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• What is the evidence that an API has exceeded its orthogonality in the context of types?

  - by hawkeye

  Wikipedia defines software orthogonality as: orthogonality in a programming language means that a relatively small set of primitive constructs can be combined in a relatively small number of ways to build the control and data structures of the language. The term is most-frequently used regarding assembly instruction sets, as orthogonal instruction set. Jason Coffin has defined software orthogonality as Highly cohesive components that are loosely coupled to each other produce an orthogonal system. C.Ross has defined software orthogonality as: the property that means "Changing A does not change B". An example of an orthogonal system would be a radio, where changing the station does not change the volume and vice-versa. Now there is a hypothesis published in the the ACM Queue by Tim Bray - that some have called the Bánffy Bray Type System Criteria - which he summarises as: Static typings attractiveness is a direct function (and dynamic typings an inverse function) of API surface size. Dynamic typings attractiveness is a direct function (and static typings an inverse function) of unit testing workability. Now Stuart Halloway has reformulated Banfy Bray as: the more your APIs exceed orthogonality, the better you will like static typing My question is: What is the evidence that an API has exceeded its orthogonality in the context of types? Clarification Tim Bray introduces the idea of orthogonality and APIs. Where you have one API and it is mainly dealing with Strings (ie a web server serving requests and responses), then a uni-typed language (python, ruby) is 'aligned' to that API - because the the type system of these languages isn't sophisticated, but it doesn't matter since you're dealing with Strings anyway. He then moves on to Android programming, which has a whole bunch of sensor APIs, which are all 'different' to the web server API that he was working on previously. Because you're not just dealing with Strings, but with different types, the API is non-orthogonal. Tim's point is that there is a empirical relationship between your 'liking' of types and the API you're programming against. (ie a subjective point is actually objective depending on your context).

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• Absolute statements in IT that are wrong

  - by Dan McGrath

  I was recently in a discussion about the absolute statement "It costs more in programming time to optimise software than it costs to throw hardware at a problem". The general thought (of which I agree with) is that as an absolute statement this is wrong. There are too many variables to ever generalise in such a way. What other statements do you hear about software/programming that simply do not work as an absolute and why?

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• Did the developers of Java conciously abandon RAII?

  - by JoelFan

  As a long-time C# programmer, I have recently come to learn more about the advantages of Resource Acquisition Is Initialization (RAII). In particular, I have discovered that the C# idiom: using (my dbConn = new DbConnection(connStr) { // do stuff with dbConn } has the C++ equivalent: { DbConnection dbConn(connStr); // do stuff with dbConn } meaning that remembering to enclose the use of resources like DbConnection in a using block is unnecessary in C++ ! This seems to a major advantage of C++. This is even more convincing when you consider a class that has an instance member of type DbConnection, for example class Foo { DbConnection dbConn; // ... } In C# I would need to have Foo implement IDisposable as such: class Foo : IDisposable { DbConnection dbConn; public void Dispose() { dbConn.Dispose(); } } and what's worse, every user of Foo would need to remember to enclose Foo in a using block, like: using (var foo = new Foo()) { // do stuff with "foo" } Now looking at C# and its Java roots I am wondering... did the developers of Java fully appreciate what they were giving up when they abandoned the stack in favor of the heap, thus abandoning RAII? (Similarly, did Stroustrup fully appreciate the significance of RAII?)

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• signal processing libraries

  - by khinester

  Are there any open source libraries/projects which work in a similar way to http://www.tagattitude.fr/en/products/technology? I am trying to understand the process. At first I thought this could work like when you send a fax to a fax machine. It is basically using the mobile phone’s microphone as a captor and its audio channel as a transporter. Are there any libraries for generating the signal and then being able to decode it?

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• What is the right way to process inconsistent data files?

