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• Stagnating in programming

  - by Coder

  Time after time this question came up in my mind, but up until today I wasn't thinking about it much. I have been programming for maybe around 8 years now, and for the last two years it seems I'm not as keen to pick up new technologies anymore. Maybe that's a burnout or something, but I'd say it's experience and what I like, that's stopping me from running after the latest and greatest. I'm C++ developer, by this I mean, I love close to metal programming. I have no problems tracing problems through assembly, using tools like WinDbg or HexView. When I use constructs, I think about how they are realized underneath, how the bits are set and unset under the hood. I love battling with complex threading problems and doing everything hardcore way, even by hand if the regular solutions seem half baked. But I also love the C++0x stuff, and use it a lot. And all C++ code as long as it's not cumbersome compared to C counterparts, sometimes I also fall back to sort of "Super C" if the C++ way is ugly. And then there are all other developers who seem to be way more forward looking, .Net 4.0 MVC, WPF, all those Microsoft X#s, LINQ languages, XML and XSLT, mobile devices and so on. I have done a considerable amount of .NET, SQL, ASPX programming, but the further I go, the less I want to try those technologies. Is that bad? Almost every day I hear people saying that managed code is the only way forward, WPF is the way to go. I hear that C++ is godawful, and you can't code anything in it that's somewhat stable. But I don't buy it. With the experience I have, and the knowledge of how native code is compiled and executes, I can say I find it extremely rare that C++ code is unstable, or leaks, or causes crashes that takes more than 30 seconds to identify and fix. And to tell the truth, I've seen enough problems with other "cool" languages that I'd say C++ is even more stable and production proof than the safe languages, at least for me. The only thing that scares me in C++ is new frameworks, I don't trust them, and I use them extra sparingly. STL - yes, ATL - very sparingly, everything else... Well, not very keen on it. Most huge problems I've ran into, all were related to frameworks, not the language itself. Some overrided operator here, bad hierarchy there, poor class design here, mystical castings there. Other than that, C/C++ (yes, I use them together) still seems a very controlled and stable way to develop applications. Am I stagnating? Should I switch a profession, or force myself in all that marketing hype? Are there more developers who feel the same way?

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• A new name for unit tests

  - by Will

  I never used to like unit testing. I always thought it increased the amount of work I had to do. Turns out, that's only true in terms of the actual number of lines of code you write and furthermore, this is completely offset by the increase in the number of lines of useful code that you can write in an hour with tests and test driven development. Now I love unit tests as they allow me to write useful code, that quite often works first time! (knock on wood) I have found that people are reluctant to do unit tests or start a project with test driven development if they are under strict time-lines or in an environment where others don't do it, so they don't. Kinda like, a cultural refusal to even try. I think one of the most powerful things about unit testing is the confidence that it gives you to undertake refactoring. It also gives new found hope, that I can give my code to someone else to refactor/improve, and if my unit tests still work, I can use the new version of the library that they modified, pretty much, without fear. It's this last aspect of unit testing that I think needs a new name. The unit test is more like a contract of what this code should do now, and in the future. When I hear the word testing, I think of mice in cages, with multiple experiments done on them to see the effectiveness of a compound. This is not what unit testing is, we're not trying out different code to see what is the most affective approach, we're defining what outputs we expect with what inputs. In the mice example, unit tests are more like the definitions of how the universe will work as opposed to the experiments done on the mice. Am I on crack or does anyone else see this refusal to do testing and do they think it's a similar reason they don't want to do it? What reasons do you / others give for not testing? What do you think their motivations are in not unit testing? And as a new name for unit testing that might get over some of the objections, how about jContract? (A bit Java centric I know :), or Unit Contracts?

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• Where and how to mention Stackoverflow participation in the résumé?

