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• Switch from back-end to front-end programming: I'm out of my comfort zone, should I switch back?

  - by ripper234

  I've been a backend developer for a long time, and I really swim in that field. C++/C#/Java, databases, NoSql, caching - I feel very much at ease around these platforms/concepts. In the past few years, I started to taste end-to-end web programming, and recently I decided to take a job offer in a front end team developing a large, complex product. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and become more of an "all around developer". Problem is, I'm getting more and more convinced I don't like it. Things I like about backend programming, and missing in frontend stuff: More interesting problems - When I compare designing a server that handle massive data, to adding another form to a page or changing the validation logic, I find the former a lot more interesting. Refactoring refactoring refactoring - I am addicted to Visual Studio with Resharper, or IntelliJ. I feel very comfortable writing code as it goes without investing too much thought, because I know that with a few clicks I can refactor it into beautiful code. To my knowledge, this doesn't exist at all in javascript. Intellisense and navigation - I hate looking at a bunch of JS code without instantly being able to know what it does. In VS/IntelliJ I can summon the documentation, navigate to the code, climb up inheritance hiererchies ... life is sweet. Auto-completion - Just hit Ctrl-Space on an object to see what you can do with it. Easier to test - With almost any backend feature, I can use TDD to capture the requirements, see a bunch of failing tests, then implement, knowing that if the tests pass I did my job well. With frontend, while tests can help a bit, I find that most of the testing is still manual - fire up that browser and verify the site didn't break. I miss that feeling of "A green CI means everything is well with the world." Now, I've only seriously practiced frontend development for about two months now, so this might seem premature ... but I'm getting a nagging feeling that I should abandon this quest and return to my comfort zone, because, well, it's so comfy and fun. Another point worth mentioning in this context is that while I am learning some frontend tools, a lot of what I'm learning is our company's specific infrastructure, which I'm not sure will be very useful later on in my career. Any suggestions or tips? Do you think I should give frontend programming "a proper chance" of at least six to twelve months before calling it quits? Could all my pains be growing pains, and will they magically disappear as I get more experienced? Or is gaining this perspective is valuable enough, even if plan to do more "backend stuff" later on, that it's worth grinding my teeth and continuing with my learning?

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• Is OOP hard because it is not natural?

  - by zvrba

  One can often hear that OOP naturally corresponds to the way people think about the world. But I would strongly disagree with this statement: We (or at least I) conceptualize the world in terms of relationships between things we encounter, but the focus of OOP is designing individual classes and their hierarchies. Note that, in everyday life, relationships and actions exist mostly between objects that would have been instances of unrelated classes in OOP. Examples of such relationships are: "my screen is on top of the table"; "I (a human being) am sitting on a chair"; "a car is on the road"; "I am typing on the keyboard"; "the coffee machine boils water", "the text is shown in the terminal window." We think in terms of bivalent (sometimes trivalent, as, for example in, "I gave you flowers") verbs where the verb is the action (relation) that operates on two objects to produce some result/action. The focus is on action, and the two (or three) [grammatical] objects have equal importance. Contrast that with OOP where you first have to find one object (noun) and tell it to perform some action on another object. The way of thinking is shifted from actions/verbs operating on nouns to nouns operating on nouns -- it is as if everything is being said in passive or reflexive voice, e.g., "the text is being shown by the terminal window". Or maybe "the text draws itself on the terminal window". Not only is the focus shifted to nouns, but one of the nouns (let's call it grammatical subject) is given higher "importance" than the other (grammatical object). Thus one must decide whether one will say terminalWindow.show(someText) or someText.show(terminalWindow). But why burden people with such trivial decisions with no operational consequences when one really means show(terminalWindow, someText)? [Consequences are operationally insignificant -- in both cases the text is shown on the terminal window -- but can be very serious in the design of class hierarchies and a "wrong" choice can lead to convoluted and hard to maintain code.] I would therefore argue that the mainstream way of doing OOP (class-based, single-dispatch) is hard because it IS UNNATURAL and does not correspond to how humans think about the world. Generic methods from CLOS are closer to my way of thinking, but, alas, this is not widespread approach. Given these problems, how/why did it happen that the currently mainstream way of doing OOP became so popular? And what, if anything, can be done to dethrone it?

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• Software engineering project idea feedback [on hold]

  - by Chris Sewell

  I'm a third year student currently undergoing my project/dissertation section of my degree. I have drafted a proposal for my final year project and would appreciate any feedback. The feedback can be anything constructive either specific to this proposal, the area that I will be working and researching in or my ideas. I will accept all input. Aims My aim is to attempt a proof of concept and prototype a runtime-as-a-service (RaaS). This cloud based runtime will allow clients to dynamically offload tasks or create cloud applications. Currently software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud applications are purpose built and have a predefined scope in which they can assist or serve the client; this scope cannot be changed without physical alteration to the client and server software. With RaaS the client potentially could define any task it wanted at any time depending on its environment variables, the client and server would then communicate parameters and returns for that task. For the client to utilize a RaaS it must be able to conceive and then define a task using an appropriate XML vocabulary. As the scope of the cloud solution is defined by the client at its runtime, the cloud solution only has to exist for as long as the client requires it to as opposed to a client using a dedicated service. Deliverables The crux of the project will require an XML vocabulary in which the client and server will communicate. I’ll prototype the server application that will dynamically create and manage cloud solutions. The solution will be coded using an interpreted language, such as python or javascript, which can evaluate expressions in runtime or a language that can dynamically compile such as C# or Java. As a further proof of concept I will also produce a mock client that offloads tasks to the server. The report will attempt to explain the different flavours of cloud computing solutions including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and SaaS including real world examples and where the use of a RaaS could have improved the overall example solution. Disclaimer: I'm not requesting stakeholders in my project nor am I delegating work. Any materials other than feedback, advice or directions will not be utilized.

