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• Why you need to tag your build servers in TFS

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  At SSW we use gated check-in for all of our projects. The benefits are based on the number of developers you have working on your project. Lets say you have 30 developers and each developer breaks the build once per month. That could mean that you have a broken build every day! Gated check-ins help, but they have a down side that manifests as queued builds and moaning developers. The way to combat this is to have more build servers, but with that comes complexity. Inevitably you will need to install components that you would expect to be installed on target computers, but how do you keep track of which build servers have which bits? What about a geographically diverse team? If you have a centrally controlled infrastructure you might have build servers in multiple regions and you don’t want teams in Sydney copying files from Beijing and vice a versa on a regular basis. So, what is the answer. Its Tags. You can add a set of Tags to your agents and then set which tags to look for in the build definition. Figure: Open up your Build Controller Manager Select “Build | Manage Build Controllers…” to get a list of all of your controllers and he build agents that are associated with them. Figure: the list of build agents and their controllers Each of these Agents might be subtly different. For example only one of these agents has FTP software installed. This software is required for only one of the many builds we have set up. My ethos for build servers is to keep them as clean as possible and not to install anything that is not absolutely necessary. For me that means anything that does not add a *.target file is suspect, and should really be under version control and called via the command line from there. So, some of the things you may install are: Silverlight 4 SDK Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2008 WIX etc You should not install things that will not end up on the target users computer. For a website that means something different to a client than to a server, but I am sure you get the idea. One thing you can do to make things easier is to create a tag for each of the things that you install. that way developers can find the things they need. We may change to using a more generic tagging structure (Like “Web Application” or “WinForms Application”) if this gets too unwieldy, but for now the list of tags is limited. Figure: Tags associated with one of our build agents Once you have your Build Agents all tagged up ALL your builds will start to fail This is because the default setting for a build is to look for an Agent that exactly matches the tags for the build, and we have not added any yet. The quick way to fix this is to change the “Tag Comparison Operator” from “ExactMatch” to “MatchAtLease” to get your build immediately working. Figure: Tag Comparison Operator changes to MatchAtLeast to get builds to run. The next thing to do is look for specific tags. You just select from the list of available tags and the controller will make sure you get to a build agent that uses them. Figure: I want Silverlight, VS2010 and WIX, but do not care about Location. And there you go, you can now have build agents for different purposes and regions within the same environment. You can also use name filtering, so if you have a good Agent naming convention you can filter by that for regions. For example, your Agents might be “SYDVMAPTFSBP01” and “SYDVMAPTFSBP02” so a name filter of “SYD*” would target all of the Sydney build agents. Figure: Agent names can be used for filtering as well This flexibility will allow you to build better software by reducing the likelihood of not having a certain dependency on the target machines. Figure: Setting the name filter based on server location  Used in combination there is a lot of power here to coordinate tens of build servers for multiple projects across multiple regions so your developers get the most out of your environment. Technorati Tags: ALM,TFBS,TFS 2010,TFS Admin

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• Creating a branch for every Sprint

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  There are a lot of developers using version control these days, but a feature of version control called branching is very poorly understood and remains unused by most developers in favour of Labels. Most developers think that branching is hard and complicated. Its not! What is hard and complicated is a bad branching strategy. Just like a bad software architecture a bad branch architecture, or one that is not adhered to can prove fatal to a project. We I was at Aggreko we had a fairly successful Feature branching strategy (although the developers hated it) that meant that we could have multiple feature teams working at the same time without impacting each other. Now, this had to be carefully orchestrated as it was a Business Intelligence team and many of the BI artefacts do not lend themselves to merging. Today at SSW I am working on a Scrum team delivering a product that will be used by many hundreds of developers. SSW SQL Deploy takes much of the pain out of upgrading production databases when you are not using the Database projects in Visual Studio. With Scrum each Scrum Team works for a fixed period of time on a single sprint. You can have one or more Scrum Teams involved in delivering a product, but all the work must be merged and tested, ready to be shown to the Product Owner at the the Sprint Review meeting at the end of the current Sprint. So, what does this mean for a branching strategy? We have been using a “Main” (sometimes called “Trunk”) line and doing a branch for each sprint. It’s like Feature Branching, but with only ONE feature in operation at any one time, so no conflicts Figure: DEV folder containing the Development branches.   I know that some folks advocate applying a Label at the start of each Sprint and then rolling back if you need to, but I have always preferred the security of a branch. Like: being able to create a release from Main that has Sprint3 code even while Sprint4 is being worked on. being sure I can always create a stable build on request. Being able to guarantee a version (labels are not auditable) Be able to abandon the sprint without having to delete the code (rare I know, but would be a mess if it happened) Being able to see the flow of change sets through to a safe release It helps you find invalid dependencies when merging to Main as there may be some file that is in everyone’s Sprint branch, but never got checked in. (We had this at the merge of Sprint2) If you are always operating in this way as a standard it makes it easier to then add more scrum teams in the future. Muscle memory of this way of working. Don’t Like: Additional DB space for the branches Baseless merging between sprint branches when changes are directly ported Note: I do not think we will ever attempt this! Maybe a bit tougher to see the history between sprint branches since the changes go up through Main and down to another sprint branch Note: What you would have to do is see which Sprint the changes were made in and then check the history he same file in that Sprint. A little bit of added complexity that you would have to do anyway with multiple teams. Over time, you can end up with a lot of old unused sprint branches. Perhaps destroy with /keephistory can help in this case. Note: We ALWAYS delete the Sprint branch after it has been merged into Main. That is the theory anyway, and as you can see from the images Sprint2 has already been deleted. Why take the chance of having a problem rolling back or wanting to keep some of the code, when you can just abandon a branch and start a new one? It just seems easier and less painful to use a branch to me! What do you think?   Technorati Tags: TFS,TFS2010,Software Development,ALM,Branching