  - by Sandeepan Nath

  I think I have good enough reputation on SO now - here is my profile - http://stackoverflow.com/users/351903/sandeepan-nath. Well, this may not be that much as compared to so many other users out there but I am happy with mine. So, I was thinking of adding my profile link on my résumé. (Just the profile link and not that "I have this much reputation on SO"). Those who haven't seen, can see this question Would you put your stackoverflow profile link on your CV / Resume?. How would this look like? Forums/Blogs/Miscellaneous others No blogging as yet but active participant in Stackoverflow. My profile link - http://stackoverflow.com/users/351903/sandeepan-nath I think of putting this section after Project Details and Technical Expertise sections. Any tips/advice? Thanks Update MKO has made a very good point - "do you really want a potential employeer to be able to evaluate in detail everything you've ever written on SO". I thought of commenting but it would be too long - In my questions/answers I put a lot of statements like - "AFAIK ...", "following are my assumptions so far ...", "am I correct to conclude that... ?", "I doubt if it is possible to ..." etc. when I am not sure about something and I rarely involve in fights with other users. However I do argue on topics sometimes if I feel it is necessary and if I have a valid point. I do accept my mistakes and apologize for the same. As we all know nobody is perfect. I must have written many things which may be judged as wrong by a potential employer. But what if the same employer notices that I have improved in the quality of content by comparing old content with new one? Isn't that great? I also try to go back to older questions/answers and put corrective comments etc. when I feel I was wrong or if I can improve my post. Of course there are many employers who want you (potential employees) to be correct each and every time. They immediately remove you from consideration when you say a single incorrect thing. I have personally met such an interviewer few months back. He didn't even care to listen to any good thing I had done after he found a single wrong thing. Now the question is do you really care to work with such people? Or do you like those people who give value to the fact that you are striving to improve every day. I personally prefer the latter.

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• UML class diagram - can aggregated object be part of two aggregated classes?

  - by user970696

  Some sources say that aggregation means that the class owns the object and shares reference. Lets assume an example where a company class holds a list of cars but departments of that company has list of cars used by them. class Department { list<Car> listOfCars; } class Company { list<Car> listOfCars; //initialization of the list } So in UML class diagram, I would do it like this. But I assume this is not allowed because it would imply that both company and department own the objects.. [COMPANY]<>------[CAR] [DEPARTMENT]<>---| //imagine this goes up to the car class

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• How do you keep from running into the same problems over and over?

  - by Stephen Furlani

  I keep running into the same problems. The problem is irrelevant, but the fact that I keep running into is completely frustrating. The problem only happens once every, 3-6 months or so as I stub out a new iteration of the project. I keep a journal every time, but I spend at least a day or two each iteration trying to get the issue resolved. How do you guys keep from making the same mistakes over and over? I've tried a journal but it apparently doesn't work for me. [Edit] A few more details about the issue: Each time I make a new project to hold the files, I import a particular library. The library is a C++ library which imports glew.h and glx.h GLX redefines BOOL and that's not kosher since BOOL is a keyword for ObjC. I had a fix the last time I went through this. I #ifndef the header in the library to exclude GLEW and GLX and everything worked hunky-dory. This time, however, I do the same thing, use the same #ifndef block but now it throws a bunch of errors. I go back to the old project, and it works. New project no-worky. It seems like it does this every time, and my solution to it is new each time for some reason. I know #defines and #includes are one of the trickiest areas of C++ (and cross-language with Objective-C), but I had this working and now it's not.

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• Design pattern for an ASP.NET project using Entity Framework

  - by MPelletier

  I'm building a website in ASP.NET (Web Forms) on top of an engine with business rules (which basically resides in a separate DLL), connected to a database mapped with Entity Framework (in a 3rd, separate project). I designed the Engine first, which has an Entity Framework context, and then went on to work on the website, which presents various reports. I believe I made a terrible design mistake in that the website has its own context (which sounded normal at first). I present this mockup of the engine and a report page's code behind: Engine (in separate DLL): public Engine { DatabaseEntities _engineContext; public Engine() { // Connection string and procedure managed in DB layer _engineContext = DatabaseEntities.Connect(); } public ChangeSomeEntity(SomeEntity someEntity, int newValue) { //Suppose there's some validation too, non trivial stuff SomeEntity.Value = newValue; _engineContext.SaveChanges(); } } And report: public partial class MyReport : Page { Engine _engine; DatabaseEntities _webpageContext; public MyReport() { _engine = new Engine(); _databaseContext = DatabaseEntities.Connect(); } public void ChangeSomeEntityButton_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e) { SomeEntity someEntity; //Wrong way: //Get the entity from the webpage context someEntity = _webpageContext.SomeEntities.Single(s => s.Id == SomeEntityId); //Send the entity from _webpageContext to the engine _engine.ChangeSomeEntity(someEntity, SomeEntityNewValue); // <- oops, conflict of context //Right(?) way: //Get the entity from the engine context someEntity = _engine.GetSomeEntity(SomeEntityId); //undefined above //Send the entity from the engine's context to the engine _engine.ChangeSomeEntity(someEntity, SomeEntityNewValue); // <- oops, conflict of context } } Because the webpage has its own context, giving the Engine an entity from a different context will cause an error. I happen to know not to do that, to only give the Engine entities from its own context. But this is a very error-prone design. I see the error of my ways now. I just don't know the right path. I'm considering: Creating the connection in the Engine and passing it off to the webpage. Always instantiate an Engine, make its context accessible from a property, sharing it. Possible problems: other conflicts? Slow? Concurrency issues if I want to expand to AJAX? Creating the connection from the webpage and passing it off to the Engine (I believe that's dependency injection?) Only talking through ID's. Creates redundancy, not always practical, sounds archaic. But at the same time, I already recuperate stuff from the page as ID's that I need to fetch anyways. What would be best compromise here for safety, ease-of-use and understanding, stability, and speed?