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• Defining a service layer: the text-based adventure

  - by Stacy Vicknair

  Applications these days have more options than ever for a user interface, and it’s only going to grow. A successful product might require native applications for mobile devices, a regular web implementation, or even a gaming console. These systems often will be centralized and data driven. The solution is one that’s fairly solitary, a service layer! Simply put, take what’s shared and put it behind a physical or abstract layer that defines the boundary between the specific user interface and the shared content.   I know, I know, none of this is complicated. But some times it can be difficult to discern what belongs on which side of the line. For instance, say we’re creating a service that will provide content for both an ASP.NET MVC application and a WP7 application. Although the content served to each application is the same, there are different paradigms and patterns for displaying that data in the different environments. In ASP.NET MVC, you may create a model specific to a page that combines necessary information. In the WP7 application you might require different sets of data that you will connect via MVVM with the view. The general rule of thumb is that any shared content, business rules, or data should exist separately. Any element that is specific to the current UI implementation should be included in a separate library or with the UI implementation itself. The WP7 application doesn’t need my MVC specific model classes. My MVC application doesn’t require those INotifyPropertyChanged viewmodels that the WP7 application depends on. In both cases, there should be additional processing done above the service layer to massage the data to the application’s specific needs.   Service-ocalypse: the text based adventure What helps me the most about deciding whether or not something belongs coupled to the UI implementation or in the shared implementation is thinking of the simplest implementation you could have: a console application. You might have played a game like Peasant’s Quest: The console app is the text based adventure game version of your application. If you’re service was consumed in its simplest form, you would simply have a console based API for it that issues requests. Maybe those requests aren’t SWIM TO BOAT, but they might be CREATE USER JOHN. If I issue a request, I expect that request to be issued to the service. If the service has any exceptions or issues with my input, that business logic should be encapsulated in that service, not implemented in the UI. The service layer should be your functional application in its entirety, and anything above that layer should only assist with the display of that information.

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• Traditional POS is Dead

  - by David Dorf

  Traditional POS is dead -- I've heard that one before. Here's an excerpt from Joe Skorupa's blog over at RIS where he relayed ten trends that were presented at NRF. 7. Mobile POS signals death of traditional POS. Shoppers don't love self-checkout, but they prefer it to long queues or dealing with associates. Fixed POS is expensive and bulky. Mobile POS frees floor space for other purposes and converts associates from being cashiers to being sales assistants that provide new levels of customer service and incremental basket sales. In addition to unplugging the POS, new alternatives are starting to take hold - thin client, POS as a service, and replacing POS software with e-commerce platforms. I'll grant that in some situations for some retailers there might be an opportunity to to ditch the traditional POS, but for the majority of retailers that's just not practical. Take it from a guy that had to wake up at 3am after every Thanksgiving to monitor POS systems across the US on Black Friday. If a retailer's website goes down on Black Friday, they will take a significant hit. If a retailer's chain-wide POS system goes down on Black Friday, that retailer will cease to exist. Mobile POS works great for Apple because the majority of purchases are one or two big-ticket items that don't involve cash. There's still a traditional POS in every store to fall back on (its just hidden). Try this at home: Choose your favorite e-commerce site and add an item to the cart while timing how long it takes. Now multiply that by 15 to represent the 15 items you might buy at store like Target. The user interface isn't optimized for bulk purchases, and that's how it should be. The webstore and POS are designed for different purposes. Self-checkout is a great addition to POS and so is mobile checkout. But they add capabilities to POS, not replace it. Centralized architectures, even those based in the cloud, are quite viable as long as there's resiliency in the registers. You cannot assume perfect access to the network, so a POS must always be able to sell regardless of connectivity. Clearly the different selling channels should be sharing common functionality. Things like calculating tax, accepting coupons, and processing electronic payments can be shared, usually through a service-oriented architecture. This lowers costs and providers greater consistency, both of which help retailers. On paper these technologies look really good and we should continue to push boundaries, but I'm not ready to call the patient dead just yet.

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• Welcome to ubiquitous file sharing (December 08, 2009)

  - by user12612012

  The core of any file server is its file system and ZFS provides the foundation on which we have built our ubiquitous file sharing and single access control model.  ZFS has a rich, Windows and NFSv4 compatible, ACL implementation (ZFS only uses ACLs), it understands both UNIX IDs and Windows SIDs and it is integrated with the identity mapping service; it knows when a UNIX/NIS user and a Windows user are equivalent, and similarly for groups.  We have a single access control architecture, regardless of whether you are accessing the system via NFS or SMB/CIFS.The NFS and SMB protocol services are also integrated with the identity mapping service and shares are not restricted to UNIX permissions or Windows permissions.  All access control is performed by ZFS, the system can always share file systems simultaneously over both protocols and our model is native access to any share from either protocol.Modal architectures have unnecessary restrictions, confusing rules, administrative overhead and weird deployments to try to make them work; they exist as a compromise not because they offer a benefit.  Having some shares that only support UNIX permissions, others that only support ACLs and some that support both in a quirky way really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd want in a multi-protocol file server.  Perhaps because the server has been built on a file system that was designed for UNIX permissions, possibly with ACL support bolted on as an add-on afterthought, or because the protocol services are not truly integrated with the operating system, it may not be capable of supporting a single integrated model.With a single, integrated sharing and access control model: If you connect from Windows or another SMB/CIFS client: The system creates a credential containing both your Windows identity and your UNIX/NIS identity.  The credential includes UNIX/NIS IDs and SIDs, and UNIX/NIS groups and Windows groups. If your Windows identity is mapped to an ephemeral ID, files created by you will be owned by your Windows identity (ZFS understands both UNIX IDs and Windows SIDs). If your Windows identity is mapped to a real UNIX/NIS UID, files created by you will be owned by your UNIX/NIS identity. If you access a file that you previously created from UNIX, the system will map your UNIX identity to your Windows identity and recognize that you are the owner.  Identity mapping also supports access checking if you are being assessed for access via the ACL. If you connect via NFS (typically from a UNIX client): The system creates a credential containing your UNIX/NIS identity (including groups). Files you create will be owned by your UNIX/NIS identity. If you access a file that you previously created from Windows and the file is owned by your UID, no mapping is required. Otherwise the system will map your Windows identity to your UNIX/NIS identity and recognize that you are the owner.  Again, mapping is fully supported during ACL processing. The NFS, SMB/CIFS and ZFS services all work cooperatively to ensure that your UNIX identity and your Windows identity are equivalent when you access the system.  This, along with the single ACL-based access control implementation, results in a system that provides that elusive ubiquitous file sharing experience.

