Books about Conventions from Amazon.com

The dissenting opinions of Patrick Henry and others who saw the Constitution as a threat to our hard-won rights and liberties

Edited and introduced by Ralph Ketcham..
Price: $3.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What the industry's most succcessful writers and directors have in common is that they have mastered the cinematic conventions specific to the medium..
Price: $15.65 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“ Framework Design Guidelines is one of those rare books that can be read at different reading levels and can be useful to different kinds of developers Regardless of whether you want to design an effective object model, improve your understanding of the .NET Framework, borrow from the experience of software gurus, stay clear of the most common programming mistakes, or just get an idea of the huge effort that led to the .NET initiative, this book is a must-read.”

–Francesco Balena, The VB Migration Partner Team (www.vbmigration.com), Code Architect, Author, and Microsoft Regional Director, Italy

 

“ Frameworks are valuable but notoriously difficult to construct: your every decision must be geared toward making them easy to be used correctly and difficult to be used incorrectly. This book takes you through a progression of recommendations that will eliminate many of those downstream ‘I wish I’d known that earlier’ moments. I wish I’d read it earlier.”

–Paul Besly, Principal Technologist, QA

 

“ Not since Brooks’ The Mythical Man Month has the major software maker of its time produced a book so full of relevant advice for the modern software developer. This book has a permanent place on my bookshelf and I consult it frequently.”

–George Byrkit, Senior Software Engineer, Genomic Solutions

 

“ Updated for the new language features of the .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5, this book continues to be the definitive resource for .NET developers and architects who are designing class library frameworks. Some of the existing guidelines have been expanded with new annotations and more detail, and new guidance covering such features as extension methods and nullable types has also been included. The guidance will help any developer write clearer and more understandable code, while the annotations provide invaluable insight into some of the design decisions that made the .NET Framework what it is today.”

–Scott Dorman, Microsoft MVP and President, Tampa Bay International Association of Software Architects

 

“ Filled with information useful to developers and architects of all levels, this book provides practical guidelines and expert background information to get behind the rules. Framework Design Guidelines takes the already published guidelines to a higher level, and it is needed to write applications that integrate well in the .NET area.”

–Cristof Falk, Software Engineer

 

“ This book is an absolute must read for all .NET developers. It gives clear ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ guidance on how to design class libraries for .NET. It also offers insight into the design and creation of .NET that really helps developers understand the reasons why things are the way they are. This information will aid developers designing their own class libraries and will also allow them to take advantage of the .NET class library more effectively.”

–Jeffrey Richter, Author/Trainer/Consultant, Wintellect

 

“ The second edition of Framework Design Guidelines gives you new, important insight into designing your own class libraries: Abrams and Cwalina frankly discuss the challenges of adding new features to shipping versions of their products with minimal impact on existing code. You’ll find great examples of how to create version N+1 of your software by learning how the .NET class library team

created versions 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 of the .NET library. They were able to add generics, WCF, WPF, WF, and LINQ with minimal impact on the existing APIs, even providing capabilities for customers wanting to use only some of the new features, while still maintaining compatibility with the original library.”

–Bill Wagner, Founder and Consultant, SRT Solutions, author of Effective C# and More Effective C#

 

“ This book is a must read for all architects and software developers thinking about frameworks. The book offers insight into some driving factors behind the design of the .NET Framework. It should be considered mandatory reading for anybody tasked with creating application frameworks.”

–Peter Winkler, Sr. Software Engineer, Balance Technology Inc.

 

“An instant classic.”

–From the Foreword by Miguel de Icaza

 

Framework Design Guidelines, Second Edition, teaches developers the best practices for designing reusable libraries for the Microsoft .NET Framework. Expanded and updated for .NET 3.5, this new edition focuses on the design issues that directly affect the programmability of a class library, specifically its publicly accessible APIs.

 

This book can improve the work of any .NET developer producing code that other developers will use. It includes copious annotations to the guidelines by thirty-five prominent architects and practitioners of the .NET Framework, providing a lively discussion of the reasons for the guidelines as well as examples of when to break those guidelines.

 

Microsoft architects Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams teach framework design from the top down. From their significant combined experience and deep insight, you will learn

• The general philosophy and fundamental principles of framework design
• Naming guidelines for the various parts of a framework
• Guidelines for the design and extending of types and members of types
• Issues affecting–and guidelines for ensuring–extensibility
• How (and how not) to design exceptions
• Guidelines for–and examples of–common framework design patterns

Guidelines in this book are presented in four major forms: Do, Consider, Avoid, and Do not. These directives help focus attention on practices that should always be used, those that should generally be used, those that should rarely be used, and those that should never be used. Every guideline includes a discussion of its applicability, and most include a code example to help illuminate the dialogue.

 

Framework Design Guidelines, Second Edition, is the only definitive source of best practices for managed code API development, direct from the architects themselves.

 

A companion DVD includes the Designing .NET Class Libraries video series, instructional presentations by the authors on design guidelines for developing classes and components that extend the .NET Framework. A sample API specification and other useful resources and tools are also included.

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Price: $38.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Democratic National Convetion 2008 is a photographic tribute of the DNC in Denver. For one memorable week in the summer of 2008, the ambitions of a groundbreaking politician and a rising city matched perfectly. US senator Barack Obama, the first African American presidential nominee of a major political party, made his way west to accept his historic nomination before a massive gathering under the stars. And a burgeoning city eager to take its role as a great metropolitan area put on a show unlike any the national political parties had ever seen before.

