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• Are there good resources for leading documentation for an existing software product having none?

  - by Ben Rose

  Hello. I'm a software developer at a technology company. I have been tasked with leading the documentation effort for the product I work on, both internal to developers as well as spilling over into facilitating the business side of requirements documentation. This internal product has been around for at least 6 years. One challenge is that this software application has no form of documentation other than some small, outdated pieces here and there. There are comments in the code, but they are technical and do not convey any over-arching behavior (even on technical side). As a consequence of having little to no documentation, this product is often unnecessarily complex under the covers adding to the challenge. We are very limited on time that will be given to us to work on documentation. Another thing about me is that I've displayed some ability in writing/communication around the office, but I'm not coming from any sort of documentation or formal writing background (beyond my academic career). Please share your advise or recommend resources, book/website/forum/whatever, for helping me come up with a plan with milestones, best practices, task delegation, templates, buy-in, etc. I'm hoping for a resource targeting or giving special mention of introducing good documentation on existing projects where there previously was none. I would be very grateful for your responses. Ben

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• Disable comments / Spam protection

  - by SamIAm

  My client site is built in Silverstripe, there is a news page, and it allows people to leave comments. Unfortunately we've got loads of spam emails. I'm new to this, is there any way we can disable the comment field by default? How do I do it? Alternatively is there easy way for me to install a spam protection? Thanks heaps. Sam Update - Because this is someone else's code, I just realised that they have some sort of spam protection already, so we are trying to disable comments now. I have manage to set no comment as default by changing file BlogEntry.php static $defaults = array( "ProvideComments" => true, 'ShowInMenus' => false ); to static $defaults = array( "ProvideComments" => false, //changed 'ShowInMenus' => false ); Am I on the right track to disable comments by default? Also how can I stop on the news page showing xxx comments link? eg Test Posted by Admin on 21 June 2011 | 3 Comments Tags: P This is a test.... 3 comments | Read the full post Thanks. S:)

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• Iphone/Android app – chatroom development – what framework & hosting needs?

  - by MikaelW

  I have some experience regarding IPhone and Android development but I am now struggling to solve a new class of problem: apps that involve a client/server chatroom feature. That is, an app when people can exchange text over the internet, and without having the app to constantly “pull” content from the server. So that problem can’t be solved with a normal php/mysql website, there must be some kind of application running on a server that is able to send message from the server to the phone, rather than having the phone to check for new messages every 10 seconds… So I’m looking for ways to solve the different problems here: What framework should I use on the two sides (phone / server)? It should be some kind of library that doesn’t prevent me to write paid apps. It should also be possible to have the same server for the Iphone and android version of the app. What server / hosting solution do I need with what sort of features, I just have no experience regarding server application that can handle and initiate multiple connections and are hosted on hardware that is always online I tried to find resources online but couldn’t so far, either the libraries had the wrong kind of license/language or I just didn’t understand… Sometimes there were nice tutorial but for different needs such as peer2peer chat over local network… Same with the server and the hosting problem, not sure where to start really, I’m calling for help and I promise I will complete this page with notes about the experience I will get :-) Obviously the ideal would be to find a tutorial I missed that include client code, server code and a free scalable server… That being said, If I see something as good, it probably means that I have eaten the wrong kind of mushroom again… So, failing that, any pointer which might help me toward that quest, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Mikael

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• Good Laptop .NET Developer VM Setup

  - by Steve Brouillard

  I was torn between putting this question on this site or SuperUsers. I've tried to do a good bit of searching on this, and while I find plenty of info on why to go with a VM or not, there isn't much practical advise on HOW to best set things up. Here's what I currently HAVE: HP EliteBook 1540, quad-core, 8GB memory, 500GB 7200 RPM HD, eSATA port. Descent machine. Should work just fine. Windows 7 64-bit Host OS. This also acts as my day-to-day basic stuff (email, Word Docs, etc...) OS. VMWare Desktop Windows 7 64-bit Guest OS with all my .NET dev tools, frameworks, etc loaded on it. It's configured to use 2 cores and up to 6GB of memory. I figure that the dev env will need more than email, word, etc... So, this seemed like a good option to me, but I find with the VM running, things tend to slow down all around on both the host and guest OS. Memory and CPU utilization don't seem to be an issue, but I/O does. I tried running the VM on an external eSATA drive, figuring that the extra channel might pick up the slack. Things only got worse (could be my eSATA enclosure). So, for all of that I have basically two questions in one. Has anyone used this sort of setup and are there any gotchas either around the VMWare configuration or anything else I may have missed here that you can point me to? Is there another option that might work better? For example, I've considered trying a lighter weight Host OS and run both of my environments as VMs? I tried this with Server 2008 Hyper-V, but I lose too much laptop functionality going this route, so I never completed setup. I'm not averse to Linux as a host OS, though I'm no Linux expert. If I'm missing any critical info, feel free to ask. Thanks in advance for your help. Steve

