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• Book Review: Professional ASP.Net MVC4

  - by Sam Abraham

  The past few weeks have been particularly busy as I continue to dedicate a bigger portion of my free time to refreshing my memory and enhancing my knowledge of best practices pertaining to technologies we plan on using for a major upcoming project. In this blog post, I will be providing a brief overview of my latest reading “Professional ASP.Net MVC4” by Jon Galloway, Phil Haack, Brad Wilson and K. Scott Allen. This book is a must read for web developers looking to enhance their MVC expertise with best practices and tips shared from recognized industry experts. This book takes the reader on a 16-chapter long journey towards being a better ASP.NET MVC developer with chapter 16 putting all information covered in practical context by dissecting the implementation of Nuget.org, a real-life open-source, ASP.NET MVC project.  All code samples referenced in this book are conveniently accessible via NuGet, a free, open-source Library package manager that installs as a Visual Studio Extension. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 thoroughly cover MVC’s various components: Controllers “C”, Views “V” and Models “M” respectively. Chapter 5 covers additional extension methods (Helpers) provided to speed and ease the use of common HTML elements such as forms, textboxes, grids, to name a few… Chapter 6 tackles built-in validation while providing examples and use cases on implementing custom validation that plugs into the MVC framework. Chapters 7 thru 13 discusses the latest on Membership, Ajax, Routing, NuGet and the ASP.Net Web API. Chapters 12 (Dependency Injection) and 13 (Unit Testing) demonstrate a big competitive advantage of MVC with its ease of test-ability and plug-ability. Chapters 14 and 15 targets the advanced developer showcasing how to extend MVC to customize and replace every piece in the framework.In conclusion, I strongly recommend Professional ASP.NET MVC 4 as an excellent read for both developers already using MVC as well as those getting started with the framework.   Many thanks to the Wiley/Wrox User Group Program for their support of our West Palm Beach Developers’ Group.  You can access my reviews of books I recently read: Professional ASP.NET Design Patterns Professional WCF 4.0 Inside Windows Communication Foundation Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008 series

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• What can be done against language inertia?

  - by gerrit

  Often, projects use programming language X, but would use programming language Y if they were started from scratch. For example, big numerical models may be written entirely in Fortran. Whereas this might be a reasonable choice for the components that need to run fast (alternative would be C or C++), it might be a poor choice for components that either do not need to run fast (such as things dealing with human input or simple visualisations), or where runtime is not the limiting factor (such as I/O, particularly when from the network). Another example may be when a project is built using a propriety language (such as Matlab; no, FOSS clones are not good enough) and was started at a time when FOSS alternatives were not viable, but ten years later, they are; and it would be beneficial to migrate. However, due to language inertia, a migration does not happen. Code that works should not be touched, porting code is a time-consuming, expensive process, and programmers are familiar in language X but not necessarily in language Y. Still, in the long term, a migration would likely be beneficial. Can anything be done to mitigate the problems associated with language inertia? Are there any notable examples of big projects that have successfully overcome this problem? Or is a project bound to stick forever with the initial choices?

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• What to expect when creating a style guide?

  - by ted.strauss

  My organization would like to create a full fledged style guide that will be applicable to internal & external web sites, print advertising, trade show design, and overall branding. This article lays out the scope we're aiming for, and has links to many great examples style guide PDFs. The goal is to create a style guide comparable to one of these. I'd like to set realistic expectations within my organization for creating this document. So I have a few of questions pertaining to this: We don't have design staff. Should we be looking for a design firm or freelancer to come in for a 2-6 month contract, or do we need a longer commitment? If we do go with a firm or freelancer, would the pay-scale be comparable to typical design work, or is a style guide a higher order of work? How long should it take a pro to create a style guide? To make estimates more concrete, let's say web only, including all custom graphics. Any red flags to watch out for? (Compare: a new coder who fails to use css properly would be a red flag.)

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• Are the only types of data "sources" static and dynamic?

