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• If I use Ruby Migrations, do I have to use the rest of Ruby on Rails?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I'm currently trying to come up with a database migrations strategy for my organization. This includes getting the database scripts into source control, managing versioning, managing releases to QA / Production, managing branching and merging across different release branches, etc. Ruby Migrations seems to offer solutions to a lot of those problems. But, from looking at the Ruby on Rails docs, it is unclear to me whether Ruby Migrations can be separated from the rest of the framework. I work in a primarily .NET shop, but with a lot of other technologies, and with multiple DBMS platforms (SQL Server, Oracle of various versions). Ruby is not present in our portfolio at all right now, and we have no plans to use it. If I was to use Ruby Migrations, it would be the only piece of the Ruby on Rails framework that we would want to use. Can Ruby Migrations be effectively used to manage database changes independently of the rest of the Ruby on Rails framework? Are there any docs or articles out there that describe this workflow? (Yes, I know there are other options such as Liquibase but I'm specifically trying to learn about Ruby Migrations with this question.)

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• How to instrument existing ASP.NET application?

  - by jkohlhepp

  We have several highly complex ASP.NET web applications that are used internally by hundreds of users. We are trying to figure out which areas of the applications to invest in to improve functionality, but we aren't sure which screens/features are more heavily used. So, ideally, I'd like to find a way to add a layer of instrumentation to the applications that gathers metrics on which buttons are being clicked, which text boxes are being used, etc. Are there any products / open source apps out there that will do this sort of instrumentation for ASP.NET? Obviously I could do it myself manually by going into the code and injecting logging statements everywhere but this would be a significant amount of work that will be hard to accomplish.

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• What are the disadvantages of automated testing?

  - by jkohlhepp

  There are a number of questions on this site that give plenty of information about the benefits that can be gained from automated testing. But I didn't see anything that represented the other side of the coin: what are the disadvantages? Everything in life is a tradeoff and there are no silver bullets, so surely there must be some valid reasons not to do automated testing. What are they? Here's a few that I've come up with: Requires more initial developer time for a given feature Requires a higher skill level of team members Increase tooling needs (test runners, frameworks, etc.) Complex analysis required when a failed test in encountered - is this test obsolete due to my change or is it telling me I made a mistake? Edit I should say that I am a huge proponent of automated testing, and I'm not looking to be convinced to do it. I'm looking to understand what the disadvantages are so when I go to my company to make a case for it I don't look like I'm throwing around the next imaginary silver bullet. Also, I'm explicity not looking for someone to dispute my examples above. I am taking as true that there must be some disadvantages (everything has trade-offs) and I want to understand what those are.

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• Automated build platform for .NET portfolio - best choice?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I am involved with maintaining a fairly large portfolio of .NET applications. Also in the portfolio are legacy applications built on top of other platforms - native C++, ECLIPS Forms, etc. I have a complex build framework on top of NAnt right now that manages the builds for all of these applications. The build framework uses NAnt to do a number of different things: Pull code out of Subversion, as well as create tags in Subversion Build the code, using MSBuild for .NET or other compilers for other platforms Peek inside AssemblyInfo files to increment version numbers Do deletes of certain files that shouldn't be included in builds / releases Releases code to deployment folders Zips code up for backup purposes Deploy Windows services; start and stop them Etc. Most of those things can be done with just NAnt by itself, but we did build a couple of extension tasks for NAnt to do some things that were specific to our environment. Also, most of those processes above are genericized and reused across a lot of our different application build scripts, so that we don't repeat logic. So it is not simple NAnt code, and not simple build scripts. There are dozens of NAnt files that come together to execute a build. Lately I've been dissatisfied with NAnt for a couple reasons: (1) it's syntax is just awful - programming languages on top of XML are really horrific to maintain, (2) the project seems to have died on the vine; there haven't been a ton of updates lately and it seems like no one is really at the helm. Trying to get it working with .NET 4 has cause some pain points due to this lack of activity. So, with all of that background out of the way, here's my question. Given some of the things that I want to accomplish based on that list above, and given that I am primarily in a .NET shop, but I also need to build non-.NET projects, is there an alternative to NAnt that I should consider switching to? Things on my radar include Powershell (with or without psake), MSBuild by itself, and rake. These all have pros and cons. For example, is MSBuild powerful enough? I remember using it years ago and it didn't seem to have as much power as NAnt. Do I really want to have my team learn Ruby just to do builds using rake? Is psake really mature enough of a project to pin my portfolio to? Is Powershell "too close to the metal" and I'll end up having to write my own build library akin to psake to use it on its own? Are there other tools that I should consider? If you were involved with maintaining a .NET portfolio of significant complexity, what build tool would you be looking at? What does your team currently use?

