Author Archives: Megan Russell

New course: AngularJS Fundamentals

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Jim Cooper and Joe Eames have just published a new course: AngularJS Fundamentals

In this course you will learn how simple it is to use AngularJS to create maintainable and testable single page applications.

You will learn how to:

  • Bootstrap your AngularJS application
  • Use AngularJS markup and expressions
  • Create and use controllers
  • Use built-in services and create custom services
  • Turn your application into a SPA using routing
  • Create your own custom elements and handle events using directives.
  • You will also learn how AngularJS allows you to do all thing using test-driven-development.

Both Jim and Joe have been creating courses over the past few years, click on their names to learn more about them and the courses they offer.  You can also check out their blogs (Jim, Joe). Get started on this course by clicking here to go directly to the TOC. I hope you enjoy it! Have a great weekend!

New course: Creating Acceptance Tests with FitNesse

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Another new course from John Sonmez: Creating Acceptance Tests with FitNesse

Creating acceptance tests can be difficult in software development, because often a developer has to translate business requirements into coded tests. Many times some of what needs to be tested and how it needs to be tested gets lost in the translation. Wouldn’t it be easier if the business person or QA person could just create the test cases themselves and still have them automated? FitNesse is a great testing framework that allows you to do just that. Using FitNesse, a developer creates test fixtures that allow non-technical people to write tests just by modifying a Wiki page.

In this course John walks you through the steps to get set up and running with FitNesse. He’ll show you how to use the older Fit style of creating test and the newer Slim style and we’ll cover both Java and .NET, since FitNesse can work with either platform. FitNesse itself happens to be a Wiki, so it is also an excellent tool for documenting a system and the tests that go with it in a format that changes with the system. So if you’ve been thinking about learning about an acceptance test framework, or you’ve been wanted to learn FitNesse, but have always thought it had a steep learning curve, this course will help you to get started quickly and understand how FitNesse works.

Check out the TOC, and possibly get started on this course before the weekend. Please let us know what you think on twitter or on the discussion forums. I hope you enjoy the course!

New course: Making Java and C# Work Together: JVM and .NET CLR Interop

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John Sonmez has just published a new course: Making Java and C# Work Together: JVM and .NET CLR Interop

Are you plagued by the problem of trying to get some Java and C# code to work together? Do you have constant battles between the .NET side and the Java side, because of the competition between the two? Perhaps you just have to work in both environments and wish there was a way to reuse some of your code from Java in .NET or .NET code in Java?

This course will give you solutions to help with all of those problems. In this course you’ll take a look at how you can make your Java and .NET code talk by utilizing 3 different technologies. First, you’ll use IKVM.NET to convert Java directly to .NET, which will allow you to use Java libraries in your .NET applications and even write Java applications in .NET. Then, you’ll use JNBridgePro to bridge directly between .NET and Java and allow you to communicate between .NET and Java applications while still running each in their own environment. Finally, John introduces you to RabbitMQ for creating a message based service that allows for not only Java and .NET to interoperate, but also any other language that can send messages to RabbitMQ.

So, if you’ve been considering rewrite a Java application as a .NET application or a .NET application as a Java application, but have been thinking there has to be a better way, this course might be just what you are looking for. Or if you are in an environment where both Java and .NET are used, but seldom talk to each other, this course can help you to learn about tools you can use to get both sides talking, letting you walk away a hero. Click here to go directly to the TOC. Keep watching… I have another course coming in just a few…

 

 

New course: Continuous Testing with NCrunch

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Erik Dietrich has just published his 1st course: Continuous Testing with NCrunch

Continuous testing is a practice that dramatically improves efficiency of unit testing and test driven development. This course provides background on continuous testing and explores the use of a tool called NCrunch to increase development efficiency, provide code coverage information and generally improve the unit testing process. Included are a deep-dive into NCrunch and a TDD demonstration.

We are thrilled to have Erik as our newest published author. He is a software architect, team leader and technologist that enjoys working with a wide variety of programming languages, frameworks and tools. You’ll note after checking out his blog, he is an active blogger with extensive experience teaching and demonstrating software development techniques. Erik is always up for any conversation about technology. Erik’s recent experience has focused on the .NET framework, though over the years he has worked with C++, Java, and a number of other languages. His projects range from low-level driver and kernel module programming all the way up to user interface design and the types of applications run the gamut from home automation to rigorous code analysis to line of business applications. Outside of the software industry, Erik has a wide range of interests including, but not limited to, mathematics, literature, history, philosophy, sciences, home improvement, gardening, cooking, and seeing the world. Keep watching for more courses from Erik.

Click here to go directly to the TOC and start learning. Don’t forget to let us know what you think on twitter (@pluralsight @daedtech @megbruss) or the discussion forums. I hope you enjoy this course!

New course: Ruby on Rails – A Jumpstart for .NET Developers

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Dustin Davis has just published: Ruby on Rails – A Jumpstart for .NET Developers

This course is for .NET developers who want to try out Ruby on Rails without investing a significant amount of time into learning both Ruby and the Rails framework. In this course, we walk through what Ruby and Rails are, how they compare to .NET languages like C# and VB. After a brief introduction to the Ruby language, we jump into building a Rails application and customizing it. Go directly to the TOC and get started on this one!