  - by blunders

  Thinking that there might be others, but not sure -- but before getting into that, let me explain what I mean by static and dynamic data sources. Static (or datastore) - Meaning that the data's state is non-changing, and if was changed, that would be a new state, and the old data would be considered stateless; meaning it no longer is known to exist, or not exist. Another way of possibly looking at a static data source might be that if read and written back without modification, the checksum for before and after should be exactly the same regardless of the duration of time between the reading and rewriting of the data. Examples: Photos, Files, Database Record, Dynamic (or datastream) - Meaning that the data's state is known to be in flux, and never expected to be the same per input. Example: Live video/audio feed, Stock Market feed, First let me say, the above is a very loose mapping of the concepts, and I'd welcome any feedback. Next, onto the core of the question, that being are these the only two types of data sources. My guess, is that yes, they are -- but that there are hybrid versions of the two. That being, streaming data that has a fixed state. For example, the data being streamed has a checksum given and each unique checksum is known to be a single instance of static data. On the flip side, static data could be chained via say a version control system; when played back, each version might be viewed as a segment of a stream; thing is, the very fact that it can be played back makes the data source static. Another type might be that the data source is being organically discovered, and it's simply unknown what the state is. Questions, feedback, requests -- just comment, thanks!!

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• Wordnik Accelerator

  - by prabhpreet

  Wow, creating IE Accelerators is superbly easy. If you want to learn how to create one, go here (some MSDN blog) and the MSDN documentation (clearly written). I was fed up of dictionary.com bringing all those popups and the stupid definitions of Google's dictionary. So I decided to scratch my own itch. I randomly stumbled on the site called Wordnik and it provides with all examples plus definitions plus lots more for words and its popup-free (as far as I know). So I decided to write and accelerator. Here is the source code (Yes, this is it): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <os:openServiceDescription xmlns:os="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/openservicedescription/1.0"> <os:homepageUrl>http://www.wordnik.com</os:homepageUrl> <os:display> <os:name>View on Wordnik</os:name> <os:description>Looking up words on an awesome word site called Wordnik </os:description> <os:icon>http://www.wordnik.com/favicon.ico</os:icon> </os:display> <os:activity category="Define"> <os:activityAction context="selection"> <os:execute method="get" action="http://www.wordnik.com/words/{selection}" ></os:execute> </os:activityAction> </os:activity> </os:openServiceDescription> That’s it. To get it, go here. Enjoy!

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• C# 4.0 Optional/Named Parameters Beginner&rsquo;s Tutorial

  - by mbcrump

  One of the interesting features of C# 4.0 is for both named and optional arguments.  They are often very useful together, but are quite actually two different things.  Optional arguments gives us the ability to omit arguments to method invocations. Named arguments allows us to specify the arguments by name instead of by position.  Code using the named parameters are often more readable than code relying on argument position.  These features were long overdue, especially in regards to COM interop. Below, I have included some examples to help you understand them more in depth. Please remember to target the .NET 4 Framework when trying these samples. Code Snippet using System;   namespace ConsoleApplication3 {     class Program     {         static void Main(string[] args)         {               //C# 4.0 Optional/Named Parameters Tutorial               Foo();                              //Prints to the console | Return Nothing 0             Foo("Print Something");             //Prints to the console | Print Something 0             Foo("Print Something", 1);          //Prints to the console | Print Something 1             Foo(x: "Print Something", i: 5);    //Prints to the console | Print Something 5             Foo(i: 5, x: "Print Something");    //Prints to the console | Print Something 5             Foo("Print Something", i: 5);       //Prints to the console | Print Something 5             Foo2(i3: 77);                       //Prints to the console | 77         //  Foo(x:"Print Something", 5);        //Positional parameters must come before named arguments. This will error out.             Console.Read();         }           static void Foo(string x = "Return Nothing", int i = 0)         {             Console.WriteLine(x + " " + i + Environment.NewLine);         }           static void Foo2(int i = 1, int i2 = 2, int i3 = 3, int i4 = 4)         {             Console.WriteLine(i3);         }     } }

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• Creating Gun objects with upgrades?

  - by zardon

  I have a series of guns in my game. I use the Gun class/object like this: (Just an example) @interface Gun : NSObject { NSString *name; // Six-shooter NSNumber *cost; NSNumber *clipPrice; // ie: 700 NSNumber *clipCapacity; // 6 NSNumber *ammoCapacity; // 6 NSNumber *damage; // 0-10 NSNumber *accuracy; // 0-10 NSNumber *fireRate; // 0-10 NSNumber *range; // 0-10 // Not sure if I have all the stats, but this is fine for now } Lets say I want to have 3 upgrades per gun. My problem is I am not sure how to do this. Examples: increase fire-rate increase range increase accuracy silencer double ammo capacity (ie: Drum) double clip capacity (ie: Taped magazine) Thus my question is, I'd like to implement an upgrade system to guns but I am not sure how to do it. Would there be an Upgrade object which is a child to the Gun class, or would it be seperate class altogether. Thanks for your time.

