Introduction to the Tcl Language

The next five chapters constitute a Tcl language tutorial. This chapter provides an overview of the Tcl syntax, data structures, and enough commands to develop applications. Chapter 4 discusses Tcl I/O support for files, pipes, and sockets. Chapters 5–8 introduce more commands and techniques and provide examples showing how Tcl data constructs can be used to create complex data constructs such as structures and trees. Chapters 9 and 10 introduce the TclOO object-oriented support package and explain some tricks in using dynamic and introspective object-oriented programming effectively.

This introduction to the Tcl language will give you an overview of how to use Tcl, rather than be a complete listing of all commands and all options. The on-line reference pages are the complete reference for the commands. See Chapter 1 for a discussion on how to access the on-line help on UNIX, Macintosh, and Windows platforms. The companion website contains a Tcl/Tk reference guide that contains brief listings of all commands and all options.

If you prefer a more extensive tutorial, see the tutorials list on the companion website. You will find a copy of TclTutor, a computer-assisted instruction program that covers all of the commands in Tcl, and most of the command options.

Chapters 11 through 14 constitute the Tk tutorial. If you are performing graphics programming, you may be tempted to skip ahead to those chapters and just read about the GUIs. Don’t do it! Tcl is the glue that holds the graphic widgets together. Tk and the other Tcl extensions build on the Tcl foundation. If you glance ahead for the Tk tutorial, plan on coming back to fill in the gaps.

This book will print the command syntax using the font conventions used by the Tcl on-line manual and help pages. This convention is as follows.

commandname   – The command name appears first in this type font.
subcommandname   –  If the command supports subcommands, they will also be in this type font.
-option    -  Options appear in italics. The first character is a dash (-).
argument   - Arguments to a command appear in italics.
?-option?    – Options that are not required are bounded by question marks.
?argument?   -  Arguments that are not required are bounded by question marks.

The following is an example.
Syntax: puts ?-nonewline? ?channel? outputString

The command name is puts. The puts command will accept the options -nonewline and channel as arguments, and must include an outputString argument.

 

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Users and purposes of study plans

Research plans serve several purposes. The first is providing a blueprint for the planned research activity. Plans help set a common language between all involved parties, and they are a tool for reassuring stakeholders that what was agreed upon during initial conversations is in fact what is going to happen.

When you suspect that people are too busy to read research plans, I suggest you schedule a meeting with a goal to make immediate stakeholders aware of the study plan and to gather their feedback. In some cases, you will need them to sign off on a plan to make sure that you are covered in case they change their minds (I must admit that I’ve never done this, but I am aware of such situations). In any case, use this opportunity to involve everyone in setting the plan for the study. Carefully listen to criticism and ideas different than yours to learn more about what stakeholders expect to get from the study.

Keep in mind that different stakeholders might be interested in different aspects of a research plan:

■ Product managers and software developers will mostly be interested in the goal, research questions, and schedule. In some cases, they will also be interested in participant criteria, but not always. These stakeholders are usually interested in goals and questions because these determine the content of the study and its focus. They will also be interested in the schedule to make sure that it meets their needs for making timely design, business, and development decisions. Participant criteria will interest them if they are targeting a very specific audience and they want to make sure that study participants are representing this audience as much as possible.

■ Designers are your closest allies. They will probably show interest in the entire plan because they are probably the stakeholders who are most affected by the results of the study. They are the ones who probably need to create something or make changes based on the results.

■ Salespeople will be interested in participant criteria because this will affect their level of involvement in the process of recruiting participants for the study.

■ Executives will probably be interested in the study goal and in the overall cost of the study, as they are likely sponsoring the study. Usually, their bandwidth does not allow them more than that.

■ Other UX researchers internal and external to your organization might be interested in your plan for two good reasons. First, they might be coleading a study with you. It is critical that all leaders be on the same page at the start of the study. For instance, a study with coleaders in different countries is vulnerable to chaos and lost time if the goal is not stated precisely and checked to see that the translation hasn’t changed the meaning. Second, other researchers might want to learn from you. Many plans that I read help me shape better plans for my own studies.

■ You! The plan is mostly for you. As soon as you put your thoughts in writing, something happens, and you find holes in them. These holes you find help you improve your plan. A written plan also helps you focus and better prepare for the study. The fact of the matter is that if you can’t boil your plan down to a single page, it means that you yourself probably don’t really understand it.

One thing you might ask yourself is when the best time is to share a plan with stakeholders. I’d say early and often. Share a plan when you have only draft goals and research questions. Share it when you have a final list of goals and questions. Share it again when you’ve selected a methodology. You see where I’m going with this. It’s a bad sign when your stakeholders are surprised by the content of a study plan.