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• Understanding branching strategy/workflow correctly

  - by burnersk

  I'm using svn without branches (trunk-only) for a very long time at my workplace. I had discovered most or all of the issues related to projects which do not have any branching strategy. Unlikely this is not going to change at my workplace but for my private projects. For my private projects which most includes coworkers and working together at the same time on different features I like to have an robust branching strategy with supports long-term releases powered by git. I find out that the Atlassian Toolchain (JIRA, Stash and Bamboo) helped me most and it also recommending me an branching strategy which I like to verify for the team needs. The branching strategy was taken directly from Atlassian Stash recommendation with a small modification to the hotfix branch tree. All hotfixes should also merged into mainline. The branching strategy in words mainline (also known as master with git or trunk with svn) contains the "state of the art" developing release. Everything here was successfully checked with various automated tests (through Bamboo) and looks like everything is working. It is not proven as working because of possible missing tests. It is ready to use but not recommended for production. feature covers all new features which are not completely finished. Once a feature is finished it will be merged into mainline. Sample branch: feature/ISSUE-2-A-nice-Feature bugfix fixes non-critical bugs which can wait for the next normal release. Sample branch: bugfix/ISSUE-1-Some-typos production owns the latest release. hotfix fixes critical bugs which have to be release urgent to mainline, production and all affected long-term *release*es. Sample branch: hotfix/ISSUE-3-Check-your-math release is for long-term maintenance. Sample branches: release/1.0, release/1.1 release/1.0-rc1 I am not an expert so please provide me feedback. Which problems might appear? Which parts are missing or slowing down the productivity?

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• Best exception handling practices or recommendations?

  - by user828584

  I think the two main problems with my programs are my code structure/organization and my error handling. I'm reading Code Complete 2, but I need something to read for working with potential problems. For example, on a website, if something can only happen if the user tampers with data via javascript, do you write for that? Also, when do you not catch errors? When you write a class that expects a string and an int as input, and they aren't a string and int, do you check for that, or do you let it bubble up to the calling method that passed incorrect parameters? I know this is a broad topic that can't be answered in a single answer here, so what I'm looking for is a book or resource that's commonly accepted as teaching proper exception handling practice.

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• Can't decide between Java or Python for college [on hold]

  - by Will Harrison

  I'm returning to college in about a month for Computer Science. My problem is, I have been programming on the web since I left (4 years ago), using PHP, ASP.NET, and JavaScript. I want to bone up on a more general purpose language that is cross platform before I begin. I would also like to be using a language that is common at my school and I know that they teach the students C++, Java, and Python. I would like to choose between Java or Python but I'm not sure which one. What do you think would be better based on job prospects in the next 2 years and community?

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• How do you dive into large code bases?

  - by miku

  What tools and techniques do you use for exploring and learning an unknown code base? I am thinking of tools like grep, ctags, unit-tests, functional test, class-diagram generators, call graphs, code metrics like sloccount and so on. I'd be interested in your experiences, the helpers you used or wrote yourself and the size of the codebase, with which you worked with. I realize, that this is also a process (happening over time) and that learning can mean "can give a ten minute intro" to "can refactor and shrink this to 30% of the size". Let's leave that open for now.