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• Please, tell us how you made Agile work for you?

  - by Paul

  I've been seeing many questions related to Agile. There seems to be confusion between the people who are doing Agile successfully, and those of us who don't understand it. So I'm wondering if some of the successful teams would be willing to give the result of us some examples of how you succeeded. Some of the things I know I wonder What steps did you use? (ie. Talk to users, mock up, tests, code, testing, (whatever)) Tools that helped you? Did you generate any artifacts, other than a working implementation? How did you prevent spaghetti architecture / code? How do you pass along to new team members, or is the team stable for the project How did you determine exit criteria, or was it open ended. (Scope of project?) Did you do this as contracting? How did you develop a contract up-front? Did the business do any up front work? Or did they come to the table with "We want to implement a "bleh bleh blah"? What types of tests did you use? Unit, Integration, UAT? Or did the process make some/all of those unnecessary? Bonus: Do you have an situations / links to "How To" Agile articles, books, etc? Wiki, describes what but not how (to the uninitiated) At least to me, not a duplicate

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• Azure Search Preview

  - by Greg Low

  One of the things I’ve been keeping an eye on for quite a while now is the development of the Azure Search system. While it’s not a full replacement for the full-text indexing service in SQL Server on-premises as yet, it’s a really, really good start. Liam Cavanagh, Pablo Castro and the team have done a great job bringing this to the preview stage and I suspect it could be quite popular. I was very impressed by how they incorporated quite a bit of feedback I gave them early on, and I’m sure that others involved would have felt the same. There are two tiers at present. One is a free tier and has shared resources; the other is currently $125/month and has reserved resources. I would like to see another tier between these two, much the same way that Azure websites work. If you have any feedback on this, now would be a good time to make it known. In the meantime, given there is a free tier, there’s no excuse to not get out and try it. You’ll find details of it here: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/services/search/ I’ll be posting more info about this service, and showing examples of it during the upcoming months.

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• What's a way to implement a flexible buff/debuff system?

  - by gkimsey

  Overview: Lots of games which RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit." The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs. Details: In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied. Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra. And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want. As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language. Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

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• Which forum software has the most advanced community/GetSatisfaction type features?

  - by Gaia

  I need to assemble a GetSatisfaction/Lithium/Jive type support forum/community. The first is not available in the desired language and the last two are priced for the enterprise market. I did research some other options (open source or SaaS) but they all seem to be either: kind of dead (open source options) too focused in gathering ideas/feedback (uservoice) strictly support without the community/voting features (zendesk) I need an open forum (people powered support/UGC with community/voting features). Therefore I will have to do some of the work on my own. I want to piece things (plugins/mods/etc) on top of a standard forum platform to give it the features I need. For this purpose, I want to use a mature product with widespread userbase, active community and lots of plugin options. I believe most will agree that my options therefore are: vBulletin phpBB SMF Here are the questions: Which one of the three above offers the easier path towards the desired goal? Which one of the three above has the most advanced features related to the desired goal? Of course I dont expect anyone to know these answers cut and dry. I am hoping to hear some experiences and see some examples. Also, it would be great if both those questions had the same answer, but I am not going to get my hopes up... PS: I wish I could add the tags "phpbb" and "smf" ;)

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• What reasons are there to reduce the max-age of a logo to just 8 days? [closed]

