Practical Microservices with Dapr and .NET. A developer's guide to building cloud-native applications using the Dapr event-driven runtime

Davide Bedin, Mark Russinovich

Over the last decade, there has been a huge shift from heavily coded monolithic applications to finer, self-contained microservices. Dapr is a new, open source project by Microsoft that provides proven techniques and best practices for developing modern applications. It offers platform-agnostic features for running your applications on public cloud, on-premises, and even on edge devices.This book will help you get to grips with microservice architectures and how to manage application complexities with Dapr in no time. You'll understand how Dapr offers ease of implementation while allowing you to work with multiple languages and platforms. You'll also understand how Dapr's runtime, services, building blocks, and software development kits (SDKs) help you to simplify the creation of resilient and portable microservices. Dapr provides an event-driven runtime that supports the essential features you need to build microservices, including service invocation, state management, and publish/subscribe messaging. You'll explore all of those in addition to various other advanced features with this practical guide to learning Dapr.By the end of this book, you'll be able to write microservices easily using your choice of language or framework by implementing industry best practices to solve problems related to distributed systems.

Hands-On Game Development with WebAssembly. Learn WebAssembly C++ programming by building a retro space game

Rick Battagline

Within the next few years, WebAssembly will change the web as we know it. It promises a world where you can write an application for the web in any language, and compile it for native platforms as well as the web.This book is designed to introduce web developers and game developers to the world of WebAssembly by walking through the development of a retro arcade game. You will learn how to build a WebAssembly application using C++, Emscripten, JavaScript, WebGL, SDL, and HTML5.This book covers a lot of ground in both game development and web application development. When creating a game or application that targets WebAssembly, developers need to learn a plethora of skills and tools. This book is a sample platter of those tools and skills. It covers topics including Emscripten, C/C++, WebGL, OpenGL, JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS. The reader will also learn basic techniques for game development, including 2D sprite animation, particle systems, 2D camera design, sound effects, 2D game physics, user interface design, shaders, debugging, and optimization. By the end of the book, you will be able to create simple web games and web applications targeting WebAssembly.

Motivate Your Team in 30 Days

Self-motivation and team motivation are the foundations to success. They build self-esteem and self-confidence and result in an overall better working environment. A motivated and engaged environment and team attracts and retains top performers, resulting in better performance, increased productivity and measureable bottom-line results. This practical book will guide you through step-by-step instructions that will make you a more effective leader, resulting in a higher performing, results-oriented team that will attract and retain top talent.This practical guide helps managers discover and understand themselves and human nature in order to become better leaders. In the process you will get a better understanding about internal vs. external motivation, beliefs, attitude, what is and what is not under your control, and how people react towards these factors. 'As you continue through the book you will master self-discovery learning techniques, facilitation skills, and engagement and empowerment strategies. Daily activity plans make this an easy, applicable and measurable way to help you - and your team - get to where you want to be. Through these invaluable exercises you will learn what makes a good leader and pass on your own strengths to your team, empowering them to perform to the best of their ability.

Clojure for Java Developers. Transition smoothly from Java to the most widely used functional JVM-based language – Clojure

Eduardo Díaz, Eduardo D Real

We have reached a point where machines are not getting much faster, software projects need to be delivered quickly, and high quality in software is more demanding as ever.We need to explore new ways of writing software that helps achieve those goals. Clojure offers a new possibility of writing high quality, multi-core software faster than ever, without having to leave your current platform.Clojure for Java developers aims at unleashing the true potential of the Clojure language to use it in your projects. The book begins with the installation and setup of the Clojure environment before moving on to explore the language in-depth. Get acquainted with its various features such as functional programming, concurrency, etc. with the help of example projects. Additionally, you will also, learn how the tooling works, and how it interacts with the Java environment. By the end of this book, you will have a firm grip on Clojure and its features, and use them effectively to write more robust programs.

iPhone User Interface Cookbook. A concise dissection of Apple’s iOS user interface design principles