 

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(powered by Elsevier) ]]> http://mkp.com/free-content/if-you-pick-a-methodology-first-something-must-be-wrong-from-its-our-research/feed 0 http://mkp.com/free-content/social-network-analysis-from-analyzing-social-media-networks-with-nodexl http://mkp.com/free-content/social-network-analysis-from-analyzing-social-media-networks-with-nodexl#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:42:59 +0000 [MK] Sloane http://mkp.com/?p=4184 Read the Rest...]]> Now available for download is the free sample chapter “Social Network Analysis” from the forthcoming Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL by Derek Hansen, Ben Shneiderman and Marc A. Smith. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter:

Introduction

 

Human beings have been part of social networks since our earliest days. We are born and live in a world of connections. People connect with others through social networks formed by kinship, language, trade, exchange, conflict, citation, and collaboration. Computer technologies used to create social networks are relatively new, but networks of social interactions and exchanges are primordial. Simply stated, a network is a collection of things and their relationships to one another. The “things” that are connected are called nodes, vertices, entities, and in some contexts people. The connections between the vertices are called edges, ties, and links. Many natural and artificial systems form networks, which exist in systems from the atomic level to the planetary level. Social networks are created whenever people interact, directly or indirectly, with other people, institutions, and artifacts. Social network theory and analysis is a relatively recent set of ideas and methods largely developed over the past 80 years. It builds on and uses concepts from the mathematics of graph theory, which has a longer history. Using network analysis, you can visualize complex sets of relationships as maps (i.e., graphs or sociograms) of connected symbols and calculate precise measures of the size, shape, and density of the network as a whole and the positions of each element within it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ChannelPro SMB recently sat down with Steve Smoot, co-author of Private Cloud Computing. This time it was to discuss his thoughts on cloud-supporting networks and how to keep networks performing with cloud computing. Read the full interview here! This book is available from Elsevier, Amazon.com in print or on the Kindle, or from your favorite bookseller! Read the first interview he did with ChannelPro SMB, where he discussed his thoughts on private vs. hybrid or public clouds. You can read the first interview in its entirety here!

]]> http://mkp.com/news/second-interview-with-steve-smoot/feed 0 http://mkp.com/news/sketching-user-experiences-the-workbook http://mkp.com/news/sketching-user-experiences-the-workbook#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:23:49 +0000 SteveH http://mkp.com/?p=4165 Read the Rest...]]> Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook by Saul Greenberg, Sheelagh Carpendale, Nicolai Marquardt & Bill Buxton just published!

Review the full Table of Contents below.

About the Book

In Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook, you will learn, through step-by-step instructions and exercises, various sketching methods that will let you express your design ideas about user experiences across time. Collectively, these methods will be your sketching repertoire: a toolkit where you can choose the method most appropriate for developing your ideas, which will help you cultivate a culture of experience-based design and critique in your workplace.

Key Features:

• Features standalone modules detailing methods and exercises for practitioners who want to learn and develop their sketching skills
• Extremely practical, with illustrated examples detailing all steps on how to do a method
• Excellent for individual learning, for classrooms, and for a team that wants to develop a culture of design practice
• Perfect complement to Buxton’s Sketching User Experience or any UX text

Quotes:

“In Sketching User Experiences, Buxton gave a compelling argument as to WHY sketching is so important to design. In this excellently-designed companion, he and his co-authors show HOW.  I have been haranguing students for years with the message that they should be doing a lot of sketching, and this is the first guide I can really use to show them what it means and how it works.”
-Terry Winograd, Professor at Stanford University and founding faculty member of its ‘D.School’ and author of Bringing Design to Software

“As an interaction designer who teaches, I’ve waited a while for a book like this! Sketching User Experiences – The Workbook is a design-by-doing guide for practitioners and students on how to integrate design practice, techniques and thinking into the practices of human-computer interaction and interaction design. As the companion piece to Bill Buxton’s Sketching User Experience, this book is a one-two combination for learning and doing design in a world of interaction.”
-Ron Wakkary, Associate Professor at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University and Co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM interactions magazine.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 3: CULTURE AND UX

How many cross-cultural slips and gaps does that small anecdote hold? Attitudes toward time, expectations about appropriate activities, communication style, just to name a few. Aaron Marcus told us that story to illustrate the sort of cultural differences that cause heartaches, conflicts, and misunderstandings all the time. What is acceptable in one culture can be unthinkable in another.
We talk about “cross-cultural design” or “bridging cultures” – what does that mean for UX? User experience is based on understanding users. And users can now seem more diverse than ever. The UX challenges for this new, connected world are based on its biggest benefit: we are more connected.