  - by Tahabi

  I'm working at a company that uses Excel files to store product data, specifically, test results from products before they are shipped out. There are a few thousand spreadsheets with anywhere from 50-100 relevant data points per file. Over the years, the schema for the spreadsheets has changed significantly, but not unidirectionally - in the sense that, changes often get reverted and then re-added in the space of a few dozen to few hundred files. My project is to convert about 8000 of these spreadsheets into a database that can be queried. I'm using MongoDB to deal with the inconsistency in the data, and Python. My question is, what is the "right" or canonical way to deal with the huge variance in my source files? I've written a data structure which stores the data I want for the latest template, which will be the final template used going forward, but that only helps for a few hundred files historically. Brute-forcing a solution would mean writing similar data structures for each version/template - which means potentially writing hundreds of schemas with dozens of fields each. This seems very inefficient, especially when sometimes a change in the template is as little as moving a single line of data one row down or splitting what used to be one data field into two data fields. A slightly more elegant solution I have in mind would be writing schemas for all the variants I can find for pre-defined groups in the source files, and then writing a function to match a particular series of files with a series of variants that matches that set of files. This is because, more often that not, most of the file will remain consistent over a long period, only marred by one or two errant sections, but inside the period, which section is inconsistent, is inconsistent. For example, say a file has four sections with three data fields, which is represented by four Python dictionaries with three keys each. For files 7000-7250, sections 1-3 will be consistent, but section 4 will be shifted one row down. For files 7251-7500, 1-3 are consistent, section 4 is one row down, but a section five appears. For files 7501-7635, sections 1 and 3 will be consistent, but section 2 will have five data fields instead of three, section five disappears, and section 4 is still shifted down one row. For files 7636-7800, section 1 is consistent, section 4 gets shifted back up, section 2 returns to three cells, but section 3 is removed entirely. Files 7800-8000 have everything in order. The proposed function would take the file number and match it to a dictionary representing the data mappings for different variants of each section. For example, a section_four_variants dictionary might have two members, one for the shifted-down version, and one for the normal version, a section_two_variants might have three and five field members, etc. The script would then read the matchings, load the correct mapping, extract the data, and insert it into the database. Is this an accepted/right way to go about solving this problem? Should I structure things differently? I don't know what to search Google for either to see what other solutions might be, though I believe the problem lies in the domain of ETL processing. I also have no formal CS training aside from what I've taught myself over the years. If this is not the right forum for this question, please tell me where to move it, if at all. Any help is most appreciated. Thank you.

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• Solid principles vs YAGNI

  - by KeesDijk

  When do the SOLID principles become YAGNI. As programmers we make trade-off's all the time, between complexity, maintainabillity, time to build and so forth.Amongst others. two of the smartest guidelines for making choices are in my mind the SOLID principles and YAGNI. If you don't need it, dont build it and keep it clean. Now for example when i watch the dimecast series on SOLID I see it start out as a fairly simple programm and ending up prettty complex (end yes complexity is also in the eye of the beholder) but it still makes me wonder, when do SOLID principles turn into something you don't need. All solid principles are ways of working that enable use te make changes at a later stage. But what if the problem to solve is a pretty simple one and it's a through away application, than what ? Or are the SOLID principles something that apply always ?

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• Using XML as data storage

  - by Kian Mayne

  I was thinking about the XML format and the following quote: “XML is not a database. It was never meant to be a database. It is never going to be a database. Relational databases are proven technology with more than 20 years of implementation experience. They are solid, stable, useful products. They are not going away. XML is a very useful technology for moving data between different databases or between databases and other programs. However, it is not itself a database. Don't use it like one.“ -Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML by Elliotte Rusty Harold (page 230, Part 4, Item 41, 2nd paragraph) This seems to really stress that XML should not be used for data storage and should only be used for program to program interoperability. Personally, I disagree and .NET's app.config file that's used to store a program's settings is an example of data storage in an XML file. However for databases rather than configurations etc XML should not be used. To develop my point, I will use two examples: A) Data about customers with fields that are all on one level i.e. there are a number of fields all relating to one customer with no children B) Data about configuration of an application where nested fields and properties make a lot of sense So my question is, Is this still a valid statement and is it now acceptable to store data using XML? EDIT: I've sent an email to the author of that quote to ask for his input/extra context.

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• C++ - Constructor or Initialize Method to Startup

  - by Bob Fincheimer

  I want to determine when to do non-trivial initialization of a class. I see two times to do initialization: constructor and other method. I want to figure out when to use each. Choice 1: Constructor does initialization MyClass::MyClass(Data const& data) : m_data() { // does non-trivial initialization here } MyClass::~MyClass() { // cleans up here } Choice 2: Defer initialization to an initialize method MyClass::MyClass() : m_data() {} MyClass::Initialize(Data const& data) { // does non-trivial initialization here } MyClass::~MyClass() { // cleans up here } So to try and remove any subjectivity I want to figure out which is better in a couple of situations: Class that encapsulates a resource (window/font/some sort of handle) Class that composites resources to do something (a control/domain object) Data structure classes (tree/list/etc.) [Anything else you can think of] Things to analyze: Performance Ease of use by other developers How error-prone/opportunities for bugs [Anything else you can think of]

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• RTS game diplomacy heuristics

  - by kd304

  I'm reimplementing an old 4X space-rts game which has diplomacy options. The original was based on a relation scoring system (0..100) and a set of negotiation options (improve relations, alliance, declare war, etc.) The AI player usually had 3 options: yes, maybe and no; each adding or removing some amount to the relation score. How should the AI chose between the options? How does the diplomacy work in other games and how are they imlemented? Any good books/articles on the subject? (Googling the term diplomacy yields the game Diplomacy, which is unhelpful.)

