The pressure is on during the interview process but with the right preparation, you can walk away with your dream job. This classic book uncovers what interviews are really like at America's top software and computer companies and provides you with the tools to succeed in any situation. The authors take you step-by-step through new problems and complex brainteasers they were asked during recent technical interviews.

50 interview scenarios are presented along with in-depth analysis of the possible solutions. The problem-solving process is clearly illustrated so you'll be able to easily apply what you've learned during crunch time. You'll also find expert tips on what questions to ask, how to approach a problem, and how to recover if you become stuck. All of this will help you ace the interview and get the job you want.

Introduction

eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has emerged as nothing less than a phenomenon in computing. It is a concept elegant in its simplicity driving dramatic changes in the way Internet applications are written. This book is a revision to the first edition to keep pace with this fast-changing technology as many technologies have been superseded, and new ones have emerged.

What Does This Book Cover?

This book explains and demonstrates both the essential techniques for designing and using XML documents, and many of the related technologies that are important today. Almost everything in this book will be based around a specification provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These specifications are at various levels of completion and some of the technologies are nascent, but we expect them to become very popular when their specifications are finalized because they are useful or essential. The wider XML community is increasingly jumping in and offering new XMLrelated ideas outside the control of the W3C, although the W3C is still central and important to the development of XML.
The focus of this book is on learning how to use XML as an enabling technology in real-world applications. It presents good design techniques, and shows how to interface XML-enabled applications with web applications. Whether your requirements are oriented toward data exchange or presentation, this book will cover all the relevant techniques in the XML community.

Most chapters contain a practical example (unless the technology is so new that there were no working implementations at the time of writing). As XML is a platform-neutral technology, the examples cover a variety of languages, parsers, and servers. All the techniques are relevant across all the platforms, so you can get valuable insight from the examples even if they are not implemented using your favorite platform.

Introduction

The common trend behind the most successful recent Web applications is an innovative usage and integration of many different mature technologies. This trend is known under the oft-hyped and controversial term Web 2.0. Whatever your feelings regarding this term, whether you think that it is the greatest invention since sliced bread, that this is an irritating buzzword, or, like I personally do, that it is both, it can’t be denied that after years of relative stagnation, web development is moving on and has become fun again.

Web 2.0 is before everything else about finding new ways to make a number of existing technologies work together. There is no single Web 2.0 technology and for professional developers, this represents a new challenge. In recent years, there has been a tendency to specialize in Web development. I know a number of experts in some of the technologies that are the technical foundation of Web 2.0 (HTML, CSS, HTTP, JavaScript, XML, server side programming, and so on) who have a very limited knowledge of the other technologies that make a successful Web 2.0 application, and sometimes don’t even see why they should care. Of course, Web 2.0 applications may often need such highly specialized experts, but more than anything else, they need developers who are perhaps not experts in all these areas, but understand enough of each technology to get the big picture, and who understand the division of roles between them and the trade-offs that will be made. It makes no sense to code in HTML or JavaScript what can easily be done with CSS, to reinvent an exchange format due to lack of XML fluency, or to implement server side what can be done by a single URL rewriting rule in the Web server configuration file.

To make things worse, most of the books, resources, and training materials available follow this rule of over-specialization, and you’ll find a number of good books on each of the individual technologies used by Web 2.0 applications. However, you’ll find very few resources introducing all these technologies together at a professional level. This does not only mean that if you want to get the level of knowledge required to develop Web 2.0 applications you’ll have to buy and read a complete bookshelf, but also that after doing so you may still miss a clear vision of how they work together.

Our goal is that this book will fill this gap and give you both the initial knowledge that you need in each technology and the big picture so that you can really understand how Web 2.0 applications work behind the scene and how they are developed.

Introduction

Software virtualization is not a new concept; however, it is only recently that it has begun to gain momentum by the masses. This movement can be attributed in large part to the innovations of VMware, a company that has specialized in virtualization technology since the late ‘90s.

Early on, the release of VMware Workstation was used mainly by advanced users and hobbyists. This was due in large part to the lack of understanding of the technology as well as the progression of the industry as a whole. This quickly changed, however, as the technology matured into not only a more stable solution but one that the masses could easily utilize. Now it is not uncommon to find even the most basic users dual-booting their workstations, wanting to try out Linux or some other operating system, or just having a clean machine to play with. This move triggered the recognition of VMware Workstation as more than just a specialist’s tool. With it, even a beginner can configure and operate a virtual machine with little or no previous experience.

This boom also gave way to new and innovative ways for greater utilization in the data center, giving companies from small to large the ability to increase their return on the investment of hardware and flourish. It doesn’t stop there, however. The technology offers great advantages to the software developer and tester alike. It’s such a perfect fit you’d think it was its sole purpose in life. Sadly, this seems to be the tail runner in the virtualization boom. Developers are still writing code on their office workstations and testing in rooms that contain dozens of individual PCs. Why?

This book focuses on VMware Server, a now free server-based version of VMware’s popular virtualization line. Throughout this book I discuss not only the benefits of software development and testing within virtual machines, but the advantages they offer in terms of automation, stability, disaster recovery, and overall code quality.