  - by callum

  Most websites set max-age=31536000 (1 year) on the Cache-control headers of static assets such as logo images. Examples: YouTube Yahoo Twitter BBC But there is a notable exception: Google's logo has max-age=691200 (8 days). I've checked the headers on the Google logo in the past, and it definitely used to be 1 year. (Also, it used to be part of a sprite, and now it is a standalone logo image, but that's probably another question...) What could be valid technical reasons why they would want to reduce its cache lifetime to just 8 days? Google's homepage is one of the most carefully optimised pages in the world, so I imagine there's a good reason. Edit: Please make sure you understand these points before answering: Nobody uses short max-age lifetimes to allow modifying a static asset in future. When you modify it, you just serve it at a different URL. So no, it's nothing to do with Google doodles. Think about it: even if Google didn't understand this basic trick of HTTP, 8 days still wouldn't be appropriate, as only those users who don't have the original logo cached would see the doodle on doodle-day – and then that group of users would go on seeing the doodle for the following 8 days after Google changed it back :) Web servers do not worry about "filling up" the caches of clients (or proxies). The client manages this by itself – when it hits its own storage limit, it just starts dropping the lowest priority items to make space for new items. The priority score is based on the question "How likely am I to benefit from having cached this URL?", which is nothing to do with what max-age value the server sent when the URL was originally requested; it's a heuristic based on the "frecency" of requests for that URL. The max-age simply lets the server set a cut-off point – the time at which the client is supposed to discard the item regardless of how often it's being re-used. It would be very nice and trusting of a downstream client/proxy to rely on all origin servers "holding back" from filling up their caches, but I don't think we live in that world ;)

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• Will We See More Partisan Splits from the SEC?

  - by Theresa Hickman

  The SEC's lawsuit against Goldman Sachs has made recent headlines. The fact that the SEC seems to be growing more litigious by making examples out of invididuals and companies is not the topic of my blog. The most interesting thing about this case is that the 5 SEC commissioners did not vote unanimously to bring the lawsuit. The commissioners had a 3-2 partisan split. Ms. Shapiro (a registered independent) voted with the 2 Democrats. Split votes rarely happen by the SEC, especially when they are enforcing actions against firms they regulate. I wonder if we will be seeing more of these partisan split votes when it comes to other decisions, say IFRS adoption? I know both the Democrats and Republicans have stated that they support a unified accounting standard. However, will the Republicans want to push back simply because there is a Democrat in office? (Seems childish to me, but I never understood politics). I think Ms. Shapiro will most definitely want a unanimous consensus related to the IFRS topic. There is already talk that we will be seeing more SEC split votes in the future. For example, there will most likely be a split vote regarding Obama's proposed financial-regulatory overhaul. I don't see why IFRS would be exempt. I really hope it doesn't happen because the last thing we need is more road blocks on our IFRS road trip.

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• Are there any real-world cases for C++ without exceptions?

  - by Martin

  In When to use C over C++, and C++ over C? there is a statement wrt. to code size / C++ exceptions: Jerry answers (among other points): (...) it tends to be more difficult to produce truly tiny executables with C++. For really small systems, you're rarely writing a lot of code anyway, and the extra (...) to which I asked why that would be, to which Jerry responded: the main thing is that C++ includes exception handling, which (at least usually) adds some minimum to the executable size. Most compilers will let you disable exception handling, but when you do the result isn't quite C++ anymore. (...) which I do not really doubt on a technical real world level. Therefore I'm interested (purely out of curiosity) to hear from real world examples where a project chose C++ as a language and then chose to disable exceptions. (Not just merely "not use" exceptions in user code, but disable them in the compiler, so that you can't throw or catch exceptions.) Why does a project chose to do so (still using C++ and not C, but no exceptions) - what are/were the (technical) reasons? Addendum: For those wishing to elaborate on their answers, it would be nice to detail how the implications of no-exceptions are handled: STL collections (vector, ...) do not work properly (allocation failure cannot be reported) new can't throw Constructors cannot fail

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• When to use PHP or ASP.NET? [closed]

  - by loyalpenguin

  I have worked extensively in developing web applications using PHP and ASP.NET, but one of the questions that I'm constantly asked by customers is whether to move forward with a php website or an asp.net website. So naturally the first thing that comes to mind is to answer the question like this: PHP is open-source and ASP.NET is from Microsoft. Usually after something like that is said the customer has a blank look on there face. Apparently the fact that one is open source and the other isn't doesn't really faze them. And for good reason, because when I first heard it, it really doesn't tell me much. I know from working with both that each have their + and - when it comes to developing websites. NOTE: THIS QUESTION IS NOT TO QUESTION WHICH IS BETTER TO DEVELOP WITH. THIS QUESTION IS INTENDED TO BE OBJECTIVE. My question is what are differences between ASP.NET and PHP as far as Features Security Extendability Frameworks Average Development Time And when one is generally used over the other for certain types of projects. I am trying to compile a list of facts to be able to compare with the customer what developement platform is better for there particular project. I have done a simple search on google and a ton of articles come up, but the problem is the majority are usually biased towards PHP or ASP.NET. Also if you can maybe provide examples from experience when one technology was more preferable than the other that would be awesome.