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• Entity Framework with large systems - how to divide models?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I'm working with a SQL Server database with 1000+ tables, another few hundred views, and several thousand stored procedures. We are looking to start using Entity Framework for our newer projects, and we are working on our strategy for doing so. The thing I'm hung up on is how best to split the tables into different models (EDMX or DbContext if we go code first). I can think of a few strategies right off the bat: Split by schema We have our tables split across probably a dozen schemas. We could do one model per schema. This isn't perfect, though, because dbo still ends up being very large, with 500+ tables / views. Another problem is that certain units of work will end up having to do transactions that span multiple models, which adds to complexity, although I assume EF makes this fairly straightforward. Split by intent Instead of worrying about schemas, split the models by intent. So we'll have different models for each application, or project, or module, or screen, depending on how granular we want to get. The problem I see with this is that there are certain tables that inevitably have to be used in every case, such as User or AuditHistory. Do we add those to every model (violates DRY I think), or are those in a separate model that is used by every project? Don't split at all - one giant model This is obviously simple from a development perspective but from my research and my intuition this seems like it could perform terribly, both at design time, compile time, and possibly run time. What is the best practice for using EF against such a large database? Specifically what strategies do people use in designing models against this volume of DB objects? Are there options that I'm not thinking of that work better than what I have above? Also, is this a problem in other ORMs such as NHibernate? If so have they come up with any better solutions than EF?

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• Development environment to manage multiple Oracle databases

  - by jkohlhepp

  I am in an enterprise environment where we have applications that need to run against multiple Oracle databases. Developers may need to manage multiple vintages of these databases to support different test data or diagnose bugs against different versions of the code. Right now, we have a limited set of test environments set up on "real" Oracle servers within the data center. We juggle these among development and QA groups and there is a lot of conflicts and inefficiencies that arise because of it. I am taking a look at Oracle Express Edition which would allow me to spin up a local Oracle database. This is similar to the workflow I most often see with SQL Server. Devs work on their location machine until they are ready to integration and then they push their DB changes to integration / QA environments. However, from what I read it seems that Oracle XE only supports one database instance at a time. So if I have an application that utilizes two different databases, I can't have both of them running on my local machine. Is that correct? Does Oracle Standard or Personal editions get around this limitation? If I had one of those installed locally, how difficult would it be to get multiple databases working on the same development machine? How do dev shops handle developing against Oracle where they need to be using several different Oracle instances for their applications?

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• When do you use a struct instead of a class?

  - by jkohlhepp

  What are your rules of thumb for when to use structs vs. classes? I'm thinking of the C# definition of those terms but if your language has similar concepts I'd like to hear your opinion as well. I tend to use classes for almost everything, and use structs only when something is very simplistic and should be a value type, such as a PhoneNumber or something like that. But this seems like a relatively minor use and I hope there are more interesting use cases.

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• Algorithm to use for shop floor layout?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I ran into a classroom problem yesterday (business oriented class, not computer science) and I found it interesting from an algorithmic perspective. The problem goes something like this: Assume there is a shop floor with N different rooms, and you have N different departments that need to go in those rooms. The departments and the rooms are all the same size, so any department could go in any room. There is a known travel distance from each room to each other room. There is also a known amount of trips necessary from one department to another (trips are counted the same regardless which room they originate from, so a trip from A to B is equivalent to a trip from B to A). Given those inputs, determine a layout of departments into rooms which minimizes travel time. What is the best way to approach this problem algorithmically? Is there already a particular algorithm or class of algorithms designed to solve this type of problem? Does this type of problem have a name in computer science? I am not looking for you to design an algorithm to solve this, although feel free to do so if you would like. I'm wondering if this is a problem space that has already been well defined and studied algorithmically and if so get some links to research further. I can see a lot of different data structures and algorithms that might apply to this and I'm curious which approach would be "best". And don't worry, you are not doing my homework for me. This is not a homework problem per se, as this is a business course and we were simply discussing the concepts and not trying to solve the problem algorithmically.

