Search Results

Search found 11226 results on 450 pages for 'reverse thinking'.

Page 326/450 | < Previous Page | 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333  | Next Page >

• What is the start point in game development? Where to start?

  - by Dragon

  I understand, I'm not unique with such a question, there are a lot of questions like this one. But I hope you'll take a minute and maybe can give me a piece of advice. I have an idea to develop games, but I don't know where is the start point in game development. The learning curve isn't as straight as in learning of a programming language, but I want to give it a try. I have some experience with OOP and programming in general. I know (not too deep) C#, Java programming languages. I searched info on where to start, read a lot of blogs, forums and so on. Once I decided "stop wandering around, just start develop a game" and I started. At the moment I have a console version of very simple game (RPS - rock-paper-scissors) developed with C#. It has different modes: "player vs cpu" and "player vs player". Some time later I looked at the code and decided that it should be refactored or even redeveloped from the scratch. And I thought that time "GUI is what I need. I can add logic later." And now I'm here. I've already decided to make RPS with GUI, then make multiplayer and so on. I'm not thinking about 3D now, 2D is enough. It doesn't matter what language to use: C# or Java, I found frameworks for both - XNA (C#) and Slick (Java). Both are good for 2D game development. But I know nothing about sprites, how to bind objects on the screen and so on. You can say "you don't need it for such simple game like RPS", but RPS is the beginning, I have some ideas like "Tower Defense" game... you know, everybody has ideas, wishes.... and this knowledge is useful and in some way obligatory. So what is the start point to achieve my plans, ideas, wishes? Where to start? Is it possible to make game development learning curve a little bit straight? Or there're ways that amateur and game development beginners use for years? Thank you for you answers and advise in advance. P.S Sorry for that this post turned out an essay, but I tried to express my wish to start acting. Hope I managed to do it.

  Read the article

• Programming and Ubiquitous Language (DDD) in a non-English domain

  - by Sandor Drieënhuizen

  I know there are some questions already here that are closely related to this subject but none of them take Ubiquitous Language as the starting point so I think that justifies this question. For those who don't know: Ubiquitous Language is the concept of defining a (both spoken and written) language that is equally used across developers and domain experts to avoid inconsistencies and miscommunication due to translation problems and misunderstanding. You will see the same terminology show up in code, conversations between any team member, functional specs and whatnot. So, what I was wondering about is how to deal with Ubiquitous Language in non-English domains. Personally, I strongly favor writing programming code in English completely, including comments but ofcourse excluding constants and resources. However, in a non-English domain, I'm forced to make a decision either to: Write code reflecting the Ubiquitous Language in the natural language of the domain. Translate the Ubiquitous Language to English and stop communicating in the natural language of the domain. Define a table that defines how the Ubiquitous Language translates to English. Here are some of my thoughts based on these options: 1) I have a strong aversion against mixed-language code, that is coding using type/member/variable names etc. that are non-English. Most programming languages 'breathe' English to a large extent and most of the technical literature, design pattern names etc. are in English as well. Therefore, in most cases there's just no way of writing code entirely in a non-English language so you end up with mixed languages anyway. 2) This will force the domain experts to start thinking and talking in the English equivalent of the UL, something that will probably not come naturally to them and therefore hinders communication significantly. 3) In this case, the developers communicate with the domain experts in their native language while the developers communicate with each other in English and most importantly, they write code using the English translation of the UL. I'm sure I don't want to go for the first option and I think option 3 is much better than option 2. What do you think? Am I missing other options? UPDATE Today, about year later, having dealt with this issue on a daily basis, I have to say that option 3 has worked out pretty well for me. It wasn't as tedious as I initially feared and translating in real time while talking to the client wasn't a problem either. I also found the following advantages to be true, based on my experience. Translating the UL makes you pay more attention to defining the UL and even the domain itself, especially when you don't know how to translate a term and you have to start looking through dictionaries etc. This has even caused me to reconsider domain modeling decisions a few times. It helps you make your knowledge of the English language more profound. Obviously, your code is much more pleasant to look at instead of being a mind boggling obscenity.

  Read the article

• 2D OBB collision detection, resolving collisions?

  - by Milo

  I currently use OBBs and I have a vehicle that is a rigid body and some buildings. Here is my update() private void update() { camera.setPosition((vehicle.getPosition().x * camera.getScale()) - ((getWidth() ) / 2.0f), (vehicle.getPosition().y * camera.getScale()) - ((getHeight() ) / 2.0f)); //camera.move(input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueX() * 15.0f, input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueY() * 15.0f); if(input.isPressed(ControlButton.BUTTON_GAS)) { vehicle.setThrottle(1.0f, false); } if(input.isPressed(ControlButton.BUTTON_BRAKE)) { vehicle.setBrakes(1.0f); } vehicle.setSteering(input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueX()); vehicle.update(16.6666f / 1000.0f); ArrayList<Building> buildings = city.getBuildings(); for(Building b : buildings) { if(vehicle.getRect().overlaps(b.getRect())) { vehicle.update(-17.0f / 1000.0f); break; } } } The collision detection works well. What doesn't is how they are dealt with. My goal is simple. If the vehicle hits a building, it should stop, and never go into the building. When I apply negative torque to reverse the car should not feel buggy and move away from the building. I don't want this to look buggy. This is my rigid body class: class RigidBody extends Entity { //linear private Vector2D velocity = new Vector2D(); private Vector2D forces = new Vector2D(); private float mass; //angular private float angularVelocity; private float torque; private float inertia; //graphical private Vector2D halfSize = new Vector2D(); private Bitmap image; public RigidBody() { //set these defaults so we don't get divide by zeros mass = 1.0f; inertia = 1.0f; } //intialize out parameters public void initialize(Vector2D halfSize, float mass, Bitmap bitmap) { //store physical parameters this.halfSize = halfSize; this.mass = mass; image = bitmap; inertia = (1.0f / 20.0f) * (halfSize.x * halfSize.x) * (halfSize.y * halfSize.y) * mass; RectF rect = new RectF(); float scalar = 10.0f; rect.left = (int)-halfSize.x * scalar; rect.top = (int)-halfSize.y * scalar; rect.right = rect.left + (int)(halfSize.x * 2.0f * scalar); rect.bottom = rect.top + (int)(halfSize.y * 2.0f * scalar); setRect(rect); } public void setLocation(Vector2D position, float angle) { getRect().set(position, getWidth(), getHeight(), angle); } public Vector2D getPosition() { return getRect().getCenter(); } @Override public void update(float timeStep) { //integrate physics //linear Vector2D acceleration = Vector2D.scalarDivide(forces, mass); velocity = Vector2D.add(velocity, Vector2D.scalarMultiply(acceleration, timeStep)); Vector2D c = getRect().getCenter(); c = Vector2D.add(getRect().getCenter(), Vector2D.scalarMultiply(velocity , timeStep)); setCenter(c.x, c.y); forces = new Vector2D(0,0); //clear forces //angular float angAcc = torque / inertia; angularVelocity += angAcc * timeStep; setAngle(getAngle() + angularVelocity * timeStep); torque = 0; //clear torque } //take a relative Vector2D and make it a world Vector2D public Vector2D relativeToWorld(Vector2D relative) { Matrix mat = new Matrix(); float[] Vector2Ds = new float[2]; Vector2Ds[0] = relative.x; Vector2Ds[1] = relative.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vector2Ds); return new Vector2D(Vector2Ds[0], Vector2Ds[1]); } //take a world Vector2D and make it a relative Vector2D public Vector2D worldToRelative(Vector2D world) { Matrix mat = new Matrix(); float[] Vectors = new float[2]; Vectors[0] = world.x; Vectors[1] = world.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(-getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vectors); return new Vector2D(Vectors[0], Vectors[1]); } //velocity of a point on body public Vector2D pointVelocity(Vector2D worldOffset) { Vector2D tangent = new Vector2D(-worldOffset.y, worldOffset.x); return Vector2D.add( Vector2D.scalarMultiply(tangent, angularVelocity) , velocity); } public void applyForce(Vector2D worldForce, Vector2D worldOffset) { //add linear force forces = Vector2D.add(forces ,worldForce); //add associated torque torque += Vector2D.cross(worldOffset, worldForce); } @Override public void draw( GraphicsContext c) { c.drawRotatedScaledBitmap(image, getPosition().x, getPosition().y, getWidth(), getHeight(), getAngle()); } } Essentially, when any rigid body hits a building it should exhibit the same behavior. How is collision solving usually done? Thanks

