Useful Books and Software

Amazon.com is advancing the boundaries of the Internet through their powerful suite of web services. Innovative developers are combining Amazon data with other freely available sources to create new and interesting applications known as Mashups. This book teaches you the techniques behind mashup applications and for the first time shows you how to build them yourself.

The examples in this book show you how to integrate Amazon web services with APIs from Yahoo!, eBay, Google and YouTube. You'll learn how to combine data from disparate sources to create new applications using next generation browser techniques such as AJAX, JSON and Dynamic Scripting. You will learn how to re-purpose web service data so that it can be consumed from mobile devices such as a cell phone or PDA. Because both the theory and code are explained, you'll be able to easily take the lessons in this book to build your own killer mashup applications.

Expert web services developer Francis Shanahan guides you through the basics of web service consumption using XML, SOAP and REST. Next generation browser techniques such as AJAX are illustrated in easy to follow step by step examples. He also completes the picture by introducing advanced techniques to enhance performance such as the multi-threading web service features of ASP.NET 2.0.

With this book, you'll discover how to:

• Build a generic AJAX library from the ground up
• Consume publicly available APIs such as Yahoo!(r) Search, Google(r), eBay(r) and YouTube
• Use SOAP to expose Amazon data as RSS
• Convert Amazon data directly into JSON using XSLT
• Plot Amazon.com customers on Yahoo Maps
• Use the OpenSearch API to build your own search service
• Access Amazon data from your cell phone using WML

Who this book is for

This book is for developers who have some prior experience with web technologies such as Javascript(r) and ASP.NET. This book covers a wide range of technologies and techniques including ASP.NET 2.0, WML, REST, RSS, SOAP, XML, XSLT, AJAX and JSON. Everything in the book is built using free tools and explained in detail, along with the source code which makes this a useful resource regardless of experience level.

Publisher: Wrox
Author: Francis Shanahan
Release Date: 2007-01-03
ISBN/EAN: 0470097779 / 9780470097779

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A jaded software developer, having seen too many insubstantial "advance" books rushed to press just so they can be the only books available on their topic for a while, might be suspicious of this book. Such suspicion is not borne out by the contents of Perl 6 Essentials, which are valuable. Though thin, this book is dense with information and well worth its modest cover price. The authors clearly explain what's new (so far) in Perl 6, and do an excellent job of explaining the new Parrot virtual machine architecture. There's extensive coverage of Parrot assembly language (PASM), more than enough for you to do some significant exploratory programming with it. The authors have a good sense of what Perl developers want to know about their future working environment, and satisfy that demand. --David Wall

Topics covered: The state of the Perl 6 development effort through Apocalypse 6 (a development milestone) and the Parrot virtual machine through version 0.0.10. The most valuable coverage is of Parrot and its assembly language (PASM). Changes in Perl features and syntax get lots of attention, as well.

Perl 6 Essentials is a sneak-preview of Perl 6, the widely-anticipated rewrite of the Perl programming language. Still in development, the Perl 6 project is a community-based effort to keep Perl vibrant well into the 21st century. This book covers the development not only of Perl 6 syntax but also Parrot, the language-independent interpreter developed as part of the Perl 6 design strategy.

Although Perl remains a vibrant language with a fiercely loyal following, it has undergone many changes to keep up with new technologies and applications that were not anticipated when Perl was first introduced in 1987. Through its community-based development model, Perl has kept up with changing times and remained fresh when other languages might have stagnated.

Internally, however, there have remained kinks and stumbling blocks that developers have needed to sidestep, long-abandoned features that have been maintained only for backwards compatibility, misdirected phrasings that have hindered more intuitive syntax structures, and a cacophony of modules that sometimes work well together, but occasionally don't. Perl continues to have a strong following devoted to its development, but in the meantime, a group of core Perl developers have begun working on Perl 6, a complete rewrite of the Perl language. While Perl's creative philosophy and common-sense syntax are sure to remain in Perl 6, everything else in the language is being re-examined and recreated.

Perl 6 Essentials provides an overview of the current state of Perl 6 for those who await its release. Written by members of the Perl 6 core development team, the book offers an explanation of the various stages of the project, with reference material for programmers who are interested in what changes are planned or who may want to contribute to the project. The book will satisfy their curiosity and show how changes in the language will make it more powerful and easier to use.

Perl 6 Essentials is the first book that offers a peek into the next major version of the Perl language. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of Perl.

Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Allison Randal, Dan Sugalski, Leopold Totsch
Release Date: 2003-06-20
ISBN/EAN: 0596004990 / 9780596004996

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Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl is written with the goal of super-charging your SQL Server administration skills with Perl scripting, taking you to the next level of SQL Server administration. Through a broad range of scenarios, this book shows you how to write Perl scripts (often in combination with T-SQL scripting) to solve a wide variety of SQL Server administration problems. This unique book will provide you with the techniques to conquer real-world problems that frequently trouble DBAs.