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• SSAO Distortion

  - by Robert Xu

  I'm currently (attempting) to add SSAO to my engine, except it's...not really work, to say the least. I use a deferred renderer to render my scene. I have four render targets: Albedo, Light, Normal, and Depth. Here are the parameters for all of them (Surface Format, Depth Format): Albedo: 32-bit ARGB, Depth24Stencil8 Light: 32-bit ARGB, None Normal: 32-bit ARGB, None Depth: 8-bit R (Single), Depth24Stencil8 To generate my random noise map for the SSAO, I do the following for each pixel in the noise map: Vector3 v3 = Vector3.Zero; double z = rand.NextDouble() * 2.0 - 1.0; double r = Math.Sqrt(1.0 - z * z); double angle = rand.NextDouble() * MathHelper.TwoPi; v3.X = (float)(r * Math.Cos(angle)); v3.Y = (float)(r * Math.Sin(angle)); v3.Z = (float)z; v3 += offset; v3 *= 0.5f; result[i] = new Color(v3); This is my GBuffer rendering effect: PixelInput RenderGBufferColorVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProjection); pi.Normal = mul(input.Normal, WorldInverseTranspose); pi.Color = input.Color; pi.TPosition = pi.Position; pi.WPosition = input.Position; return pi; } GBufferTarget RenderGBufferColorPixelShader(PixelInput input) { GBufferTarget output = ( GBufferTarget ) 0; float3 position = input.TPosition.xyz / input.TPosition.w; output.Albedo = lerp(float4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), input.Color, ColorFactor); output.Normal = EncodeNormal(input.Normal); output.Depth = position.z; return output; } And here is the SSAO effect: float4 EncodeNormal(float3 normal) { return float4((normal.xyz * 0.5f) + 0.5f, 0.0f); } float3 DecodeNormal(float4 encoded) { return encoded * 2.0 - 1.0f; } float Intensity; float Size; float2 NoiseOffset; float4x4 ViewProjection; float4x4 ViewProjectionInverse; texture DepthMap; texture NormalMap; texture RandomMap; const float3 samples[16] = { float3(0.01537562, 0.01389096, 0.02276565), float3(-0.0332658, -0.2151698, -0.0660736), float3(-0.06420016, -0.1919067, 0.5329634), float3(-0.05896204, -0.04509097, -0.03611697), float3(-0.1302175, 0.01034653, 0.01543675), float3(0.3168565, -0.182557, -0.01421785), float3(-0.02134448, -0.1056605, 0.00576055), float3(-0.3502164, 0.281433, -0.2245609), float3(-0.00123525, 0.00151868, 0.02614773), float3(0.1814744, 0.05798516, -0.02362876), float3(0.07945167, -0.08302628, 0.4423518), float3(0.321987, -0.05670302, -0.05418307), float3(-0.00165138, -0.00410309, 0.00537362), float3(0.01687791, 0.03189049, -0.04060405), float3(-0.04335613, -0.00530749, 0.06443053), float3(0.8474263, -0.3590308, -0.02318038), }; sampler DepthSampler = sampler_state { Texture = DepthMap; MipFilter = Point; MinFilter = Point; MagFilter = Point; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler NormalSampler = sampler_state { Texture = NormalMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler RandomSampler = sampler_state { Texture = RandomMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; }; struct VertexInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; struct PixelInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; PixelInput SSAOVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = input.Position; pi.TextureCoordinates = input.TextureCoordinates; return pi; } float3 GetXYZ(float2 uv) { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, uv); float2 xy = uv * 2.0f - 1.0f; xy.y *= -1; float4 p = float4(xy, depth, 1); float4 q = mul(p, ViewProjectionInverse); return q.xyz / q.w; } float3 GetNormal(float2 uv) { return DecodeNormal(tex2D(NormalSampler, uv)); } float4 SSAOPixelShader(PixelInput input) : COLOR0 { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, input.TextureCoordinates); float3 position = GetXYZ(input.TextureCoordinates); float3 normal = GetNormal(input.TextureCoordinates); float occlusion = 1.0f; float3 reflectionRay = DecodeNormal(tex2D(RandomSampler, input.TextureCoordinates + NoiseOffset)); for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) { float3 sampleXYZ = position + reflect(samples[i], reflectionRay) * Size; float4 screenXYZW = mul(float4(sampleXYZ, 1.0f), ViewProjection); float3 screenXYZ = screenXYZW.xyz / screenXYZW.w; float2 sampleUV = float2(screenXYZ.x * 0.5f + 0.5f, 1.0f - (screenXYZ.y * 0.5f + 0.5f)); float frontMostDepthAtSample = tex2D(DepthSampler, sampleUV); if (frontMostDepthAtSample < screenXYZ.z) { occlusion -= 1.0f / 16.0f; } } return float4(occlusion * Intensity * float3(1.0, 1.0, 1.0), 1.0); } technique SSAO { pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 SSAOVertexShader(); PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 SSAOPixelShader(); } } However, when I use the effect, I get some pretty bad distortion: Here's the light map that goes with it -- is the static-like effect supposed to be like that? I've noticed that even if I'm looking at nothing, I still get the static-like effect. (you can see it in the screenshot; the top half doesn't have any geometry yet it still has the static-like effect) Also, does anyone have any advice on how to effectively debug shaders?

