Three of Jean Ure’s stories in one bumper volume of classic girly fiction with ‘Sugar and Spice’, ‘Secret Meeting’ and ‘Is Anybody There’? ‘Sugar and Spice’: Geeky Ruth Spicer is shocked when super-cool Shayanne Sugar wants to be her friend. ‘Secret Meeting’: Annie's arranged the coolest birthday present for her best friend, Megan. ‘Is Anybody There?’: The friendship of three girls is tested when one of them accepts a lift with a stranger. These three classic girl’s stories combine vivid characters with real life problems and a touch of humour, making this essential reading for 10 – 12 year old girls.

Build smarter and efficient database application systems for your organization with SQL Server 2017 About This Book ? Build database applications by using the development features of SQL Server 2017 ? Work with temporal tables to get information stored in a table at any time ? Use adaptive querying to enhance the performance of your queries Who This Book Is For Database developers and solution architects looking to design efficient database applications using SQL Server 2017 will find this book very useful. In addition, this book will be valuable to advanced analysis practitioners and business intelligence developers. Database consultants dealing with performance tuning will get a lot of useful information from this book as well. Some basic understanding of database concepts and T-SQL is required to get the best out of this book. What You Will Learn ? Explore the new development features introduced in SQL Server 2017 ? Identify opportunities for In-Memory OLTP technology ? Use columnstore indexes to get storage and performance improvements ? Exchange JSON data between applications and SQL Server ? Use the new security features to encrypt or mask the data ? Control the access to the data on the row levels ? Discover the potential of R and Python integration ? Model complex relationships with the graph databases in SQL Server 2017 In Detail Microsoft SQL Server 2017 is the next big step in the data platform history of Microsoft as it brings in the power of R and Python for machine learning and containerization-based deployment on Windows and Linux. Compared to its predecessor, SQL Server 2017 has evolved into Machine Learning with R services for statistical analysis and Python packages for analytical processing. This book prepares you for more advanced topics by starting with a quick introduction to SQL Server 2017’s new features and a recapitulation of the possibilities you may have already explored with previous versions of SQL Server. The next part introduces you to enhancements in the Transact-SQL language and new database engine capabilities and then switches to a completely new technology inside SQL Server: JSON support. We also take a look at the Stretch database, security enhancements, and temporal tables. Furthermore, the book focuses on implementing advanced topics, including Query Store, columnstore indexes, and In-Memory OLTP. Towards the end of the book, you’ll be introduced to R and how to use the R language with Transact-SQL for data exploration and analysis. You’ll also learn to integrate Python code in SQL Server and graph database implementations along with deployment options on Linux and SQL Server in containers for development and testing. By the end of this book, you will have the required information to design efficient, high-performance database applications without any hassle. Style and approach This book is a detailed guide to mastering the development features offered by SQL Server 2017, with a unique learn-as-you-do approach. All the concepts are explained in a very easy-to-understand manner and are supplemented with examples to ensure that you—the developer—are able to take that next step in building more powerful, robust applications for your organization with ease.

Build cross-platform solutions with .NET Core 2.0 through real-life scenarios About This Book ? Bridges the gap between learning and doing and improves your software development skills ? Covers the best practices of .NET development to improve your productivity ? Example-based approach to get you started quickly with software programming Who This Book Is For If you are a developer or architect and want to learn how to build cross-platform solutions using Microsoft .NET Core, this book is for you. It is assumed that you have some knowledge of the .NET Framework, OOP, and C# (or a similar programming language). What You Will Learn ? Build cross-platform applications with ASP.NET Core 2.0 and its tools ? Integrate, host, and deploy web apps with the cloud (Microsoft Azure) ? Leverage the ncurses native library to extend console capabilities in .NET Core on Linux and interop with native coden .NET Core on Linux and learn how to interop with existing native code ? Reuse existing .NET Framework and Mono assemblies from .NET Core 2.0 applications ? Develop real-time web applications using ASP.NET Core ? Learn the differences between SOA and microservices and get started with microservice development using ASP.NET Core 2.0 ? Walk through functional programming with F# and .NET Core from scratch In Detail With the rise in the number of tools and technologies available today, developers and architects are always exploring ways to create better and smarter solutions. Before, the differences between target platforms was a major roadblock, but that's not the case now. .NET Core 2.0 By Example will take you on an exciting journey to building better software. This book provides fresh and relevant content to .NET Core 2.0 in a succinct format that’s enjoyable to read. It also delivers concepts, along with the implications, design decisions, and potential pitfalls you might face when targeting Linux and Windows systems, in a logical and simple way. With the .NET framework at its center, the book comprises of five varied projects: a multiplayer Tic-tac-toe game; a real-time chat application, Let'sChat; a chatbot; a microservice-based buying-selling application; and a movie booking application. You will start each chapter with a high-level overview of the content, followed by the above example applications described in detail. By the end of each chapter, you will not only be proficient with the concepts, but you’ll also have created a tangible component in the application. By the end of the book, you will have built five solid projects using all the tools and support provided by the .NET Core 2.0 framework. Style and approach This book takes a concise yet comprehensive project-based approach to teaching the tricks and tools of .NET Core 2.0.