  Read the article

• Interviews: Going Beyond the Technical Quiz

  - by Tony Davis

  All developers will be familiar with the basic format of a technical interview. After a bout of CV-trawling to gauge basic experience, strengths and weaknesses, the interview turns technical. The whiteboard takes center stage and the challenge is set to design a function or query, or solve what on the face of it might seem a disarmingly simple programming puzzle. Most developers will have experienced those few panic-stricken moments, when one’s mind goes as blank as the whiteboard, before un-popping the marker pen, and hopefully one’s mental functions, to work through the problem. It is a way to probe the candidate’s knowledge of basic programming structures and techniques and to challenge their critical thinking. However, these challenges or puzzles, often devised by some of the smartest brains in the development team, have a tendency to become unnecessarily ‘tricksy’. They often seem somewhat academic in nature. While the candidate straight out of IT school might breeze through the construction of a Markov chain, a candidate with bags of practical experience but less in the way of formal training could become nonplussed. Also, a whiteboard and a marker pen make up only a very small part of the toolkit that a programmer will use in everyday work. I remember vividly my first job interview, for a position as technical editor. It went well, but after the usual CV grilling and technical questions, I was only halfway there. Later, they sat me alongside a team of editors, in front of a computer loaded with MS Word and copy of SQL Server Query Analyzer, and my task was to edit a real chapter for a real SQL Server book that they planned to publish, including validating and testing all the code. It was a tough challenge but I came away with a sound knowledge of the sort of work I’d do, and its context. It makes perfect sense, yet my impression is that many organizations don’t do this. Indeed, it is only relatively recently that Red Gate started to move over to this model for developer interviews. Now, instead of, or perhaps in addition to, the whiteboard challenges, the candidate can expect to sit with their prospective team, in front of Visual Studio, loaded with all the useful tools in the developer’s kit (ReSharper and so on) and asked to, for example, analyze and improve a real piece of software. The same principles should apply when interviewing for a database positon. In addition to the usual questions challenging the candidate’s knowledge of such things as b-trees, object permissions, database recovery models, and so on, sit the candidate down with the other database developers or DBAs. Arm them with a copy of Management Studio, and a few other tools, then challenge them to discover the flaws in a stored procedure, and improve its performance. Or present them with a corrupt database and ask them to get the database back online, and discover the cause of the corruption.

  Read the article

• Coding different states in Adventure Games

  - by Cardin

  I'm planning out an adventure game, and can't figure out what's the right way to implement the behaviour of a level depending on state of story progression. My single-player game features a huge world where the player has to interact with people in a town at various points in the game. However, depending on story progression, different things would be presented to the player, for e.g. the Guild Leader will change locations from the town square to various locations around the city; Doors would only unlock at certain times of the day after finishing a particular routine; Different cut-screen/trigger events happen only after a particular milestone has been reached. I naively thought of using a switch{} statement initially to decide what the NPC should say or which he could be found at, and making quest objectives interact-able only after checking a global game_state variable's condition. But I realised I would quickly run into a lot of different game states and switch-cases in order to change the behaviour of an object. That switch statement would also be massively hard to debug, and I guess it might also be hard to use in a level editor. So I thought, instead of having a single object with multiple states, maybe I should have multiple instances of the same object, with a single state. That way, if I use something like a level editor, I can put an instance of the NPC at all the different locations he could ever appear at, and also an instance for each conversation state he has. But that means there'll be a lot of inactive, invisible game objects floating around the level, which might be trouble for memory, or simply hard to see in a level editor, i don't know. Or simply, make an identical, but separate level for each game state. This feels the cleanest and bug-free way to do things, but it feels like massive manual work making sure each version of the level is really identical to each other. All my methods feel so inefficient, so to recap my question, is there a better or standardised way to implement behaviour of a level depending on state of story progression? PS: I don't have a level editor yet - thinking of using something like JME SDK or making my own.

  Read the article

• Culture Shmulture?

  - by steve.diamond

  I've been thinking about "Customer Experience Management" lately. Here at Oracle, we arguably have the most complete suite of applications for managing the customer experience across and in the context of multiple channels -- from marketing to loyalty to contact center to self-service to analytics offerings, and more. And stay tuned, because in coming months let's just say we'll have even more to talk about on this front. But that said............ Last weekend my wife and I stayed at one of the premiere hotel chains on the planet. I won't name them, but we all know the short list. It could have been the St. Regis or the Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons or Hyatt Park or....This stay, at this particular hotel, was simply outstanding. Within a chain known for providing "above and beyond" levels of service, this particular hotel, under this particular manager, exceeded expectations on so many fronts. For example, at the Spa we mentioned to the two attendants that my wife is seven months pregnant and that we had previously had a lot of trouble conceiving. We then went to our room. Ten minutes later we heard a knock at the door and received a plate of chocolate covered strawberries with a heartfelt note and an inspiring quote, signed by the two spa attendees. The following day we arranged to have a bellhop drive us to the beach. Although they had a pre-arranged beach shuttle service with time limits, etc., he greeted us by saying, "I'm yours for the day until 4 p.m. Whatever you want to do is fine by me, as long as it's legal!" The morning that we left we arranged to have a taxi drive us to the airport--a nearly 40 mile drive. What showed up was a private coach complete with navy blue suited driver dude. And we were charged the taxi fare price. And there were many other awesome exchanges I won't mention here, although I did email the GM of this hotel two nights ago and expressed our effusive praise and gratitude. I'd submit that this hotel chain would have a definitive advantage using even more Oracle software to manage and optimize its customer interactions (yes, they are a customer). But WITHOUT the culture--that management team--and that instillation of aligned values across all employees of exemplifying 'the golden rule,' I wonder how much technology really matters in providing a distinctively positive and memorable customer experience. Lest you think I'm alone in these pontifications, have you read Paul Greenberg's blog lately? Have you seen one of his most recent posts? Now this SPECIFIC post is NOT about customer service per se. But it is about people. So yes, please think long and hard about the technology you seek to deploy. But never forget who will be interacting with your systems, and your customers.