Dustin also has more courses in the library, click here to check them out and to read more about his background. I’ll sound like a broken record but I’ll say it anyway ;) … please let us know what you think about this one on the course forum. Your feedback helps us improve, we appreciate it.

 

 

New course: The Essentials of COM

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Kenny Kerr’s latest Pluralsight course is now available: The Essentials of COM

This is the first in a series of courses exploring the essentials of COM and the Windows Runtime. In this first course, you are going to learn everything you need to know to use COM confidently and effectively. This course explores the history of COM. You will learn about how C++ shaped the design of COM. You will learn the essentials of compilation and linking, fundamental to the idea of dynamically linking applications and components together. By the end of this course you will have a thorough understanding of COM’s IUnknown interface, how and why it works the way it does, how to implement it, how to use it, and how to wrap it up in a safe and efficient manner with modern C++ libraries.

Click here to get started on this course. Kenny has more and more courses in the works, keep watching for them! As usual, we would love to get your feedback. Please let us know what you think in the course forum. I hope you enjoy the course!

New course: Building a Successful Blog

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Pinal Dave has just published a new course: Building a Successful Blog

As a very successful blogger, receiving almost 2 million views every month of his own blog, Pinal Dave seemed just the man to write this course. You can hear his enthusiasm about blogging throughout the entire course, it’s contagious :) In fact, I can quote Pinal in saying this about his course:

“Expressing yourself is the most common behavior of humans. Blogging has made easy to express yourself. Just like a letter or book has a structure and formula, blogging also has structure and formula. In this introductory course on blogging we will go over a few of the basics of blogging and show the way to get started with blogging immediately. If you already have a blog, this course will be even more relevant as this will discuss many of the common questions and issue you face in your blogging routine.”

I’m excited to know what you think about this course. Feel free to tweet to us (@pluralsight, @pinaldave, @megbruss) or let us know what you think on the forum. Pinal has more classes lined up, so keep watching for more of his content. Click here to get started learning. Have a great week!

 

 

 

New course: Unit Testing in Java with JUnit

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John Sonmez has just published a new course: Unit Testing in Java with JUnit

  • Do you want to get started with unit testing in Java?
  • Perhaps you already know a little about JUnit, but you’ve always wanted to learn more about this useful framework?

Either way, this course will teach you what you need to know to not only get started with JUnit, but to master all of the features of the JUnit framework. You’ll start out by learning the basics of JUnit and how to create some basic unit tests. Then you’ll go into some of the lesser known advanced features of JUnit that will really help you write elegant tests with less code. After that, John will show you how to integrate JUnit with your existing Ant or Maven build system and how you can automate the creation of JUnit reports. Finally, he’ll wrap things up by going beyond the basic uses of JUnit by learning how to use stubs and mocks to really isolate classes and we’ll also learn how to use JUnit for more than just unit testing. By the end of this course, you’ll be a JUnit pro and will have a handful of useful tools and techniques you can use to make the most of the JUnit framework. If you are interested in JUnit, you won’t want to miss this course. Click here to get started. Please use our forums to let us know what you think about the course or reach out to us on twitter (@pluralsight @jsonmez @megbruss).

I hope you enjoy this one. Have a great weekend!

New course: Underscore.js Fundamentals

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Craig Shoemaker has just published: Underscore.js Fundamentals

Craig has added another fantastic course to his Pluralsight arsenal. You can learn more about him and check out his other courses by clicking here.

About this course:

Learn Underscore.js by focusing on each of the Underscore functions to learn to manipulate and control JavaScript collections, arrays, objects and functions. See how Underscore can significantly improve the performance of your code and how to the functional nature of the library can help make your code more expressive and easier to read. The last module of the course demonstrates how to use Underscore in an integration exercise to create aggregations, data manipulations, integrate with a ViewModel and extend the library to add your own functionality.

Click here to go directly to the TOC to get started learning. Just so you know, Craig has a number of other courses in the works ;)  Stay tuned! Don’t forget to let us know what you think about the couse in our user forum or on twitter (@craigshoemaker @pluralsight @megbruss). Happy learning.

New course: Introduction to WordPress

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Chris Reynolds has just published a new course: Introduction to WordPress

WordPress has been said to be, “The most popular content management platform in the world.” It actually powers over one-fifth of the web. Chris has created this course to compliment his first course on WordPress theme development.

His motivation for this course:

“When you start planning a new website project, there are a lot of options. It can be daunting and overwhelming trying to pick the right tool for the job. This course will delve into one of those options — WordPress — and why, after you’ve started using it, you’ll never need anything else.”

You can read more from him, about this course, on his blog. Chris has become an expert in WordPress, and has packed both courses with great content. I hope you like this course as well the first. After you watch, let us know what you think. Click here to learn more about Chris and keep watching for more of his content, it’s coming…