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• Fastest pathfinding for static node matrix

  - by Sean Martin

  I'm programming a route finding routine in VB.NET for an online game I play, and I'm searching for the fastest route finding algorithm for my map type. The game takes place in space, with thousands of solar systems connected by jump gates. The game devs have provided a DB dump containing a list of every system and the systems it can jump to. The map isn't quite a node tree, since some branches can jump to other branches - more of a matrix. What I need is a fast pathfinding algorithm. I have already implemented an A* routine and a Dijkstra's, both find the best path but are too slow for my purposes - a search that considers about 5000 nodes takes over 20 seconds to compute. A similar program on a website can do the same search in less than a second. This website claims to use D*, which I have looked into. That algorithm seems more appropriate for dynamic maps rather than one that does not change - unless I misunderstand it's premise. So is there something faster I can use for a map that is not your typical tile/polygon base? GBFS? Perhaps a DFS? Or have I likely got some problem with my A* - maybe poorly chosen heuristics or movement cost? Currently my movement cost is the length of the jump (the DB dump has solar system coordinates as well), and the heuristic is a quick euclidean calculation from the node to the goal. In case anyone has some optimizations for my A*, here is the routine that consumes about 60% of my processing time, according to my profiler. The coordinateData table contains a list of every system's coordinates, and neighborNode.distance is the distance of the jump. Private Function findDistance(ByVal startSystem As Integer, ByVal endSystem As Integer) As Integer 'hCount += 1 'If hCount Mod 0 = 0 Then 'Return hCache 'End If 'Initialize variables to be filled Dim x1, x2, y1, y2, z1, z2 As Integer 'LINQ queries for solar system data Dim systemFromData = From result In jumpDataDB.coordinateDatas Where result.systemId = startSystem Select result.x, result.y, result.z Dim systemToData = From result In jumpDataDB.coordinateDatas Where result.systemId = endSystem Select result.x, result.y, result.z 'LINQ execute 'Fill variables with solar system data for from and to system For Each solarSystem In systemFromData x1 = (solarSystem.x) y1 = (solarSystem.y) z1 = (solarSystem.z) Next For Each solarSystem In systemToData x2 = (solarSystem.x) y2 = (solarSystem.y) z2 = (solarSystem.z) Next Dim x3 = Math.Abs(x1 - x2) Dim y3 = Math.Abs(y1 - y2) Dim z3 = Math.Abs(z1 - z2) 'Calculate distance and round 'Dim distance = Math.Round(Math.Sqrt(Math.Abs((x1 - x2) ^ 2) + Math.Abs((y1 - y2) ^ 2) + Math.Abs((z1 - z2) ^ 2))) Dim distance = firstConstant * Math.Min(secondConstant * (x3 + y3 + z3), Math.Max(x3, Math.Max(y3, z3))) 'Dim distance = Math.Abs(x1 - x2) + Math.Abs(z1 - z2) + Math.Abs(y1 - y2) 'hCache = distance Return distance End Function And the main loop, the other 30% 'Begin search While openList.Count() != 0 'Set current system and move node to closed currentNode = lowestF() move(currentNode.id) For Each neighborNode In neighborNodes If Not onList(neighborNode.toSystem, 0) Then If Not onList(neighborNode.toSystem, 1) Then Dim newNode As New nodeData() newNode.id = neighborNode.toSystem newNode.parent = currentNode.id newNode.g = currentNode.g + neighborNode.distance newNode.h = findDistance(newNode.id, endSystem) newNode.f = newNode.g + newNode.h newNode.security = neighborNode.security openList.Add(newNode) shortOpenList(OLindex) = newNode.id OLindex += 1 Else Dim proposedG As Integer = currentNode.g + neighborNode.distance If proposedG < gValue(neighborNode.toSystem) Then changeParent(neighborNode.toSystem, currentNode.id, proposedG) End If End If End If Next 'Check to see if done If currentNode.id = endSystem Then Exit While End If End While If clarification is needed on my spaghetti code, I'll try to explain.

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• Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 Done

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Since I have joined SSW as a Solution Architect its Chief Architect, Adam Cogan, has been mentoring me and pushing me to do better. One of the things that I have been wanting to do since the first DDD Scotland was to present a session. For DDD Scotland 2010 Adam suggested that I submit he double session on “Better project Management with Team Foundation Server 2010”. So, with some apprehension I submitted two session as Part A and Part B. Download DDD Scotland -  Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 How surprised was I that after the attendees had finished casting their votes that both sessions would be in the top 20 one in the top 5. I an effort to promote diversity in sessions the DDD committee try to make sure that each presenter only have one session. I would have to compress SSW’s presentation into 1 hour. Around this time SSW embarked on it continuing adventures with scrum an Microsoft started heavily investing in Scrum for its internal use. I decided to do a slightly different session, but one that would still meet the agenda and goal of the billed session to provide “Better project management with Team Foundation Server 2010”. And so Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 was born. At this stage I really have to thank Aaron Bjork who provided me with many of the slides and animations as I really can’t work Power Point. On the 27th of April I presented the session for the Aberdeen Partner Group and then on 8th May I presented at DDD Scotland. Figure: Some of the presenters and organisers of DDD Scotland I mentioned quite a few of SSW’s Rules to better Scrum Using TFS and I have uploaded my presentation to Skydrive.   Download DDD Scotland -  Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 Technorati Tags: DDD Scot,Scrum,TFS 2010,SSW

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• Silverlight 4, MVVM and Test-Driven Development