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• Specifying and applying broad changes to a program

  - by Victor Nicollet

  How do you handle incomplete feature requests, when the ones asking for the feature cannot possibly write a complete request? Consider an imaginary situation. You are a tech lead working on a piece of software that revolves around managing profiles (maybe they're contacts in a CRM-type application, or employees in an HR application), with many operations being directly or indirectly performed on those profiles — edit fields, add comments, attach documents, send e-mail... The higher-ups decide that a lock functionality should be added whereby a profile can be locked to prevent anyone else from doing any operations on it until it's unlocked — this feature would be used by security agents to prevent anyone from touching a profile pending a security audit. Obviously, such a feature interacts with many other existing features related to profiles. For example: Can one add a comment to a locked profile? Can one see e-mails that were sent by the system to the owner of a locked profile? Can one see who recently edited a locked profile? If an e-mail was in the process of being sent when the lock happened, is the e-mail sending canceled, delayed or performed as if nothing happened? If I just changed a profile and click the "cancel" link on the confirmation, does the lock prevent the cancel or does it still go through? In all of these cases, how do I tell the user that a lock is in place? Depending on the software, there could be hundreds of such interactions, and each interaction requires a decision — is the lock going to apply and if it does, how will it be displayed to the user? And the higher-ups asking for the feature probably only see a small fraction of these, so you will probably have a lot of questions coming up while you are working on the feature. How would you and your team handle this? Would you expect the higher-ups to come up with a complete description of all cases where the lock should apply (and how), and treat all other cases as if the lock did not exist? Would you try to determine all potential interactions based on existing specifications and code, list them and ask the higher-ups to make a decision on all those where the decision is not obvious? Would you just start working and ask questions as they come up? Would you try to change their minds and settle on a more easily described feature with similar effects? The information about existing features is, as I understand it, in the code — how do you bridge the gap between the decision-makers and that information they cannot access?

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• SQL Saturday 194 - Exeter

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  Many kudos goes to Jonathan and Annette Allen and the others on the team for confirming SQL Saturday 194 in Exeter on the 8th and 9th of March.  The event home page is here http://www.sqlsaturday.com/194/eventhome.aspx and I delighted that myself and Dave Morrison will be presenting a full day pre-con on the 8th on favourite subjects “TSQL and Internals”. Here is the full abstract : TSQL and internals - When faced with performance issues there are many lines of attack. Tuning the engine itself can get you so far, however for maximum effect you need to understand how the engine and how it translates SQL statements into performable actions. This is not a simple task, it is a massive task to deal with a multi-table join and the number of permutations can be immense. To back up this knowledge, we can create better performing TSQL and understand the impact that is has upon the engine and recognize the pitfalls and gotcha’s that exist in SQLServer. Ultimately, there is no ‘best way’ to perform a single task only many variations of ‘it depends’ , but now we can pick the most appropriate option for the required dataload. Over the years, there have been many myths and misconceptions have grown around the product, some have basis in older versions and some are just wrong. Continuing to build on the knowledge given so far these issue will be explored and broken down and proved or disproved. Finally we will look to the future and explore SQL Server 2012 and the new functionality that that brings and some of the common uses that we will be able to address. After completion of this days pre-con, attendees will have a more complete knowledge of execution plans, and how they relate to the physical and logical actions that SQLServer will be executing on their behalf. The attendees will also have a more rounded and fuller knowledge of TSQL and the implications of incorrectly defining a query. Dave is a fountain of knowledge on execution plans and optimizer internals and ,though i may flatter myself, I’m no shrinking violet when it comes to TSQL and such matters.  I hope that if you cant join us, then there are other pre-cons available from other experts in their fields that may ‘float you boat’ too.  The pre-con page is http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/SQLSaturday_precon.htm Also, excitingly, this pre-con day is sponsored by Fusion-IO which is a great boon for the day. If you want a more of this then i am offering a 2 day TSQL course starting on the 19th of March. More details on this are available here

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• Is there a factory pattern to prevent multiple instances for same object (instance that is Equal) good design?

  - by dsollen

  I have a number of objects storing state. There are essentially two types of fields. The ones that uniquely define what the object is (what node, what edge etc), and the others that store state describing how these things are connected (this node is connected to these edges, this edge is part of these paths) etc. My model is updating the state variables using package methods, so all these objects act as immutable to anyone not in Model scope. All Objects extend one base type. I've toyed with the idea of a Factory approach which accepts a Builder object and constructs the applicable object. However, if an instance of the object already exists (ie would return true if I created the object defined by the builder and passed it to the equal method for the existing instance) the factory returns the current object instead of creating a new instance. Because the Equal method would only compare what uniquely defines the type of object (this is node A to node B) but won't check the dynamic state stuff (node A is currently connected to nodes C and E) this would be a way of ensuring anyone that wants my Node A automatically knows its state connections. More importantly it would prevent aliasing nightmares of someone trying to pass an instance of node A with different state then the node A in my model has. I've never heard of this pattern before, and it's a bit odd. I would have to do some overriding of serialization methods to make it work (ensure that when I read in a serilized object I add it to my facotry list of known instances, and/or return an existing factory in its place), as well as using a weakHashMap as if it was a weakHashSet to know whether an instance exists without worrying about a quasi-memory leak occuring. I don't know if this is too confusing or prone to its own obscure bugs. One thing I know is that plugins interface with lowest level hardware. The plugins have to be able to return state that is different than my memory; to tell my memory when its own state is inconsistent. I believe this is possible despite their fetching objects that exist in my memory; we allow building of objects without checking their consistency with the model until the addToModel is called anyways; and the existing plugins design was written before all this extra state existed and worked fine without ever being aware of it. Should I just be using some other design to avoid this crazyness? (I have another question to that affect that I'm posting).