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• Excel - export sheet to fixed-width text file?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I know that Excel has functionality to import fixed-width text files where it presents a dialog that lets you choose where the begins and ends of fields are which it puts into columns. Does it also have functionality where, given an existing spreadsheet, you can export to a fixed-width text file? If so, how do I access this? I have tried using Save As and choosing Text File but it seems to only save as Tab-delimited which doesn't help me. This is Excel 2003 if it matters. Thanks, ~ Justin

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• Prevent Cisco VPN from interrupting home networking

  - by jkohlhepp

  I just got a new laptop, and for the most part have left its settings alone. Today I was trying to get some sharing going between my desktop and the laptop. Both machines are connected to the same wireless network and both machines consider that network to be a Home network. Both are running Win7 Home Premium. It seems like my laptop is aware of my desktop on the network. It can ping it by IP or by computer name. When I go to Network from the laptop, I can see the desktop in the list of computers. However, my desktop cannot ping the laptop, nor can it see it within Network. My desktop has a Homegroup set up, but my laptop says "There is currently no homegroup on the network". I do have network discovery turned on for both machines. Why can my desktop not "talk" to my laptop but it works the other way around? Update: Disabling the Windows Firewall on the laptop somewhat fixes the problem. With it disabled, my desktop can ping my laptop, but still my laptop can't see the homegroup. Also, it can ping via hostname, which resolves to IPv6, but can't ping via the IPv4 address. Obviously I'd rather not leave my firewall disabled, so I need a more specific fix. Update 2: Aha! It is the Cisco VPN software I was running to connect to work computers. Once I disconnected and exited from that, the two PCs seemed to be talking normally and the homegroup was visible to the laptop. So now my question has morphed: how can I prevent Cisco VPN from interrupting my home networking?

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• Export an Excel spreadsheet to fixed-width text file?

  - by jkohlhepp

  Excel has the functionality to import fixed-width text files where it presents a dialog that lets you choose where the begins and ends of fields are which it puts into columns. Does it also have functionality where, given an existing spreadsheet, you can export to a fixed-width text file? If so, how do I access this? I have tried using Save As and choosing Text File but it seems to only save as Tab-delimited which doesn't help me. This is Excel 2003 if it matters.

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• Windows 7 wireless not seeing any networks

  - by jkohlhepp

  I think I have managed to confuse Windows 7. When I did the install, I had the network cable plugged in to my router, but the wireless card was also enabled. During the install, Windows 7 seemed to see my wireless network and even asked me for the WEP key. I know that it used the WEP key because I initially entered an invalid one and it gave me an error. Then the network said "SoAndSoWireless Connected". However, when I unplug or disable my wired network card, then I have no internet, and it can't see any networks. When I plug in the wired network card, it says "SoAndSoWireless Connected". Under Network and Internet Network Connections I have "Local Area Connection" and "Wireless Network Connection". The wired one's status is "SoAndSoWireless" and the wireless status is "Not Connected". Also, the wireless connection can't seem to see any other wireless networks in the area and I know there are tons. My neighbors have several. I've somehow seemingly confused Windows 7 into thinking that my wired network card is my wireless card or something. Any ideas on how to un-confuse it? This is a desktop machine by the way, if it matters. EDIT: Ah, I think part of the problem is that I named my network accidentally the same as the name of the wireless network being broadcast by the wireless router. So that might be why it says that name on the hard-wired connection. Perhaps the drivers just are completely not working for the wireless card. Thanks, ~ Justin

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• IIS Windows Authentication not working in Internet Explorer via host name; works via IP

  - by jkohlhepp

  I'm trying to get a new Windows Server 2003 box working to host an ASP.NET application that uses Windows Authentication. Here's some info: IIS Anonymous Access is diabled IIS Integrated Windows Authentication is enabled I've tried it with and without Digest Authentication and it is the same result Both my machine and the server are in same active directory domain on the same intranet I'm using IE 6 My symptoms: In Firefox, via either IP or host name, a login box pops up, and if I enter my NT credentials, it works. In IE, via the server IP address, it works perfectly with no login box. In IE, via the server host name, it pops up a login box but even if I put in the correct credentials, it just pops up the box again. This is the problem. Why won't windows auth work in IE via host name but it will via IP address? Edit: Here's something else interesting. If I go into my Internet Explorer advanced settings and disable Windows Authentication, it seems to work just fine. And by work I mean that my test .NET app sees my NT ID as the current user.

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• Sharepoint bug database - any good?

  - by jkohlhepp

  We've been using Sharepoint as a poor man's bug tracking database for the last couple of projects that we did. No one is really happy with the solution so I'm looking for alternatives. I happened to stumble upon the Bug Database Template for Sharepoint. If it is halfway decent it might be a good choice for us since the transition would be smooth as the team is already used to Sharepoint. Anyone have any experience using this template? Any major problems? Any major missing features? Is there any documentation out there beyond that download page? Thanks for the help.