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  As part of his UK tour Microsoft's Jesse Liberty will be talking in Edinburgh for an evening on Silverlight 4. [Register Now, there are some places left]  The Talk MVVM and Silverlight to build test-driven programs Understanding Refactoring and Dependency Injection A Walk through of a non-trivial application The Speaker Jesse Liberty, Silverlight Geek, is a Developer Community Program Manager for Microsoft (US). Lately he has been focused on Component-based, Test-Driven, Cross-platform line-of-business application development, and has led the development of the open source  Silverlight HyperVideo Platform. Liberty is the author of over two dozen books, and his blog is a required resource for Silverlight programmers. His twenty years of programming experience include stints as a Distinguished Software Engineer at AT&T; Vice President of Human-Computer Interaction at Citibank and Software Architect at PBS/Learning Link. The Venue We are meeting at Microsoft's offices in Edinburgh in Waterloo Place. This is the building on the corner of North Bridge at the east end of Princes Street. Parking can be found at the nearby Greenside Row car park which is just off Leith Walk (used for the Omni Centre). The venue is approximately 2-3 minutes walk away from Edinburgh Waverly train station. The Agenda 18:30 Doors open 19:00 Welcome 19:10 Part 1 20:00 Break 20:10 Part 2 20:50 Feedback and Prizes 21:00 End   [Register Now, there are some places left] Technorati Tags: Silverlight,MVVM,TDD

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• A Technical Perspective On Rapid Planning

  - by Robert Story

  Upcoming WebcastTitle: A Technical Perspective On Rapid PlanningDate: April 14, 2010 Time: 11:00 am EDT, 9:00 am MDT, 8:00 am PDT, 16:00 GMT Product Family: Value Chain PlanningSummary Oracle's Strategic Network Optimization (SNO) product is a powerful supply chain design and tactical planning tool.  This one-hour session is recommended for functional users who want to gain a better understanding of how Oracle's SNO solution can help you solve complex supply chain issues, including supply chain design, risk management, logistics planning, sustainability planning, and a whole lot in between! Find out how SNO can be used to solve many different types of real-world business issues. Topics will include: Risk/Disaster Management Carbon Emissions Management Global Sourcing Labor/Workforce Planning Product Mix Optimization A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

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• Supporting HR Transformation with HelpDesk for Human Resources

  - by Robert Story

  Upcoming WebcastTitle: Supporting HR Transformation with HelpDesk for Human ResourcesDate: May 13, 2010 Time: 9:00 am PDT, 10 am MDT, 17:00 GMT Product Family: PeopleSoft HCM & EBS HRMS Summary HR transformation is a strategic initiative at many companies where world-class employee HR service delivery and a reduction of HR operating costs are top priorities. Having a centralized service delivery model and providing employees with tools to better help themselves can be very key to this initiative. This session shares how Oracle's PeopleSoft HelpDesk for Human Resources provides the technology foundation and best practices for this transformation. HelpDesk for Human Resources now integrates with both PeopleSoft HCM and E-Business Suite HRMS. This one-hour session is recommended for technical and functional users who want to understand what is new in PeopleSoft Help Desk for Human Resources 9.1 and how it benefits both PeopleSoft HCM and E-Business Suite HRMS customers. Topics will include: Understand the latest features and functionality Gain insight into future product direction Plan for implementation or upgrade of this module in your current system A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

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• AS3 Stage3D Mouse click problem?

  - by Martin K

  I have a problem with Mouse interaction and Stage3D. The only way I found to register to listen to mouse clicks and interact with Stage3D, is to add a mouse eventListener directly to the .stage. However this will result in any time i click anywhere in the flash application the mouse click will fire, even if there is an overlaid 2D menu where the user intended to click. IE I have a 3D application running in the background, which listens to clicks, and I have some floating User Interface elements in the foreground, and ideally if I clicked a button in the foreground, then that would NOT fire a click event that the Stage3D would register. Any idea how to solve this problem?

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• Programa Talleres FMW Mayo y Junio 2010

  - by [email protected]

  PROGRAMA TALLERES FMW Mayo y Junio 2010 Enterprise 2.0 TALLER FECHA LOCALIZACIÓN Enterprise 2.0 y Redes Sociales Empresariales (Webcenter Spaces) 03/05/10 Madrid Digitalización (IP/M) 10/05/10 Madrid Gestión Documental y Records Management (UCM/URM) 11/05/10 Barcelona Gestión de Contenidos Web y portales (UCM + WC Suite) 25/05/10 Barcelona Gestión Documental y Records Management (UCM/URM) 19/05/10 Madrid Gestión de Contenidos Web y portales (UCM + WC Suite) 31/05/10 Madrid Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) TALLER FECHA LOCALIZACIÓN Construccion de Modelos de Negocio con BPEL 11g 13/05/10 Madrid Automatización de Procesos de Negocio con Oracle BPM 20/05/10 Madrid Oracle WebLogic 27/05/10 Madrid Gestión de Ciclo de Vida SOA Sobre un Repositorio Empresarial 11/05/10 Madrid Desarrollo de Aplicaciones de Alto Rendimiento con Oracle Coherence 18/05/10 Madrid Plataforma de Integración de Datos (ODI) 25/05/10 Madrid Business Activity Monitoring 11g (BAM) 13/05/10 Barcelona Inscribirse:

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• BizTalk Envelopes explained

