THEORY IN PRACTICE – serie

Ten years ago, groupware bundled with email and calendar applications helped track the flow of work from person to person within an organization. Workflow in today's enterprise means more monitoring and orchestrating massive systems. A new technology called Business Process Management, or BPM, helps software architects and developers design, code, run, administer, and monitor complex network-based business processes BPM replaces those sketchy flowchart diagrams that business analysts draw on whiteboards with a precise model that uses standard graphical and XML representations, and an architecture that allows it converse with other services, systems, and users. Sound complicated? It is. But it's downright frustrating when you have to search the Web for every little piece of information vital to the process. Essential Business Process Modeling gathers all the concepts, design, architecture, and standard specifications of BPM into one concise book, and offers hands-on examples that illustrate BPM's approach to process notation, execution, administration and monitoring.Author Mike Havey demonstrates standard ways to code rigorous processes that are centerpieces of a service-oriented architecture (SOA), which defines how networks interact so that one can perform a service for the other. His book also shows how BPM complements enterprise application integration (EAI), a method for moving from older applications to new ones, and Enterprise Service BUS for integrating different web services, messaging, and XML technologies into a single network. BPM, he says, is to this collection of services what a conductor is to musicians in an orchestra: it coordinates their actions in the performance of a larger composition. Essential Business Process Modeling teaches you how to develop examples of process-oriented applications using free tools that can be run on an average PC or laptop. You'll also learn about BPM design patterns and best practices, as well as some underlying theory. The best way to monitor processes within an enterprise is with BPM, and the best way to navigate BPM is with this valuable book.

In this insightful book, you'll learn from the best data practitioners in the field just how wide-ranging - and beautiful - working with data can be. Join 39 contributors as they explain how they developed simple and elegant solutions on projects ranging from the Mars lander to a Radiohead video. With "Beautiful Data", you will: explore the opportunities and challenges involved in working with the vast number of datasets made available by the Web; learn how to visualize trends in urban crime, using maps and data mashups; discover the challenges of designing a data processing system that works within the constraints of space travel; also learn how crowdsourcing and transparency have combined to advance the state of drug research; and, understand how new data can automatically trigger alerts when it matches or overlaps pre-existing data. Learn about the massive infrastructure required to create, capture, and process DNA data. That's only small sample of what you'll find in "Beautiful Data". For anyone who handles data, this is a truly fascinating book. Contributors include: Nathan Yau; Jonathan Follett and Matt Holm; J.M.Hughes; Raghu Ramakrishnan, Brian Cooper, and Utkarsh Srivastava; Jeff Hammerbacher; Jason Dykes and Jo Wood; Jeff Jonas and Lisa Sokol; Jud Valeski; Alon Halevy and Jayant Madhavan; Aaron Koblin and Valdean Klump; Michal Migurski; Jeff Heer; Coco Krumme; Peter Norvig; Matt Wood and Ben Blackburne; Jean-Claude Bradley, Rajarshi Guha, Andrew Lang, Pierre Lindenbaum, Cameron Neylon, Antony Williams, and Egon Willighagen; Lukas Biewald and Brendan O'Connor; Hadley Wickham, Deborah Swayne, and David Poole; Andrew Gelman, Jonathan P. Kastellec, and Yair Ghitza; and, Toby Segaran.

Just how critical is testing to the success of a software project? And how can you make these tests simple yet maintainable, flexible, and efficient? This unique book offers essays from 25 leading software testers that illustrate the qualities and techniques necessary to make testing an art in itself. Through personal anecdotes, you'll learn how each of these professionals developed best practices for testing a wide range of software projects involving XMPP, GUI tools, Open Map applications, and more. Topics of this book include: OLPC project testing - Mel Chua (The Open Planning Project); Open Maps application testing - Steve Coast (founder of OpenStreetMap); AbiWord open source app testing - Kamran Khan (AbiWord word processor); GNU Compiler Collection tool testing - Mark Mitchell (GCC); GUI Tools - Adam Christian and Mikeal Rogers (OSAF/Mozilla); Python Language testing - Neal Norwitz; Network testing frameworks - Jim Walker (OpenSolaris); and, XMPP Protocol testing - Remko Troncon (Jabber). "Beautiful Testing" provides you with knowledge gained from years of experience that you can put to the test on your own projects.

