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• Fixing a bug that has never caused a problem until now.

  - by codeelegance

  I recently made a change that caused some code to be run far more often than it used to. This lead to the discovery of a bug. This bug had the potential to happen any time that code was run but because it was run so seldom it never surfaced. When I brought this to the lead developer's attention he wanted me to undo the change that exposed the bug rather than fix the bug quoting the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Its clear to me that we were just lucky up until now but he won't listen to reason. Should I fix it anyway? Update The lead technically doesn't have any authority over me. Just tenure. He's been the sole developer on the project for a number of years until a year ago and I think he doesn't take constructive criticism very well. For what's worth, I didn't criticize him I just pointed out that just because the bug never showed up didn't mean it wasn't there.

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• Cross Platform Tips, Tricks & Gotchas

  - by codeelegance

  If you've worked on a cross platform development project: What did you learn from the experience? What worked? What didn't? What problems did you run into and how did you solve them? Did you aim for consistent appearance and functionality across all platforms or try to take advantage of each platform's strengths? What language and cross platform libraries did you use and did they live up to their claims? Was it a desktop application or web-based?

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• Dealing with personal failure

  - by codeelegance

  A while ago I was given the task of updating and extending the functionality of a software project. I was given a year to make the needed changes working solo. A month into development I came to the conclusion that it would take longer to change the existing product than to rewrite it from the ground up. I'd never attempted a complete rewrite so I talked with my boss about it and he was thrilled with the idea. I'm a fan of agile development but had never had the opportunity to take advantage of all of the prescribed practices so when I set to work I tried to incorporate as many as I could. I didn't have direct access to the customer and my coworkers (non-programmers) knew the business domain but were already so busy they didn't really have time to participate in design meetings so I resigned to working in the dark and occasionally calling one of them over to my desk to get feedback on my progress. I used TDD and refactored mercilessly and even tried taking a domain driven design approach. Things went well for a while. As the deadline came closer and the complexity of the project grew my productivity start slipping. I found myself cutting corners and ignoring the practices I had established as the pressure increased to meet the deadline. I also started working late nights and weekends to keep up with the load. In the end it made little difference how hard I worked. The project missed its deadline and what was completed wasn't enough to give to the customer. I had failed. Not only had I not finished on time but the previous version had sat untouched for almost a year so it wouldn't be of any help. Luckily we had another product that offered some of the same functionality. My boss decided to cancel the project entirely and moved all our orphaned customers to the other product. I spent weeks (along with everyone else at the company) manning the phones providing technical support for those customers. After it was all over, my boss was gracious enough not to fire me for nearly ruining the company. I was moved to the other product and have been trying to redeem myself ever since. Where did I go wrong? Has anyone else had to deal with this kind of defeat? How did you recover?

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• Looking for combinations of server and embedded database engines

  - by codeelegance

  I'm redesigning an application that will be run as both a single user and multiuser application. It is a .NET 2.0 application. I'm looking for server and embedded databases that work well together. I want to deploy the embedded database in the single user setup and of course, the server in the multiuser setup. Past releases have been based on MSDE but in the past year we've been having a lot of install issues: new installs hanging and leaving the system in an unknown state, upgrades disconnecting the database, etc. I migrated the application to SQL Server 2005 and the install is more reliable (as long as a user doesn't try to install over a broken MSDE installation). Since next year's release will be a complete redesign I figured now's the best time to address the database issue as well. The database has been abstracted from the rest of the application so I just need to choose which database(s) to use and write an implementation for each one. So far I've considered: SQL Server/ SQL Server Compact Edition Firebird (same DB engine is available in two different server modes and an embedded dll) Each has its own merits but I'm also interested in any other suggestions. This is a fairly simple program and its data requirements are simple as well. I don't expect it to strain whatever database I eventually choose. So easy configuration and deployment hold more weight than performance.

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• Are GUIDs necessary to use interfaces in Delphi?

  - by codeelegance

  The official documentation says they are optional. I know COM interop requires a unique identifier for each interface but every interface example I see has a GUID whether it's used with COM or not? Is there any benefit to including a GUID if its not going to be used with COM?

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