  - by Robert Kokuti

  Recently I've been trying to get some order into an ESB-BizTalk pub/sub scenario, and decided to wrap the payload into standardized envelopes. I have used envelopes before in a 'light weight' fashion, and I found that they can be quite useful and powerful if used systematically. Here is what I learned. The Theory In my experience, Envelopes are often underutilised in a BizTalk solution, and quite often their full potential is not well understood. Here I try to simplify the theory behind the Envelopes within BizTalk.   Envelopes can be used to attach additional data to the ‘real’ data (payload). This additional data can contain all routing and processing information, and allows treating the business data as a ‘black box’, possibly compressed and/or encrypted etc. The point here is that the infrastructure does not need to know anything about the business data content, just as a post man does not need to know the letter within the envelope. BizTalk has built-in support for envelopes through the XMLDisassembler and XMLAssembler pipeline components (these are part of the XMLReceive and XMLSend default pipelines). These components, among other things, perform the following: XMLDisassembler Extracts the payload from the envelope into the Message Body Copies data from the envelope into the message context, as specified by the property schema(s) associated by the envelope schema. Typically, once the envelope is through the XMLDisassembler, the payload is submitted into the Messagebox, and the rest of the envelope data are copied into the context of the submitted message. The XMLDisassembler uses the Property Schemas, referenced by the Envelope Schema, to determine the name of the promoted Message Context element.   XMLAssembler Wraps the Message Body inside the specified envelope schema Populates the envelope values from the message context, as specified by the property schema(s) associated by the envelope schema. Notice that there are no requirements to use the receiving envelope schema when sending. The sent message can be wrapped within any suitable envelope, regardless whether the message was originally received within an envelope or not. However, by sharing Property Schemas between Envelopes, it is possible to pass values from the incoming envelope to the outgoing envelope via the Message Context. The Practice Creating the Envelope Add a new Schema to the BizTalk project:   Envelopes are defined as schemas, with the <Schema> Envelope property set to Yes, and the root node’s Body XPath property pointing to the node which contains the payload. Typically, you’d create an envelope structure similar to this: Click on the <Schema> node and set the Envelope property to Yes. Then, click on the Envelope node, and set the Body XPath property pointing to the ‘Body’ node:   The ‘Body’ node is a Child Element, and its Data Structure Type is set to xs:anyType.  This allows the Body node to carry any payload data. The XMLReceive pipeline will submit the data found in the Body node, while the XMLSend pipeline will copy the message into the Body node, before sending to the destination. Promoting Properties Once you defined the envelope, you may want to promote the envelope data (anything other than the Body) as Property Fields, in order to preserve their value in the message context. Anything not promoted will be lost when the XMLDisassembler extracts the payload from the Body. Typically, this means you promote everything in the Header node. Property promotion uses associated Property Schemas. These are special BizTalk schemas which have a flat field structure. Property Schemas define the name of the promoted values in the Message Context, by combining the Property Schema’s Namespace and the individual Field names. It is worth being systematic when it comes to naming your schemas, their namespace and type name. A coherent method will make your life easier when it comes to referencing the schemas during development, and managing subscriptions (filters) in BizTalk Administration. I developed a fairly coherent naming convention which I’ll probably share in another article. Because the property schema must be flat, I recommend creating one for each level in the envelope header hierarchy. Property schemas are very useful in passing data between incoming as outgoing envelopes. As I mentioned earlier, in/out envelopes do not have to be the same, but you can use the same property schema when you promote the outgoing envelope fields as you used for the incoming schema.  As you can reference many property schemas for field promotion, you can pick data from a variety of sources when you define your outgoing envelope. For example, the outgoing envelope can carry some of the incoming envelope’s promoted values, plus some values from the standard BizTalk message context, like the AdapterReceiveCompleteTime property from the BizTalk message-tracking properties. The values you promote for the outgoing envelope will be automatically populated from the Message Context by the XMLAssembler pipeline component. Using the Envelope Receiving Enveloped messages are automatically recognized by the XMLReceive pipeline, or any other custom pipeline which includes the XMLDisassembler component. The Body Path node will become the Message Body, while the rest of the envelope values will be added to the Message context, as defined by the Property Shemas referenced by the Envelope Schema. Sending The Send Port’s filter expression can use the promoted properties from the incoming envelope. If you want to enclose the sent message within an envelope, the Send Port XMLAssembler component must be configured with the fully qualified envelope name:   One way of obtaining the fully qualified envelope name is copy it off from the envelope schema property page: The full envelope schema name is constructed as <Name>, <Assembly> The outgoing envelope is populated by the XMLAssembler pipeline component. The Message Body is copied to the specified envelope’s Body Path node, while the rest of the envelope fields are populated from the Message Context, according to the Property Schemas associated with the Envelope Schema. That’s all for now, happy enveloping!

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• Easy Scaling in XAML (WPF)

  - by Robert May

  Ran into a problem that needed solving that was kind of fun.  I’m not a XAML guru, and I’m sure there are better solutions, but I thought I’d share mine. The problem was this:  Our designer had, appropriately, designed the system for a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution.  This is for a full screen, touch screen device (think Kiosk), which has that resolution, but we also wanted to demo the device on a tablet (currently using the AWESOME Samsung tablet given out at Microsoft Build).  When you’d run it on that tablet, things were ugly because it was at a lower resolution than the target device. Enter scaling.  I did some research and found out that I probably just need to monkey with the LayoutTransform of some grid somewhere.  This project is using MVVM and has a navigation container that we built that lives on a single root view.  User controls are then loaded into that view as navigation occurs. In the parent grid of the root view, I added the following XAML: <Grid.LayoutTransform> <ScaleTransform ScaleX="{Binding ScaleWidth}" ScaleY="{Binding ScaleHeight}" /> </Grid.LayoutTransform> And then in the root View Model, I added the following code: /// <summary> /// The required design width /// </summary> private const double RequiredWidth = 1920; /// <summary> /// The required design height /// </summary> private const double RequiredHeight = 1080; /// <summary>Gets the ActualHeight</summary> public double ActualHeight { get { return this.View.ActualHeight; } } /// <summary>Gets the ActualWidth</summary> public double ActualWidth { get { return this.View.ActualWidth; } } /// <summary> /// Gets the scale for the height. /// </summary> public double ScaleHeight { get { return this.ActualHeight / RequiredHeight; } } /// <summary> /// Gets the scale for the width. /// </summary> public double ScaleWidth { get { return this.ActualWidth / RequiredWidth; } } Note that View.ActualWidth and View.ActualHeight are just pointing directly at FrameworkElement.ActualWidth and FrameworkElement.ActualHeight. That’s it.  Just calculate the ratio and bind the scale transform to it. Hopefully you’ll find this useful. Technorati Tags: WPF,XAML