Explore powerful R packages to create predictive models using ensemble methods Key Features *Implement machine learning algorithms to build ensemble-efficient models *Explore powerful R packages to create predictive models using ensemble methods *Learn to build ensemble models on large datasets using a practical approach Book Description Ensemble techniques are used for combining two or more similar or dissimilar machine learning algorithms to create a stronger model. Such a model delivers superior prediction power and can give your datasets a boost in accuracy. Hands-On Ensemble Learning with R begins with the important statistical resampling methods. You will then walk through the central trilogy of ensemble techniques – bagging, random forest, and boosting – then you'll learn how they can be used to provide greater accuracy on large datasets using popular R packages. You will learn how to combine model predictions using different machine learning algorithms to build ensemble models. In addition to this, you will explore how to improve the performance of your ensemble models. By the end of this book, you will have learned how machine learning algorithms can be combined to reduce common problems and build simple efficient ensemble models with the help of real-world examples. What you will learn *Carry out an essential review of re-sampling methods, bootstrap, and jackknife *Explore the key ensemble methods: bagging, random forests, and boosting *Use multiple algorithms to make strong predictive models *Enjoy a comprehensive treatment of boosting methods *Supplement methods with statistical tests, such as ROC *Walk through data structures in classification, regression, survival, and time series data *Use the supplied R code to implement ensemble methods *Learn stacking method to combine heterogeneous machine learning models Who this book is for This book is for you if you are a data scientist or machine learning developer who wants to implement machine learning techniques by building ensemble models with the power of R. You will learn how to combine different machine learning algorithms to perform efficient data processing. Basic knowledge of machine learning techniques and programming knowledge of R would be an added advantage.

Make the most of Angular by leveraging design patterns and best practices to build stable and high performing apps Key Features *Get to grips with the benefits and applicability of using different design patterns in Angular with the help of real-world examples *Identify and prevent common problems, programming errors, and anti-patterns *Packed with easy-to-follow examples that can be used to create reusable code and extensible designs Book Description This book is an insightful journey through the most valuable design patterns, and it will provide clear guidance on how to use them effectively in Angular. You will explore some of the best ways to work with Angular and how to use it to meet the stability and performance required in today's web development world. You’ll get to know some Angular best practices to improve your productivity and the code base of your application. We will take you on a journey through Angular designs for the real world, using a combination of case studies, design patterns to follow, and anti-patterns to avoid. By the end of the book, you will understand the various features of Angular, and will be able to apply well-known, industry-proven design patterns in your work. What you will learn *Understand Angular design patterns and anti-patterns *Implement the most useful GoF patterns for Angular *Explore some of the most famous navigational patterns for Angular *Get to know and implement stability patterns *Explore and implement operations patterns *Explore the official best practices for Angular *Monitor and improve the performance of Angular applications Who this book is for If you want to increase your understanding of Angular and apply it to real-life application development, then this book is for you.