You will take away at least two things from reading this book: a DBA toolkit complete with over 150 Perl scripts, and problem-solving techniques perfect for attacking additional SQL Server administrative challenges. Many of the sample problems are described in SQL Server 7 or 2000 context, but in reality, the examples arent version specificall the Perl scripts are open and may be adapted to work with any version of SQL Server.

Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl significantly empowers SQL Server database administrators and developers with Perl scripting techniques and takes SQL Server administration to the next level. This is the first book entirely devoted to solving practical SQL Server administrative problems with Perl.

Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl consists of a series of scenarios covering a wide range of SQL Server administrative topics. These are real-world scenarios that you see DBAs discussing on the SQL Server forums and newsgroups— scenarios that DBAs run into in their day-to-day development or production environments. Readers will walk away from this book with two things: a DBA toolkit with well over 150 Perl scripts and problem solving techniques they can apply to create even more tools for attacking other SQL Server administrative problems.

Most of the sample problems are described and addressed in the context of SQL Server 7 or SQL Server 2000, but they are generally version independent. The next major release of SQL Server (“Yukon”) may change some of the details, but it will not invalidate the nature of the presented approaches or solutions. All the Perl scripts are completely open and can be easily adapted to work with any version of SQL Server.

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Instead of starting at "Hello World," Wicked Cool PHP assumes that you're familiar with the language and jumps right into the good stuff. After you learn the FAQs of life-the most commonly wished for PHP scripts-you'll work your way through smart configuration options and the art of forms, all the way through to complex database-backed scripts.

Wicked Cool PHP contains a wide variety of scripts to process credit cards, check the validity of email addresses, template HTML, and serve dynamic images and text. The 76 easily implemented scripts will also teach you how to:

If you're a web developer with previous JavaScript and DOM scripting experience, Accelerated DOM Scripting with Ajax, APIs, and Libraries is perfect for you to take your knowledge up to the next level.

This book is about JavaScript and using the document object model—the conduit to the HTML document. This book is not about learning how to program JavaScript from scratch. It starts with the assumption that you have done some JavaScript development before and understand the JavaScript syntax. This book builds on top of that knowledge to give you a deeper understanding of DOM Scripting and how to apply that to your projects. It uses this new understanding to describe what JavaScript libraries are and show you how they can be applied to your project. The book will also explain Ajax and how best to plan and apply it to your projects. It explains how to build simple animation objects for adding movement to elements on the page. There are straightforward examples that demonstrate the techniques used throughout the book.

JavaScript has seen a resurgence in popularity over the past few years, and with it has come an exploration of the power of the language as well as what it can do within the browser. This book will explain techniques new and old—such as closures, encapsulation, and inheritance—that many are using and how you can best apply them to your own projects.

By reading this book, you should have a greater understanding of how JavaScript works and be able to use advanced concepts such as closures and event delegation to build more flexible applications for the Web. You'll walk away with a greater appreciation for JavaScript libraries and how they can simplify and speed up your development. You'll also be able to implement Ajax effectively into your site, create special effects, use JavaScript libraries, and know how best to apply these libraries to your projects.

What you'll learn

• Where CSS, HTML, and the DOM fit into modern scripting, and how to use them together effectively
• OOP techniques for more efficient JavaScript coding
• How to use JavaScript libraries such as Prototype in your work
• How to build effective form validation into your applications using Ajax
• How to create mashups using APIs
• How to build dynamic user interfaces

Who is this book for?

This book is for beginner to intermediate developers, and already have knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

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The first chapters tell you about the CGI specification, including all the methods and environment variables. But they go well beyond that, teaching you how programs parse CGI information in order to use it and explaining how to invoke a CGI script from an HTML document. You also get a run-down on how to configure a Web server to run CGI programs--a real plus for novice CGI programmers who are just trying to get their Web site to do something.

After the introductory chapters, author Robert McDaniel gets right into explanations of how to make Perl and CGI do your bidding. He covers general-purpose forms (including forms that use cookies), hit counters, database front ends, push/pull applications (especially as they apply to introductory "splash" screens), and discussion forums. McDaniel explains each program piece by piece, so you know what's going on.

This book is an excellent CGI and Perl tutorial, which includes instructions on how to create popular CGI applications that aren't dumbed down, yet aren't written entirely in geekspeak. If you have some experience in another programming language and need to do something in CGI, or even if you're a complete novice, this book will work for you.

Publisher: Ziff-Davis Press
Author: Robert McDaniel
Release Date: 1996-07
ISBN/EAN: 1562763970 / 9781562763978

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