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• Best algorithm for recursive adjacent tiles?

  - by OhMrBigshot

  In my game I have a set of tiles placed in a 2D array marked by their Xs and Zs ([1,1],[1,2], etc). Now, I want a sort of "Paint Bucket" mechanism: Selecting a tile will destroy all adjacent tiles until a condition stops it, let's say, if it hits an object with hasFlag. Here's what I have so far, I'm sure it's pretty bad, it also freezes everything sometimes: void destroyAdjacentTiles(int x, int z) { int GridSize = Cubes.GetLength(0); int minX = x == 0 ? x : x-1; int maxX = x == GridSize - 1 ? x : x+1; int minZ = z == 0 ? z : z-1; int maxZ = z == GridSize - 1 ? z : z+1; Debug.Log(string.Format("Cube: {0}, {1}; X {2}-{3}; Z {4}-{5}", x, z, minX, maxX, minZ, maxZ)); for (int curX = minX; curX <= maxX; curX++) { for (int curZ = minZ; curZ <= maxZ; curZ++) { if (Cubes[curX, curZ] != Cubes[x, z]) { Debug.Log(string.Format(" Checking: {0}, {1}", curX, curZ)); if (Cubes[curX,curZ] && Cubes[curX,curZ].GetComponent<CubeBehavior>().hasFlag) { Destroy(Cubes[curX,curZ]); destroyAdjacentTiles(curX, curZ); } } } } }

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• Best Persistence choice for J2EE-App with frequently changing Data Model

  - by Ben-G

  Whenever I develop a J2EE-Application, I at some point decide to switch from my dummy Persistence (Simply Using Lists and other Data Structures) to some Sort of Database Persistence. Mostly when I hope the Data Model is more or less complete. From this point on, changes to the data model become exhausting, but unluckily they occur rather often. I've used different Object-Relational-Mappers (iBatis, Hibernate) for my projects. They definitely reduce the pain coming with Data Model changes, but they anyway let me adjust code/configuration at 3 or 4 places for every single change. To me, that's cumbersome and error prone. I made a better experience with DB4O, which simply persists Java Objects as they are, but I believe it's performance does not scale for huge applications. Is there anyway to maintain performance while letting out all the ugly configuration work? I'm seeking a performant framework which really hides persistence from my code. Wish for thinking? Or am I missing out THE technology? Hope you can help.

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• How Can I Know Whether I Am a Good Programmer?

  - by Kristopher Johnson

  Like most people, I think of myself as being a bit above average in my field. I get paid well, I've gotten promotions, and I've never had a real problem getting good references or getting a job. But I've been around enough to notice that many of the worst programmers I've worked with thought they were some of the best. Bad programmers who are surrounded by other bad programmers seem to be the most self-deluded. I'm certainly not perfect. I do make mistakes. I do miss deadlines. But I think I make about the same number of bonehead moves that "other good programmers" do. The problem is that I define "other good programmers" to mean "people who are like me." So, I wonder, is there any way a programmer can make some sort of reasonable self-evaluation? How do we know whether we are good or bad at our jobs? Or, if terms like good and bad are too ill-defined, how can programmers honestly identify their own strengths and weaknesses, so that they can take advantage of the former and work to improve the latter?

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• .NET vs Windows 8: Rematch!