  Read the article

• Qt's future in the light of Nokia-Microsoft partnership

  - by Shinnok

  In case you missed it, a lot has happened in the last two day that could potentially impact the Qt framework, for the worse. :-( It will impact the mobile sector in several and probably not currently acknowledged ways, for sure. It started yesterday with Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop internal letter depicting Nokia sitting on a burning platform and the need for a big and aggressive shift in business. A day later, at the Nokia World conference, Nokia announced the partnership with Microsoft , which at the moment resumes to Nokia adopting the Windows Phone 7 platform and development environment, dumping Symbian along the road and tagging Meego as R&D(a pretty dangerous keyword if you ask me), as for Maemo/N900 series i guess it's bye bye for good. I know what you're thinking but no, Qt is not going to be ported to the Window Phone platform. And i'm also scared about this. You can watch the Elop & Ballmer joint press release here. Now after reading this huge thread on the Qt-interest mailing list i can't help but wonder, what is the future of Qt at Nokia, now that they aren't focused(at all?) on Qt anymore(remember the full focus switch on Qt as main development framework for all Nokia products(including Symbian, yes) back in October?). I love Qt, in my opinion it is the only true cross-platform application development framework and one of the few to make C++ development a joy(to the extent possible) and good things has happened to the framework and considerable momentum while under Nokia, thus i am wondering, what are the chances that Qt might suffer a slow death at Nokia after this? Yes i know about KDE.org and the fact that Qt is easily spawnable, but i still feel uneasy. It also must be horrible for all of the efforts either by Nokia employees or third parties that have gone into Symbian and all of the Ovi Store Symbian/Qt content and business and why not, Maemo/Meego. There are also massive layouts planned, i suspect Symbian techs and Qt? I'd love to hear your input on this? Is Qt future safe&proof? LE: The question as been gradually revised, improved and better referenced, thus you might want to throw a quick re-read to see what you might have missed.

  Read the article

• Allocating Entities within an Entity System

  - by miguel.martin

  I'm quite unsure how I should allocate/resemble my entities within my entity system. I have various options, but most of them seem to have cons associated with them. In all cases entities are resembled by an ID (integer), and possibly has a wrapper class associated with it. This wrapper class has methods to add/remove components to/from the entity. Before I mention the options, here is the basic structure of my entity system: Entity An object that describes an object within the game Component Used to store data for the entity System Contains entities with specific components Used to update entities with specific components World Contains entities and systems for the entity system Can create/destroy entites and have systems added/removed from/to it Here are my options, that I have thought of: Option 1: Do not store the Entity wrapper classes, and just store the next ID/deleted IDs. In other words, entities will be returned by value, like so: Entity entity = world.createEntity(); This is much like entityx, except I see some flaws in this design. Cons There can be duplicate entity wrapper classes (as the copy-ctor has to be implemented, and systems need to contain entities) If an Entity is destroyed, the duplicate entity wrapper classes will not have an updated value Option 2: Store the entity wrapper classes within an object pool. i.e. Entities will be return by pointer/reference, like so: Entity& e = world.createEntity(); Cons If there is duplicate entities, then when an entity is destroyed, the same entity object may be re-used to allocate another entity. Option 3: Use raw IDs, and forget about the wrapper entity classes. The downfall to this, I think, is the syntax that will be required for it. I'm thinking about doing thisas it seems the most simple & easy to implement it. I'm quite unsure about it, because of the syntax. i.e. To add a component with this design, it would look like: Entity e = world.createEntity(); world.addComponent<Position>(e, 0, 3); As apposed to this: Entity e = world.createEntity(); e.addComponent<Position>(0, 3); Cons Syntax Duplicate IDs

  Read the article

• First Ever MySQL on Windows Online Forum - March 16, 2011

  - by monica.kumar

  72 1024x768 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:10.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif";} Now you might be thinking…what’s an Online Forum? Well, think of it as a virtual conference, where you can attend a series of presentations about a given topic, from the comfort of your own office/home. On Wednesday March 16th, from 9.00 am PT to 12.00, we will be running the first ever MySQL Online Forum, dedicated to MySQL on Windows. Register now to learn how you can reduce your database TCO on Windows by up to 90% while increasing manageability & flexibility!   Oracle’s MySQL Vice President of Engineering Tomas Ulin will kick off a comprehensive agenda of presentations enabling you to better understand:   How you can save up to 90% by using MySQL on WindowsWhy the world’s most popular open source database is extremely popular on Windows, both for enterprise users and for embedding by ISVs How MySQL is a great fit for the Windows environment, and what are the upcoming milestones to make MySQL even better on the Microsoft platform What are the visual tools at your disposal to effectively develop, deploy and manage MySQL applications on Windows How you can deliver highly available business critical Windows based MySQL applications Why Security Solutions Provider SonicWall selected MySQL over Microsoft SQL Server, and how they successfully deliver MySQL based solutions Plus, as we’ll have Live Chat On during the entire forum, you’ll be able to ask questions at any time to MySQL experts online. Register Now!   Whether you’re an ISV or an enterprise user, either already running MySQL on Windows or simply considering it, join us and learn how you can get performance, lower TCO and increased manageability & flexibility with MySQL on Windows!

