J2ME Gamming Book

This book is about programming with J2ME on wireless
devices with focus on developing games. It is assumed you have some
knowledge and programming experience with J2ME and J2SE. The book
does not go into detail on topics like how to make high level GUI
menu but does demonstrate what a game menu might look like. Nor
will it explain in detail how to use the Record Management System
(RMS), but will go over topics that use RMS such as high score and
game settings. As well a knowledge and experience with threading
will be an asset before proceeding with game development. The book
will go over in detail the new game classes that are now included
in the MIDP 2.0.

The book also serves as quick reference for Java programmers
who are interested in mobile game development. As well, to
provide good introduction for experience game developers who developed
games in other languages/platforms and are now interested
in using J2ME to develop games.

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Thinking In Java 1st Edition

Java looks a lot like C++, and so naturally it would seem that C++ will be replaced by Java. But I’m starting to question this logic. For one thing, C++ still has some features that Java doesn’t, and although there have been a lot of promises about Java someday being as fast or faster than C++ the breakthroughs haven’t happened yet (it’s getting steadily faster, but still hasn’t touched C++). Also, there seems to be a perking interest in C++ in many fields, so I don’t think that language is going away any time soon. (Languages seem to hang around. Speaking at one of my “Intermediate/Advanced Java Seminars,” Allen Holub asserted that the two most commonly-used languages are Rexx and COBOL, in that order.)

I’m beginning to think that the strength of Java lies in a slightly different arena than that of C++. C++ is a language that doesn’t try to fit a mold. Certainly it has been adapted in a number of ways to solve particular problems. Some tools combine libraries, component models and code generation tools to solve the problem of developing windowed end-user applications (for Microsoft Windows). And yet, what do the vast majority of Windows developers use? Microsoft’s Visual Basic (VB). This despite the fact that VB produces the kind of code that becomes unmanageable when the program is only a few pages long (and syntax that can be positively mystifying). As successful and popular as VB is, from a language design viewpoint it’s a mountain of hacks. It would be nice to have the ease and power of VB without the resulting unmanageable code. And that’s where I think Java will shine: as the “next VB.” You may or may not shudder to hear this, but think about it: so much of Java is designed to make it easy for the programmer to solve application-level problems like networking and cross-platform UI, and yet it has a language design intended to allow the creation of very large and flexible bodies of code. Add to this the fact that Java has the most robust type checking and error-handling systems I’ve ever seen in a language and you have the makings of a significant leap forward in programming productivity.

Should you use Java instead of C++ for your project? Other than Web applets, there are two issues to consider. First, if you want to use a lot of existing libraries (and you’ll certainly get a lot of productivity gains there), or if you have an existing C or C++ code base, Java might slow your development down rather than speeding it up. If you’re developing all your code primarily from scratch, then the simplicity of Java over C++ will shorten your development time.

The biggest issue is speed. Interpreted Java has been slow, even 20 to 50 times slower than C in the original Java interpreters. This has improved quite a bit over time, but it will still remain an important number. Computers are about speed; if it wasn’t significantly faster to do something on a computer then you’d do it by hand. (I’ve even heard it suggested that you start with Java, to gain the short development time, then use a tool and support libraries to translate your code to C++, if you need faster execution speed.)

The key to making Java feasible for most non-Web development projects is the appearance of speed improvements like so-called “just-in time” (JIT) compilers and possibly even native code compilers (two of which exist at this writing). Of course, native-code compilers will eliminate the touted cross-platform execution of the compiled programs, but they will also bring the speed of the executable closer to that of C and C++. And cross compiling programs in Java should be a lot easier than doing so in C or C++. (In theory, you just recompile, but that promise has been made before for other languages.)