This chapter looks at questions about culture and what it
means for UX:
• What do we need to know about cultures to do good UX?
• Are differences or similarities between cultures more important
for UX design?
• Are there models that will help us understand culture and
apply it in our UX work?
• How much does language matter in design and other UX work?

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About the Book

It’s Our Research provides a strategic framework for people who practice UX researchers who wish to be heard by their stakeholders. It gives you the techniques needed to involve stakeholders throughout the process of planning, execution, analysis, and reporting UX research ensure that your research impacts stakeholders, by getting them to think, talk, question, learn, and interact with your findings. Dramatically increase the chances that product managers, engineers, and management agree to do research and act upon its results Prove to stakeholders that your UX research is relevant; follow Tomer Sharon’s techniques and methods detailed inside.

Key Features:

• Features a series of video interviews with UX practitioners and researchers
• Provides dozens of case studies and visuals from international research practitioners
• Provides a toolset that will help you justify your work to stakeholders, deal with office politics, and hone your client skills
• Presents tried and tested techniques for working to reach positive, useful, and fruitful outcomes

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Usable Planet, by Gary Bunker

Introduction

Chapter 1: If life gives you limes, make mojitos! Identifying stakeholders, selling user experience research, and dealing with difficult people and situations

Chapter 2: Mmm… Interesting, so what exactly is it that you want to learn? Implementing your great participant interviewing skills on stakeholders; asking good questions, listening, saying the right things, and identifying research opportunities

Chapter 3: If you pick a methodology first, something must be wrong: Strategies for planning studies with stakeholders and techniques for developing the right research questions

Chapter 4: What’s Gonna Work? Teamwork! Hands-on techniques for collaborating and involving stakeholders in research planning, execution, analysis, and reporting

Chapter 5: The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place

Chapter 6: You can’t manage what you don’t measure: Signs that indicate research is being used well and how you can systematically track success (or failure)

Epilogue

ISBN: 9780123851307 | View in bookstore

About the Book

Content is king… and the new kingmaker… and your message needs to align with your model and metrics and other mumbo jumbo, right? Whether you’re slogging through theory or buzzwords, there’s no denying content strategy is coming of age. But what’s in it for you? And if you’re not a content strategist, why should you care?

Because even if content strategy isn’t your job, content’s probably your problem-and probably more than you think. You or your business has a message you want to deliver, right? You can deliver that message through various channels and content types, from Tweets to testimonials and photo galleries galore, and your audience has just as many ways of engaging with it. So many ways, so much content… so where’s the problem? That is the problem. And you can measure it in time, creativity, money, lost opportunity, and the sobs you hear equally from creative directors, project managers, and search engine marketing specialists.

The solution is content strategy, and this book offers real-world examples and approaches you can adopt, no matter your role on the team. Put content strategy to work for you by gathering this book into your little hands and gobbling up never-before seen case studies from teams at Johns Hopkins Medicine, MINI, Icebreaker, and more. Content Strategy at Work is a book for designers, information architects, copywriters, project managers, and anyone who works with visual or verbal content. It discusses how you can communicate and forge a plan that will enable you, your company, or your client get that message across and foster better user experiences.

Key Features:

• Presents a solid content strategy framework and ways to implement in your business and with your clients
• Includes a multitude of case studies interviews both successes and failures from different industries and a variety of company types
• Details what you need to incorporate best practices such as resources, time, and budget

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: How content strategy can help

Chapter 2: Designing cohesive experiences: introducing content strategy to design

Chapter 3: Embracing reality: incorporating content strategy into project management and information architecture

Chapter 4: Executing on content strategy through copywriting, curation, and aggregation

Chapter 5: Coupling content strategy with search engine optimization

Chapter 6: Improving content management with content strategy

Chapter 7: Grounding social media in content strategy

Chapter 8: Growing the business and getting to work

ISBN: 9780123919229 | View in bookstore

SERVICE INTEGRATION IN THE DATA CENTER

The SOI of the enterprise DC cannot do without important network services such as firewall capabilities
and server load balancing. The services aggregation layer is a good place to integrate firewalls and
SLBs because it is typically the demarcation between L2 and L3 in the DC, and it allows these intelligent
service devices to be shared across multiple switches in the access layer. There are two ways to
integrate firewalls and SLBs:

• The use of separate services aggregation–layer switches as external services chassis to house
firewall and SLB service modules.
• The use of standalone appliance devices.
This book covers only the services chassis approach for housing firewalls and SLBs.

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