  Read the article

• Advice for moving from custom domain hosted on blogspot to new custom domain on hosting provider [closed]

  - by Chan

  Need some advice :) a) Facts: 1. Currently, we have a blog www.thebigbigsky.net hosted on blogspot.com. The site has been up for around a year and google had cached some of the posts. 2. The idea for setting up the blog was to promote/share articles/write-up about personal development and self-growth, and also to offer counseling services related to them. 3. There is another subdomain - chinese.thebigbigsky.net hosting similar blog posts but in Chinese. This is hosted on blogspot as well. b) What we want to do: 1. We did some research on the internet and understood that, to make a website more popular, it is better to have a domain name that is related to the content of the site. Hence, in our case, a domain name containing "personal development" would be more ideal and easier for people to remember. 2. Hence, we are thinking to move away from blogspot to a meaningful new domain (example: personaldevelopmentwithxyz.com) and move all contents there. The new domain will be hosted on a hosting provider e.g. hostgator.com c) Here are the steps we have in mind: 1. Register the new domain (example: personaldevelopmentwithxyz.com) 2. Get a hosting provider hostgator.com 3. Setup a new site based on Wordpress, import all contents from existing blog to this new site - personaldevelopmentwithxyz.com. 4. Switch current blog back to thebigbigsky.blogspot.com 5. Switch DNS of www.thebigbigsky.net to point to the new site on hostgator.com 6. On hostgator.com, setup permanent redirect 301 of www.thebigbigsky.net to point to personaldevelopmetnwithxyz.com by following the tutorial mentioned here - http://www.blogbloke.com/migrating-redirecting-blogger-wordpress-htaccess-apache-best-method/ Questions: 1. Will it have major impact on the current google pagerank or SEO of thebigbigsky.net? As the site is not that popular, we assumed that the impact would not be a major one. 2. Is the domain personaldevelopmentwithxyz.com considered too long? (For SEO etc) 3. Steps c.4 and c.5 above - Will this work for our case? 4. How about the subdomain - chinese.thebigbigsky.net? We would like keep it as separate blog with the domain e.g. chinese.personaldevelopmentwithxyz.com 5. We added "facebook comments" to the existing post on www.thebigtbigsky.net and would not want to lose it. Will the comments still be there after we moved to the new domain? 6. Any better idea to do it? :) Thank you very much! regards, -chan

  Read the article

• Should I be put off a junior role that uses an online development test?

  - by Ninefingers

  I've applied for a junior development role, or rather been found by a recruiter looking for a developer. In order to get to a telephone interview stage I've been asked to sit one of those online coding assessments. This wasn't quite what I expected. I consider myself a fairly good developer for my age and experience, but I've no illusions about being Don Knuth or anything. The test was a series of incredibly obtuse questions asking about the results of various obscure evaluations. About 30 minutes in I was thinking to myself I hadn't intended to enter an obfuscated code contest/code golf exercise. After my last telephone interview I was asked to build something. I did. That seemed fair. Go away and work this out is more my in office experience of programming than "please evaluate this combination of lambdas, filters, maps, lists, tuples etc". So I'm a little put off, to be honest. I never claimed to know the language inside out or all the little corner cases. My questions, then: Should I be put off? Why? Why not? Are these kinds of tests what I should be expecting for junior roles? Should I learn stuff exam style? That seems to be the objective of these tests, for which you are timed and not supposed to use references or books? Normally, in the course of development I have a fairly good idea of basic types, rules, flow control and whatever. Occasionally I'll come up on something I need to use a regex for and have to go and remind myself of the exact piece of syntax I need if trying what I think should work doesn't. Or I'll come up against a module I've not used before and go and look it up. For example, if I wanted to write a server using sockets in C right now, I'd probably check the last piece of code I wrote doing that (and or the various books I have) and work from there. Chances are I probably couldn't do it exactly from scratch and from memory, although I can tell you you'd need a socket(), bind(), listen() and accept() call and you might also want select() depending on whether you intend to pthread_create or not. So I know what the calls are, but not their specific parameter list. What are your experiences if you are a recruiting manager? Are you after programmers who can quote you the API or do you not mind if your programmers have a few books on their desk and google function calls every so often?

  Read the article

• How to store Role Based Access rights in web application?

  - by JonH

  Currently working on a web based CRM type system that deals with various Modules such as Companies, Contacts, Projects, Sub Projects, etc. A typical CRM type system (asp.net web form, C#, SQL Server backend). We plan to implement role based security so that basically a user can have one or more roles. Roles would be broken down by first the module type such as: -Company -Contact And then by the actions for that module for instance each module would end up with a table such as this: Role1 Example: Module Create Edit Delete View Company Yes Owner Only No Yes Contact Yes Yes Yes Yes In the above case Role1 has two module types (Company, and Contact). For company, the person assigned to this role can create companies, can view companies, can only edit records he/she created and cannot delete. For this same role for the module contact this user can create contacts, edit contacts, delete contacts, and view contacts (full rights basically). I am wondering is it best upon coming into the system to session the user's role with something like a: List<Role> roles; Where the Role class would have some sort of List<Module> modules; (can contain Company, Contact, etc.).? Something to the effect of: class Role{ string name; string desc; List<Module> modules; } And the module action class would have a set of actions (Create, Edit, Delete, etc.) for each module: class ModuleActions{ List<Action> actions; } And the action has a value of whether the user can perform the right: class Action{ string right; } Just a rough idea, I know the action could be an enum and the ModuleAction can probably be eliminated with a List<x, y>. My main question is what would be the best way to store this information in this type of application: Should I store it in the User Session state (I have a session class where I manage things related to the user). I generally load this during the initial loading of the application (global.asax). I can simply tack onto this session. Or should this be loaded at the page load event of each module (page load of company etc..). I eventually need to be able to hide / unhide various buttons / divs based on the user's role and that is what got me thinking to load this via session. Any examples or points would be great.

  Read the article

• My Reference for Amy Lewis

  - by Denise McInerney

  The 2013 election campaign for the PASS Board of Directors is underway. There are seven qualified candidates running this year. They all offer a wealth of experience volunteering for PASS and the SQL Server community. One of these candidates, Amy Lewis, asked me to write a reference for her to include on her candidate application. I have a lot of experience working with Amy and was pleased to provide this reference: I enthusiastically support Amy Lewis as a candidate for the PASS Board of Directors. I have known and worked with Amy in various PASS' volunteer capacities for years, starting when we were both leaders of SIGs (the precursors to the Virtual Chapters.) In that time I have seen Amy grow as a leader, taking on increasing responsibility and developing her leadership skills in the process. From the Program Committee to the BI Virtual Chapter to her local user group's SQL Saturday Amy has demonstrated a capacity to organize and lead volunteers. A successful leader delivers results, and does so in a way that encourages and empowers the people she is working with; Amy embodies this leadership style. As Director for Virtual Chapters I have most recently worked with Amy in her capacity of DW/BI VC Leader. This VC is one of our largest and most active, and Amy's leadership is a key contribution to that success. I was pleased to see that Amy was also thinking about succession and prepared other volunteers to take over the chapter leadership. Amy has shown an understanding of PASS' strategic goals and has focused her volunteer efforts to help us reach those goals. For the past couple of years we have been trying to expand PASS reach and relevance to SQL communities around the world. The VCs are a key vehicle for this expansion. Amy embraced this idea and organized the VC to engage volunteers in Europe & Australia and provide content that could reach SQL professionals in those regions. A second key strategy for PASS is expanding into the data analytics space. Again Amy rose to the occasion helping to shape the program for our first Business Analytics Conference and leveraging the BI VC to promote the event. By all measures I think Amy is prepared to serve on the Board and contribute in a positive way.