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• How to set the initial component focus

  - by frank.nimphius

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} In ADF Faces, you use the af:document tag's initialFocusId to define the initial component focus. For this, specify the id property value of the component that you want to put the initial focus on. Identifiers are relative to the component, and must account for NamingContainers. You can use a single colon to start the search from the root, or multiple colons to move up through the NamingContainers - "::" will pop out of the component's naming container and begin the search from there, ":::" will pop out of two naming containers and begin the search from there. Alternatively you can add the naming container IDs as a prefix to the component Id, e.g. nc1:nc2:comp1. http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17904_01/apirefs.1111/e12419/tagdoc/af_document.html To set the initial focus to a component located in a page fragment that is exposed through an ADF region, keep in mind that ADF Faces regions - af:region - is a naming container too. To address an input text field with the id "it1" in an ADF region exposed by an af:region tag with the id r1, you use the following reference in af:document: <af:document id="d1" initialFocusId="r1:0:it1"> Note the "0" index in the client Id. Also, make sure the input text component has its clientComponent property set to true as otherwise no client component exist to put focus on.

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• Things to do After installing Visual Studio Express 12.

  - by Anirudha

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/anirugu/archive/2013/06/25/things-to-do-after-install-visual-studio-express-12.aspx  1. Environment > Document > Check the option for auto-load changes. By checking this option You can modified the file outside the VWD and VWD don’t tell you for confirmation. 2. Environment > Tabs and Windows > Preview Tab > uncheck the solution Explorer option. This option don’t show you the file when you just click on them in solution explorer. 3. Project and solutions > Check the track active item in solution explorer This option help you to easily figure out which file you working on and where it is in solution explorer . 4. text editor > all settings > word wrap > check this feature to enable word wrap 5. Text-editor > Css > formatting > check the compact rule. this option make you file smaller in size and easily to read. 6. Text-editor > html > miscellaneous > uncheck the auto ID option. Actually When you copy paste the html code Visual studio change their ID if ID is already exist. this option disable that feature. This is useful to do when we write if{} else {} statement and this is not helpful on that case. 7. Package manager > General > browse > copy the location of cache folder and in package source add them as source. This way you can use package that you have use earlier when you are offline. Thanks for read my post

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• Separate Action from Assertion in Unit Tests

  - by DigitalMoss

  Setup Many years ago I took to a style of unit testing that I have come to like a lot. In short, it uses a base class to separate out the Arrangement, Action and Assertion of the test into separate method calls. You do this by defining method calls in [Setup]/[TestInitialize] that will be called before each test run. [Setup] public void Setup() { before_each(); //arrangement because(); //action } This base class usually includes the [TearDown] call as well for when you are using this setup for Integration tests. [TearDown] public void Cleanup() { after_each(); } This often breaks out into a structure where the test classes inherit from a series of Given classes that put together the setup (i.e. GivenFoo : GivenBar : WhenDoingBazz) with the Assertions being one line tests with a descriptive name of what they are covering [Test] public void ThenBuzzSouldBeTrue() { Assert.IsTrue(result.Buzz); } The Problem There are very few tests that wrap around a single action so you end up with lots of classes so recently I have taken to defining the action in a series of methods within the test class itself: [Test] public void ThenBuzzSouldBeTrue() { because_an_action_was_taken(); Assert.IsTrue(result.Buzz); } private void because_an_action_was_taken() { //perform action here } This results in several "action" methods within the test class but allows grouping of similar tests (i.e. class == WhenTestingDifferentWaysToSetBuzz) The Question Does someone else have a better way of separating out the three 'A's of testing? Readability of tests is important to me so I would prefer that, when a test fails, that the very naming structure of the tests communicate what has failed. If someone can read the Inheritance structure of the tests and have a good idea why the test might be failing then I feel it adds a lot of value to the tests (i.e. GivenClient : GivenUser : WhenModifyingUserPermissions : ThenReadAccessShouldBeTrue). I am aware of Acceptance Testing but this is more on a Unit (or series of units) level with boundary layers mocked. EDIT : My question is asking if there is an event or other method for executing a block of code before individual tests (something that could be applied to specific sets of tests without it being applied to all tests within a class like [Setup] currently does. Barring the existence of this event, which I am fairly certain doesn't exist, is there another method for accomplishing the same thing? Using [Setup] for every case presents a problem either way you go. Something like [Action("Category")] (a setup method that applied to specific tests within the class) would be nice but I can't find any way of doing this.