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Teach Your self Oracle 8 In 21 Days

Being an Oracle database operator or administrator can be a demanding but rewarding career that carries with it a great deal of responsibility as well as authority. This book is intended to help you embark on this exciting path. I hope that within the pages of this book I can convey some of the enthusiasm and excitement I feel when working with state-of-the-art hardware and software such as Oracle8. I think the best way to grasp a concept is to fully understand why actions are taken and the consequences of those actions. If you understand how Oracle works and its interactions with the operating system and hardware, you can more easily predict and anticipate the result of actions you take. In this book, I attempt to fully explain the workings of Oracle and the supporting software and hardware.
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PostgreSQL Book

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source relational database system. It has more than 15 years of active development and a proven architecture that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity, and correctness. It runs on all major operating systems, including Linux, UNIX (AIX, BSD, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, Mac OS X, Solaris, Tru64), and Windows. It is fully ACID compliant, has full support for foreign keys, joins, views, triggers, and stored procedures (in multiple languages). It includes most SQL92 and SQL99 data types, including INTEGER, NUMERIC, BOOLEAN, CHAR, VARCHAR, DATE, INTERVAL, and TIMESTAMP. It also supports storage of binary large objects, including pictures, sounds, or video. It has native programming interfaces for C/C++, Java, .Net, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, ODBC, among others, and exceptional documentation.

An enterprise class database, PostgreSQL boasts sophisticated features such as Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), point in time recovery, tablespaces, asynchronous replication, nested transactions (savepoints), online/hot backups, a sophisticated query planner/optimizer, and write ahead logging for fault tolerance. It supports international character sets, multibyte character encodings, Unicode, and it is locale-aware for sorting, case-sensitivity, and formatting. It is highly scalable both in the sheer quantity of data it can manage and in the number of concurrent users it can accommodate. There are active PostgreSQL systems in production environments that manage in excess of 4 terabytes of data. Some general PostgreSQL limits are included in the table below.
Limit Value
Maximum Database Size Unlimited
Maximum Table Size 32 TB
Maximum Row Size 1.6 TB
Maximum Field Size 1 GB
Maximum Rows per Table Unlimited
Maximum Columns per Table 250 - 1600 depending on column types
Maximum Indexes per Table Unlimited

PostgreSQL has won praise from its users and industry recognition, including the Linux New Media Award for Best Database System and three time winner of the The Linux Journal Editors' Choice Award for best DBMS.

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The C Language eBook

C is a remarkable language. Designed originally by one man, Dennis Ritchie, working at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, it has increased in use until now it may well be one of the most widely-written computer languages in the world. The success of C is due to a number of factors, none of them key, but all of them important. Perhaps the most significant of all is that C was developed by real practioners of programming and was designed for practical day-to-day use, not for show or for demonstration. Like any well-designed tool, it falls easily to the hand and feels good to use. Instead of providing constraints, checks and rigorous boundaries, it concentrates on providing you with power and on not getting in your way.

Because of this, it's better for professionals than beginners. In the early stages of learning to program you need a protective environment that gives feedback on mistakes and helps you to get results quickly—programs that run, even if they don't do what you meant. C is not like that! A professional forester would use a chain-saw to cut down trees quickly, aware of the dangers of touching the blade when the machine is running; C programmers work in a similar way. Although modern C compilers do provide a limited amount of feedback when they notice something that is out of the ordinary, you almost always have the option of forcing the compiler to do what you said you wanted and to stop it from complaining. Provided that what you said you wanted was what you really did want, then you'll get the result you expected. Programming in C is like eating red meat and drinking strong rum except your arteries and liver are more likely to survive it.

Not only is C popular and a powerful asset in the armoury of the serious day-to-day programmer, there are other reasons for the success of this language. It has always been associated with the UNIX operating system and has benefited from the increasing popularity of that system. Although it is not the obvious first choice for writing large commercial data processing applications, C has the great advantage of always being available on commercial UNIX implementations. UNIX is written in C, so whenever UNIX is implemented on a new type of hardware, getting a C compiler to work for that system is the first task. As a result it is almost impossible to find a UNIX system without support for C, so the software vendors who want to target the UNIX marketplace find that C is the best bet if they want to get wide coverage of the systems available. Realistically, C is the first choice for portability of software in the UNIX environment.