  - by simonc

  So, although you will be able to use your existing .NET skills to develop Metro apps, it turns out Microsoft are limiting Visual Studio 2011 Express to Metro-only. From the Express website: Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8 provides tools for Metro style app development. To create desktop apps, you need to use Visual Studio 11 Professional, or higher. Oh dear. To develop any sort of non-Metro application, you will need to pay for at least VS Professional. I suspect Microsoft (or at least, certain groups within Microsoft) have a very explicit strategy in mind. By making VS Express Metro-only, developers who don't want to pay for Professional will be forced to make their simple one-shot or open-source application in Metro. This increases the number of applications available for Windows 8 and Windows mobile devices, which in turn make those platforms more attractive for consumers. When you use the free VS 11 Express, instead of paying Microsoft, you provide them a service by making applications for Metro, which in turn makes Microsoft's mobile offering more attractive to consumers, increasing their market share. Of course, it remains to be seen if developers forced to jump onto the Metro bandwagon will simply jump ship to Android or iOS instead. At least, that's what I think is going on. With Microsoft, who really knows? Cross posted from Simple Talk.

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• .NET vs Windows 8: Rematch!

  - by Simon Cooper

  So, although you will be able to use your existing .NET skills to develop Metro apps, it turns out Microsoft are limiting Visual Studio 2011 Express to Metro-only. From the Express website: Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8 provides tools for Metro style app development. To create desktop apps, you need to use Visual Studio 11 Professional, or higher. Oh dear. To develop any sort of non-Metro application, you will need to pay for at least VS Professional. I suspect Microsoft (or at least, certain groups within Microsoft) have a very explicit strategy in mind. By making VS Express Metro-only, developers who don't want to pay for Professional will be forced to make their simple one-shot or open-source application in Metro. This increases the number of applications available for Windows 8 and Windows mobile devices, which in turn make those platforms more attractive for consumers. When you use the free VS 11 Express, instead of paying Microsoft, you provide them a service by making applications for Metro, which in turn makes Microsoft's mobile offering more attractive to consumers, increasing their market share. Of course, it remains to be seen if developers forced to jump onto the Metro bandwagon will simply jump ship to Android or iOS instead. At least, that's what I think is going on. With Microsoft, who really knows?

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• How to learn the math behind the code?

  - by Solomon Wise

  I am a 12 year old who has recently gotten into programming. (Although I know that the number of books you have read does not determine your programming competency or ability, just to paint a "map" of where I am in terms of the content I know...) I've finished the books: Python 3 For Absolute Beginners Pro Python Python Standard Library by Example Beautiful Code Agile Web Development With Rails and am about halfway into Programming Ruby. I have written many small programs (One that finds which files have been updated and deleted in a directory, one that compares multiple players' fantasy baseball value, and some text based games, and many more). Obviously, as I'm not some sort of child prodigy, I can't take a formal Computer Science course until high school. I really want to learn computer science to increase my knowledge about the code, and the how the code runs. I've really become interested in the math part after reading the source code for Python's random module. Is there a place where I can learn CS, or programming math online for free, at a level that would be at least partially understandable to a person my age?

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• What would cause SSD to become not detectable?

  - by Balthazar

  I recently purchased an Intel 520 120GB SSD and installed Ubuntu on it. Occasionally my system will freeze and I will have to ALT-PRINT SCREEN-REISUB to reboot. Sometimes it will reboot and work just fine. Other times it just hangs at a flashing prompt. If I boot from a Live USB I can run Boot-Repair and it will usually reboot fine the next go round. I have noticed today that when I am running the live USB and open Nautilus my SSD partitions will sporadically disappear and reappear. Even if they are mounted. I was thinking it was a poor connection, but I have tried a different SATA cable and a different SATA port. Is it possible I have a faulty SSD, or is there something different you have to do with SSDs to make sure they stay mounted (I was thinking like it has some sort of goofy power savings feature that needs to be disabled). I found the place in the bios where the SATA ports are listed. They are all set to AHCI(Chipset - SATA Mode = AHCI) The unmounting/remounting happens all the time. I think this is the relevant part of the syslog: http://pastebin.com/WxHdRAAq

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• Is defining every method/state per object in a series of UML diagrams representative of MDA in general?