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• reference list for non-IT driven algorithmic patterns

  - by Quicker

  I am looking for a reference list for non-IT driven algorithmic patterns (which still can be helped with IT implementations of IT). An Example List would be: name; short desc; reference Travelling Salesman; find the shortest possible route on a multiple target path; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem Ressource Disposition (aka Regulation); Distribute a limited/exceeding input on a given number output receivers based on distribution rules; http://database-programmer.blogspot.de/2010/12/critical-analysis-of-algorithm-sproc.html If there is no such list, but you instantly think of something specific, please 'put it on the desk'. Maybe I can compile something out of the input I get here (actually I am very frustrated as I did not find any such list via research by myself). Details on Scoping: I found it very hard to formulate what I want in a way everything is out that I do not need (which may be the issue why I did not find anything at google). There is a database centric definition for what I am looking for in the section 'Processes' of the second example link. That somehow fits, but the database focus sort of drifts away from the pattern thinking, which I have in mind. So here are my own thoughts around what's in and what's out: I am NOT looking for a foundational algo ref list, which is implemented as basis for any programming language. Eg. the php reference describes substr and strlen. That implements algos, but is not what I am looking for. the problem the algo does address would even exist, if there were no computers (or other IT components) the main focus of the algo is NOT to help other algo's chances are high, that there are implementions of the solution or any workaround without any IT support out there in the world however the algo could be benefitialy implemented/fully supported by a software application = means: the problem of the algo has to be addressed anyway, but running an algo implementation with software automates the process (that is why I posted it on stackoverflow and not somewhere else) typically such algo implementations have more than one input field value and more than one output field value - which implies it could not be implemented as simple function (which is fixed to produce not more than one output value) in a normalized data model often times such algo implementation outputs span accross multiple rows (sometimes multiple tables), whereby the number of output rows depends on the input paraters and rows in the table(s) at start time - which implies that any algo implementation/procedure must interact with a database (read and/or write) I am mainly looking for patterns, not for specific implementations. Example: The Travelling Salesman assumes any coordinates, however it does not say: You need a table targets with fields x and y. - however sometimes descriptions are focussed on examples with specific implementations very much - no worries, as long as the pattern gets clear

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• June 2013 release of SSDT contains a minor bug that you should be aware of

  - by jamiet

  I have discovered what seems, to me, like a bug in the June 2013 release of SSDT and given the problems that it created yesterday on my current gig I thought it prudent to write this blog post to inform people of it. I’ve built a very simple SSDT project to reproduce the problem that has just two tables, [Table1] and [Table2], and also a procedure [Procedure1]: The two tables have exactly the same definition, both a have a single column called [Id] of type integer. CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Table1] (     [Id] INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY ) My stored procedure simply joins the two together, orders them by the column used in the join predicate, and returns the results: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Procedure1] AS     SELECT t1.*     FROM    Table1 t1     INNER JOIN Table2 t2         ON    t1.Id = t2.Id     ORDER BY Id Now if I create those three objects manually and then execute the stored procedure, it works fine: So we know that the code works. Unfortunately, SSDT thinks that there is an error here: The text of that error is: Procedure: [dbo].[Procedure1] contains an unresolved reference to an object. Either the object does not exist or the reference is ambiguous because it could refer to any of the following objects: [dbo].[Table1].[Id] or [dbo].[Table2].[Id]. Its complaining that the [Id] field in the ORDER BY clause is ambiguous. Now you may well be thinking at this point “OK, just stick a table alias into the ORDER BY predicate and everything will be fine!” Well that’s true, but there’s a bigger problem here. One of the developers at my current client installed this drop of SSDT and all of a sudden all the builds started failing on his machine – he had errors left right and centre because, as it transpires, we have a fair bit of code that exhibits this scenario.  Worse, previous installations of SSDT do not flag this code as erroneous and therein lies the rub. We immediately had a mass panic where we had to run around the department to our developers (of which there are many) ensuring that none of them should upgrade their SSDT installation if they wanted to carry on being productive for the rest of the day. Also bear in mind that as soon as a new drop of SSDT comes out then the previous version is instantly unavailable so rolling back is going to be impossible unless you have created an administrative install of SSDT for that previous version. Just thought you should know! In the grand schema of things this isn’t a big deal as the bug can be worked around with a simple code modification but forewarned is forearmed so they say! Last thing to say, if you want to know which version of SSDT you are running check my blog post Which version of SSDT Database Projects do I have installed? @Jamiet

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• I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I know how to program.

  - by wp123

  I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I see websites like Stack Overflow and search engines like Google and don't know where I'd even begin to write something like that. During one summer I did have the opportunity to work as a iPhone developer, but I felt like I was mostly gluing together libraries that other people had written with little understanding of the mechanics happening beneath the hood. I'm trying to improve my knowledge by studying algorithms, but it is a long and painful process. I find algorithms difficult and at the rate I am learning a decade will have passed before I will master the material in the book. Given my current situation, I've spent a month looking for work but my skills (C, Python, Objective-C) are relatively shallow and are not so desirable in the local market, where C#, Java, and web development are much higher in demand. That is not to say that C and Python opportunities do not exist but they tend to demand 3+ years of experience I do not have. My GPA is OK (3.0) but it's not high enough to apply to the large companies like IBM or return for graduate studies. Basically I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I've learned how to program. I thought that joining a company and programming full-time would give me a chance to develop my skills and learn from those more experienced than myself, but I'm struggling to find work and am starting to get really frustrated. I am going to cast my net wider and look beyond the city I've grown up in, but what have other people in similar situation tried to do? I've worked hard but don't have the confidence to go out on my own and write my own app. (That is, become an indie developer in the iPhone app market.) If nothing turns up I will need to consider upgrading and learning more popular skills or try something marginally related like IT, but given all the effort I've put in that feels like copping out. EDIT: Thank you for all the advice. I think I was premature because of unrealistic expectations but the comments have given me a dose of reality. I will persevere and continue to code. I have a project in mind, although well beyond my current capabilities it will challenge me to hone my craft and prove my worth to myself (and potential employers). Had I known there was a career overflow I would have posted there instead. Thanks again!