C has also gained substantially in use and availability from the explosive expansion of the Personal Computer market. C could almost have been designed specifically for the development of software for the PC—developers get not only the readability and productivity of a high-level language, but also the power to get the most out of the PC architecture without having to resort to the use of assembly code. C is practically unique in its ability to span two levels of programming; as well as providing high-level control of flow, data structures and procedures—all of the stuff expected in a modern high-level language—it also allows systems programmers to address machine words, manipulate bits and get close to the underlying hardware if they want to. That combination of features is very desirable in the competitive PC software markeplace and an increasing number of software developers have made C their primary language as a result.

Finally, the extensibility of C has contributed in no small way to its popularity. Many other languages have failed to provide the file access and general input-output features that are needed for industrial-strength applications. Traditionally, in these languages I/O is built-in and is actually understood by the compiler. A master-stroke in the design of C (and interestingly, one of the strengths of the UNIX system too) has been to take the view that if you don't know how to provide a complete solution to a generic requirement, instead of providing half a solution (which invariably pleases nobody), you should allow the users to build their own. Software designers the world over have something to learn from this! It's the approach that has been taken by C, and not only for I/O. Through the use of library functions you can extend the language in many ways to provide features that the designers didn't think of. There's proof of this in the so-called Standard I/O Library (stdio), which matured more slowly than the language, but had become a sort of standard all of its own before the Standard Committee give it official blessing. It proved that it is possible to develop a model of file I/O and associated features that is portable to many more systems than UNIX, which is where it was first wrought. Despite the ability of C to provide access to low-level hardware features, judicious style and the use of the stdio package results in highly portable programs; many of which are to be found running on top of operating systems that look very different from one another. The nice thing about this library is that if you don't like what it does, but you have the appropriate technical skills, you can usually extend it to do what you do want, or bypass it altogether.
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Extreme Perl Programming

xtreme Programming (XP) is an agile software-development methodology. XP helps you remain light on your feet by avoiding unnecessary baggage and by incorporating feedback continuously. Changing requirements are an expected and acceptable risk, because the customer sees the system being developed in real-time. Mistakes are immediately visible and are corrected while the feature's implementation is fresh and pliable, much like a potter reworks clay.

Programmers work and rework the code in XP projects. The customer sees a system grow from layer upon layer of detail. The software is only as effective as the details it embodies. A tax accounting system must round computations correctly, or it can't be used; it's insufficient to get the formula right without considering that taxes are collected in whole currency units. Details matter, and XP programmers reflect back to the customer in the only way that matters: working code.

All this working and reworking requires a stable base and good tools. To throw pots effectively, you need to be seated comfortably at your potter's wheel, and your tools need to be within easy reach. In the world of idea creation, people need comfort, too. They need to know what's expected of them and why. An XP team is expected to follow 12 simple practices. You aren't supposed to execute the practices blindly, however. XP gives us a framework of four core values that lets us adjust the practices to suit our particular project. The four core values are like a comfortable mental chair; we work our code using the practices with the core values supporting our every movement.

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Windows XP For Dummies

Windows is just another piece of software, like the zillions of others lining
the store shelves. But it’s not a program in the normal sense—something
that lets you write letters or lets your coworkers play Bozark the Destroyer over the office network after everybody else goes home.
Rather, Windows controls the way you work with your computer.
Years ago, computers looked like typewriters connected to TV sets.
Just as on a typewriter, people typed letters and numbers onto the computer’s
keyboard. The computer listened and then placed those letters
and numbers onto the screen. But it was ever-so-boring.
The method was boring because only computer engineers used computers.
Nobody expected normal people to use computers—especially
not in their offices, their dens, or even in their kitchens. Windows
changed all that in several ways.

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