manual, this guide covers the latest exam objectives and provides a deep dive into essential IT auditing areas, including IT governance, systems development, and asset protection. The book follows a structured, three-step approach to solidify your understanding. First, it breaks down the fundamentals with clear, concise explanations. Then, it highlights critical exam-focused points to ensure you concentrate on key areas. Finally, it challenges you with self-assessment questions that reflect the exam format, helping you assess your knowledge.Additionally, you’ll gain access to online resources, including mock exams, interactive flashcards, and invaluable exam tips, ensuring you’re fully prepared for the exam with unlimited practice opportunities.By the end of this guide, you’ll be ready to pass the CISA exam with confidence and advance your career in auditing.

5701
Ebook

SAP Data Services 4.x Cookbook. Delve into the SAP Data Services environment to efficiently prepare, implement, and develop ETL processes

Ivan Shomnikov, Stanislav Pereyaslov

Want to cost effectively deliver trusted information to all of your crucial business functions? SAP Data Services delivers one enterprise-class solution for data integration, data quality, data profiling, and text data processing. It boosts productivity with a single solution for data quality and data integration. SAP Data Services also enables you to move, improve, govern, and unlock big data. This book will lead you through the SAP Data Services environment to efficiently develop ETL processes. To begin with, you’ll learn to install, configure, and prepare the ETL development environment. You will get familiarized with the concepts of developing ETL processes with SAP Data Services. Starting from smallest unit of work- the data flow, the chapters will lead you to the highest organizational unit—the Data Services job, revealing the advanced techniques of ETL design. You will learn to import XML files by creating and implementing real-time jobs. It will then guide you through the ETL development patterns that enable the most effective performance when extracting, transforming, and loading data. You will also find out how to create validation functions and transforms.Finally, the book will show you the benefits of data quality management with the help of another SAP solution—Information Steward.

5702
Ebook

Drupal 7 Business Solutions. Drupal open source content management is the perfect solution for small business websites, and this book takes you through the whole process step-by-step, from installing Drupal to incorporating sophisticated e-commerce modules

Trevor James, Mark Noble

You can use the Drupal 7 content management system to build a small business website quickly. You may add blogs, images, maps, e-commerce, social application integration, and more to your site to connect with your customers and make more money from your business.Drupal 7 Business Solutions will give you hands-on practical tutorials on how to build a rich and dynamic website for your business quickly using one of the most popular tools in open source.You'll start by adding blogs and images to your website. Then you'll learn how to add a VIP section to your site so that you can give your logged in users special discounts and other VIP freebies. Next, you will learn to send your customers e-mail newsletters and show them a dynamic events calendar.The book will then teach you to add e-commerce to your site so you can sell your products online. You'll add YouTube videos and Google maps to help enhance your business site. You will then learn to incorporate feedback mechanisms for your customers.The book also explains how to maintain your site, upgrade it, and continue adding dynamic content to it.

5703
Ebook

Oracle Service Bus 11g Development Cookbook

Mischa Koelliker, Eric Elzinga, Mischa K?É?íÂ!?lliker, Jan van Zoggel, ...

Oracle Service Bus 11g is a scalable SOA integration platform that delivers an efficient, standards-based infrastructure for high-volume, mission critical SOA environments. It is designed to connect, mediate, and manage interactions between heterogeneous services, legacy applications, packaged solutions and multiple Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) instances across an enterprise-wide service network. Oracle Service Bus is a core component in the Oracle SOA Suite as a backbone for SOA messaging.This practical cookbook shows you how to develop service and message-oriented (integration) solutions on the Oracle Service Bus 11g.Packed with over 80 task-based and immediately reusable recipes, this book starts by showing you how to create a basic OSB service and work efficiently and effectively with OSB. The book then dives into topics such as messaging with JMS transport, using EJB and JEJB transport, HTTP transport and Poller transports, communicating with the database, communicating with SOA Suite and Reliable Message Processing amongst others. The last two chapters discuss how to achieve message and transport-level security on the OSB.