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• Procedural world generation oriented on gameplay features

  - by Richard Fabian

  In large procedural landscape games, the land seems dull, but that's probably because the real world is largely dull, with only limited places where the scenery is dramatic or tactical. Looking at world generation from this point of view, a landscape generator for a game needs to not follow the rules of landscaping, but instead some rules married to the expectations of the gamer. For example, there could be a choke point / route generator that creates hills ravines, rivers and mountains between cities, rather than cities plotted on the land based on the resources or conditions generated by the mountains and rainfall patterns. Is there any existing work being done like this? Start with cities or population centres and then add in terrain afterwards?

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• When should a method of a class return the same instance after modifying itself?

  - by modiX

  I have a class that has three methods A(), B() and C(). Those methods modify the own instance. While the methods have to return an instance when the instance is a separate copy (just as Clone()), I got a free choice to return void or the same instance (return this;) when modifying the same instance in the method and not returning any other value. When deciding for returning the same modified instance, I can do neat method chains like obj.A().B().C();. Would this be the only reason for doing so? Is it even okay to modify the own instance and return it, too? Or should it only return a copy and leave the original object as before? Because when returning the same modified instance the user would maybe admit the returned value is a copy, otherwise it would not be returned? If it's okay, what's the best way to clarify such things on the method?

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• Is it appropriate for a class to only be a collection of information with no logic?

  - by qegal

  Say I have a class Person that has instance variables age, weight, and height, and another class Fruit that has instance variables sugarContent and texture. The Person class has no methods save setters and getters, while the Fruit class has both setters and getters and logic methods like calculateSweetness. Is the Fruit class the type of class that is better practice than the Person class. What I mean by this is that the Person class seems like it doesn't have much purpose; it exists solely to organize data, while the Fruit class organizes data and actually contains methods for logic.

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• Simple 2d game pathfinding

  - by Kooi Nam Ng

  So I was trying to implement a simple pathfinding on iOS and but the outcome seems less satisfactory than what I intended to achieve.The thing is units in games like Warcraft and Red Alert move in all direction whereas units in my case only move in at most 8 directions as these 8 directions direct to the next available node.What should I do in order to achieve the result as stated above?Shrink the tile size? The screenshot intended for illustration. Those rocks are the obstacles whereas the both ends of the green path are the starting and end of the path.The red line is the path that I want to achieve. http://i.stack.imgur.com/lr19c.jpg

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• How can I screen clients that try to register multiple times?

  - by Aba Dov

  My company offers a bonus to every client that register. We would like to prevent people from abusing this by registering several times. we thought about filtering clients by ip (there is a problem with workplaces where all stations have the same ip) cookies (if cookies are not allowed we might lose a client) I would like your opinions on these two methods and will be glad to hear about new ones. thanks

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• If Expression True in Immediate Window But Code In if Block Never Runs

  - by Julian

  I set a break point in my code in MonoDevelop to break whenever I click on a surface. I then enter the immediate window and test to see if the the if statement will return true in comparing two Vector3's. It does return true. However, when I step over, the code is never run as though the statement evaluated false. Does anyone know how this could be possible? I've attached a screenshot. Here is the picture of my debug window and immediate window. You can see where the immediate window evaluates to true. The second breakpoint is not hit. Here are the details of the two Vector3's I am comparing. Does anyone know why I am experiencing this? It really seems like an anomaly to me :/ Does it have something to do with threading?

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• How and where do you store your private work/sourcecode?

  - by Amir Rezaei

  I have worked as a developer for over 10 years now. During that time I have had my own small projects where I have developed tools, applications and games. I have not found any robust solution to store my work. It’s always fun to get back to your code and see how you did before and how you would do it now. It’s just work that is unfortunate to lose. There are SVN solution such as Google’s Project Hosting. However I’m not interested in sharing my code or making it open source. Currently I’m hosting my own SVN server. So here comes my question: How and where do you store your private work/sourcecode? Requirements: Sourcecode versioning Backup Prefers free Edit: Remote access Edit: I have used Dropbox + TrueCrypt + SVN. Unfortunately you are limited to 5gb.

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• Google Code Celebrates 5th Anniversary of Open Source Project Hosting

  Storage capacity at Google Code's hosting service is doubled for open source projects in celebration of the service's phenomenal growth.

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• controlling an object through another object ?

  - by Stefano Borini

  Today I've seen the following pattern: you have an object A and an object B. Object B accepts a pointer to A at its constructor. Once B is created, there's a method B.doCalc() that performs a calculation (internally using A's information). The result is obtained with method B.getResult(). In order to perform another calculation, A is modified, and B.doCalc() is called again. What is your opinion on this choice ? I would have designed it differently, but I want to hear your voice. Edit : note that my main objection is to modify A to have a different result from B, without touching B. Although similar, I think that just this discipline expresses a much better feeling of what's going on. Instead of a = new A a.whatever = 5 b = new B(a) b.doCalc() res = b.getResult() a.whatever = 6 b.doCalc() res = b.getResult() You get the a pointer object from b itself. a = new A a.whatever = 5 b = new B(a) b.doCalc() res = b.getResult() a = b.getAPointer() a.whatever = 6 b.doCalc() res = b.getResult() because it makes more explicit the fact that a is taken from b and then modified. I still don't like it, though...