Master serverless architectures in Python and their implementation, with Zappa on three different frameworks. Key Features * Scalable serverless Python web services using Django, Flask, and Pyramid. * Learn Asynchronous task execution on AWS Lambda and scheduling using Zappa. * Implementing Zappa in a Docker container. Book Description Serverless applications are becoming very popular these days, not just because they save developers the trouble of managing the servers, but also because they provide several other benefits such as cutting heavy costs and improving the overall performance of the application. This book will help you build serverless applications in a quick and efficient way. We begin with an introduction to AWS and the API gateway, the environment for serverless development, and Zappa. We then look at building, testing, and deploying apps in AWS with three different frameworks--Flask, Django, and Pyramid. Setting up a custom domain along with SSL certificates and configuring them with Zappa is also covered. A few advanced Zappa settings are also covered along with securing Zappa with AWS VPC. By the end of the book you will have mastered using three frameworks to build robust and cost-efficient serverless apps in Python. What you will learn *Build, test, and deploy a simple web service using AWS CLI *Integrate Flask-based Python applications, via AWS CLI configuration *Design Rest APIs integrated with Zappa for Flask and Django *Create a project in the Pyramid framework and configure it with Zappa *Generate SSL Certificates using Amazon Certificate Manager *Configure custom domains with AWS Route 53 *Create a Docker container similar to AWS Lambda Who this book is for Python Developers who are interested in learning how to develop fast and highly scalable serverless applications in Python, will find this book useful

Plan, track, and release great software Key Features * Learn to create reports and dashboard for effective project management * Implement your development strategy in JIRA. * Practices to help you manage the issues in the development team Book Description As teams scale in size, project management can get very complicated. One of the best tools to deal with this kind of problem is JIRA. This book will start by organizing your project requirements and the principles of Agile development to get you started. You will then be introduced to set up a JIRA account and the JIRA ecosystem to help you implement a dashboard for your team's work and issues. You will learn how to manage any issues and bugs that might emerge in the development stage. Going ahead, the book will help you build reports and use them to plan the releases based on the study of the reports. Towards the end, you will come across working with the gathered data and create a dashboard that helps you track the project's development. What you will learn * Create your first project (and manage existing projects) in JIRA * Manage your board view and backlogs in JIRA * Run a Scrum Sprint project in JIRA * Create reports (including topic-based reports) * Forecast using versions * Search for issues with JIRA Query Language (JQL) * Execute bulk changes to issues * Create custom filters, dashboards, and widgets * Create epics, stories, bugs, and tasks Who this book is for This book is for administrators who wants to apply the Agile approach to managing the issues, bugs, and releases in their software development projects using JIRA.

Use an open source firewall and features such as failover, load balancer, OpenVPN, IPSec, and Squid to protect your network Key Features *Explore pfSense, a trusted open source network security solution *Configure pfSense as a firewall and create and manage firewall rules *Test pfSense for failover and load balancing across multiple WAN connections Book Description While connected to the internet, you’re a potential target for an array of cyber threats, such as hackers, keyloggers, and Trojans that attack through unpatched security holes. A firewall works as a barrier (or ‘shield’) between your computer and cyberspace. pfSense is highly versatile firewall software. With thousands of enterprises using pfSense, it is fast becoming the world's most trusted open source network security solution. Network Security with pfSense begins with an introduction to pfSense, where you will gain an understanding of what pfSense is, its key features, and advantages. Next, you will learn how to configure pfSense as a firewall and create and manage firewall rules. As you make your way through the chapters, you will test pfSense for failover and load balancing across multiple wide area network (WAN) connections. You will then configure pfSense with OpenVPN for secure remote connectivity and implement IPsec VPN tunnels with pfSense. In the concluding chapters, you’ll understand how to configure and integrate pfSense as a Squid proxy server. By the end of this book, you will be able to leverage the power of pfSense to build a secure network. What you will learn *Understand what pfSense is, its key features, and advantages *Configure pfSense as a firewall *Set up pfSense for failover and load balancing *Connect clients through an OpenVPN client *Configure an IPsec VPN tunnel with pfSense *Integrate the Squid proxy into pfSense Who this book is for Network Security with pfSense is for IT administrators, security administrators, technical architects, chief experience officers, and individuals who own a home or small office network and want to secure it.