5704
Ebook

Unlocking the Power of Auto-GPT and Its Plugins. Implement, customize, and optimize Auto-GPT for building robust AI applications

Wladislav Cugunov

Unlocking the Power of Auto-GPT and Its Plugins reveals how Auto-GPT is transforming the way we work and live, by breaking down complex goals into manageable subtasks and intelligently utilizing the internet and other tools. With a background as a self-taught full stack developer and key contributor to Auto-GPT’s Inner Team, the author blends unconventional thinking with practical expertise to make Auto-GPT and its plugins accessible to developers at all levels.This book explores the potential of Auto-GPT and its associated plugins through practical applications. Beginning with an introduction to Auto-GPT, it guides you through setup, utilization, and the art of prompt generation. You'll gain a deep understanding of the various plugin types and how to create them. The book also offers expert guidance on developing AI applications such as chat assistants, research aides, and speech companions, while covering advanced topics such as Docker configuration, continuous mode operation, and integrating your own LLM with Auto-GPT.By the end of this book, you'll be equipped with the knowledge and skills needed for AI application development, plugin creation, setup procedures, and advanced Auto-GPT features to fuel your AI journey.

5705
Ebook

Mastering Malware Analysis. The complete malware analyst's guide to combating malicious software, APT, cybercrime, and IoT attacks

Alexey Kleymenov, Amr Thabet

With the ever-growing proliferation of technology, the risk of encountering malicious code or malware has also increased. Malware analysis has become one of the most trending topics in businesses in recent years due to multiple prominent ransomware attacks. Mastering Malware Analysis explains the universal patterns behind different malicious software types and how to analyze them using a variety of approaches. You will learn how to examine malware code and determine the damage it can possibly cause to your systems to ensure that it won't propagate any further. Moving forward, you will cover all aspects of malware analysis for the Windows platform in detail. Next, you will get to grips with obfuscation and anti-disassembly, anti-debugging, as well as anti-virtual machine techniques. This book will help you deal with modern cross-platform malware. Throughout the course of this book, you will explore real-world examples of static and dynamic malware analysis, unpacking and decrypting, and rootkit detection. Finally, this book will help you strengthen your defenses and prevent malware breaches for IoT devices and mobile platforms. By the end of this book, you will have learned to effectively analyze, investigate, and build innovative solutions to handle any malware incidents.

5706
Ebook

Swift Cookbook. Over 60 proven recipes for developing better iOS applications with Swift 5.3 - Second Edition

Keith Moon, Chris Barker

Swift is an exciting, multi-platform, general-purpose programming language, and with this book, you'll explore the features of its latest version, Swift 5.3.The book begins with an introduction to the basic building blocks of Swift 5.3, its syntax, and the functionalities of Swift constructs. You’ll then discover how Swift Playgrounds provide an ideal platform to write, execute, and debug your Swift code. As you advance through the chapters, the book will show you how to bundle variables into tuples or sets, order your data with an array, store key-value pairs with dictionaries, and use property observers. You’ll also get to grips with the decision-making and control structures in Swift, examine advanced features such as generics and operators, and explore functionalities outside of the standard library. Once you’ve learned how to build iOS applications using UIKit, you'll find out how to use Swift for server-side programming, run Swift on Linux, and investigate Vapor. Finally, you'll discover some of the newest features of Swift 5.3 using SwiftUI and Combine to build adaptive and reactive applications, and find out how to use Swift to build and integrate machine learning models along with Apple’s Vision Framework.By the end of this Swift book, you'll have discovered solutions to boost your productivity while developing code using Swift 5.3.