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• Dynamic model interactions

  - by Richard

  I am just curious as to how in many games (namely games like arkham asylum/city, manhunt, hitman) do they make it so that your character can "grab" a character in front of you and do stuff to them. I know this may sound very confusing but for an example go to youtube and search "hitman executions", and the first video is an example of what i'm asking. Basically I'm wondering how they make your model dynamically interact with whatever other model you come across, so in hitman when you come up behind some one with the fibre wire you strangle the other character or if you have the anesthetic you come up behind some person and put your hand over there mouth while they struggle and slowly go to the floor where you lay them down. I am confused as to whether it was animated to use two models using specific bone/skeletal identifiers, if it is just two completely separate animations that are played at the correct time to make it look like they are actually interacting or something else all together. I am not an animator so i assume most of what i just said is not right but i hope that some one can understand what i mean and provide an answer. PS) I am a programmer and I am in the process of building a hitmanesque game, just because i love that style of game and I want to increase my skills on something fun, so if you do know what i'm talking about have some examples with involving both models and programming (i use c++ and mainly Ogre3D at the moment but i am getting into unity and XNA) i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

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• MSDN Live 2010 &ndash; Delivered : 24 sessions (4 x 6) on Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server

  - by terje

  We (Mikael Nitell and me) got a whole track on the Norwegian MSDN Live tour this year.  We did these as a pair, and covered 4 cities over 4 days, 6 sessions per day, taking 8 hours to come through it.  The Islandic volcano made the travels a bit rough, but we managed 6 flights out of 8. The first one had to go by van instead, 7-8 hour drive each way together with other MSDN Live presenters – a memorable tour! Oslo was the absolute top point.  We had to change hall to a bigger one. People were crowding, and even the big hall was packed!  The presentations were mostly based on demos, but we had a few slides as well.  They have been uploaded to my SkyDrive.  Info to aliens – some of the text may be Norwegian. The sessions were as follows: Overview of news in Visual Studio and Team Foundation server 2010 Ensuring Quality with VS/TFS 2010 Releasing products with VS/TFS 2010 No More No Repro with VS/TFS 2010 Performance Testing and Parallel Programming with VS/TFS 2010 Migrating to VS/TFS 2010 Tips, tricks, news and some best practices with VS/TFS 2010   In the coming days, I will post up examples from the demos too, with explanations of how they are intended to work. These entries will also contain stuff we had to remove from the actual presentations due to the time constraints. We managed to create recordings of two of the sessions, which will be uploaded to Channel 9 by Microsoft, afaik.   I will update this blog with information about exact locations when that is done. Also note we’re (read:Osiris Data AS) running both Upgrade and Deep Dive courses  on VS/TFS 2010 now in May.  Please look here for more info. If you want to be informed, follow me on Twitter.  All blog entries will be announced on twitter.

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• How to tell your boss that he's a bad programmer? [closed]

  - by Doe

  Possible Duplicate: How to tell your boss that his programming style is really bad? There was a question about the boss having a bad programming style (weird booleans, empty loops, etc.) Having a bad/weird style does not imply being a bad programmer, but my situation is different. My boss outputs some really nasty code for the project, on which we are working together (just two of us). Examples: functions that span over several screens (big screens - 1900 x 1200) Deeply nested Conditional and Loop statements (up to 10 levels!!) Too much static variables, singletons, and both (singleton class with all the methods and members also static) Sometimes the code committed to the version control system does not even compile! Copy-Paste code instead of separating it into an independent function. Fail all the deadlines. "This's [C#|Java|Python] it shouldn't be efficient, that's why we loop all over the haystack to find the needle." "This's C/C++, it's fast enough to loop all over the haystack to find the needle." There is much more to mention... But the worst is that I have to redo much of the stuff he does, my code, which I try to keep clean is often polluted with above-mentioned atrocities. He's reaching 30 soon, so all his skills are established, and I don't even know if it's possible to change something. I like the project, but sometimes I just want to quit...