Over 60 recipes to help you design interactive, smart, and cross-platform GUI applications Key Features * Get succinct QT solutions to pressing GUI programming problems in Python * Learn how to effectively implement reactive programming * Build customized applications that are robust and reliable Book Description PyQt is one of the best cross-platform interface toolkits currently available; it's stable, mature, and completely native. If you want control over all aspects of UI elements, PyQt is what you need. This book will guide you through every concept necessary to create fully functional GUI applications using PyQt, with only a few lines of code. As you expand your GUI using more widgets, you will cover networks, databases, and graphical libraries that greatly enhance its functionality. Next, the book guides you in using Qt Designer to design user interfaces and implementing and testing dialogs, events, the clipboard, and drag and drop functionality to customize your GUI. You will learn a variety of topics, such as look and feel customization, GUI animation, graphics rendering, implementing Google Maps, and more. Lastly, the book takes you through how Qt5 can help you to create cross-platform apps that are compatible with Android and iOS. You will be able to develop functional and appealing software using PyQt through interesting and fun recipes that will expand your knowledge of GUIs What you will learn * Use basic Qt components, such as a radio button, combo box, and sliders * Use QSpinBox and sliders to handle different signals generated on mouse clicks * Work with different Qt layouts to meet user interface requirements * Create custom widgets and set up customizations in your GUI * Perform asynchronous I/O operations and thread handling in the Python GUI * Employ network concepts, internet browsing, and Google Maps in UI * Use graphics rendering and implement animation in your GUI * Make your GUI application compatible with Android and iOS devices Who this book is for If you’re an intermediate Python programmer wishing to enhance your coding skills by writing powerful GUIs in Python using PyQT, this is the book for you.

Learn the fundamentals of Java EE 8 APIs to build effective web services Key Features *Design modern and stylish web services with Java EE APIs *Secure your web services with JSON Web Tokens *Explore the advanced concepts of RESTful web services and the JAX-RS API Book Description Java Enterprise Edition is one of the leading application programming platforms for enterprise Java development. With Java EE 8 finally released and the first application servers now available, it is time to take a closer look at how to develop modern and lightweight web services with the latest API additions and improvements. Building RESTful Web Services with Java EE 8 is a comprehensive guide that will show you how to develop state-of-the-art RESTful web services with the latest Java EE 8 APIs. You will begin with an overview of Java EE 8 and the latest API additions and improvements. You will then delve into the details of implementing synchronous RESTful web services and clients with JAX-RS. Next up, you will learn about the specifics of data binding and content marshalling using the JSON-B 1.0 and JSON-P 1.1 APIs. This book also guides you in leveraging the power of asynchronous APIs on the server and client side, and you will learn to use server-sent events (SSEs) for push communication. The final section covers advanced web service topics such as validation, JWT security, and diagnosability. By the end of this book, you will have implemented several working web services and have a thorough understanding of the Java EE 8 APIs required for lightweight web service development. What you will learn *Dive into the latest Java EE 8 APIs relevant for developing web services *Use the new JSON-B APIs for easy data binding *Understand how JSON-P API can be used for flexible processing *Implement synchronous and asynchronous JAX-RS clients *Use server-sent events to implement server-side code *Secure Java EE 8 web services with JSON Web Tokens Who this book is for If you're a Java developer who wants to learn how to implement web services using the latest Java EE 8 APIs, this book is for you. Though no prior knowledge of Java EE 8 is required, experience with a previous Java EE version will be beneficial.

Architect and design data-intensive applications and, in the process, learn how to collect, process, store, govern, and expose data for a variety of use cases Key Features *Integrate the data-intensive approach into your application architecture *Create a robust application layout with effective messaging and data querying architecture *Enable smooth data flow and make the data of your application intensive and fast Book Description Are you an architect or a developer who looks at your own applications gingerly while browsing through Facebook and applauding it silently for its data-intensive, yet ?uent and efficient, behaviour? This book is your gateway to build smart data-intensive systems by incorporating the core data-intensive architectural principles, patterns, and techniques directly into your application architecture. This book starts by taking you through the primary design challenges involved with architecting data-intensive applications. You will learn how to implement data curation and data dissemination, depending on the volume of your data. You will then implement your application architecture one step at a time. You will get to grips with implementing the correct message delivery protocols and creating a data layer that doesn’t fail when running high traffic. This book will show you how you can divide your application into layers, each of which adheres to the single responsibility principle. By the end of this book, you will learn to streamline your thoughts and make the right choice in terms of technologies and architectural principles based on the problem at hand. What you will learn *Understand how to envision a data-intensive system *Identify and compare the non-functional requirements of a data collection component *Understand patterns involving data processing, as well as technologies that help to speed up the development of data processing systems *Understand how to implement Data Governance policies at design time using various Open Source Tools *Recognize the anti-patterns to avoid while designing a data store for applications *Understand the different data dissemination technologies available to query the data in an efficient manner *Implement a simple data governance policy that can be extended using Apache Falcon Who this book is for This book is for developers and data architects who have to code, test, deploy, and/or maintain large-scale, high data volume applications. It is also useful for system architects who need to understand various non-functional aspects revolving around Data Intensive Systems.