  - by Max

  I am currently working on a project where we use a framework that combines code generation and ORM together with UML to develop software. Methods are added to UML classes and are generated into partial classes where "stuff happens". For example, an UML class "Content" could have the method DeleteFromFileSystem(void). Which could be implemented like this: public partial class Content { public void DeleteFromFileSystem() { File.Delete(...); } } All methods are designed like this. Everything happens in these gargantuan logic-bomb domain classes. Is this how MDA or DDD or similar usually is done? For now my impression of MDA/DDD (which this has been called by higherups) is that it severely stunts my productivity (everything must be done The Way) and that it hinders maintenance work since all logic are roped, entrenched, interspersed into the mentioned gargantuan bombs. Please refrain from interpreting this as a rant - I am merely curious if this is typical MDA or some sort of extreme MDA UPDATE Concerning the example above, in my opinion Content shouldn't handle deleting itself as such. What if we change from local storage to Amazon S3, in that case we would have to reimplement this functionality scattered over multiple places instead of one single interface which we can provide a second implementation for.

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• How do search engines handle hyphenated words?

  - by NinjaKC

  I am not sure my title fully explains what I mean. I thought this might be an interesting question. If I had a set of keywords, broken with a dash or 2, will search engines consider the dashed split keyword as maybe a full keyword? Say I have a site that sort of breaks words down, like the dictionary sites do. So a keyword for that page, might end up in the page, and / or the URL, as broken by dashes. Key-word = keyword Co-op-er-at-ive = cooperative Pho-to-gra-phy = Photography www.example.com/key-word/ www.example.com/co-op-er-at-ive/ www.example.com/pho-to-gra-phy/ I know search engines will consider a dash (at least Google) as a space, and understand it as multiple words. But in the English language, a dash can also break a word down (at least I think it can, can't it?), so will search engines also take this into consideration? I did a 'little' research, I Googled some words and placed random dashes, and it returned the words I searched for, but this could be considered a typo from the user on Google's search end, so really I am wondering if I can purposely put a dash in a keyword, and have the search engine spiders still catch that keyword as the real word without dashes? I've done a little Googling and looking here on Stackoverflow, but everything comes down to dashes for multiple words, not really the specific thing I'm trying to figure out. Hopefully that makes sense, I am not an expert in SEO, yet, but get the basics and have been playing, and this is just really a random question to satisfy my knowledge of playing :P

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• I'm a student learning C++ and I've recently found out about Ruby. Would learning (some of) Ruby help me with C++ or would it just confuse me?

  - by Von32

  As the title says, I'm a student that will be starting my second year of C++ very soon. I've discovered Ruby, however. While I've heard much buzz about the language before, I've disregarded it because I always thought it wasn't something that would be useful. However, I've found a number of FANTASTIC tutorials on ruby and am interested in learning it (probably because it seems so straightforward). Would playing around with ruby be a good or bad idea? I understand that there's not such thing as bad knowledge, but I'm afraid that Ruby will only confuse me when dealing with C++. How different from C++ is it? I've read it's based on C in some way. I've read some posts on here that Ruby and C++ can hold hands once in a while. How flexible is this relationship? Is it rarely that this would work? How useful is Ruby in the real world? I'm not specifically asking about jobs- I'm more interested in what sort of applications may come from this language. Any specific examples worth looking at?

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• Node.JS testing with Jasmine, databases, and pre-existing code

  - by Jim Rubenstein

  I've recently built the start of a core system which is likely going turn into a monster product. I'm building the system with node.js, and decided after I got a small base built, that It'd be a great idea to start using some sort of automated test suite to test the application. I decided to use jasmine, as it seems pretty solid and has a lot of features for stubbing spying and mocking methods and classes. The application has a lot of external data stores and api access (kestrel, mysql, mongodb, facebook, and more). My issue is, I've got a good amount of code written that I want to start testing - as it represents the underpinnings of the application. What are the best practices for testing methods/classes that access external APIs that I may or may not have control over? As an example, I have a data structure that fetches a bunch of data from a MySQL database. I want to test the method that retrieves the data; and I'm not sure how to go about it. I could test the fetch method which is supposed to return an array of objects, but to isolate the method from the database, I need to define my own fixture data. So what I end up doing is stubbing the mysql execution, and returning a static dataset. So, I end up writing a function that returns the dataset that makes my test pass. That doesn't seem to actually test the code, other than verifying a method is being called. I know this is kind of abstract and vague, it seems that the idea of testing is very much abstract though, so hopefully someone has some experience and can guide me in the right direction. Any advice, or reading I can do is more than welcomed. Thanks in advance.