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• Finding right bug tracker web application

  - by FullmetalBoy

  I'm looking for a bug tracking system (similiar as http://www.mantisbt.org) with these following requirements: Requirement specifications are: Upload picture and different files without any limitaton of the file's space. If user belong to a specific group or businesss group, the GUI:s logotype should be changed into group's logotype after the user has entered user name and password. All user use the same database with different GUI. Right information of unassigned, modified and resolved bug case will be displayed based on what group or business group that the user is assigned to. All information will display after the user has logged in. Enable to create 1 or more super user (administrator) and regular user. Right user with right group or business group will retrieve right information. Non functional requirement: The bugging tracker take place in a webbapplication. All information must use web browser to view all information.

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• What Programming languages/technologies stack to use when building Facebook like website ?

  - by Blaze Boy

  I'm developing a website idea that will perform the same as Facebook functionality without the applications extensibility. the site will have a client application to perform a task similar to dropbox.com the site will be a social network of some sort of professionalism, it will highlight code of almost all languages has a high speed backend database Now what languages/techniques do I need to use to achieve that?

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• How common is prototyping as the first stage of development?

  - by EpsilonVector

  I've been taking some software design courses in the past few semesters, and while I see the benefit in a lot of the formalism, I feel like it doesn't tell me anything about the program itself: You can't tell how the program is going to operate from the Use Case spec, even though it discusses what the program can do. You can't tell anything about the user experience from the requirements document, even though it can include quality requirements. Sequence diagrams are a good description of how the software works as the call stack, but are very limited, and give a highly partial view of the overall system. Class diagrams are great for describing how the system is built, but are utterly useless in helping you figure out what the software needs to be. Where in all this formalism is the bottom line: how the program looks, operates, and what experience it gives? Doesn't it make more sense to design off of that? Isn't it better to figure out how the program should work via a prototype and strive to implement it for real? I know that I'm probably suffering from being taught engineering by theoreticians, but I need to ask, do they do this in the industry? How do people figure out what the program actually is, not what it should conform to? Do people prototype a lot, or do they mostly use the formal tools like UML and I just didn't get the hang of using them yet?

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• Is ASP.NET MVC completely (and exclusively) based on conventions?

  - by Mike Valeriano

  --TL;DR Is there a "Hello World!" ASP.NET MVC tutorial out there that doesn't rely on conventions and "stock" projects? Is it even possible to take advantage of the technology without reusing the default file structure, and start from a single "hello_world.asp" file or something (like in PHP)? Am I completely mistaken and I should be looking somewhere else, maybe this? I'm interested in the MVC framework, not Web Forms --Background I've played a bit with PHP in the past, just for fun, and now I'm back to it since web development became relevant for me once again. I'm no professional, but I try to gain as much knowledge and control over the technology I'm working with as possible. I'm using Visual Studio 2012 for C# - my "desktop" language of choice - and since I got the Professional Edition from Dreamspark, the Web Development Tools are available, including ASP.NET MVC 4. I won't touch Web Forms, but the MVC Framework got my attention because the MVC pattern is something I can really relate to, since it provides the control I want but... not quite. Learning PHP was easy - and right form the start I could just create a "hello_world.php" file and just do something like this for immediate results: <!-- file: hello_world.php --> <?php> echo "Hello World!"; <?> But I couldn't find a single ASP.NET (MVC) tutorial out there (I'll be sure to buy one of the upcoming MVC 4 books, only a month away or so) that would start like that. They all start with a sample project, building up knowledge from the basics and heavily using conventions as they go along. Which is fine, I suppose, but it's now the best way for me to learn things. Even the "Empty" project template for a new ASP.NET MVC 4 Application in VS2012 is not empty at all: several files and folders are created for you - much like a new C# desktop application project, but with C# I can in fact start from scratch, creating the project structure myself. It is not the case with PHP: I can choose from a plethora of different MVC frameworks I can just create my own framework I can just skip frameworks altogether, and toss random PHP along with my HTML on a single file and make it work I understand the framework needs to establish some rules, but what if I just want to create a single page website with some C# logic behind it? Do I really need to create a whole bloat of files and folders for the sake of convention? Also, please understand that I haven't gotten far on any of those tutorials mainly because of this reason, but, if that's the only way to do it, I'll go for it using one of the books I've mentioned before. This is my first contact with ASP.NET but from the few comparisons I've read, I believe I should stay the hell away from Web Forms. Thank you. (Please forgive the broken English - it is not my primary language.)

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• A new CAPTCHA using sentences?

