Understanding Compression: Data Compression for Modern Developers

If you want to attract and retain users in the booming mobile services market, you need a quick-loading app that won't churn through their data plans. The key is to compress multimedia and other data into smaller files, but finding the right method is tricky. This witty book helps you understand how data compression algorithms work--in theory and practice--so you can choose the best solution among all the available compression tools.

With tables, diagrams, games, and as little math as possible, authors Colt McAnlis and Aleks Haecky neatly explain the fundamentals. Learn how compressed files are better, cheaper, and faster to distribute and consume, and how they'll give you a competitive edge.

• Learn why compression has become crucial as data production continues to skyrocket
• Know your data, circumstances, and algorithm options when choosing compression tools
• Explore variable-length codes, statistical compression, arithmetic numerical coding, dictionary encodings, and context modeling
• Examine tradeoffs between file size and quality when choosing image compressors
• Learn ways to compress client- and server-generated data objects
• Meet the inventors and visionaries who created data compression algorithms

Colt McAnlis is a Developer Advocate at Google focusing on Games, compression, and Performance; Before that, he was a graphics programmer in the games industry working at Blizzard, Microsoft (Ensemble), and Petroglyph. He's been an Adjunct Professor at SMU Guildhall, a UDACITY instructor (twice), and a Book Author. Recently, he's been teaching Android Devs the Zen of Performance. When he's not working with developers, Colt spends his time preparing for an invasion of giant ants from outer space. He's also got a whole plethora of publications, videos and other things accounting for over 600,000 views.

Aleks Haecky is a Developer Advocate, Training Developer, and Writer at Google with a passion for bridging the language gap between experts and their audience. He has worked behind the scenes of Performance, Udacity, the Google Developer Channel, and documentation. In a previous life he translated herpetological books and taught kayaking. Needless to say, he's also working on the next Great American Novel and lurks on LinkedIn.