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• Managing flash animations for a game

  - by LoveMeSomeCode

  Ok, I've been writing C# for a while, but I'm new to ActionScript, so this is a question about best practices. We're developing a simple match game, where the user selects tiles and tries to match various numbers - sort of like memory - and when the match is made we want a series of animations to take place, and when they're done, remove the tile and add a new one. So basically it's: User clicks the MC Animation 1 on the MC starts Animation 1 ends Remove the MC from the stage Add a new MC Start the animation on the new MC The problem I run into is that I don't want to make the same timeline motion tween on each and every tile, when the animation is all the same. It's just the picture in the tile that's different. The other method I've come up with is to just apply the tweens in code on the main stage. Then I attach an event handler for MOTION_FINISH, and in that handler I trigger the next animation and listen for that to finish etc. This works too, but not only do I have to do all the tweening in code, I have a seperate event handler for each stage of the animation. So is there a more structured way of chaining these animations together?

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• Distributed transactions and queues, ruby, erlang

  - by chrispanda

  I have a problem that involves several machines, message queues, and transactions. So for example a user clicks on a web page, the click sends a message to another machine which adds a payment to the user's account. There may be many thousands of clicks per second. All aspects of the transaction should be fault tolerant. I've never had to deal with anything like this before, but a bit of reading suggests this is a well known problem. So to my questions. Am I correct in assuming that secure way of doing this is with a two phase commit, but the protocol is blocking and so I won't get the required performance? It appears that DBs like redis and message queuing system like Rescue, RabbitMQ etc don't really help me a lot - even if I implement some sort of two phase commit, the data will be lost if redis crashes because it is essentially memory-only. All of this has led me to look at erlang - but before I wade in and start learning a new language, I would really like to understand better if this is worth the effort. Specifically, am I right in thinking that because of its parallel processing capabilities, erlang is a better choice for implementing a blocking protocol like two phase commit, or am I confused?

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• How can create the smallest possible mirror of the archive?

  - by Registered User

  I need to create an http url at my laptop to have a Ubuntu installation begin within my laptop on a Xen environment. This is how the final thing will look like. The host and client are both going to be my laptop, I Googled and came across apt-mirror and some other packages. I do not want to archive entire 15 GB Ubuntu repositories on my machine. It is not possible to use a CD,ISO,loop mounted disk (reason mentioned below). I have tried using netboot image on local machine which failed because if you are attempting to create a virtual machine on a hardware which does not support VT virt-manager installer necessarily needs a URL of this sort http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ Any other option to create guest OS is simply grayed out. The unfortunate part is my Ethernet connections do not work when I boot with Xen-4.0 and a pv-ops Dom0 kernel from Jeremy's tree. Which is where I have to do this work. So I have to create a URL structure which is similar to Ubuntu mirrors. So how can I do this in bare minimum so that at least the console boots and once the console comes I can do some work.

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• I've been hired on as a entry-level game developer at a company and have little/no experience in API programming, what should I expect?

  - by Mr. Geneth

  So, I've been hired on as an entry level game developer with little/no experience working with any API other than Win32. This will be an overall learning experience for me as a person and I have gone over this multiple times with the boss and he has no problem with my inexperience. He says that if I'm not worth it now, I will be later. This gives me confidence, but I still feel that I should know a lot more before tackling this position. I would be stupid to pass it up. This is one of my favorite places to come for advice and help and have tried to just accept this, but it just keeps bothering that I can't go in knowing how to at least do the basics. I want to give the company its money's worth. Ya know? My questions are: What should I expect from the other programmers in this project (In terms of patience with me and working together, and being taught)? Is this normal? Any other advice on this sort of thing would be wonderful. I just want to feel comfortable with it.