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• Current .NET technology stack for a new project? [closed]

  - by jkohlhepp

  If you are going to start a new .NET project, what technologies do you use on top of the base framework? I'm thinking things like ORMs (NHibernate, EF), logging frameworks (Log4Net), IoC containers, rules engines, UI frameworks (Telerik), etc. Are there certain technologies that you always bring in regardless of project type / complexity? Are there certain others that you bring in sometimes when complexity warrants it? This seems like a moving target, and I'm curious what people are using as their "basic setup" nowadays.

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• moq SetupSet is obsolete. In place of what?

  - by jkohlhepp

  Let's say I want to use moq to create a callback on a setter to store the set property in my own field for later use. (Contrived example - but it gets to the point of the question.) I could do something like this: myMock.SetupSet(x => x.MyProperty).Callback(value => myLocalVariable = value); And that works just fine. However, SetupSet is obsolete according to Intellisense. But it doesn't say what should be used as an alternative. I know that moq provides SetupProperty which will autowire the property with a backing field. But that is not what I'm looking for. I want to capture the set value into my own variable. How should I do this using non-obsolete methods?

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• Detecting validation errors in Silverlight 4

  - by jkohlhepp

  I'm using the new Silverlight 4 support for IDataErrorInfo. So I have a POCO object that has implemented the interface, and when a validation rule fires the Silverlight UI correctly shows the error. So that is all working fine. The POCO object looks like this: public class SomeDomainClass : IDataErrorInfo { public string SomeString { get; set; } public string Error { get { return String.Empty; } } public string this[string columnName] { get { if (columnName == "SomeString" && PolicyNumber.Contains("%")) return "SomeString cannot contain '%'. You'll ruin everything!!!"; return String.Empty; } } } However, I want to be able to detect whether or not there are any errors on the page. For example if I have a Save button and I want to disable it if there are errors, or display a message or something. What is the best way to detect if there are existing validation errors on the page? Is there a facility for this based around the IDataErrorInfo support in Silverlight? Or do I have to track it in the domain model myself?

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• jQuery UI Autocomplete - style like a standard <SELECT>

  - by jkohlhepp

  I'm on the verge of starting a new web application that is likely to have need for both standard, simple dropdowns as well as more feature-rich autocomplete controls for longer lists of values, better type ahead behavior, etc. I'm planning on using the jQuery UI Autocomplete widget along with some combobox behavior as detailed here: http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/#combobox My concern is that "out of the box" the Autocomplete widget looks very different than a standard control. Since is not easy to skin/style, I'm hoping to adjust the Autocomplete to look & feel as close to the as possible, except in the cases where the increased functionality justifies a different L&F. What is the best way to go about reskinning the Autocomplete to look more like a ? Has this already been done somewhere? Should I use jQuery UI theming? Other options?

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• IIS error hosting WCF Data Service on shared web host

  - by jkohlhepp

  My client has a website hosted on a shared web server. I don't have access to IIS. I am trying to deploy a WCF Data Service onto his site. I am getting this error: IIS specified authentication schemes 'IntegratedWindowsAuthentication, Anonymous', but the binding only supports specification of exactly one authentication scheme. Valid authentication schemes are Digest, Negotiate, NTLM, Basic, or Anonymous. Change the IIS settings so that only a single authentication scheme is used. I have searched SO and other sites quite a bit but can't seem to find someone with my exact situation. I cannot change the IIS settings because this is a third party's server and it is a shared web server. So my only option is to change things in code or in the service config. My service config looks like this: <system.serviceModel xdt:Transform="Insert"> <serviceHostingEnvironment> <baseAddressPrefixFilters> <add prefix="http://www.somewebsite.com"/> </baseAddressPrefixFilters> </serviceHostingEnvironment> <bindings> <webHttpBinding> <binding name="{Binding Name}" > <security mode="None" /> </binding> </webHttpBinding> </bindings> <services> <service name="{Namespace to Service}"> <endpoint address="" binding="webHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="{Binding Name}" contract="System.Data.Services.IRequestHandler"> </endpoint> </service> </services> </system.serviceModel> As you can see I tried to set the security mode to "None" but that didn't seem to help. What should I change to resolve this error?