  Read the article

• Take Advantage of Oracle's Ongoing Assurance Effort!

  - by eric.maurice

  Hi, this is Eric Maurice again! A few years ago, I posted a blog entry, which discussed the psychology of patching. The point of this blog entry was that a natural tendency existed for systems and database administrators to be reluctant to apply patches, even security patches, because of the fear of "breaking" the system. Unfortunately, this belief in the principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" creates significant risks for organizations. Running systems without applying the proper security patches can greatly compromise the security posture of the organization because the security controls available in the affected system may be compromised as a result of the existence of the unfixed vulnerabilities. As a result, Oracle continues to strongly recommend that customers apply all security fixes as soon as possible. Most recently, I have had a number of conversations with customers who questioned the need to upgrade their highly stable but otherwise unsupported Oracle systems. These customers wanted to know more about the kind of security risks they were exposed to, by running obsolete versions of Oracle software. As per Oracle Support Policies, Critical Patch Updates are produced for currently supported products. In other words, Critical Patch Updates are not created by Oracle for product versions that are no longer covered under the Premier Support or Extended Support phases of the Lifetime Support Policy. One statement used in each Critical Patch Update Advisory is particularly important: "We recommend that customers upgrade to a supported version of Oracle products in order to obtain patches. Unsupported products, releases and versions are not tested for the presence of vulnerabilities addressed by this Critical Patch Update. However, it is likely that earlier versions of affected releases are also affected by these vulnerabilities." The purpose of this warning is to inform Oracle customers that a number of the vulnerabilities fixed in each Critical Patch Update may affect older versions of a specific product line. In other words, each Critical Patch Update provides a number of fixes for currently supported versions of a given product line (this information is listed for each bug in the Risk Matrices of the Critical Patch Update Advisory), but the unsupported versions in the same product line, while they may be affected by the vulnerabilities, will not receive the fixes, and are therefore vulnerable to attacks. The risk assumed by organizations wishing to remain on unsupported versions is amplified by the behavior of malicious hackers, who typically will attempt to, and sometimes succeed in, reverse-engineering the content of vendors' security fixes. As a result, it is not uncommon for exploits to be published soon after Oracle discloses vulnerabilities with the release of a Critical Patch Update or Security Alert. Let's consider now the nature of the vulnerabilities that may exist in obsolete versions of Oracle software. A number of severe vulnerabilities have been fixed by Oracle over the years. While Oracle does not test unsupported products, releases and versions for the presence of vulnerabilities addressed by each Critical Patch Update, it should be assumed that a number of the vulnerabilities fixed with the Critical Patch Update program do exist in unsupported versions (regardless of the product considered). The most severe vulnerabilities fixed in past Critical Patch Updates may result in full compromise of the targeted systems, down to the OS level, by remote and unauthenticated users (these vulnerabilities receive a CVSS Base Score of 10.0) or almost as critically, may result in the compromise of the affected systems (without compromising the underlying OS) by a remote and unauthenticated users (these vulnerabilities receive a CVSS Base Score of 7.5). Such vulnerabilities may result in complete takeover of the targeted machine (for the CVSS 10.0), or may result in allowing the attacker the ability to create a denial of service against the affected system or even hijacking or stealing all the data hosted by the compromised system (for the CVSS 7.5). The bottom line is that organizations should assume the worst case: that the most critical vulnerabilities are present in their unsupported version; therefore, it is Oracle's recommendation that all organizations move to supported systems and apply security patches in a timely fashion. Organizations that currently run supported versions but may be late in their security patch release level can quickly catch up because most Critical Patch Updates are cumulative. With a few exceptions noted in Oracle's Critical Patch Update Advisory, the application of the most recent Critical Patch Update will bring these products to current security patch level and provide the organization with the best possible security posture for their patch level. Furthermore, organizations are encouraged to upgrade to most recent versions as this will greatly improve their security posture. At Oracle, our security fixing policies state that security fixes are produced for the main code line first, and as a result, our products benefit from the mistakes made in previous version(s). Our ongoing assurance effort ensures that we work diligently to fix the vulnerabilities we find, and aim at constantly improving the security posture our products provide by default. Patch sets include numerous in-depth fixes in addition to those delivered through the Critical Patch Update and, in certain instances, important security fixes require major architectural changes that can only be included in new product releases (and cannot be backported through the Critical Patch Update program). For More Information: • Mary Ann Davidson is giving a webcast interview on Oracle Software Security Assurance on February 24th. The registration link for attending this webcast is located at http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=280304&s=1&k=6A7152F62313CA09F77EBCEEA9B6294F&partnerref=EricMblog • A blog entry discussing Oracle's practices for ensuring the quality of Critical patch Updates can be found at http://blogs.oracle.com/security/2009/07/ensuring_critical_patch_update_quality.html • The blog entry "To patch or not to patch" is located at http://blogs.oracle.com/security/2008/01/to_patch_or_not_to_patch.html • Oracle's Support Policies are located at http://www.oracle.com/us/support/policies/index.html • The Critical Patch Update & Security Alert page is located at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alerts-086861.html

  Read the article

• How I might think like a hacker so that I can anticipate security vulnerabilities in .NET or Java before a hacker hands me my hat [closed]

  - by Matthew Patrick Cashatt

  Premise I make a living developing web-based applications for all form-factors (mobile, tablet, laptop, etc). I make heavy use of SOA, and send and receive most data as JSON objects. Although most of my work is completed on the .NET or Java stacks, I am also recently delving into Node.js. This new stack has got me thinking that I know reasonably well how to secure applications using known facilities of .NET and Java, but I am woefully ignorant when it comes to best practices or, more importantly, the driving motivation behind the best practices. You see, as I gain more prominent clientele, I need to be able to assure them that their applications are secure and, in order to do that, I feel that I should learn to think like a malevolent hacker. What motivates a malevolent hacker: What is their prime mover? What is it that they are most after? Ultimately, the answer is money or notoriety I am sure, but I think it would be good to understand the nuanced motivators that lead to those ends: credit card numbers, damning information, corporate espionage, shutting down a highly visible site, etc. As an extension of question #1--but more specific--what are the things most likely to be seeked out by a hacker in almost any application? Passwords? Financial info? Profile data that will gain them access to other applications a user has joined? Let me be clear here. This is not judgement for or against the aforementioned motivations because that is not the goal of this post. I simply want to know what motivates a hacker regardless of our individual judgement. What are some heuristics followed to accomplish hacker goals? Ultimately specific processes would be great to know; however, in order to think like a hacker, I would really value your comments on the broader heuristics followed. For example: "A hacker always looks first for the low-hanging fruit such as http spoofing" or "In the absence of a CAPTCHA or other deterrent, a hacker will likely run a cracking script against a login prompt and then go from there." Possibly, "A hacker will try and attack a site via Foo (browser) first as it is known for Bar vulnerability. What are the most common hacks employed when following the common heuristics? Specifics here. Http spoofing, password cracking, SQL injection, etc. Disclaimer I am not a hacker, nor am I judging hackers (Heck--I even respect their ingenuity). I simply want to learn how I might think like a hacker so that I may begin to anticipate vulnerabilities before .NET or Java hands me a way to defend against them after the fact.