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• Virtualbox shared folder mount from fstab fails; works once bootup is complete

  - by Ben

  I've got Ubuntu 13.10 installed in Virtualbox 4.3. The host machine is Windows. I have a couple of Virtualbox shared folders being mounted by /etc/fstab. Until recently this setup worked just fine, but after upgrading from Ubuntu 13.04 and Virtualbox 4.2 (at essentially the same time) the fstab mounting stopped working. I get the following error during boot: An error occurred while mounting /home/benme/Documents. keys:Press S to skip mounting or M for manual recovery Pressing M for manual recovery and then trying to mount manually also fails: root@benme-vb:~# cd /home/benme root@benme-vb:/home/benme# mount Documents /sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such device But if I instead skip mounting during boot, wait for Unity to start and then mount manually in a shell, everything works fine: benme-vb ~ % ls Documents benme-vb ~ % sudo mount Documents [sudo] password for benme: benme-vb ~ % ls Documents # actual file list omitted Note that when I mount manually I'm letting mount take all the options from /etc/fstab, and it works. This suggests to me that it's some sort of timing issue, where Virtualbox isn't "ready" to provide the shared file mounts at the point /etc/fstab mounts are run during bootup. Here's the fstab line, just for completeness: Documents /home/benme/Documents vboxsf uid=benme,gid=benme,dmode=774,fmode=664 0 0 Is there something I can do about this from the Ubuntu side? Or does anyone happen to know more about this from the Virtualbox angle? I've found an old report on the Virtualbox bug-tracker with identical symptoms, but in that case the user had updated Virtualbox without updating their guest additions and resolving that fixed the problem; this isn't happening here, I've definitely got the 4.3 guest additions installed.

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• Would you refactor this and if so, would you charge your client?

  - by Julius

  I am working on a freelance job at home. The client wants me to write some new functionality for his CMS, but it is taking me a lot of time to figure out what the code is doing, because it is written in a very unreadable style. Below is just an example of what I mean. The previous programmer made extensive use of anonymous functions, of eval(), he uses deeply nested ternary operators, he didn't indent code, didn't use comments, and he uses funny constructions like misusing the behaviour of logical operators || and && for creating if/else conditions (the second condition of && only gets tested if the first one is true, opening the possibility to use && as an if/else construction). All in all it's insane code and it's costing me a lot of time to find out how the current code works. return ($this->main->context != "ajax" || in_array($this->type, $this->definition->ajax)) ? eval('return method_exists($this,"Show'.ucfirst($this->type).'") ? $this->Show'.ucfirst($this->type).'('.(count($args) ? join(",",array_map(create_function('$a','return (is_numeric($a) || preg_match("/^array/",$a)) ? $a : "\"".$a."\"";'),$args)) : "").') : null;') : ''; Would you refactor this code and how would you handle this sort of thing with your client, I mean financially?

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• .NET Reflector Pro T-shirt contest - and the winner is...

  - by Laila

  Three weeks ago, I kicked off a T-shirt design contest. We've been eagerly poring over the results and today, it's finally announcement time! Although many of you raced to design some great t-shirts for us, we ended up with a clear winner who came up with a nice design and an original slogan that accurately represents what .NET Reflector Pro lets you do: decompile and debug C# and VB.NET code. So, the winner is... Mandeep Sangha! Mandeep sent us the following awesome design via the Twitter account, mss_10: We liked the combination of detective and superhero elements through the magnifying glass and the slogan. Batman (possibly the most eminent of detective-superheroes?) would be proud to wear this under his suit. Mandeep will become the happy owner of a free copy of .NET Reflector Pro and an exciting box of Red Gate goodies... as well as a copy of their very own t-shirt once it's been brought to life by our printing shop! The t-shirts will bear the name of their designer, and will be made available at .NET developer events around the world, such as conferences, tradeshows and user group events. Congratulations, Mandeep! We'll be in touch to sort out the details of your prizes. But that wasn't the only great design we received. We chose three runners-up as well: Sam Beauvois: http://twitpic.com/1vvsi9 Sherwin Rice: http://www.greenwaytechno.com/img/tee-1.png Mathieu Grétry: http://blog.section9.be/public/tshirt_reflector_01.png Thanks to you all for taking part in the contest. You'll all receive a free license for .NET Reflector Pro! We'll get in touch with you individually through twitter, so that we can get you your prizes. Keep an eye out for this T-shirt - it'll soon be making its way to an event near you!