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• A Technical Perspective On Rapid Planning

  - by Robert Story

  Upcoming WebcastTitle: Strategic Network Optimization - One Solution for Many Problems!Date: April 14, 2010 Time: 11:00 am EDT, 9:00 am MDT, 8:00 am PDT, 16:00 GMT Product Family: Value Chain PlanningSummary This one-hour session is recommended for System Administrators, Database Administrators, and Technical Users seeking a general overview of Rapid Planning, installation issues, and debug information. This webcast is intended to provide users with insight into known issues, and an overview of the debugging possibilities for Rapid Planning. Topics will include: Benefits of using simulation planning Installing Oracle Rapid planning, points to be aware of Relevant tables Rapid planning log files Information needed by supportA short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Click here to register for this session....... ....... ....... ....... ....... ....... .......The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support.For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

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• MIA

  - by Robert May

  So, I’ve been missing in action on this blog for quite some time.  I need to rectify that. Part of the reason I’ve been absent is because I haven’t be able to talk about what I’m working on.  A former client watches my blog rather closely, and although we accomplished many good things together, their culture is such that they really don’t like people to freely express their thoughts (you’ll note my blog posts stopped rather abruptly).  I learned some really important lessons about Agile in the last 3 years, and I think its worthwhile to talk about them.  Sometimes things worked really well, sometimes, they failed failed.  Sometimes that failure was me, sometimes it wasn’t. I understand Agile better now, and hopefully, what I have to say will guide others through this process and help others understand Agile better. One thing that I’ve learned is that MANY companies that say they are doing Agile are NOT really doing Agile.  To often, they pick the things they like and don’t follow the process long enough to know what rules they can break, and which ones they shouldn’t.  This is probably the primary reason why Agile fails. So, expect more posts, especially as I’m flying coast to coast. :)

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• A talk about observer pattern

  - by Martin

  As part of a university course I'm taking, I have to hold a 10 minute talk about the observer pattern. So far these are my points: What is it? (defenition) Polling is an alternative Polling VS Observer When Observer is better When Polling is better (taken from here) A statement that Mediator pattern is worth checking out. (I won't have time to cover it in 10 minutes) I would be happy to hear about: Any suggestions to add something? Another alternative (if exists)

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• Sony Vaio Webcam

  - by Martin H

  I have a in-built webcam in my Sony Vaio VGN-FE21M. lsusb shows me the device Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0ac8:c002 Z-Star Microelectronics Corp. Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC1 and it is working within Skype most of the time. Sometimes, however, lsusb shows me the exact same output, but trying to test my cam in v4l2ucp I get the error Unable to open file /dev/video0 No such file or directory A reboot fixes the problem but I just can't pinpoint what the difference is between a working and a not working webcam and the time/instance this occurs. It would probably be a fix if i could unmount and remount the cam, but how can I do this with in-built devices? Any other advice is welcome as well.

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• Development platform for 2D web and mobile games

  - by Robert Vella

  Is there a game development platform -- similar to Torque, or Unity -- which can be used to deploy 2D games on the following platforms: Web iOs Android Xbox Live Arcade (Preferred but not required) And which has an integrated or mature physics engine? Perhaps, even a built in editor? I've looked at the following possibilities but I've found something missing in each one. Of course in each case I may be guilty of misconception. Corona SDK (No web deployment, no windows support) Torque 2D (No web deployment) Flash + Flash Punk or Flixel (No native android deployment, and I'm not sure if it is stable on mobile platforms) Unity + SpriteManager2 (Not really optimised for 2D games, and I haven't seen enough advanced 2D examples -- like say platformers -- to really have any confidence in using it for something like this) Has anyone had any luck with this?

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• Juju bootstrap, install

  - by Robert G.

  I would like to test MAAS + JUJU + OpenStack (I followed the documentation on maas.ubuntu.org) I already made a test environment: 1 MAAS server wich will also run JuJu 10 KVM servers for Openstack The KVM servers are already in "ready" state in MAAS. I would like to set up JuJu but i could not which is drives me crazy. My environments.yaml: environments: maassrv: type: maas maas-server: 'http://${192.168.1.116}/MAAS/' maas-oauth: 'my-key-from-maas' authorized-keys-path: /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub admin-secret: 1234 default-series: trusty When I run "juju status -e maassrv` : ERROR Unable to connect to environment "maassrv". Please check your credentials or use 'juju bootstrap' to create a new environment. Error details: environment "maassrv" not found OK, it's right, so i should run juju bootstrap -e maassrv: ERROR environment "maassrv" not found When i run the command without the -e switch: error: no environment specified So, I am stuck here, I already added the required ssh keys to maas too. I ran out of ideas why it isn't working.

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• How to enable Unity 3D support in 12.04 using open-source drivers for RadeonHD cards?

  - by martin

  As the title says I can't enable the Unity 3D support when I'm using open-source drivers (xorg-edgers). I have an xfx Radeon HD 6950 by the way. If I install the proprietary 12.3 drivers from AMD it works, but I get poorer 2D performance than the open-source drivers and also I get some freezes and lock ups at random. So because of this I'm trying the open-source drivers and so far no issues at all, except this one. Running this command $ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p shows this: OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc. OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x300) OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.2 Not software rendered: no Not blacklisted: yes GLX fbconfig: yes GLX texture from pixmap: yes GL npot or rect textures: yes GL vertex program: yes GL fragment program: yes GL vertex buffer object: yes GL framebuffer object: yes GL version is 1.4+: yes Unity 3D supported: no And this command $ lspci -nn | grep VGA shows: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950] [1002:6719] So, is this normal? Do I need to go back to proprietary drivers to enable Unity 3D? If anyone can give me help, I'll much appreciate it.