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• Website directory structure regarding subdomains, www, and "global" content

  - by Pawnguy7

  I am trying to make a homemade HTTP server. It occurs to me, though, I never fully understood what you might call "relativity" among web pages. I have come across that www. is a subdomain, and I understand its original purpose. IT sounds like, in general, you would redirect (is that 301 or 302?) it to a... non-subdomain, sort of. As in, redirecting www.example.com to example.com. I am not entirely sure how to make this work when retrieving files for an HTTP server though. I would assume that example.com would be the root, and www manifests as a folder within it. I am unsure. There is also the question of multi-level subdomains, e.g. subdomain2.subdomain1.example.com. It seems to me they are structured "backwards", where you go from the root left in folder structure. In this situation, subdomain2 is a directory within subdomain1, which is a directory in the root. Finally, it occurs to me I might want a sort of global location. For example, maybe all subdomains still use an image as a logo. It makes more sense to me that there is one image, rather than each having a copy. In the same way, albiet more doubtfully, you might have global CSS (though that is a bit contrary to the idea of a subdomain in the first place), or a javascript that is commonly used. (more efficient than each having its copy and better for organization purposes). Finally, mabye you have a global 404 page. I think this might be the case where you have user-created subdomains (say bloggername.example.com), where example.com still has a default 404 when either a subdomain does not exist or page does not exists under a valid blogger. I am confused on what the directory structure for this should be. To summarize: Should and how it have a global files not in a subdirectory, how should www. be handled, (or how a now www or other subdomain should be handled), and the pattern for root/subdomain, as well as subdomain within subdomains (order-wise). Sorry this is multiple questions, but I feel at the root they are all related to the directory.

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• Oracle Application in DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)

  - by PRajkumar

   Business Needs Large Organizations want to expose their Oracle Application services outside their private network (HTTP/HTTPS and SSL). Usually these exposures must exist to promote external communication. So they want to separate an external network from directly referencing an internal network   Business Challenges ·         Business does not want to compromise with security information ·         Business cannot expose internal domain or internal URL information   Business Solution DMZ is the solution of this problem. In Oracle application we can achieve this by following way –   ·         Oracle Application consists of fleet nodes (FND_NODES) so first decide which node have to expose to public ·         To expose the node to public use the profile “Node Trust Level” ·         Set node to Public/Private (Normal -> private, External -> public) ·         Set "Responsibility Trust Level" profile to decide whether to expose Application Responsibility to inside or outside firewall         Solution Features   ·         Exposed web services can be accessed by both internal and external users ·         Configurable and can be very easily rolled out ·         Internal network and business data is secured from outside traffic ·         Unauthorized access to internal network from outside is prohibited ·         No need for VPN and Secure FTP server   Benefits  ·       Large Organizations having Oracle Application can expose their web services like (HTTP/HTTPS and SSL) to the internet without compromise with security information and without exposing their internal domain   Possible Week Points  ·         If external firewall is compromised, then external application server is also compromised, exposing an attack on E-Business Suite database ·         There’s nothing to prevent internal users from attacking internal application server, also exposing an attack on E-Business Suite database   Reference Links  ·         https://blogs.oracle.com/manojmadhusoodanan/tags/dmz

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• Multi-Part Map Troubleshooting

  - by Michael Stephenson

  Scenario I came across a nice little one with multi-part maps the other day. I had an orchestration where I needed to combine 4 input messages into one output message like in the below table:   Input Messages Output Messages Company Details Member Details Event Message Member Search Member Import   I thought my orchestration was working fine but for some reason when I was trying to send my message it had no content under the root node like below <ns0:ImportMemberChange xmlns:ns0="http://---------------/"></ns0:ImportMemberChange>   My map is displayed in the below picture. I knew that the member search message may not have any elements under it but its root element would always exist. The rest of the messages were expected to be fully populated. I tried a number of different things and testing my map outside of the orchestration it always worked fine. The Eureka Moment The eureka moment came when I was looking at the xslt produced by the map. Even though I'd tried swapping the order of the messages in the input of the map you can see in the below picture that the first part of the processing of the message (with the red circle around it) is doing a for-each over the GetCompanyDetailsResult element within the GetCompanyDetailsResponse message. This is because the processing is driven by the output message format and the first element to output is the OrganisationID which comes from the GetCompanyDetailsResponse message. At this point I could focus my attention on this message as the xslt shows that if this xpath statement doesn’t return the an element from the GetCompanyDetailsResponse message then the whole body of the output message will not be produced and the output from the map would look like the message I was getting. <ns0:ImportMemberChange xmlns:ns0="http://---------------/"></ns0:ImportMemberChange> I was quickly able to prove this in my map test which proved this was a likely candidate for the problem. I revisited the orchestration focusing on the creation of the GetCompanyDetailsResponse message and there was actually a bug in the orchestration which resulted in the message being incorrectly created, once this was fixed everything worked as expected. Conclusion Originally I thought it was a problem with the map itself, and looking online there wasn’t really much in the way of content around troubleshooting for multi-part map problems so I thought I'd write this up. I guess technically it isn't a multi-part map problem, but I spend a good couple of hours the other day thinking it was.

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• ETPM Forms Accelerator

  - by MHundal

  The ETPM Forms Accelerator provides a template that can be used to enter data related to Registration and Tax Forms.  The Forms Accelerator includes a worksheet for each portion related to forms development (Form Type, Form Section, Form Lines and Form Rules).  The Forms Accelerator provides the details that must be defined in ETPM.  This allows for taking an existing form and translating the details of that form into the spreadsheet.  The spreadsheet can then be used to define the details in the system.  In addition, each of the items to be defined is explained it detail - what the field expects and based on the input, how it impacts the field and form definition.   This is a living document - as there is feedback provided, the document will be updated.  The goal of this accelerator is to be an aide in the Forms Development process.  We encourage feedback to help improve the document.  The document is for ETPM 2.3.1.  Implementations using older version of ETPM will find that some of the field definition options may not exist their current system.   The spreadsheet attached contains the following Worksheets: Instructions:  High-level overview for the different worksheets provided. Form Type:  The fields to be populated when defining the Form Type for a Registration or Tax Form Form Section:  The fields to be populated when creating a Form Section.  The number of sections will differ based on the the form being implemented. Form Lines:  The fields to be populated when creating different Form Lines. The number of lines per section will differ based on the form being implemented. Form Rules:  Based on the form, allows for documenting the Form Rules to be configured based on form instructions and Form Lines. Right click on the link and select the "Save Link As" option.  ETPM Forms Accelerator.xls Please provide feedback to [email protected]. You feedback is encouraged and appreciated.  