What can you do when database performance doesn't meet expectations? Before you turn to expensive hardware upgrades to solve the problem, reach for this book. "Refactoring SQL Applications" provides a set of tested options for making code modifications to dramatically improve the way your database applications function. Backed by real-world examples, you'll find quick fixes for simple problems, in-depth answers for more complex situations, and complete solutions for applications with extensive problems.In this work, learn to: determine if and where you can expect performance gains; apply quick fixes, such as limiting calls to the database in stored functions and procedures; refactor tasks, such as replacing application code by a stored procedure, or replacing iterative, procedural statements with sweeping SQL statements; refactor flow by increasing parallelism and switching business-inducted processing from synchronous to asynchronous; refactor design using schema extensions, regular views, materialized views, partitioning, and more; and, compare before and after versions of a program to ensure you get the same results once you make modifications."Refactoring SQL Applications" teaches you to recognize and assess code that needs refactoring, and to understand the crucial link between refactoring and performance. If and when your application bogs down, this book will help you get it back up to speed.

What are the ingredients of robust, elegant, flexible, and maintainable software architecture? "Beautiful Architecture" seeks to answer this question with a collection of intriguing essays from more than a dozen of today's leading software designers and architects. In each essay, one or two contributors present a favorite piece of software architecture, and analyze what makes it innovative and ideal for its purpose. Some of the engineers in this book reveal how they developed a specific project, including the decisions they faced and the trade offs they made, while others take a step back to investigate the impact certain architectural aspects have had on computing as a whole.Topics include: Facebook's architecture as the basis for a data-centric application ecosystem; The magic behind the Jikes RVM self-optimizable, self-hosting runtime for a high-level language; Differences and similarities between object-oriented and functional architectural analysis; How architectures can affect system evolution and developer engagement; The effect of Xen's well-designed architecture on the way operating systems evolve; Design choices and building blocks that made Tandem the platform of choice in high-availability environments for over two decades; How creeping featurism has helped GNU Emacs gain unanticipated functionality; and, How community processes can help software architectures evolve from rough sketches to beautiful systems.Go behind the scenes to learn what it takes to design elegant software architecture, and how it can shape the way you approach your own projects, with "Beautiful Architecture".

What's it like to work on a great software development team facing an impossible problem? "Beautiful Teams" takes you behind the scenes with some of the most interesting software teams over the past 30 years. Through a series of fascinating personal stories from many of the industry's leading programmers, architects, project managers, and thought leaders, you'll go inside high-profile projects such as the development of Internet Explorer, the Boeing 777, Subversion, and some of the first Agile projects. Learn how extraordinary teams coped with challenges, and how their efforts led to superb - or disastrous - results.Contributors include: Scott Berkun, bestselling author of "Myths of Innovation" and "Making Things Happen" and former Microsoft Program Manager; Barry Boehm, a developer at TRW in the 1980s and software engineering pioneer; Patricia Ensworth, author of "The Accidental Project Manager"; Karl Wiegers, author and principal consultant with Process Impact; Karl Rhemer, a developer on the Boeing 777 project; Ned Robinson, Project Manager, Bowne Management Systems; James Grenning, engineer, consultant, and original signer of the Agile Manifesto; Karl Fogel, formerly of CollabNet, Inc. and Google Inc., and part of the team that built Subversion; and, Cory Doctorow, blogger, journalist, science fiction author, and copyright activist. This is not simply another book on the right and wrong ways to build software. "Beautiful Teams" offers contributions from people who made software engineering history. It's a must for people who have been part of a software development team, and a fascinating read for anyone interested in compelling stories about teamwork.