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• Programming habits, patterns, and standards that have developed out of appeal to tradition/by mistake? [closed]

  - by user828584

  Being self-taught, the vast majority of what I know about programming has come from reading other peoples' code on websites like this. I'm starting to wonder if I've developed bad or otherwise pointless habits from other people, or even just made invalid assumptions. For example, in javascript, void 0 is used in a lot of places, and until I saw this, I just assumed it was necessary and that 0 had some significance. Also, the http header, referer is misspelled but hasn't been changed because it would break a lot of applications. Also mentioned in Code Complete 2: The architecture should describe the motivations for all major decisions. Be wary of “we’ve always done it that way” justifications. One story goes that Beth wanted to cook a pot roast according to an award-winning pot roast recipe handed down in her husband’s family. Her husband, Abdul, said that his mother had taught him to sprinkle it with salt and pepper, cut both ends off, put it in the pan, cover it, and cook it. Beth asked, “Why do you cut both ends off?” Abdul said, “I don’t know. I’ve always done it that way. Let me ask my mother.” He called her, and she said, “I don’t know. I’ve always done it that way. Let me ask your grandmother.” She called his grandmother, who said, “I don’t know why you do it that way. I did it that way because it was too big to fit in my pan.” What are some other examples of this?

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• Notification framework for object lifecycle

  - by rlandster

  I am looking for an application, framework, or library that would help us with "object life-cycle management". There are many things that are created for users, departments, and services that, all too often, are left unmanaged. Some examples: user accounts groups SSL certificates access rights databases software license provisionings storage list-serve accounts These objects are created and managed by a wide variety of applications and systems. Typically, a user (person) requests (either explicitly or implicitly) one of these objects. A centralized management tool would help us manage such administration chores as: What objects does user X currently own/manage? Move the ownership of object P to user X; move all objects owned by user X (who was just been fired) to user Y. For all objects of type T that have expired be sure the objects have been disabled or deleted by their provider. How many active (expired, about-to-expire) objects of type P are there? Send periodic notifications to all users who own active objects of type P reminding them of what they own. There is a security alert for objects of type P; send a notification to all users who own these types of objects to take a specific remedial action. Delete or disable a set of objects based on expiration (or some other criteria). These objects are directly managed through their own applications (Active Directory, MySql, file systems, etc.) and may even have their own notification systems, but I want to centralize this into an "object management system". The OMS should allow the association with an external identity provider that defines who the users and groups are (e.g., LDAP, Active Directory) creation of objects association of an object to a specific user and/or group association with an expiration date creation of flexible reporting including letting users know what objects they currently own and their expiration dates integration with an external object "provider" via a plug-in We could write something from scratch, but I am hoping there is something already out there that will help, either an entire application or a set of libraries that provide much of what is needed. Any ideas?

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• Does unit testing lead to premature generalization (specifically in the context of C++)?

  - by Martin

  Preliminary notes I'll not go into the distinction of the different kinds of test there are, there are already a few questions on these sites regarding that. I'll take what's there and that says: unit testing in the sense of "testing the smallest isolatable unit of an application" from which this question actually derives The isolation problem What is the smallest isolatable unit of a program. Well, as I see it, it (highly?) depends on what language you are coding in. Micheal Feathers talks about the concept of a seam: [WEwLC, p31] A seam is a place where you can alter behavior in your program without editing in that place. And without going into the details, I understand a seam -- in the context of unit testing -- to be a place in a program where your "test" can interface with your "unit". Examples Unit test -- especially in C++ -- require from the code under test to add more seams that would be strictly called for for a given problem. Example: Adding a virtual interface where non-virtual implementation would have been sufficient Splitting -- generalizing(?) -- a (smallish) class further "just" to facilitate adding a test. Splitting a single-executable project into seemingly "independent" libs, "just" to facilitate compiling them independently for the tests. The question I'll try a few versions that hopefully ask about the same point: Is the way that Unit Tests require one to structure an application's code "only" beneficial for the unit tests or is it actually beneficial to the applications structure. Is the generalization code need to exhibit to be unit-testable useful for anything but the unit tests? Does adding unit tests force one to generalize unnecessarily? Is the shape unit tests force on code "always" also a good shape for the code in general as seen from the problem domain? I remember a rule of thumb that said don't generalize until you need to / until there's a second place that uses the code. With Unit Tests, there's always a second place that uses the code -- namely the unit test. So is this reason enough to generalize?