Dozens of journalists and photographers from The Denver Post and Media News Group were on hand, day and night, to record every scene and document every word of the convention. The results were remarkable, for the man, for the city, for the newspaper, for the nation..
Price: $10.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Beth Moore s newest Bible study is Esther: It s Tough Being a Woman. Esther may have been a queen, but her life was no fairy tale. An outsider, a foreigner, and an orphan, she found herself facing an evil plan to destroy her people. And you thought your life was hard! The Old Testament story of Esther is a profile in courage and contains many modern parallels for today's overloaded and stressed woman. You can share Esther s destiny even if your glass slipper no longer seems to fit.The Member Book offers nine weeks of personal interactive study five days a week plus viewer guides for the group video sessions..
Price: $14.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

For event planners, there's no such thing as a dress rehearsal!

Any event you plan and stage is a reflection of your company's image — from the initial invitation to onsite operations Whether you're planning a product launch, conference, sales meeting, an incentive event, or a gala fund-raiser, remember that the magic of a truly memorable event is in the details, but so is the devil. Special events are fraught with thousands of details, and have to come off without a hitch. Whether your event is for 50 or 2,000 people, whether it has a budget of a few thousand dollars, or hundreds of thousands, planning and executing the project is like a high-wire act without the safety nets. Event Planning gives you a blueprint for planning and executing special events with flair and without any unexpected surprises and expenses. This unique book is loaded with practical advice on every aspect of organizing and managing special events:

• Choosing the best venue
• Preparing and managing the budget
• Scheduling and staffing
• Coordinating food and beverage, décor, entertainment, and themes
• Working with professionals, such as public relations firms and creative directors.

What you don't know or know to ask can have a major effect on the success of your event and on your budget. Event Planning takes you through every aspect of organizing and executing a successful event: the planning stages, timing and logistics, budget preparation, operations, and on-site management. Event Planning:

• Includes sample costing forms to help you generate a detailed project plan and budget.
• Explains what you need to ask before you contract with suppliers.
• Is loaded with practical tips and examples that will help you avoid expensive mistakes.
• Features a companion website with forms from the book, additional forms, author Q&A, and more.

Event Planning takes you behind the scenes, and provides practical tools for anyone who has to plan and execute a truly special event:

• Corporate in-house event planners
• Public relations and communications companies, and their clients
• Marketing and corporate communications professionals
• Fundraisers and not-for-profit organizations
• Professionals in the hospitality and entertainment industries

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Price: $19.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Many programmers code by instinct, relying on convenient habits or a "style" they picked up early on. They aren't conscious of all the choices they make, like how they format their source, the names they use for variables, or the kinds of loops they use. They're focused entirely on problems they're solving, solutions they're creating, and algorithms they're implementing. So they write code in the way that seems natural, that happens intuitively, and that feels good.

But if you're serious about your profession, intuition isn't enough. Perl Best Practices author Damian Conway explains that rules, conventions, standards, and practices not only help programmers communicate and coordinate with one another, they also provide a reliable framework for thinking about problems, and a common language for expressing solutions. This is especially critical in Perl, because the language is designed to offer many ways to accomplish the same task, and consequently it supports many incompatible dialects.

With a good dose of Aussie humor, Dr. Conway (familiar to many in the Perl community) offers 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you write better Perl code--in fact, the best Perl code you possibly can. The guidelines cover code layout, naming conventions, choice of data and control structures, program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity, object orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging.

They're designed to work together to produce code that is clear, robust, efficient, maintainable, and concise, but Dr. Conway doesn't pretend that this is the one true universal and unequivocal set of best practices. Instead, Perl Best Practices offers coherent and widely applicable suggestions based on real-world experience of how code is actually written, rather than on someone's ivory-tower theories on how software ought to be created.

Most of all, Perl Best Practices offers guidelines that actually work, and that many developers around the world are already using. Much like Perl itself, these guidelines are about helping you to get your job done, without getting in the way.

Praise for Perl Best Practices from Perl community members:

"As a manager of a large Perl project, I'd ensure that every member of my team has a copy of Perl Best Practices on their desk, and use it as the basis for an in-house style guide." -- Randal Schwartz

"There are no more excuses for writing bad Perl programs. All levels of Perl programmer will be more productive after reading this book." -- Peter Scott

"Perl Best Practices will be the next big important book in the evolution of Perl. The ideas and practices Damian lays down will help bring Perl out from under the embarrassing heading of "scripting languages". Many of us have known Perl is a real programming language, worthy of all the tasks normally delegated to Java and C++. With Perl Best Practices, Damian shows specifically how and why, so everyone else can see, too." -- Andy Lester

"Damian's done what many thought impossible: show how to build large, maintainable Perl applications, while still letting Perl be the powerful, expressive language that programmers have loved for years." -- Bill Odom

"Finally, a means to bring lasting order to the process and product of real Perl development teams." -- Andrew Sundstrom

"Perl Best Practices provides a valuable education in how to write robust, maintainable Perl, and is a definitive citation source when coaching other programmers." -- Bennett Todd "I've been teaching Perl for years, and find the same question keeps being asked: Where can I find a reference for writing reusable, maintainable Perl code? Finally I have a decent answer." -- Paul Fenwick "At last a well researched, well thought-out, comprehensive guide to Perl style. Instead of each of us developing our own, we can learn good practices from one of Perl's most prolific and experienced authors. I recommend this book to anyone who prefers getting on with the job rather than going back and fixing errors caused by syntax and poor style issues." -- Jacinta Richardson "If you care about programming in any language read this book. Even if you don't intend to follow all of the practices, thinking through your style will improve it." -- Steven Lembark "The Perl community's best author is back with another outstanding book. There has never been a comprehensive reference on high quality Perl coding and style until Perl Best Practices. This book fills a large gap in every Perl bookshelf." -- Uri Guttman.
Price: $21.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]