  Read the article

• I'm creating my own scalable, rapid prototyping web server. How should I design it?

  - by Mike Willliams

  I'm going to create my own web server that focuses on scalability, rapid prototyping and the use of JavaScript as the server's scripting language, much like node.js. It will use a Model-View-Controller design pattern so a web application can support more concurrent users just by adding hardware -- and not having to redesign the software. Basically, I'm aiming to produce a framework that allows for fast and easy development of cloud applications without the need to write lots of boiler plate code. I've got some questions about this... How hard will it be to put MySQL in the cloud? How could I go about implementing this and make the resulting product free? Will I have to write my own engine or modify an existing one, if I do what should I watch out for? To make this scalable I need to adjust from one server to hundreds of servers this creates the requirement for the servers to be load balancing, how should I do this? If I balance based on the work load per server I would need gateway to handle all the incoming requests. Is it the right idea to have all the servers check into the gateway and update there status. By having the servers run through a gateway if the gateway dies all the incoming requests are ignored. I'm thinking that having all the servers maintain a list of each other, or at least a few I could rebuild the list of servers and establish a new gateway. Is it worth it? Or should I have a backup gateway that could switch out? Should I let the user choose? How should I pick which server handles the database and which handles the page serving? Should I spread the database so that queries are preformed on multiple servers? Which would theoretically improve performance. The servers would need to mirror the database at least once so that if a server goes down the database isn't corrupted. So this brings up writing another question, should I broadcast SQL queries so that all the servers can take a bit of the work load? If I do it that way wouldn't a query clog up the network so that other queries couldn't be preformed? What are my alternatives? Finally, is there a free solution already out there that might need a little modification that suits my needs?

  Read the article

• Rant on EDI

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2013/06/27/153261.aspxMy post this month is a rant and not something informational. I hope y'all will forgive me.It's been a slow month. I was on vacation with my daughter for the middle part of the month. And the rest of my time has been preparing for a major ERP upgrade, and dealing with a last minute surprise from a customer that has EDI changes.The subject of EDI is my rant. I was tossed into EDI years ago by the same customer. I understood the basic concepts, but not details -- implementation or otherwise. I started with my network including a couple of people with EDI experience. And for one that was all she did. She was my first taste of what seems to be a protected group.I started looking for the standards with a budget in mind, or rather a lack of budget. See whenever someone stone walls you like that it tells me that what they're doing isn't as mystical as they'd like you to believe. Real magic doesn't need to be kept secret. And that is the case with EDI; however, the EDI industry tries to protect it. You cannot even download the standards. They cost thousands of dollars.All this does is ensure that they continue to rack up consulting dollars from their ignorant clients. Well sirs and madams, I put my finger in your eye. I developed my own translator. And while it's not robust enough to resell due to the limited scope of information I could gather. It did save my employer tens if not over a hundred thousand dollars.My public service message, therefore is as follows. Don't be afraid to tackle implementing EDI if you're even a semi-competent developer. You need some experience parsing, familiarity with your business system, and a little patience. Also, pick your VAN well. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the biggest names are the best choice. That was a costly mistake for us that we are stuck with for a couple more years.

  Read the article

• Breakfast Keynote, More at Gartner IAM Summit This Week

  - by Tanu Sood

  Gartner Identity and Access Management Conference We look forward to seeing you at the.... Gartner Identity and Access Management Conference Oracle is proud to be a Silver Sponsor of the Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit happening December 3 - 5 in Las Vegas, NV. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear Oracle Senior VP of Identity Management, Amit Jasuja, present Trends in Identity Management at our keynote presentation and breakfast on Tuesday, December 4th at 7:30 a.m. Everyone that attends is entered into a raffle to win a free JAWBONE JAMBOX wireless speaker system. Also, don’t forget to visit the Oracle Booth to mingle with your peers and speak to Oracle experts. Learn how Oracle Identity Management solutions are enabling the Social, Mobile, and Cloud (SoMoClo) environments. Visit Oracle Booth #S15 to: View a demonstration of our latest release - Oracle Identity Management 11g R2 Visit our virtual collateral rack and download useful resources Enter to win a JAWBONE JAMBOX Wireless Speaker System Exhibit Hall Hours Monday, December 3 — 11:45 a.m. – 1:45 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. – 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, December 4 — 11:45 a.m. – 2:45 p.m. To schedule a meeting with Oracle Identity Management executives and experts at Gartner IAM, please email us or speak to your account representative. We look forward to seeing you at the Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit! Visit Oracle at Booth #S15 Gartner IAM SummitDecember 3 - 5, 2012 Caesars Palace Attend our Keynote Breakfast Trends in Identity Management Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:15 a.m. - 8:00 a.m., Octavius 16 Speakers: Amit Jasuja, Senior Vice President, Identity Management Oracle Ranjan Jain, Enterprise Architect, Cisco As enterprises embrace mobile and social applications, security and audit have moved into the foreground. The way we work and connect with our customers is changing dramatically and this means re-thinking how we secure the interaction and enable the experience. Work is an activity not a place - mobile access enables employees to work from any device anywhere and anytime. Organizations are utilizing "flash teams" - instead of a dedicated group to solve problems, organizations utilize more cross-functional teams. Work is now social - email collaboration will be replaced by dynamic social media style interaction. In this session, we will examine these three secular trends and discuss how organizations can secure the work experience and adapt audit controls to address the "new work order". Stay Connected: For more information, please visit www.oracle.com/identity. Copyright © 2012, Oracle. All rights reserved. Contact Us | Legal Notices and Terms of Use | Privacy Statement SEO100120175 Oracle Corporation - Worldwide Headquarters, 500 Oracle Parkway, OPL - E-mail Services, Redwood Shores, CA 94065, United States Your privacy is important to us. You can login to your account to update your e-mail subscriptions or you can opt-out of all Oracle Marketing e-mails at any time.Please note that opting-out of Marketing communications does not affect your receipt of important business communications related to your current relationship with Oracle such as Security Updates, Event Registration notices, Account Management and Support/Service communications.