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• Does OO, TDD, and Refactoring to Smaller Functions affect Speed of Code?

  - by Dennis

  In Computer Science field, I have noticed a notable shift in thinking when it comes to programming. The advice as it stands now is write smaller, more testable code refactor existing code into smaller and smaller chunks of code until most of your methods/functions are just a few lines long write functions that only do one thing (which makes them smaller again) This is a change compared to the "old" or "bad" code practices where you have methods spanning 2500 lines, and big classes doing everything. My question is this: when it call comes down to machine code, to 1s and 0s, to assembly instructions, should I be at all concerned that my class-separated code with variety of small-to-tiny functions generates too much extra overhead? While I am not exactly familiar with how OO code and function calls are handled in ASM in the end, I do have some idea. I assume that each extra function call, object call, or include call (in some languages), generate an extra set of instructions, thereby increasing code's volume and adding various overhead, without adding actual "useful" code. I also imagine that good optimizations can be done to ASM before it is actually ran on the hardware, but that optimization can only do so much too. Hence, my question -- how much overhead (in space and speed) does well-separated code (split up across hundreds of files, classes, and methods) actually introduce compared to having "one big method that contains everything", due to this overhead? UPDATE for clarity: I am assuming that adding more and more functions and more and more objects and classes in a code will result in more and more parameter passing between smaller code pieces. It was said somewhere (quote TBD) that up to 70% of all code is made up of ASM's MOV instruction - loading CPU registers with proper variables, not the actual computation being done. In my case, you load up CPU's time with PUSH/POP instructions to provide linkage and parameter passing between various pieces of code. The smaller you make your pieces of code, the more overhead "linkage" is required. I am concerned that this linkage adds to software bloat and slow-down and I am wondering if I should be concerned about this, and how much, if any at all, because current and future generations of programmers who are building software for the next century, will have to live with and consume software built using these practices. UPDATE: Multiple files I am writing new code now that is slowly replacing old code. In particular I've noted that one of the old classes was a ~3000 line file (as mentioned earlier). Now it is becoming a set of 15-20 files located across various directories, including test files and not including PHP framework I am using to bind some things together. More files are coming as well. When it comes to disk I/O, loading multiple files is slower than loading one large file. Of course not all files are loaded, they are loaded as needed, and disk caching and memory caching options exist, and yet still I believe that loading multiple files takes more processing than loading a single file into memory. I am adding that to my concern.

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• is a factory pattern to prevent multuple instances for same object (instance that is Equal) good design?

  - by dsollen

  I have a number of objects storing state. There are essentially two types of fields. The ones that uniquly define what the object is (what node, what edge etc), and the oens that store state describing how these things are connected (this node is connected to these edges, this edge is part of these paths) etc. My model is updating the state variables using package methdos, so these objects all act as immutable to anyone not in Model scope. All Objects extend one base type. I've toyed with the idea of a Factory approch which accepts a Builder object and construct the applicable object. However, if an instance of the object already exists (ie would return true if I created the object defined by the builder and passed it to the equal method for the existing instance) the factory returns the current object instead of creating a new instance. Because the Equal method would only compare what uniquly defines the type of object (this is node A nto node B) but won't check the dynamic state stuff (node A is currently connected to nodes C and E) this would be a way of ensuring anyone that wants my Node A automatically knows it's state connections. More importantly it would prevent aliasing nightmares of someone trying to pass an instance of node A with different state then the node A in my model has. I've never heard of this pattern before, and it's a bit odd. I would have to do some overiding of serlization methods to make it work (ensure when I read in a serilized object I add it to my facotry list of known instances, and/or return an existing factory in it's place), as well as using a weakHashMap as if it was a weakHashSet to know rather an instance exists without worrying about a quasi-memory leak occuring. I don't know if this is too confusing or prone to it's own obscure bugs. One thing I know is that plugins interface with lowest level hardware. The plugins have to be able to return state taht is different then my memory; to tell my memory when it's own state is inconsistent. I believe this is possible despit their fetching objects that exist in my memory; we allow building of objects without checking their consistency with the model until the addToModel is called anyways; and the existing plugins design was written before all this extra state existed and worked fine without ever being aware of it. Should I just be using some other design to avoid this crazyness? (I have another question to that affect I'm posting).

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• The term "interface" in C++

  - by Flexo

  Java makes a clear distinction between class and interface. (I believe C# does also, but I have no experience with it). When writing C++ however there is no language enforced distinction between class and interface. Consequently I've always viewed interface as a workaround for the lack of multiple inheritance in Java. Making such a distinction feels arbitrary and meaningless in C++. I've always tended to go with the "write things in the most obvious way" approach, so if in C++ I've got what might be called an interface in Java, e.g.: class Foo { public: virtual void doStuff() = 0; ~Foo() = 0; }; and I then decided that most implementers of Foo wanted to share some common functionality I would probably write: class Foo { public: virtual void doStuff() = 0; ~Foo() {} protected: // If it needs this to do its thing: int internalHelperThing(int); // Or if it doesn't need the this pointer: static int someOtherHelper(int); }; Which then makes this not an interface in the Java sense anymore. Instead C++ has two important concepts, related to the same underlying inheritance problem: virtual inhertiance Classes with no member variables can occupy no extra space when used as a base "Base class subobjects may have zero size" Reference Of those I try to avoid #1 wherever possible - it's rare to encounter a scenario where that genuinely is the "cleanest" design. #2 is however a subtle, but important difference between my understanding of the term "interface" and the C++ language features. As a result of this I currently (almost) never refer to things as "interfaces" in C++ and talk in terms of base classes and their sizes. I would say that in the context of C++ "interface" is a misnomer. It has come to my attention though that not many people make such a distinction. Do I stand to lose anything by allowing (e.g. protected) non-virtual functions to exist within an "interface" in C++? (My feeling is the exactly the opposite - a more natural location for shared code) Is the term "interface" meaningful in C++ - does it imply only pure virtual or would it be fair to call C++ classes with no member variables an interface still?