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• Mixing application modules between Silverlight and ASP.NET

  - by jkohlhepp

  Background: I work in a suite of ASP.NET applications that have several different "modules". The applications all share a main menu, so they all link to one-another. The modules are the high-level areas of the application. So, for example, it might be Payments, Orders, Customers, Products, etc. And Payments and Orders are in one app and Products and Customers are in another. Some of these menu links are "deep links", for example it might be a link to a particular page within the Customers module, such as Create New Customer. The issue: We are about to start a project that will add several more modules to this suite, probably as a new .NET application. I'm thinking about doing these new modules in Silverlight (for various reasons that are not material to the question). If I were to do that, I need to make the menu look the same as the menu in ASP.NET, as the users still need to feel like they are inside one "application". My questions: How should I organize the Silverlight project(s) so that I can "deep link" from ASP.NET pages into particular modules in the Silverlight app? What is even the best idea for creating these different Silverlight "modules"? If I had something that would've been a page in ASP.NET (for example - Create Customer), should each one of those be a separate Silverlight app? Or should it be a separate User Control? Or something else? Should I reuse our shared ASP.NET menu, and deep link to different Silverlight "modules" even within the new application? Or should I reimplement the menu in Silverlight for navigation within the app? Are there menu controls for Silverlight that look similar to ASP.NET menus (with flyout submenus in this case)? Could I maybe even share a SiteMap XML file between them? Edit: After looking around a bit more, it seems like PRISM might be the answer for some of my issues. It would allow me to modularize the different chunks of Silverlight that I have. And it would allow me to define a "master page" in Silverlight where I could host the menu. Do I have this right?

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• How to get a handle on all this middleware?

  - by jkohlhepp

  My organization has recently been wrestling the question of whether we should be incorporating different middleware products / concepts into our applications. Products we are looking at are things like Pegasystems, Oracle BPM / BPEL, BizTalk, Fair Isaac Blaze, etc., etc., etc. But I'm having a hard time getting a handle on all this. Before I go forward with evaluating the usefulness (positive or negative) of these different products I'm trying to get an understanding of all the different concepts in this space. I'm overwhelmed with an alphabet soup of BPM, ESB, SOA, CEP, WF, BRE, ERP, etc. Some products seem to cover one or more of those aspects, others focus on doing one. The terms all seem very ambiguous and conflated with each other. Is there a good resource out there to get a handle on all these different middleware concepts / patterns? A book? A website? An article that sums it up well? Bonus points if there is a resource that maps the various popular products into which pattern(s) they address. Thanks, ~ Justin

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• Does RIA Services requires an extra install on the server?

  - by jkohlhepp

  If I want to deploy an ASP.NET application that hosts RIA Services endpoints for a Silverlight application, do I have to install anything extra on the web server? Or is it just some extra DLLs that can be deployed to my applications Bin folder? I know that when you are doing RIA Services development there are additional toolkits and what-not to install, but I'm not sure if those are needed on the server.

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• Silverlight authentication during startup - how to mimic syncronous behavior?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I have a Silverlight app that is using the MVVM pattern. I have a WCF service which will allow me to authenticate users (I don't have direct control over that service - assume it is a black box that just returns me the user info and a list of privileges the user has). So, when the app starts up, I want to pull security data from that service. Right now, when I do this, my views and view models can end up getting initialized before the service returns with the security data. This causes problems because the view models need to disable buttons and make things visible/invisible based on the user having certain privileges. Is there a pattern that allows me to prevent the initialization of the views / view models until the WCF call has returned? How would you go about solving this problem as elegantly as possible?

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• How much business logic belongs in RIA services layer?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I have been experimenting recently with Silverlight, RIA Services, and Entity Framework using .NET 4.0. I'm trying to figure out if that stack makes sense for use in any of my upcoming projects. It certainly seems like these technologies can be very productive for developing applications, but I'm struggling to decide how an application on top of this stack should be architected. The main issue I have is that in most of the demos I've seen most of the business logic ends up as DataAnnotations and custom validations in the RIA Services domain service class. This seems inappropriate to me. I view the domain service as basically a glorified web service that happens to make it easy to push information to the client. But most of what I've seen seems to orient the domain service as the main source of business logic in the application. So, my questions: What is the best location for business logic (rules, validations, behaviors, authorization) in an application using this stack? Are there any guidelines published at an architectural level for using this stack? My questions pertain to large, complex, and long-lived applications. Obviously for an application of only a few screens this is less of a concern. Edit: Another thing I meant to mention is that obviously you can make the domain service class stupid, but then you lose a lot of the automagic entity information (e.g. validations) being pushed to the client. And then if you lose that is there any point to using RIA services?

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• Are any major applications using Entity Framework?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I'm investigating the use of Entity Framework in an upcoming project, but I have some concerns about the maturity and market adoption of the product. Are there any high profile web sites or applications using the product? Are there any significant open source projects that have picked it up?

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