  Read the article

• To Serve Man?

  - by Dave Convery

  Since the announcement of Windows 8 and its 'Metro' interface, the .NET community has wondered if the skills they've spent so long developing might be swept aside,in favour of HTML5 and JavaScript. Mercifully, that only seems to be true of SilverLight (as Simon Cooper points out), but it did leave me thinking how easy it is to impose a technology upon people without directly serving their needs. Case in point: QR codes. Once, probably, benign in purpose, they seem to have become a marketer's tool for determining when someone has engaged with an advert in the real world, with the same certainty as is possible online. Nobody really wants to use QR codes - it's far too much hassle. But advertisers want that data - they want to know that someone actually read their billboard / poster / cereal box, and so this flawed technology is suddenly everywhere, providing little to no value to the people who are actually meant to use it. What about 3D cinema? Profits from the film industry have been steadily increasing throughout the period that digital piracy and mass sharing has been possible, yet the industry cinema chains have forced 3D films upon a broadly uninterested audience, as a way of providing more purpose to going to a cinema, rather than watching it at home. Despite advances in digital projection, 3D cinema is scarcely more immersive to us than were William Castle's hoary old tricks of skeletons on wires and buzzing chairs were to our grandparents. iTunes - originally just a piece of software that catalogued and ripped music for you, but which is now multi-purpose bloatware; a massive, system-hogging behemoth. If it was being built for the people that used it, it would have been split into three or more separate pieces of software long ago. But as bloatware, it serves Apple primarily rather than us, stuffed with Music, Video, Various stores and phone / iPad management all bolted into one. Why? It's because, that way, you're more likely to bump into something you want to buy. You can't even buy a new laptop without finding that a significant chunk of your hard drive has been sold to 'select partners' - advertisers, suppliers of virus-busting software, and endless bloatware-flogging pop-ups that make using a new laptop without reformatting the hard drive like stepping back in time. The product you want is not the one you paid for. This is without even looking at services like Facebook and Klout, who provide a notional service with the intention of slurping up as much data about you as possible (in Klout's case, whether you create an account with them or not). What technologies do you find annoying or intrusive, and who benefits from keeping them around?

  Read the article

• What do you do when you encounter an idiotic interview question?

  - by Senthil

  I was interviewing with a "too proud of my java skills"-looking person. He asked me "What is your knowledge on Java IO classes.. say.. hash maps?" He asked me to write a piece of java code on paper - instantiate a class and call one of the instance's methods. When I was done, he said my program wouldn't run. After 5 minutes of serious thinking, I gave up and asked why. He said I didn't write a main function so it wouldn't run. ON PAPER. [I am too furious to continue with the stupidity...] Believe me it wasn't trick questions or a psychic or anger management evaluation thing. I can tell from his face, he was proud of these questions. That "developer" was supposed to "judge" the candidates. I can think of several things: Hit him with a chair (which I so desperately wanted to) and walk out. Simply walk out. Ridicule him saying he didn't make sense. Politely let him know that he didn't make sense and go on to try and answer the questions. Don't tell him anything, but simply go on to try and answer the questions. So far, I have tried just 4 and 5. It hasn't helped. Unfortunately many candidates seem to do the same and remain polite but this lets these kind of "developers" just keep ascending up the corporate ladder, gradually getting the capacity to pi** off more and more people. How do you handle these interviewers without bursting your veins? What is the proper way to handle this, yet maintain your reputation if other potential employers were to ever get to know what happened here? Is there anything you can do or should you even try to fix this? P.S. Let me admit that my anger has been amplified many times by the facts: He was smiling like you wouldn't believe. I got so many (20 or so) calls from that company the day before, asking me to come to the interview, that I couldn't do any work that day. I wasted a paid day off.

  Read the article

• How far is too far?

  - by David Dorf

  Previously I've talked about Safeway's personalized pricing as well as Target's use of analytics to learn about customers.  Then last week I read about Orbitz tailoring their hotel offers based on the browser used.  (Orbitz claims that Mac users are 40% more likely than PC users to book four- or five-star hotels.)  So just how far is too far when tailoring the retail experience? When most consumers read about these types of tactics, they tend to feel violated, as if someone was reading their personal diary.  Nobody wants to be tricked into buying things.  Walking into a grocery store and seeing crates of apples stacked high looks enticing, but the crates are just for display and the apples may be over a year old.  Even though its much cheaper to print markdown tags, many retailers manually write the price tags because consumers think they deal is better if the price is hand-written. The technology already exists to personalize prices and experiences for consumers.  People get upset thinking they paid more for something than a neighbor, but it already happens all the time with cars, flights, and the use of loyalty programs and coupons. There are many variables at play for any purchase.  They only difference is that the customer segments are getting smaller, sometimes reaching a size of one. There's two ways to look at this.  Retailers have always manipulated the environment to get consumers to buy more -- or -- Retailers are getting better at tuning the shopping experience for consumers.  I choose the latter, and so do most consumers by spending their money in the stores they like.  Consumers like to see fresh flowers at the entrance to the grocery store, and they like to see specials scrawled on chalkboards. The key is making sure that consumers benefit from the experience as well.  I'm willing to give up some personal information in exchange for discounts and more relevant marketing, and the next-generation of shoppers are even less concerned about privacy.  Retailers need to use all the tools available to differentiate their offers and connect with their customers. So if Orbitz wants to put three-star hotels at the top of the list for me because I'm using a PC, that's fine by me.

  Read the article

• How to recover from finite-state-machine breakdown?

  - by Earl Grey

  My question may seems very scientific but I think it's a common problem and seasoned developers and programmers hopefully will have some advice to avoid the problem I mention in title. Btw., what I describe bellow is a real problem I am trying to proactively solve in my iOS project, I want to avoid it at all cost. By finite state machine I mean this I have a UI with a few buttons, several session states relevant to that UI and what this UI represents, I have some data which values are partly displayed in the UI, I receive and handle some external triggers (represented by callbacks from sensors). I made state diagrams to better map the relevant scenarios that are desirable and alowable in that UI and application. As I slowly implement the code, the app starts to behave more and more like it should. However, I am not very confident that it is robust enough. My doubts come from watching my own thinking and implementation process as it goes. I was confident that I had everything covered, but it was enough to make a few brute tests in the UI and I quickly realized that there are still gaps in the behavior ..I patched them. However, as each component depends and behaves based on input from some other component, a certain input from user or some external source trigers a chain of events, state changes..etc. I have several components and each behave like this Trigger received on input - trigger and its sender analyzed - output something (a message, a state change) based on analysis The problem is, this is not completely selfcontained, and my components (a database item, a session state, some button's state)...COULD be changed, influenced, deleted, or otherwise modified, outside the scope of the event-chain or desirable scenario. (phone crashes, battery is empty phone turn of suddenly) This will introduce a nonvalid situation into the system, from which the system potentially COULD NOT BE ABLE to recover. I see this (althought people do not realize this is the problem) in many of my competitors apps that are on apple store, customers write things like this "I added three documents, and after going there and there, i cannot open them, even if a see them." or "I recorded videos everyday, but after recording a too log video, I cannot turn of captions on them.., and the button for captions doesn't work".. These are just shortened examples, customers often describe it in more detail..from the descriptions and behavior described in them, I assume that the particular app has a FSM breakdown. So the ultimate question is how can I avoid this, and how to protect the system from blocking itself? EDIT I am talking in the context of one viewcontroller's view on the phone, I mean one part of the application. I Understand the MVC pattern, I have separate modules for distinct functionality..everything I describe is relevant to one canvas on the UI.