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• Upgrading Visual Studio 2010

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  I have been running Visual Studio 2010 as my main development studio on my development computer since the RC was released. I need to upgrade that to the RTM, but first I need to remove it. Microsoft have done a lot of work to make this easy, and it works. Its as easy as uninstalling from the control panel. I have had may previous versions of Visual Studio 2010 on this same computer with no need to rebuild to remove all the bits. Figure: Run the uninstall from the control panel to remove Visual Studio 2010 RC Figure: The uninstall removes everything for you.  Figure: A green tick means the everything went OK. If you get a red cross, try installing the RTM anyway and it should warn you with what was not uninstalled properly and you can remove it manually.   Once you have VS2010 RC uninstalled installing should be a breeze. The install for 2010 is much faster than 2008. Which could take all day, and then some on slower computers. This takes around 20 minutes even on my small laptop. I always do a full install as although I have to do c# I sometimes get to use a proper programming language VB.NET. Seriously, there is nothing worse than trying to open a project and the other developer has used something you don't have. Its not their fault. Its yours! Save yourself the angst and install Fully, its only 5.9GB. Figure: I always select all of the options.   Now go forth and develop! Preferably in VB.NET…   Technorati Tags: Visual Studio,VS2010,VS 2010

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• SSW Scrum Rule: Do you know to use clear task descriptions?

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  When you create tasks in Scrum you are doing this within a time box and you tend to add only the information you need to remember what the task is. And the entire Team was at the meeting and were involved in the discussions around the task, so why do you need more? Once you have accepted a task you should then add as much information as possible so that anyone can pick up that task; what if your numbers come up? Will you be into work the next day? Figure: What if your numbers come up in the lottery? What if the Team runs a syndicate and all your numbers come up? The point is that anything can happen and you need to protect the integrity of the project, the company and the Customer. Add as much information to the task as you think is necessary for anyone to work on the task. If you need to add rich text and images you can do this by attaching an email to the task.   Figure: Bad example, there is not enough information for a non team member to complete this task Figure: Julie provided a lot more information and another team should be able to pick this up. This has been published as Do you know to ensure that relevant emails are attached to tasks in our Rules to Better Scrum using TFS.   Technorati Tags: Scrum,SSW Rules,TFS 2010

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• iOS - pass UIImage to shader as texture

  - by martin pilch

  I am trying to pass UIImage to GLSL shader. The fragment shader is: varying highp vec2 textureCoordinate; uniform sampler2D inputImageTexture; uniform sampler2D inputImageTexture2; void main() { highp vec4 color = texture2D(inputImageTexture, textureCoordinate); highp vec4 color2 = texture2D(inputImageTexture2, textureCoordinate); gl_FragColor = color * color2; } What I want to do is send images from camera and do multiply blend with texture. When I just send data from camera, everything is fine. So problem should be with sending another texture to shader. I am doing it this way: - (void)setTexture:(UIImage*)image forUniform:(NSString*)uniform { CGSize sizeOfImage = [image size]; CGFloat scaleOfImage = [image scale]; CGSize pixelSizeOfImage = CGSizeMake(scaleOfImage * sizeOfImage.width, scaleOfImage * sizeOfImage.height); //create context GLubyte * spriteData = (GLubyte *)malloc(pixelSizeOfImage.width * pixelSizeOfImage.height * 4 * sizeof(GLubyte)); CGContextRef spriteContext = CGBitmapContextCreate(spriteData, pixelSizeOfImage.width, pixelSizeOfImage.height, 8, pixelSizeOfImage.width * 4, CGImageGetColorSpace(image.CGImage), kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast); //draw image into context CGContextDrawImage(spriteContext, CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, pixelSizeOfImage.width, pixelSizeOfImage.height), image.CGImage); //get uniform of texture GLuint uniformIndex = glGetUniformLocation(__programPointer, [uniform UTF8String]); //generate texture GLuint textureIndex; glGenTextures(1, &textureIndex); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureIndex); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); //create texture glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, pixelSizeOfImage.width, pixelSizeOfImage.height, 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, spriteData); glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE1); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureIndex); //"send" to shader glUniform1i(uniformIndex, 1); free(spriteData); CGContextRelease(spriteContext); } Uniform for texture is fine, glGetUniformLocation function do not returns -1. The texture is PNG file of resolution 2000x2000 pixels. PROBLEM: When the texture is passed to shader, I have got "black screen". Maybe problem are parameters of the CGContext or parameters of the function glTexImage2D Thank you

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• When there's no TCO, when to worry about blowing the stack?

  - by Cedric Martin

  Every single time there's a discussion about a new programming language targetting the JVM, there are inevitably people saying things like: "The JVM doesn't support tail-call optimization, so I predict lots of exploding stacks" There are thousands of variations on that theme. Now I know that some language, like Clojure for example, have a special recur construct that you can use. What I don't understand is: how serious is the lack of tail-call optimization? When should I worry about it? My main source of confusion probably comes from the fact that Java is one of the most succesful languages ever and quite a few of the JVM languages seems to be doing fairly well. How is that possible if the lack of TCO is really of any concern?

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• Cuda vs OpenCL - opinions

  - by Martin Beckett

  Interested in peoples opinions of Cuda vs openCL following NVidia's Cuda4 release. I had originally gone with openCL since cross platform, open standards are a good thing(tm). I assumed NVidia would fall into line as they had done with openGL. But having talked to some NVidia people, they (naturaly) claim that they will concentrate on CUDA and openCL is hampered by having committees and having to please everyone - like openGL. And with the new tools and libs in CUDA it's hard to argue with that. -I'm in a fairly technical market so I can require the users to have particular HW.