5707
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5708
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5709
Ebook

Getting Started with PhantomJS. Harness the strength and capabilities of PhantomJS to interact with the web and perform website testing with a headless browser based on WebKit

Aries beltran

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit browser with JavaScript API that allows you to create new ways to automate web testing. PhantomJS is currently being used by a large number of users to help them integrate headless web testing into their development processes. It also gives you developers a new framework to create web-based applications, from simple web manipulation to performance measurement and monitoring.A step step-by by-step guide that will help you develop new tools for solving web and testing problems in an effective and quick way. The book will teach you how to use and maximize PhantomJS to develop new tools for web scrapping, web performance measurement and monitoring, and headless web testing. This book will help you understand PhantomJS’ scripting API capabilities and strengths.This book starts by looking at PhantomJS’ JavaScript API, features, and basic execution of scripts. Throughout the book, you will learn details to help you write scripts to manipulate web documents and fully create a web scrapping tool.Through its practical approach, this book strives to teach you by example, where each chapter focuses on the common and practical usage of PhantomJS, and how to extract meaningful information from the web and other services.By the end of the book, you will have acquired the skills to enable you to use PhantomJS for web testing, as well as learning the basics of Jasmine, and how it can be used with PhantomJS.

5710
Ebook

Mastering Akka. A hands-on guide to build application using the Akka framework

Christian Baxter

For a programmer, writing multi-threaded applications is critical as it is important to break large tasks into smaller ones and run them simultaneously. Akka is a distributed computing toolkit that uses the abstraction of the Actor model, enabling developers to build correct, concurrent, and distributed applications using Java and Scala with ease. The book begins with a quick introduction that simplifies concurrent programming with actors. We then proceed to master all aspects of domain-driven design. We’ll teach you how to scale out with Akka Remoting/Clustering. Finally, we introduce Conductr as a means to deploy to and manage microservices across a cluster.

5711
Ebook

Hands-On Natural Language Processing with PyTorch 1.x. Build smart, AI-driven linguistic applications using deep learning and NLP techniques

Thomas Dop

In the internet age, where an increasing volume of text data is generated daily from social media and other platforms, being able to make sense of that data is a crucial skill. With this book, you’ll learn how to extract valuable insights from text by building deep learning models for natural language processing (NLP) tasks.Starting by understanding how to install PyTorch and using CUDA to accelerate the processing speed, you’ll explore how the NLP architecture works with the help of practical examples. This PyTorch NLP book will guide you through core concepts such as word embeddings, CBOW, and tokenization in PyTorch. You’ll then learn techniques for processing textual data and see how deep learning can be used for NLP tasks. The book demonstrates how to implement deep learning and neural network architectures to build models that will allow you to classify and translate text and perform sentiment analysis. Finally, you’ll learn how to build advanced NLP models, such as conversational chatbots.By the end of this book, you’ll not only have understood the different NLP problems that can be solved using deep learning with PyTorch, but also be able to build models to solve them.

5712
Ebook

Microsoft AJAX Library Essentials: Client-side ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Explained. A practical tutorial to enhancing the user experience of your ASP.NET web applications with the final release of the Microsoft AJAX Library

Cristian Darie, Bogdan Brinzarea

Microsoft AJAX Library Essentials is a practical reference for the client-side library of the ASP.NET AJAX Framework 1.0, and a tutorial for the underlying technologies and techniques required to use the library at its full potential. The main goal of this book is to get you comfortable with the Microsoft AJAX Library, a huge set of functions that can be used for developing powerful client-side functionality.Beginning with a hands-on tour of the basic technologies associated with AJAX, JavaScript, XMLHttpRequest, JSON, and the DOM, you'll move on to a crash course in the Microsoft AJAX tools. You will learn, through numerous step-by-step exercises, how to create basic AJAX applications, how the object-based programming model of JavaScript works, and how Microsoft AJAX Library extends this model. You'll understand the architecture of the Microsoft AJAX components, how they all fit together, and exactly what they can do for you. Then you will learn how to use the Microsoft AJAX Library in your web projects, and a detailed case study will walk you through creating your own customized client components. At every stage of your journey, you'll be able to try out examples to illuminate the theory, and consolidate your understanding. In addition to learning about the client and server controls, you'll also see how to handle errors and debug your AJAX applications.To complement your new found skills, the book ends with a visual reference of the Microsoft AJAX Library namespaces and classes, including diagrams and quick explanations for all the classes mentioned in the book, providing an invaluable reference you will turn to again and again.