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• Is it a bad practice to store large files (10 MB) in a database?

  - by B Seven

  I am currently creating a web application that allows users to store and share files, 1 MB - 10 MB in size. It seems to me that storing the files in a database will significantly slow down database access. Is this a valid concern? Is it better to store the files in the file system and save the file name and path in the database? Are there any best practices related to storing files when working with a database? I am working in PHP and MySQL for this project, but is the issue the same for most environments (Ruby on Rails, PHP, .NET) and databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL).

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• LSP vs OCP / Liskov Substitution VS Open Close

  - by Kolyunya

  I am trying to understand the SOLID principles of OOP and I've come to the conclusion that LSP and OCP have some similarities (if not to say more). the open/closed principle states "software entities (classes, modules, functions, etc.) should be open for extension, but closed for modification". LSP in simple words states that any instance of Foo can be replaced with any instance of Bar which is derived from Foo and the program will work the same very way. I'm not a pro OOP programmer, but it seems to me that LSP is only possible if Bar, derived from Foo does not change anything in it but only extends it. That means that in particular program LSP is true only when OCP is true and OCP is true only if LSP is true. That means that they are equal. Correct me if I'm wrong. I really want to understand these ideas. Great thanks for an answer.

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• Working with data and meta data that are separated on different servers

  - by afuzzyllama

  While developing a product, I've come across a situation where my group wants to store meta data for data entry forms (questions, layout, etc) in a different database then the database where the collected data is stored. This is mostly for security because we want to be able to have our meta data public facing, while keeping collected data as secure as possible. I was thinking about writing a web service that provides the meta information that the data collection program could access. The only issue I see with this approach is the front end is going to have to match the meta data with the collected data, which would be more efficient as a join on the back end. Currently, this system is slated to run on .NET and MSSQL. I haven't played around with .NET libraries running in SQL, but I'm considering trying to create logic that would pull from the web service, convert the meta data into a table that SQL can join on, and return the combined data and meta data that way. Is this solution the wrong way to approach the problem? Is there a pattern or "industry standard" way of bringing together two datasets that don't live in the same database?

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• Open source level editor for HTML5 platform game?

  - by Lai Yu-Hsuan

  A natty GUI editor is very helpful to create level map. I want to use some open-source choices rather than build my own from scratch. I found Tiled Map Editor but it doesn't work for what I want. Though I'm building HTML5 game, I don't have to use a HTML5 level editor as long as it can output well-formatted map files which my javascript can read. Edit: Sorry for the confusion. Tiled does not work for me because to make the player perform a 'tricky' jump, sometimes I want to set the distance between two platforms to, say, 7/3 or 8/3 tiles. But in Tiled I get only 2 or 3. If Tiled can do this, please teach me.

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• Colleague unwilling to use unit tests "as it's more to code"

  - by m.edmondson

  A colleague is unwilling to use unit tests and instead opting for a quick test, pass it to the users, and if all is well it is published live. Needless to say some bugs do get through. I mentioned we should think about using unit tests - but she was all against it once it was realised more code would have to be written. This leaves me in the position of modifying something and not being sure the output is the same, especially as her code is spaghetti and I try to refactor it when I get a chance. So whats the best way forward for me?

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• Buzzword for "performance-aware" software development

  - by errantlinguist

  There seems to be an overabundance of buzzwords for software development styles and methodologies: Agile development, extreme programming, test-driven development, etc... well, is there any sort of buzzword for "performance-aware" development? By "performance awareness", I don't necessarily mean low-latency or low-level programming, although the former would logically fall under the blanket term I'm looking for. I mean development in which resources are recognised to be finite and so there is a general emphasis on low computational complexity, good resource management, etc. If I was to be snarky, I would say "good programming", but that doesn't seem to get the message across so well...

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• Presenting at SQL Saturday #70 - Columbia SC

  - by andyleonard

  Introduction I'm honored to be presenting at SQL Saturday #70 in Coumbia SC 19 Mar 2011! Its always good to travel to places where I don't have to suppress my accent (what accent? I talk normal. Everyone else sounds funny...) and repeat my order at Waffle House . It's always an honor to hang out with The Keeper of the Duck (K. Brian Kelley) ( Blog | @kbriankelley ) and the cool crew in Columbia. Presentations There are some stellar presentations from awesome speakers scheduled for the event... plus...(read more)

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