  - by Xeoncross

  I was just thinking about how recaptcha is getting harder when I thought about another posible solution. Images won't last forever so we will need something else some day - like human logic or emotion. Google and others are trying grouping images by category (find the image that doesn't belong) but that requires a large amount of images and doesn't work for the blind. Anyway, what if a massive collection of text was gathered (public-domain books from each language) and a sentence was shown to the user with 1 (or 2) words that were a select box of choices? Only computers that knew correct English/Spanish/German grammar would be able to tell which of the words belonged in the sentence. Would there be any problems with this approach? I would assume that it would be easy enough for anyone that knew the language that the sentense was displayed in to figure out the answer easier than trying to read the reCAPTCHA text. Plus, storing an insane number of sentences would only take a couple gigabytes of space and wouldn't take anywhere near the CPU time creating images/audio takes. In other words, anyone could host their own captcha system with minimal impact on system performance. Is there a problem with this approach? More specifically I'm looking for the main problem with this approach. migrated from stackoverflow

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• Looking for a simple to use email server that can be programmatically (preferably remotely) used

  - by sr2222

  I've been poking around the internet for much of the day, but I can't seem to find a good server to fit my needs. What I need is a simple to use and deploy (pref open source) lightweight email server that I can create users on programmaticly that has IMAP or POP support. I'd prefer something with an existing service interface, but if I have to write a REST API on top of an easy to use API, that's acceptable. The purpose of this tool will be to allow a test automation framework to create new email accounts and retrieve email sent to those addresses. I need text, html, and possibly attachment support as well. Perhaps it's my noobishness, but I can't really suss out the details from the documentation on the servers available out there to figure out which fit my needs.

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• Pattern for Accessing MySQL connection

  - by Dipan Mehta

  We have an application which is C++ trying to access MySQL database. There are several (about 5 or so) threads in the application (with Boost library for threading) and in each thread has a few objects, each of which is trying to access Database for its' own purpose. It has a simple ORM kind of model but that really is not an important factor here. There are three potential access patterns i can think of: There could be single connection object per application or thread and is shared between all (or group). The object needs to be thread safe and there will be contentions but MySQL will not be fired with too many connections. Every object could initiate connection on its own. The database needs to take care of concurrency (which i think MySQL can) and the design could be much simpler. There could be two possibilities here. a. either object keeps a persistent connection for its life OR b. object initiate connection as and when needed. To simplify the contention as in case of 1 and not to create too many sockets as in case of 2, we can have group/set based connections. So there could be there could be more than one connection (say N), each of this connection could be shared connection across M objects. Naturally, each of the pattern has different resource cost and would work under different constraints and objectives. What criteria should i use to choose the pattern of this for my own application? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each of these pattern over the other? Are there any other pattern which is better? PS: I have been through these questions: mysql, one connection vs multiple and MySQL with mutiple threads and processes But they don't quite answer exactly what i am trying to ask.

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• Modular enterprise architecture using MVC and Orchard CMS

  - by MrJD

  I'm making a large scale MVC application using Orchard. And I'm going to be separating my logic into modules. I'm also trying to heavily decouple the application for maximum extensibility and testability. I have a rudimentary understanding of IoC, Repository Pattern, Unit of Work pattern and Service Layer pattern. I've made myself a diagram. I'm wondering if it is correct and if there is anything I have missed regarding an extensible application. Note that each module is a separate project. Update So I have many UI modules that use the db module, that's why they've been split up. There are other services the UI modules will use. The UI modules have been split up because they will be made over time, independent of each other.

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• Should I break contract early?