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• What did Rich Hickey mean when he said, "All that specificity [of interfaces/classes/types] kills your reuse!"

  - by GlenPeterson

  In Rich Hickey's thought-provoking goto conference keynote "The Value of Values" at 29 minutes he's talking about the overhead of a language like Java and makes a statement like, "All those interfaces kill your reuse." What does he mean? Is that true? In my search for answers, I have run across: The Principle of Least Knowledge AKA The Law of Demeter which encourages airtight API interfaces. Wikipedia also lists some disadvantages. Kevlin Henney's Imperial Clothing Crisis which argues that use, not reuse is the appropriate goal. Jack Diederich's "Stop Writing Classes" talk which argues against over-engineering in general. Clearly, anything written badly enough will be useless. But how would the interface of a well-written API prevent that code from being used? There are examples throughout history of something made for one purpose being used more for something else. But in the software world, if you use something for a purpose it wasn't intended for, it usually breaks. I'm looking for one good example of a good interface preventing a legitimate but unintended use of some code. Does that exist? I can't picture it.

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• How to deal with a CEO making all technical decision but with little technical knowledge ?

  - by anonymous

  Hi, Question posted anonymously for obvious reasons. I am working in a company with a dev group of 5-6 developers, and I am in a situation which I have a hard time dealing with. Every technical choice (language, framework, database, database scheme, configuration scheme, etc...) is decided by the CEO, often without much rationale. It is very hard to modify those choices, and his main argument consists in "I don't like this", even though we propose several alternative with detailed pros/cons. He will also decide to rewrite from scratch our core product without giving a reason why, and he never participates to dev meetings because he considers it makes things slower... I am already looking at alternative job opportunities, but I was wondering if there anything we (the developers) could do to improve the situation. Two examples which shocked me: he will ask us to implement something akin to configuration management, but he reject any existing framework because they are not written in the language he likes (even though the implementation language is irrelevant). He also expects us to be able to write those systems in a couple of days, "because it is very simple". he keeps rewriting from scratch on his own our core product because the current codebase is too bad (codebase whose design was his). We are at our third rewrite in one year, each rewrite worse than the previous one. Things I have tried so far is doing elaborate benchmarks on our product (he keeps complaining that our software is too slow, and justifies rewrites to make it faster), implement solutions with existing products as working proof instead of just making pros/cons charts, etc... But still 90 % of those efforts go to the trashbox (never with any kind of rationale behind he does not like it, again), and often get reprimanded because I don't do exactly as he wants (not realizing that what he wants is impossible).

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• AllSparkCube Packs 4,096 LEDs into a Giant Computer Controlled Display

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  LED matrix cubes are nothing new, but this 16x16x16 monster towers over the tiny 4x4x4 desktop variety. Check out the video to see it in action. Sound warning: the music starts off very loud and bass-filled; we’d recommend turning down the speakers if you’re watching from your cube. So what compels someone to build a giant LED cube driven by over a dozen Arduino shields? If you’re the employees at Adaptive Computing, you do it to dazzles crowds and show off your organizational skills: Every time I talk about the All Spark Cube people ask “so what does it do?” The features of the All Spark are the reason it was built and sponsored by Adaptive Computing. The Cube was built to catch peoples’ attention and to demonstrate how Adaptive can take a chaotic mess and inject order, structure and efficiency. We wrote several examples of how the All Spark Cube can demonstrate the effectiveness of a complex data center. If you’re interested in building a monster of your own, hit up the link below for more information, schematics, and videos. How Hackers Can Disguise Malicious Programs With Fake File Extensions Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer

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• Social Media APIs and Their C# Counterparts

  Whether it's talking about current events or sharing photos of a family vacation, the world is now addicted to social networks. Businesses recognize this, and these days every business wants social media addressed in their applications. Facebook, Twitter, and other sites provide powerful APIs you can use to harness the power of social networking in your own applications. However, most of these APIs tend to return data formatted in any number of syndication formats that can be quite painful to work with. Luckily, there are many free .NET based libraries that make interacting with these APIs a breeze. Over the next several weeks, I'll be posting some information and examples specific to some of these libraries. Here are a few of them now for your consumption... TweetSharp Twitter exposes its API in the form of three different APIs, two REST APIs and one Streaming API. These APIs can be queried by making HTTP GET/POST requests to a specific URL with some required parameters. Unfortunately, ...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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