Implement intelligent agents using PyTorch to solve classic AI problems, play console games like Atari, and perform tasks such as autonomous driving using the CARLA driving simulator Key Features *Explore the OpenAI Gym toolkit and interface to use over 700 learning tasks *Implement agents to solve simple to complex AI problems *Study learning environments and discover how to create your own Book Description Many real-world problems can be broken down into tasks that require a series of decisions to be made or actions to be taken. The ability to solve such tasks without a machine being programmed requires a machine to be artificially intelligent and capable of learning to adapt. This book is an easy-to-follow guide to implementing learning algorithms for machine software agents in order to solve discrete or continuous sequential decision making and control tasks. Hands-On Intelligent Agents with OpenAI Gym takes you through the process of building intelligent agent algorithms using deep reinforcement learning starting from the implementation of the building blocks for configuring, training, logging, visualizing, testing, and monitoring the agent. You will walk through the process of building intelligent agents from scratch to perform a variety of tasks. In the closing chapters, the book provides an overview of the latest learning environments and learning algorithms, along with pointers to more resources that will help you take your deep reinforcement learning skills to the next level. What you will learn *Explore intelligent agents and learning environments *Understand the basics of RL and deep RL *Get started with OpenAI Gym and PyTorch for deep reinforcement learning *Discover deep Q learning agents to solve discrete optimal control tasks *Create custom learning environments for real-world problems *Apply a deep actor-critic agent to drive a car autonomously in CARLA *Use the latest learning environments and algorithms to upgrade your intelligent agent development skills Who this book is for If you’re a student, game/machine learning developer, or AI enthusiast looking to get started with building intelligent agents and algorithms to solve a variety of problems with the OpenAI Gym interface, this book is for you. You will also find this book useful if you want to learn how to build deep reinforcement learning-based agents to solve problems in your domain of interest. Though the book covers all the basic concepts that you need to know, some working knowledge of Python programming language will help you get the most out of it.

Build, design, and style beautiful and informative applications on the Salesforce Lightning platform Key Features *Build and Test Lightning Components that enhance application usability and adaptability *Apply Security Best Practices to your Custom Lightning Components *Design Lightning Components for Salesforce UIs such as Lightning Pages, Salesforce 1 Application, Communities, and more. Book Description Built on the Salesforce App Cloud, the new Salesforce Lightning Experience combines three major components: Lightning Design System, Lightning App Builder, and Lightning Components, to provide an enhanced user experience. This book will enable you to quickly create modern, enterprise apps with Lightning Component Framework. You will start by building simple Lightning Components and understanding the Lightning Components architecture. The chapters cover the basics of Lightning Component Framework semantics and syntax, the security features provided by Locker Service, and use of third-party libraries inside Lightning Components. The later chapters focus on debugging, performance tuning, testing using Lightning Testing Services, and how to publish Lightning Components on Salesforce AppExchange. What you will learn *Understand Lightning Components architecture *Learn Locker security best practices *Debug and Improve performance of your Lightning Components *Use third-party libraries along with Lightning Component Framework *Learn how to publish Lightning Components on AppExchange *Use Lightning Out to take your Lightning Components outside the Salesforce platform Who this book is for This book is for Salesforce developers or developers from other platforms who are familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and want to build and test Salesforce Lightning components. No knowledge of Salesforce Lightning is required.