  Read the article

• Aptronyms: fitting the profession to the name

  - by Tony Davis

  Writing a recent piece on the pains of index fragmentation, I found myself wondering why, in SQL Server, you can’t set the equivalent of a fill factor, on a heap table. I scratched my head…who might know? Phil Factor, of course! I approached him with a due sense of optimism only to find that not only did he not know, he also didn’t seem to care much either. I skulked off thinking how this may be the final nail in the coffin of nominative determinism. I’ve always wondered if there was anything in it, though. If your surname is Plumb or Leeks, is there even a tiny, extra percentage chance that you’ll end up fitting bathrooms? Some examples are quite common. I’m sure we’ve all met teachers called English or French, or lawyers called Judge or Laws. I’ve also known a Doctor called Coffin, a Urologist called Waterfall, and a Dentist called Dentith. Two personal favorites are Wolfgang Wolf who ended up managing the German Soccer team, Wolfsburg, and Edmund Akenhead, a Crossword Editor for The Times newspaper. Having forgiven Phil his earlier offhandedness, I asked him for if he knew of any notable examples. He had met the famous Dr. Batty and Dr. Nutter, both Psychiatrists, knew undertakers called Death and Stiff, had read a book by Frederick Page-Turner, and suppressed a giggle at the idea of a feminist called Gurley-Brown. He even managed to better my Urologist example, citing the article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology (vol.49, pp.173-176, 1977) by A. J. Splatt and D. Weedon. What, however, if you were keen to gently nudge your child down the path to a career in IT? What name would you choose? Subtlety probably doesn’t really work, although in a recent interview, Rodney Landrum did congratulate PowerShell MVP Max Trinidad on being named after a SQL function. Grant “The Memory” Fritchey (OK, I made up that nickname) doesn’t do badly either. Some surnames, seem to offer a natural head start, although I know of no members of the Page-Reid clan in the profession. There are certainly families with the Table surname, although sadly, Little Bobby Tables was merely a legend by xkcd. A member of the well-known Key family would need to name their son Primary, or maybe live abroad, to make their mark. Nominate your examples of people seemingly destined, by name, for their chosen profession (extra points for IT). The best three will receive a prize. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Where would my different development rhythm be suitable for the work?

  - by DarenW

  Over the years I have worked on many projects, with some successful and a great benefit to the company, and some total failures with me getting fired or otherwise leaving. What is the difference? Naturally I prefer the former and wish to avoid the latter, so I'm pondering this issue. The key seems to be that my personal approach differs from the norm. I write code first, letting it be all spaghetti and chaos, using whatever tools "fit my hand" that I'm fluent in. I try to organize it, then give up and start over with a better design. I go through cycles, from thinking-design to coding-testing. This may seem to be the same as any other development process, Agile or whatever, cycling between design and coding, but there does seem to be a subtle difference: The methods (ideally) followed by most teams goes design, code; design, code; ... while I'm going code, design; code, design; (if that makes any sense.) Music analogy: some types of music have a strong downbeat while others have prominent syncopation. In practice, I just can't think in terms of UML, specifications and so on, but grok things only by attempting to code and debug and refactor ad-hoc. I need the grounding provided by coding in order to think constructively, then to offer any opinions, advice or solutions to the team and get real work done. In positions where I can initially hack up cowboy code without constraints of tool or language choices, I easily gain a "feel" for the data, requirements etc and eventually do good work. In formalized positions where paperwork and pure "design" comes first and only later any coding (even for small proof-of-concept projects), I am lost at sea and drown. Therefore, I'd like to know how to either 1) change my rhythm to match the more formalized methodology-oriented team ways of doing things, or 2) find positions at organizations where my sense of development rhythm is perfect for the work. It's probably unrealistic for a person to change their fundamental approach to things. So option 2) is preferred. So where I can I find such positions? How common is my approach and where is it seen as viable but different, and not dismissed as undisciplined or cowboy coder ways?

  Read the article

• Dawn of the Enterprise Social Developer

  - by Mike Stiles

  Social is not just for poking friends, posting videos of cats playing pianos, or even just for brand marketing anymore. It has become a key form of communication internally and externally across every area of the enterprise. As a Java developer, are you positioning yourself for the integration of social into enterprise business systems that’s on the near horizon? Because it’s the work you do and the applications you build that will influence what the social-enabled enterprise is going to look like and how it’s going to operate. But as a social developer, step one is wrapping your arms around all the things that are possible. Traditionally, the best exploration, brainstorming and innovation come from collaborating with other developers. That’s how the big questions can be hashed (or hacked) out. Is Java the best social development environment? If not, what is? What’s already being done in terms of application integration? The JavaOne Social Developer Program will offer up a series of talks and events on those very issues Tuesday, October 2 at the San Francisco Hilton. If you’re interested in embarking on this newest frontier of enterprise social development, you can connect with others who are thinking the same thing and get moving on your first project.Talks will include: Emergence Of The Social EnterpriseExtending Social into Enterprise Applications and Business ProcessesIntro to Open Graph and Facebook's APIs Building the Next Wave of Social Commerce Platforms Social Data and the Enterprise LinkedIn: A Professional Network Built with Java Technologies and Agile Practice Social Developer Hackathon In addition to these learning and discussion opportunities, you might consider joining the new Oracle Social Developer Community (OSDC), where the interaction and collaboration can continue indefinitely. It doesn’t take a lot of tea leaf reading to know that the cloud will house the enterprise technology of the future, and social (as well as the rich data it brings) is going to be a major part of that as social integrates across every business function as there’s proven value for consumer facing initiatives. The next phase of social development is going to involve combining enterprise data from multiple sources, new and existing, social and traditional, in order to tell compelling and usable stories. And social is coming to the enterprise quickly, meaning you as a development leader should seek to understand not just what's worked on the consumer side, but what aspects of those successes can be applied inside the organization. Get educated, get connected, and consider registering for this forward-looking event now to get started with enterprise social development.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333  | Next Page >