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• Turn-based tile game dynamic item/skill/command script files

  - by user1542

  I want to create a mechanism that could read text script, for example some kind of custom script such as ".skill" or ".item", which maybe contain some sort of simple script like .item Item.Name = "Strength Gauntlet"; Character.STR += 20; .. .skill Skill.Name = "Poison Attack"; Skill.Description = "Steal HP and inflict poison"; Player.HP += 200; Enemy.HP -= 200; Enemy.Status += Status.POISON; It may be different from this, but just want to give some idea of what I desire. However, I do not know how to dynamically parse these things and translate it into working script. For example, in battle scenerio, I should make my game read one of this ".skill" file and apply it to the current enemy, or the current player. How would I do this? Should I go for String parsing? It is like a script engine, but I prefer C# than creating new language, so how would I parse custom files into appropiate status commands? Another problem is, I have also created a command engine which would read String input and parse it into action such as "MOVE (1,2)" would move character to tile (1,2). Each command belong to separate class, and provide generic parsing method that should be implemented by hand. This is for the reason of custom number/type of arguments per each command. However, I think this is not well designed, because I desire it to automatically parse the parameters according to specify list of types. For example, MOVE command in "MOVE 1 2" would automatically parse the parameters into int, int and put it into X and Y. Now, this form can change, and we should be able to manually specify all type of formats. Any suggestion to this problem? Should I change from string parsing to some hardcode methods/classes?

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• Should Professional Development occur on company time?

  - by jshu

  As a first-time part-time software developer at a small consulting company, I'm struggling to organise time to further my own software development knowledge - whether that's reading a book, keeping up with the popular questions on StackOverflow, researching a technology we're using in-depth, or following the front page of Hacker News. I can see results borne from my self-allocated study time, but listing and demonstrating the skills and knowledge gained through Professional Development is difficult. The company does not have any defined PD policy, and there's a lot of pressure to get something deliverable done now! when working for consultants. I've checked what my coworkers do, and they don't appear to allocate any time to self-improvement; they just work at the problems they're given, looking up specific MSDN references, code samples, and the like as they need them. I realise that PD policy is going to vary across companies of different size and culture, and a company like my own is probably a bit of an edge case. I'd love to hear views and experiences from more seasoned developers; especially those who have to make the PD policy choices in their team or company. I'd also like to learn about the more radical approaches to PD, even if they're completely out there; it's always interesting to see what other people are trying. Not quite a summary, but what I'm trying to ask: Is it common or recommended for companies to allocate PD time? Whose responsibility is it to ensure a developer's knowledge and skills are up to date? Should a part-time work schedule inspire a lower ratio of PD time : work? How can a developer show non-developer coworkers that reading blogs and books is net productive? Is reading blogs and books actually net productive? (references welcomed) Is writing blogs effective as a way of PD? (a recent theme on Hacker News) This is sort of a broad question because I don't know exactly which questions I need to ask here, so any thoughts on relevant issues I haven't addressed are very welcome.

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• How to properly diagram lambda expressions or traversals through them in Architecture Explorer?

  - by MainMa

  I'm exploring a piece of code in Architecture Explorer in Visual Studio 2010 to study the relations between methods. I noticed a strange behavior. Take the following source code. It generates a hello message based on a template and a template engine, the template engine being a method (a sort of strategy pattern simplified at a maximum for demo purposes). public string GenerateHelloMessage(string personName) { return this.ApplyTemplate( this.DefaultTemplateEngine, this.GenerateLocalizedHelloTemplate(), personName); } private string GenerateLocalizedHelloTemplate() { return "Hello {0}!"; } public string ApplyTemplate( Func<string, string, string> templateEngine, string template, string personName) { return templateEngine(template, personName); } public string DefaultTemplateEngine(string template, string personName) { return string.Format(template, personName); } The graph generated from this code is this one: Change the first method from this: public string GenerateHelloMessage(string personName) { return this.ApplyTemplate( this.DefaultTemplateEngine, this.GenerateLocalizedHelloTemplate(), personName); } to this: public string GenerateHelloMessage(string personName) { return this.ApplyTemplate( (a, b) => this.DefaultTemplateEngine(a, b), this.GenerateLocalizedHelloTemplate(), personName); } and the graph becomes: While semantically identical, those two versions of code produce different dependency graphs, and Architecture Explorer shows no trace of the lambda expression (while Visual Studio's code coverage, for example, shows them, as well as Code analysis seems to be able to understand that the link exists). How would it be possible, without changing the source code, to: Either force Architecture Explorer to display everything, including lambda expressions, Or make it traverse lambda expressions while drawing a dependency through them (so in this case, drawing the dependency from GenerateHelloMessage to DefaultTemplateEngine in the second example)?

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