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• Big Visible Charts

  - by Robert May

  An important part of Agile is the concept of transparency and visibility. In proper functioning teams, stakeholders can look at any team at any time in the iteration or release and see how that team is doing by simply looking at what we call Big Visible Charts. If you’ve done Scrum, you’ve seen these charts. However, interpreting these charts can often be an art form. There are several different charts that can be useful. In this newsletter, I’ll focus on the Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow charts. I’ve included a copy of the spreadsheet that I used to create the charts, and if you don’t have a tool that creates them for you, you can use this spreadsheet to do so. Our preferred tool for managing Scrum projects is Rally. Rally creates all of these charts for you, saving you quite a bit of time. The Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow Charts This is the main chart that teams use. Although less useful to stakeholders, this chart is critical to the team and provides quite a bit of information to the team about how their iteration is going. Most charts are a combination of the charts below, so you may need to combine aspects of each section to understand what is happening in your iterations. Ideal Ah, isn’t that a pretty picture? Unfortunately, it’s also very unrealistic. I’ve seen iterations that come close to ideal, but never that match perfectly. If your iteration matches perfectly, chances are, someone is playing with the numbers. Reality is just too difficult to have a burndown chart that matches this exactly. Late Planning Iteration started, but the team didn’t. You can tell this by the fact that the real number of estimated hours didn’t appear until day two. In the cumulative flow, you can also see that nothing was defined in Day one and two. You want to avoid situations like this. You’ll note that the team had to burn faster than is ideal to meet the iteration because of the late planning. This often results in long weeks and days. Testing Starved Determining whether or not testing is starved is difficult without the cumulative flow. The pattern in the burndown could be nothing more that developers not completing stories early enough or could be caused by stories being too big. With the cumulative flow, however, you see that only small bites are in progress and stories were completed early, but testing didn’t start testing until the end of the iteration, and didn’t complete testing all stories in the iteration. When this happens, question whether or not your testing resources are sufficient for your team and whether or not acceptance is adequately defined. No Testing With this one, both graphs show the same thing; the team needs testers and testing! Without testing, what was completed cannot be verified to make sure that it is acceptable to the business. If you find yourself in this situation, review your testing practices and acceptance testing process and make changes today. Late Development With this situation, both graphs tell a story. In the top graph, you can see that the hours failed to burn down as quickly as the team expected. This could be caused by the team not correctly estimating their hours or the team could have had illness or some other issue that affected them. Often, when teams are tackling something that is more unknown, they’ll run into technical barriers that cause the burn down to happen slower than expected. In the cumulative flow graph, you can see that not much was completed in the first few days. This could be because of illness or technical barriers or simply poor estimation. Testing was able to keep up with everything that was completed, however. No Tool Updating When you see graphs that look like this, you can be assured that it’s because the team is not updating the tool that generates the graphs. Review your policy for when they are to update. On the teams that I run, I require that each team member updates the tool at least once daily. You should also check to see how well the team is breaking down stories into tasks. If they’re creating few large tasks, graphs can look similar to this. As a general rule, I never allow tasks, other than Unit Testing and Uncertainty, to be greater than eight hours in duration. Scope Increase I always encourage team members to enter in however much time they think they have left on a task, even if that means increasing the total amount of time left to do. You get a much better and more realistic picture this way. Increasing time remaining could explain the burndown graph, but by looking at the cumulative flow graph, we can see that stories were added to the iteration and scope was increased. Since planning should consume all of the hours in the iteration, this is almost always a bad thing. If the scope change happened late in the iteration and the hours remaining were well below the ideal burn, then increasing scope is probably o.k., but estimation needs to get better. However, with the charts above, that’s clearly not what happened and the team was required to do extra work to make the iteration. If you find this happening, your product owner and ScrumMasters need training. The team also needs to learn to say no. Scope Decrease Scope decreases are just as bad as scope increases. Usually, graphs above show that the team did a poor job of estimating their stories and part way through had to reduce scope to change the iteration. This will happen once in a while, but if you find it’s a pattern on your team, you need to re-evaluate planning. Some teams are hopelessly optimistic. In those cases, I’ll introduce a task I call “Uncertainty.” With Uncertainty, the team estimates how many hours they might need if things don’t go well with the tasks they’ve defined. They try to estimate things that could go poorly and increase the time appropriately. Having an Uncertainty task allows them to have a low and high estimate. Uncertainty should not just be an arbitrary buffer. It must correlate to real uncertainty in the tasks that have been defined. Stories are too Big Often, we see graphs like the ones above. Note that the burndown looks fairly good, other than the chunky acceptance of stories. However, when you look at cumulative flow, you can see that at one point, everything is in progress. This is a bad thing. When you see graphs like this, you’re in one of two states. You may just have a very small team and can only handle one or two stories in your iteration. If you have more than one or two people, then the most likely problem is that your stories are far too big. To combat this, break large high hour stories into smaller pieces that can be completed independently and accepted independently. If you don’t, you’ll likely be requiring your testers to do heroic things to complete testing on the last day of the iteration and you’re much more likely to have the entire iteration fail, because of the limited amount of things that can be completed. Summary There are other charts that can be useful when doing scrum. If you don’t have any big visible charts, you really need to evaluate your process and change. These charts can provide the team a wealth of information and help you write better software. If you have any questions about charts that you’re seeing on your team, contact me with a screen capture of the charts and I’ll tell you what I’m seeing in those charts. I always want this information to be useful, so please let me know if you have other questions. Technorati Tags: Agile

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