Cameron Banga

The incredible growth rates for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad have pushed consumers to a new “App” economy, with developers racing to the platform. Mobile touch-centric interfaces vary greatly from traditional computing platforms, and programmers as well as designers must learn to adapt to the new form-factor.The iPhone User Interface Cookbook offers a complete breakdown of standard interface design on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. You will learn the tools behind the trade, how to properly utilize standard interface elements, and custom UI tricks that will help your work stand out on the App Store.The book is designed to be a complete overview of interface design on all iOS platforms, offering insight and an inside look into app design. A variety of topics are covered, starting with an overview of tools for the app interface designer, touching upon popular interface components such as the Tab Bar, and offering suggestions for complex game interfaces. Whether you’re new to the platform or a seasoned developer with numerous applications in the App Store, this book strives to teach everyone simple and easy to implement tips for iOS interface design. Regardless of skill level, the iPhone User Interface Cookbook offers a detailed breakdown of all things interface design.

Grails 1.1 Web Application Development. Reclaiming Productivity for faster Java Web Development

Jon Dickinson

Web development is trickyóeven a simple web application has a number of context changes ready to trip up the unwary. Grails takes the everyday pain out of web application development, allowing us to focus on delivering real application logic and create seamless experiences that will address the needs of our users. This book will take the pain out of Grails by showing you exactly how to build a web application with a minimum of fuss.With this book, even if you are new to Grails, you will be up and running before you know it. You will be able to code faster and your code will be better. This clear and concise book is packed with examples and clear instructions to help you build your first Grails application and gives you the skills to speed up your application development by adding a different angle for learning about the topic. After a brief introduction to the dynamic JVM-based Groovy programming language, which teaches you enough about Groovy to understand the relationship between Grails and the Groovy scripting language, it shows how to use Grails and a number of key plug-ins to deliver valuable web applications. It also takes you through creating, developing, testing, and deploying an example team collaboration application in Grails.Using an incremental and iterative approach you will learn how to build a basic web application with secure authentication and different levels of authorization. You will learn how to handle file upload allowing users to share files. Some advanced features of object-oriented persistence will be introduced through adding tags for messages and files to giving users a robust categorization system.You will then build on the basic application to enhance the user experience through AJAX and the RichUI plug-in. You will take a further step into the world of Web 2.0 by adding an RSS feed and a REST service to the application. Once the entire application is up and running, you will learn how to create your own plug-in for tagging. Finally, you will learn how to deploy this application to a production environment.

Practical Data Analysis. For small businesses, analyzing the information contained in their data using open source technology could be game-changing. All you need is some basic programming and mathematical skills to do just that

Hector Cuesta

Plenty of small businesses face big amounts of data but lack the internal skills to support quantitative analysis. Understanding how to harness the power of data analysis using the latest open source technology can lead them to providing better customer service, the visualization of customer needs, or even the ability to obtain fresh insights about the performance of previous products. Practical Data Analysis is a book ideal for home and small business users who want to slice and dice the data they have on hand with minimum hassle.Practical Data Analysis is a hands-on guide to understanding the nature of your data and turn it into insight. It will introduce you to the use of machine learning techniques, social networks analytics, and econometrics to help your clients get insights about the pool of data they have at hand. Performing data preparation and processing over several kinds of data such as text, images, graphs, documents, and time series will also be covered.Practical Data Analysis presents a detailed exploration of the current work in data analysis through self-contained projects. First you will explore the basics of data preparation and transformation through OpenRefine. Then you will get started with exploratory data analysis using the D3js visualization framework. You will also be introduced to some of the machine learning techniques such as, classification, regression, and clusterization through practical projects such as spam classification, predicting gold prices, and finding clusters in your Facebook friends' network. You will learn how to solve problems in text classification, simulation, time series forecast, social media, and MapReduce through detailed projects. Finally you will work with large amounts of Twitter data using MapReduce to perform a sentiment analysis implemented in Python and MongoDB. Practical Data Analysis contains a combination of carefully selected algorithms and data scrubbing that enables you to turn your data into insight.

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.