If your application source code is overly verbose, it can be a nightmare to maintain. Write concise and expressive, type-safe code in an environment that lets you build for the JVM, browser, and more. Key Features *Expert guidance that shows you to efficiently use both object-oriented and functional programming techniques *Understand functional programming libraries, such as Cats and Scalaz, and use them to augment your Scala development *Perfectly balances theory and hands-on exercises, assessments, and activities Book Description This book teaches you how to build and contribute to Scala programs, recognizing common patterns and techniques used with the language. You’ll learn how to write concise, functional code with Scala. After an introduction to core concepts, syntax, and writing example applications with scalac, you’ll learn about the Scala Collections API and how the language handles type safety via static types out-of-the-box. You’ll then learn about advanced functional programming patterns, and how you can write your own Domain Specific Languages (DSLs). By the end of the book, you’ll be equipped with the skills you need to successfully build smart, efficient applications in Scala that can be compiled to the JVM. What you will learn *Understand the key language syntax and core concepts for application development *Master the type system to create scalable type-safe applications while cutting down your time spent debugging *Understand how you can work with advanced data structures via built-in features such as the Collections library *Use classes, objects, and traits to transform a trivial chatbot program into a useful assistant *Understand what are pure functions, immutability, and higher-order functions *Recognize and implement popular functional programming design patterns Who this book is for This is an ideal book for developers who are looking to learn Scala, and is particularly well suited for Java developers looking to migrate across to Scala for application development on the JVM.

Build smart applications by implementing real-world artificial intelligence projects Key Features *Explore a variety of AI projects with Python *Get well-versed with different types of neural networks and popular deep learning algorithms *Leverage popular Python deep learning libraries for your AI projects Book Description Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the newest technology that’s being employed among varied businesses, industries, and sectors. Python Artificial Intelligence Projects for Beginners demonstrates AI projects in Python, covering modern techniques that make up the world of Artificial Intelligence. This book begins with helping you to build your first prediction model using the popular Python library, scikit-learn. You will understand how to build a classifier using an effective machine learning technique, random forest, and decision trees. With exciting projects on predicting bird species, analyzing student performance data, song genre identification, and spam detection, you will learn the fundamentals and various algorithms and techniques that foster the development of these smart applications. In the concluding chapters, you will also understand deep learning and neural network mechanisms through these projects with the help of the Keras library. By the end of this book, you will be confident in building your own AI projects with Python and be ready to take on more advanced projects as you progress What you will learn *Build a prediction model using decision trees and random forest *Use neural networks, decision trees, and random forests for classification *Detect YouTube comment spam with a bag-of-words and random forests *Identify handwritten mathematical symbols with convolutional neural networks *Revise the bird species identifier to use images *Learn to detect positive and negative sentiment in user reviews Who this book is for Python Artificial Intelligence Projects for Beginners is for Python developers who want to take their first step into the world of Artificial Intelligence using easy-to-follow projects. Basic working knowledge of Python programming is expected so that you’re able to play around with code

Build optimized applications in Kotlin by learning how to make use of the standard library features the smart way Key Features *Get the most out of the Kotlin library to develop high-quality portable applications *Explore the powerful support for data processing and I/O operations *Discover ways to enhance your Android application development Book Description Given the verbosity of Java, developers have turned to Kotlin for effective software development. The Kotlin standard library provides vital tools that make day-to-day Kotlin programming easier. This library features the core attributes of the language, such as algorithmic problems, design patterns, data processing, and working with files and data streams. The recipes in this book offer coding solutions that can be readily executed. The book covers various topics related to data processing, I/O operations, and collections transformation. We'll walk through effective design patterns in Kotlin and you'll understand how coroutines add new features to JavaScript. As you make your way through the chapters, you'll learn how to implement clean, reusable functions and scalable interfaces containing default implementations. In the concluding chapters, we'll provide recipes on functional programming concepts, such as lambdas, monads, functors, and Kotlin scoping functions. By the end of the book, you'll be able to address a range of problems that Kotlin developers face by implementing easy-to-follow solutions. What you will learn *Work with ranges, progressions, and sequences in use cases *Add new functionalities to current classes with Kotlin extensions *Understand elements such as lambdas, closures, and monads *Build a REST API consumer with Retrofit and a coroutine adapter *Discover useful tips and solutions for making your Android projects *Explore the benefits of standard library features Who this book is for This book is for software developers who are familiar with Kotlin’s basics and want to discover more advanced features and concepts, especially those provided by the Kotlin standard library. It’s also ideal for experienced software developers who are familiar with the functional programming paradigm and other programming languages who want to switch to Kotlin. It will also help Java developers switch to Kotlin and integrate it into existing Java Virtual Machine (JVM) projects.