  - by cbang

  About 7 months ago I made the switch from a 5 year permie role (as a support developer in C#) to a contract role. I did this because I was stagnating in my old role. The extra cash contracting is really helping too. Unfortunately my team leader has taken a dislike to me from day 1. He regularly tells me I went out contracting too early, and frequently remarks that people in their 20's have no idea what they are talking about (I am 29). I was recently given the task of configuring our reports via our in house reporting library. It works off of a database driven criteria base, with controls being loaded as needed. The configs can get fairly complex, with controls having various levels of dependency on each other. I had a short time frame to get 50 reports working, and I was told to just get the basic configuration done, after which they will be handed over to the reporting team for fine tuning, then the test team. Our updated system was deployed 2 weeks ago, and it turned out that about 15 reports had issues causing incorrect data to be returned. Upon investigation I discovered that the reporting team hadn't even looked at them, and the test team hadn't bothered to test the reports. In spite of this, my team leader has told me that it is 100% my fault. As a result, our help desk got hit hard. I worked back until 2am that night to fix the highest priority issues (on my wedding anniversary!). The next day I arrive at work at 7:45 am to continue with the fixes. I got no thanks, but keep getting repeatedly told by my manager that "I fucked up" and "this is all my fault". I told my team leader I would spend part of my weekend working to fix the remaining issues. His response was "so you fucking should! you fucked it all up!" in front of the rest of the team. I responded "No worries." and left. I spent a decent chunk of my weekend working on it. Within 2 business days of finding out about the issues, I had all the medium and high priority issues fixed. The only comments my team leader has made to me in the last 2 weeks is to tell me how I have caused a big mess, and to tell me it was all my fault. I get this multiple times a day. If I make any jokes to anyone else in the team, I get told not to be a smartass... even though the rest of the team jokes throughout the day. Apart from that, all I get is angry looks any time I am anywhere near the guy. I don't give any response other than "alright" or silence when he starts giving me a hard time. Today we found out that the pilot release for the next stage has been pushed back. My team leader has said this was caused by me (but the higher ups said no such thing). He also said I have "no understanding of the ramifications of my actions". My question is, should I break contract (I am contracted until June 30) and find another role? No one else in my team will speak up in my favour, as they are contractors too and have no interest in rocking the boat. I could complain to my team leaders boss, but I can't see that helping, as I will still be stuck in the same team. As this is my first contract, I imagine getting the next one will be hard without a reference. I can't figure out if this guy is trying to get me fired up to provoke a confrontation (the guy loves conflict), or if he is just venting anger, or what. Copping this blame day after day is really wearing me down and making me depressed... especially since I have a wife and kid to support).

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• From physics to Java programmer?

  - by inovaovao

  I'm a physics phd with little actual programming experience. I've always liked programming and played around with Basic and Pascal (also VB and Delphi) as a teen, but the largest actual project I completed was an assignement for the introductory computer science class in university where I wrote a nice little program (about 1500 lines of pascal) to display functions of 2 variables in 3D. I've had also a couple other projects of a few hundred lines range, but during my phd I didn't have (or take) the time to program more (string theory is hard guys!), beside playing around with ruby. Now I've decided that I'm more interested in programming than in physics and started to learn Java (hoping to pass the certification exam next week) and OO design. Still, I have trouble deciding on what to focus next (Java EE? Web development? algorithms and C programming?) in order to maximize my employement chances. Bear in mind that I'm aiming (mostly) at the swedish job market and that I'm 30 years old. So for the questions: Do you think that I have any chances to start and make a career in IT and programming coming from physics? What would be the best strategy to maximize my value in the field? Do you have suggestions as to where my physics background might be useful?

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• Support / Maintenance documentation for development team

  - by benwebdev

  Hi, I'm working in the Development dept (around 40 developers) for a large E-Commerce company. We've grown quickly but have not evolved very well in the field of documenting our work. We work with an Agile / Scrum-like methodology with our development and testing but documentation seems to be neglected. We need to be able to make documentation that would aid a developer who hasnt worked on our project before or was new to the company. We also have to create more high level information for our support department to explain any extra config settings and fixes of known issues that may arise, if any. Currently we put this in a badly put together wiki, based on an old Sharepoint / TFS site. Can anyone suggest some ideal links or advice on improving the documentation standard? What works in other companies? Has anyone got avice on developing documentation as part of an agile process? Many thanks, ben

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• Acceptance tests done first...how can this be accomplished?