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• IndexOutOfRangeException on World.Step after enabling/disabling a Farseer physics body?

  - by WilHall

  Earlier, I posted a question asking how to swap fixtures on the fly in a 2D side-scroller using Farseer Physics Engine. The ultimate goal being that the player's physical body changes when the player is in different states (I.e. standing, walking, jumping, etc). After reading this answer, I changed my approach to the following: Create a physical body for each state when the player is loaded Save those bodies and their corresponding states in parallel lists Swap those physical bodies out when the player state changes (which causes an exception, see below) The following is my function to change states and swap physical bodies: new protected void SetState(object nState) { //If mBody == null, the player is being loaded for the first time if (mBody == null) { mBody = mBodies[mStates.IndexOf(nState)]; mBody.Enabled = true; } else { //Get the body for the given state Body nBody = mBodies[mStates.IndexOf(nState)]; //Enable the new body nBody.Enabled = true; //Disable the current body mBody.Enabled = false; //Copy the current body's attributes to the new one nBody.SetTransform(mBody.Position, mBody.Rotation); nBody.LinearVelocity = mBody.LinearVelocity; nBody.AngularVelocity = mBody.AngularVelocity; mBody = nBody; } base.SetState(nState); } Using the above method causes an IndexOutOfRangeException when calling World.Step: mWorld.Step(Math.Min((float)nGameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds, (1f / 30f))); I found that the problem is related to changing the .Enabled setting on a body. I tried the above function without setting .Enabled, and there was no error thrown. Turning on the debug views, I saw that the bodies were updating positions/rotations/etc properly when the state was changes, but since they were all enabled, they were just colliding wildly with each other. Does Enabling/Disabling a body remove it from the world's body list, which then causes the error because the list is shorter than expected? Update: For such a straightforward issue, I feel this question has not received enough attention. Has anyone else experienced this? Would anyone try a quick test case? I know this issue can be sidestepped - I.e. by not disabling a body during the simulation - but it seems strange that this issue would exist in the first place, especially when I see no mention of it in the documentation for farseer or box2d. I can't find any cases of the issue online where things are more or less kosher, like in my case. Any leads on this would be helpful.

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• SharePoint 2010 HierarchicalConfig Caching Problem

  - by Damon

  We've started using the Application Foundations for SharePoint 2010 in some of our projects at work, and I came across a nasty issue with the hierarchical configuration settings.  I have some settings that I am storing at the Farm level, and as I was testing my code it seemed like the settings were not being saved - at least that is what it appeared was the case at first.  However, I happened to reset IIS and the settings suddenly appeared.  Immediately, I figured that it must be a caching issue and dug into the code base.  I found that there was a 10 second caching mechanism in the SPFarmPropertyBag and the SPWebAppPropertyBag classes.  So I ran another test where I waited 10 seconds to make sure that enough time had passed to force the caching mechanism to reset the data.  After 10 minutes the cache had still not cleared.  After digging a bit further, I found a double lock check that looked a bit off in the GetSettingsStore() method of the SPFarmPropertyBag class: if (_settingStore == null || (DateTime.Now.Subtract(lastLoad).TotalSeconds) > cacheInterval)) { //Need to exist so don't deadlock. rrLock.EnterWriteLock(); try { //make sure first another thread didn't already load... if (_settingStore == null) { _settingStore = WebAppSettingStore.Load(this.webApplication); lastLoad = DateTime.Now; } } finally { rrLock.ExitWriteLock(); } } What ends up happening here is the outer check determines if the _settingStore is null or the cache has expired, but the inner check is just checking if the _settingStore is null (which is never the case after the first time it's been loaded).  Ergo, the cached settings are never reset.  The fix is really easy, just add the cache checking back into the inner if statement. //make sure first another thread didn't already load... if (_settingStore == null || (DateTime.Now.Subtract(lastLoad).TotalSeconds) > cacheInterval) { _settingStore = WebAppSettingStore.Load(this.webApplication); lastLoad = DateTime.Now; } And then it starts working just fine. as long as you wait at least 10 seconds for the cache to clear.

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• The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance - Manage Phase

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Originally posted by John Brunswick. Most people would probably agree that creating content is the enjoyable part of the content life cycle. Management, on the other hand, is generally not. This is why we thankfully have an opportunity to leverage meta data, security and other settings that have been applied or inherited in the prior parts of our governance process. In the interests of keeping this process pragmatic, there is little day to day activity that needs to happen here. Most of the activity that happens post creation will occur in the final "Retire" phase in which content may be archived or removed. The Manage Phase will focus on updating content and the meta data associated with it - specifically around ownership. Often times the largest issues with content ownership occur when a content creator leaves and organization or changes roles within an organization.   1. Update Content Ownership (as needed and on a quarterly basis) Why - Without updating content to reflect ownership changes it will be impossible to continue to meaningfully govern the content. How - Run reports against the meta data (creator and department to which the creator belongs) on content items for a particular user that may have left the organization or changed job roles. If the content is without and owner connect with the department marked as responsible. The content's ownership should be reassigned or if the content is no longer needed by that department for some reason it can be archived and or deleted. With a minimal investment it is possible to create reports that use an LDAP or Active Directory system to contrast all noted content owners versus the users that exist in the directory. The delta will indicate which content will need new ownership assigned. Impact - This implicitly keeps your repository and search collection clean. A very large percent of content that ends up no longer being useful to an organization falls into this category. This management phase (automated if possible) should be completed every quarter or as needed. The impact of actually following through with this phase is substantial and will provide end users with a better experience when browsing and searching for content.

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