Make web applications run faster by using advanced PHP, SQL and JavaScript techniques About This Book ? Use a customized PHP stack to create efficient data-driven web applications ? Ensure seamless implementation of a JavaScript & HTML 5 CSS based frontend and PHP based backend. ? Learn about problem identification, best strategies, and UI design patterns as well to build a clean, fast web application Who This Book Is For The audience for this book would be PHP developers who have some basic knowledge of PHP programming and Web technologies. JavaScript programming knowledge is not necessary. What You Will Learn ? Install, confgure, and use profling and benchmarking testing tools ? Understand how to recognize optimizable data structures and functions to effectively optimize a PHP7 application ? Diagnose bad SQL query performance and discover ways to optimize it ? Grasp modern SQL techniques to optimize complex SQL queries ? Identify and simplify overly complex JavaScript code ? Explore and implement UI design principles that effectively enhance the performance ? Combine web technologies to boost web server performance In Detail This book will get you started with the latest benchmarking, profiling and monitoring tools for PHP, MySQL and JavaScript using Docker-based technologies. From optimizing PHP 7 code to learning asynchronous programming, from implementing Modern SQL solutions to discovering Functional JavaScript techniques, this book covers all the latest developments in Faster Web technologies. You will not only learn to determine the best optimization strategies, but also how to implement them. Along the way, you will learn how to profile your PHP scripts with Blackfire.io, monitor your Web applications, measure database performance, optimize SQL queries, explore Functional JavaScript, boost Web server performance in general and optimize applications when there is nothing left to optimize by going beyond performance. After reading this book, you will know how to boost the performance of any Web application and make it part of what has come to be known as the Faster Web. Style and approach The book has a step by step practical approach to developing highly efficient Web applications, with many practical and useful code snippets.

Real-world examples of cross-browser, mobile, and data-driven testing with all the latest features of Selenium WebDriver 3 Key Features *Unlock the full potential of Selenium to test your web applications *Use Selenium Grid for faster, parallel running, and cross-browser testing *Test iOS and Android Apps with Appium Book Description Selenium WebDriver is an open source automation tool implemented through a browser-specific driver, which sends commands to a browser and retrieves results. The latest version of Selenium 3 brings with it a lot of new features that change the way you use and setup Selenium WebDriver. This book covers all those features along with the source code, including a demo website that allows you to work with an HMTL5 application and other examples throughout the book. Selenium WebDriver 3 Practical Guide will walk you through the various APIs of Selenium WebDriver, which are used in automation tests, followed by a discussion of the various WebDriver implementations available. You will learn to strategize and handle rich web UI using advanced WebDriver API along with real-time challenges faced in WebDriver and solutions to handle them. You will discover different types and domains of testing such as cross-browser testing, load testing, and mobile testing with Selenium. Finally, you will also be introduced to data-driven testing using TestNG to create your own automation framework. By the end of this book, you will be able to select any web application and automate it the way you want. What you will learn *Understand what Selenium 3 is and how is has been improved than its predecessor *Use different mobile and desktop browser platforms with Selenium 3 *Perform advanced actions, such as drag-and-drop and action builders on web page *Learn to use Java 8 API and Selenium 3 together *Explore remote WebDriver and discover how to use it *Perform cross browser and distributed testing with Selenium Grid *Use Actions API for performing various keyboard and mouse actions Who this book is for Selenium WebDriver 3 Practical Guide is for software quality assurance/testing professionals, software project managers, or software developers interested in using Selenium for testing their applications. Prior programming experience in Java is necessary.