  - by Crazy Eddie

  The basic gist of most Agile methods is that a feature is not "done" until it's been developed, tested, and in many cases released. This is supposed to happen in quick turnaround chunks of time such as "Sprints" in the Scrum process. A common part of Agile is also TDD, which states that tests are done first. My team works on a GUI program that does a lot of specific drawing and such. In order to provide tests, the testing team needs to be able to work with something that at least attempts to perform the things they are trying to test. We've found no way around this problem. I can very much see where they are coming from because if I was trying to write software that targeted some basically mysterious interface I'd have a very hard time. Although we have behavior fairly well specified, the exact process of interacting with various UI elements when it comes to automation seems to be too unique to a feature to allow testers to write automated scripts to drive something that does not exist. Even if we could, a lot of things end up turning up later as having been missing from the specification. One thing we considered doing was having the testers write test "scripts" that are more like a set of steps that must be performed, as described from a use-case perspective, so that they can be "automated" by a human being. This can then be performed by the developer(s) writing the feature and/or verified by someone else. When the testers later get an opportunity they automate the "script" for regression purposes mainly. This didn't end up catching on in the team though. The testing part of the team is actually falling behind us by quite a margin. This is one reason why the apparently extra time of developing a "script" for a human being to perform just did not happen....they're under a crunch to keep up with us developers. If we waited for them, we'd get nothing done. It's not their fault really, they're a bottle neck but they're doing what they should be and working as fast as possible. The process itself seems to be set up against them. Very often we end up having to go back a month or more in what we've done to fix bugs that the testers have finally gotten to checking. It's an ugly truth that I'd like to do something about. So what do other teams do to solve this fail cascade? How can we get testers ahead of us and how can we make it so that there's actually time for them to write tests for the features we do in a sprint without making us sit and twiddle our thumbs in the meantime? As it's currently going, in order to get a feature "done", using agile definitions, would be to have developers work for 1 week, then testers work the second week, and developers hopefully being able to fix all the bugs they come up with in the last couple days. That's just not going to happen, even if I agreed it was a reasonable solution. I need better ideas...

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• When to write an explicit return statement in Groovy?

  - by Roland Schneider

  At the moment I am working on a Groovy/Grails project (which I'm quite new in) and I wonder whether it is good practice to omit the return keyword in Groovy methods. As far as I know you have to explicitly insert the keyword i.e. for guard clauses, so should one use it also everywhere else? In my opinion the additional return keyword increases readability. Or is it something you just have to get used to? What is your experience with that topic? Some examples: def foo(boolean bar) { // Not consistent if (bar) { return positiveBar() } negativeBar() } def foo2() { // Special Grails example def entitiy = new Entity(foo: 'Foo', bar: 'Bar') entity.save flush: true // Looks strange to me this way entity }

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• Is NAN suitable for communicating that an invalid parameter was involved in a calculation?

  - by Arman

  I am currently working on a numerical processing system that will be deployed in a performance-critical environment. It takes inputs in the form of numerical arrays (these use the eigen library, but for the purpose of this question that's perhaps immaterial), and performs some range of numerical computations (matrix products, concatenations, etc.) to produce outputs. All arrays are allocated statically and their sizes are known at compile time. However, some of the inputs may be invalid. In these exceptional cases, we still want the code to be computed and we still want outputs not "polluted" by invalid values to be used. To give an example, let's take the following trivial example (this is pseudo-code): Matrix a = {1, 2, NAN, 4}; // this is the "input" matrix Scalar b = 2; Matrix output = b * a; // this results in {2, 4, NAN, 8} The idea here is that 2, 4 and 8 are usable values, but the NAN should signal to the receipient of the data that that entry was involved in an operation that involved an invalid value, and should be discarded (this will be detected via a std::isfinite(value) check before the value is used). Is this a sound way of communicating and propagating unusable values, given that performance is critical and heap allocation is not an option (and neither are other resource-consuming constructs such as boost::optional or pointers)? Are there better ways of doing this? At this point I'm quite happy with the current setup but I was hoping to get some fresh ideas or productive criticism of the current implementation.

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• Is there a way to add unique items to an array without doing a ton of comparisons?

  - by hydroparadise

  Please bare with me, I want this to be as language agnostic as possible becuase of the languages I am working with (One of which is a language called PowerOn). However, most languanges support for loops and arrays. Say I have the following list in an aray: 0x 0 Foo 1x 1 Bar 2x 0 Widget 3x 1 Whatsit 4x 0 Foo 5x 1 Bar Anything with a 1 should be uniqely added to another array with the following result: 0x 1 Bar 1x 1 Whatsit Keep in mind this is a very elementry example. In reality, I am dealing with 10's of thousands of elements on the old list. Here is what I have so far. Pseudo Code: For each element in oldlist For each element in newlist Compare If values oldlist.element equals newlist.element, break new list loop If reached end of newlist with with nothing equal from oldlist, add value from old list to new list End End Is there a better way of doing this? Algorithmicly, is there any room for improvement? And as a bonus qeustion, what is the O notation for this type of algorithm (if there is one)?

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