Develop rich and scalable web applications with Node.js, Express.js, and MongoDB About This Book ? Learn the advanced features of Aurelia to build responsive web applications ? Write clean, modular, and testable code that will be easy to maintain and evolve ? Harness the power of JavaScript on the client and server side to build full-stack applications Who This Book Is For Hands-On Full Stack Web Development with Aurelia is for you if you are a web or full-stack JavaScript developer who has experience with traditional stacks such as LAMP, MEAN, or MERN and wish to explore the power of Aurelia and new stack with modern web technologies. What You Will Learn ? Employ best practices and modern approaches to create frontend applications ? Learn about modern CSS preprocessors and improve the readability of your application ? Use the Aurelia framework to create navigable web applications ? Write your own tests, making your application secure and fault-tolerant ? Create solid RESTful APIs using the microservice architecture ? Understand the NoSQL paradigm and get the best performance from your database ? Integrate third-party libraries such as Gmail for Single Sign On ? Write UI testing scripts and integration tests to build extensible apps In Detail Hands-On Full Stack Web Development with Aurelia begins with a review of basic JavaScript concepts and the structure of an Aurelia application generated with the Aurelia-CLI tool. You will learn how to create interesting and intuitive application using the Aurelia-Materialize plugin, which implements the material design approach. Once you fully configure a FIFA World Cup 2018 app, you'll start creating the initial components through TDD practices and then develop backend services to process and store all the user data. This book lets you explore the NoSQL model and implement it using one of the most popular NoSQL databases, MongoDB, with some exciting libraries to make the experience effortless. You'll also be able to add some advanced behavior to your components, from managing the lifecycle properly to using dynamic binding, field validations, and the custom service layer. You will integrate your application with Google OAuth Service and learn best practices to secure your applications. Furthermore, you'll write UI Testing scripts to create high-quality Aurelia Apps and explore the most used tools to run end-to-end tests. In the concluding chapters, you'll be able to deploy your application to the Cloud and Docker containers. By the end of this book, you will have learned how to create rich applications using best practices and modern approaches. Style and approach This is a comprehensive example-based book that guides you to create highly scalable applications using the new MEAN Stack.

Make the most of Kotlin by leveraging design patterns and best practices to build scalable and high performing apps About This Book ? Understand traditional GOF design patterns to apply generic solutions ? Shift from OOP to FP; covering reactive and concurrent patterns in a step-by-step manner ? Choose the best microservices architecture and MVC for your development environment Who This Book Is For This book is for developers who would like to master design patterns with Kotlin to build efficient and scalable applications. Basic Java or Kotlin programming knowledge is assumed What You Will Learn ? Get to grips with Kotlin principles, including its strengths and weaknesses ? Understand classical design patterns in Kotlin ? Explore functional programming using built-in features of Kotlin ? Solve real-world problems using reactive and concurrent design patterns ? Use threads and coroutines to simplify concurrent code flow ? Understand antipatterns to write clean Kotlin code, avoiding common pitfalls ? Learn about the design considerations necessary while choosing between architectures In Detail Design patterns enable you as a developer to speed up the development process by providing you with proven development paradigms. Reusing design patterns helps prevent complex issues that can cause major problems, improves your code base, promotes code reuse, and makes an architecture more robust. The mission of this book is to ease the adoption of design patterns in Kotlin and provide good practices for programmers. The book begins by showing you the practical aspects of smarter coding in Kotlin, explaining the basic Kotlin syntax and the impact of design patterns. From there, the book provides an in-depth explanation of the classical design patterns of creational, structural, and behavioral families, before heading into functional programming. It then takes you through reactive and concurrent patterns, teaching you about using streams, threads, and coroutines to write better code along the way By the end of the book, you will be able to efficiently address common problems faced while developing applications and be comfortable working on scalable and maintainable projects of any size. Style and approach This book explains design patterns in a step-by-step manner with clear and concise code examples

A brilliantly funny novel from the author of ‘The Abstinence Teacher’ and ‘Little Children’, made into an acclaimed film starring Reece Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. Tracy Flick wants to be president of Winwood High. She’s one of those ambitious girls who finds time to do it all: edit the yearbook, star in the school musical, sleep with her English teacher. Staunch idealist, Jim McAllister (aka ‘Mr M’) thinks the students deserve better. So he persuades Paul Warren – a well-liked, good-hearted jock – to run as well. But that puts Paul’s sister, Tammy, in a snit. So she runs too, on an apathy platform – before starting a real campaign…to get herself kicked out of school. The idea was to educate the students of this suburban New Jersey school in the democratic process and the American way. But with all the sex scandals, smear campaigns and behind-the-scenes powerbrokers at Winwood High, it doesn’t look as if they need any lessons…