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• JavaOne 2012: Nashorn Edition

  - by $utils.escapeXML($entry.author)

  As with my JavaOne 2012: OpenJDK Edition post a while back (now updated to reflect the schedule of the talks), I find it convenient to have my JavaOne schedule ordered by subjects of interest. Beside OpenJDK in all its flavors, another subject I find very exciting is Nashorn. I blogged about the various material on Nashorn in the past, and we interviewed Jim Laskey, the Project Lead on Project Nashorn in the Java Spotlight podcast. So without further ado, here are the JavaOne 2012 talks and BOFs with Nashorn in their title, or abstract:CON5390 - Nashorn: Optimizing JavaScript and Dynamic Language Execution on the JVM - Monday, Oct 1, 8:30 AM - 9:30 AMThere are many implementations of JavaScript, meant to run either on the JVM or standalone as native code. Both approaches have their respective pros and cons. The Oracle Nashorn JavaScript project is based on the former approach. This presentation goes through the performance work that has gone on in Oracle’s Nashorn JavaScript project to date in order to make JavaScript-to-bytecode generation for execution on the JVM feasible. It shows that the new invoke dynamic bytecode gets us part of the way there but may not quite be enough. What other tricks did the Nashorn project use? The presentation also discusses future directions for increased performance for dynamic languages on the JVM, covering proposed enhancements to both the JVM itself and to the bytecode compiler.CON4082 - Nashorn: JavaScript on the JVM - Monday, Oct 1, 3:00 PM - 4:00 PMThe JavaScript programming language has been experiencing a renaissance of late, driven by the interest in HTML5. Nashorn is a JavaScript engine implemented fully in Java on the JVM. It is based on the Da Vinci Machine (JSR 292) and will be available with JDK 8. This session describes the goals of Project Nashorn, gives a top-level view of how it all works, provides the current status, and demonstrates examples of JavaScript and Java working together.BOF4763 - Meet the Nashorn JavaScript Team - Tuesday, Oct 2, 4:30 PM - 5:15 PMCome to this session to meet the Oracle JavaScript (Project Nashorn) language teamBOF6661 - Nashorn, Node, and Java Persistence - Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:30 PM - 6:15 PMWith Project Nashorn, developers will have a full and modern JavaScript engine available on the JVM. In addition, they will have support for running Node applications with Node.jar. This unique combination of capabilities opens the door for best-of-breed applications combining Node with Java SE and Java EE. In this session, you’ll learn about Node.jar and how it can be combined with Java EE components such as EclipseLink JPA for rich Java persistence. You’ll also hear about all of Node.jar’s mapping, caching, querying, performance, and scaling features.CON10657 - The Polyglot Java VM and Java Middleware - Thursday, Oct 4, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PMIn this session, Red Hat and Oracle discuss the impact of polyglot programming from their own unique perspectives, examining non-Java languages that utilize Oracle’s Java HotSpot VM. You’ll hear a discussion of topics relating to Ruby, Lisp, and Clojure and the intersection of other languages where they may touch upon individual frameworks and projects, and you’ll get perspectives on JavaScript via the Nashorn Project, an upcoming JavaScript engine, developed fully in Java.CON5251 - Putting the Metaobject Protocol to Work: Nashorn’s Java Bindings - Thursday, Oct 4, 2:00 PM - 3:00 PMProject Nashorn is Oracle’s new JavaScript runtime in Java 8. Being a JavaScript runtime running on the JVM, it provides integration with the underlying runtime by enabling JavaScript objects to manipulate Java objects, implement Java interfaces, and extend Java classes. Nashorn is invokedynamic-based, and for its Java integration, it does away with the concept of wrapper objects in favor of direct virtual machine linking to Java objects’ methods provided by a metaobject protocol, providing much higher performance than what could be expected from a scripting runtime. This session looks at the details of the integration, a topic of interest to other language implementers on the JVM and a wider audience of developers who want to understand how Nashorn works.That's 6 sessions tooting the Nashorn this year at JavaOne, up from 2 last year.

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• Enterprise with eyes on NoSQL

  - by thegreeneman

  Since joining Oracle a few months back, I have had the fortune of being able to interact with a number of large enterprise organizations and discuss their current state of adoption for NoSQL database technology.   It is worth noting that a large percentage of these organizations do have some NoSQL use and have been steadily increasing their understanding of its applicability for certain data management workloads.   Thru those discussions I’ve learned that it seems one of the biggest issues confronting enterprise adoption of NoSQL databases is the lack of standards for access, administration and monitoring.    This was not so much of an issue with the early adopters of NoSQL technology because they employed a highly DevOps centric approach to application deployment leaving a select few highly qualified developers with the task of managing the production of the system that they designed and implemented. However, as NoSQL technology moves out of the startup and into the hands of larger corporate entities, developers with a broad skill set that are capable of both development and I.T. type production management are in short supply and quickly get moved on to do new projects, often moving to different roles within the company.  This difference in the way smaller more agile startups operate as compared to more established companies is revealing a gap in the NoSQL technology segment that needs to get addressed.    This is one of places that a company such as Oracle has a leg up in the NoSQL Database front.  A combination of having gone thru a past database maturization process,  combined with a vast set of corporate relationships that have grown hand in hand to solve these types of issues, Oracle is in a great place to lead the way in closing the requirements gap for NoSQL technology.  Oracle's understanding of the needs specific to mature organizations have already made their way into the Oracle’s NoSQL Database offering with features such as:  One click cluster deployment with visual topology planning,  standards based monitoring protocols such as SNMP, support for data access for reporting via standard SQL  and integration with emerging standards for data access such as MapReduce.  Given the exciting developments we’re driving in the Oracle NoSQL Database group, I will have a lot more to say about this topic as we move into the second half of the year.

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• DBA Best Practices - A Blog Series: Episode 2 - Password Lists

  - by Argenis

    Digital World, Digital Locks One of the biggest digital assets that any company has is its secrets. These include passwords, key rings, certificates, and any other digital asset used to protect another asset from tampering or unauthorized access. As a DBA, you are very likely to manage some of these assets for your company - and your employer trusts you with keeping them safe. Probably one of the most important of these assets are passwords. As you well know, the can be used anywhere: for service accounts, credentials, proxies, linked servers, DTS/SSIS packages, symmetrical keys, private keys, etc., etc. Have you given some thought to what you're doing to keep these passwords safe? Are you backing them up somewhere? Who else besides you can access them? Good-Ol’ Post-It Notes Under Your Keyboard If you have a password-protected Excel sheet for your passwords, I have bad news for you: Excel's level of encryption is good for your grandma's budget spreadsheet, not for a list of enterprise passwords. I will try to summarize the main point of this best practice in one sentence: You should keep your passwords on an encrypted, access and version-controlled, backed-up, well-known shared location that every DBA on your team is aware of, and maintain copies of this password "database" on your DBA's workstations. Now I have to break down that statement to you: - Encrypted: what’s the point of saving your passwords on a file that any Windows admin with enough privileges can read? - Access controlled: This one is pretty much self-explanatory. - Version controlled: Passwords change (and I’m really hoping you do change them) and version control would allow you to track what a previous password was if the utility you’ve chosen doesn’t handle that for you. - Backed-up: You want a safe copy of the password list to be kept offline, preferably in long term storage, with relative ease of restoring. - Well-known shared location: This is critical for teams: what good is a password list if only one person in the team knows where it is? I have seen multiple examples of this that work well. They all start with an encrypted database. Certainly you could leverage SQL Server's native encryption solutions like cell encryption for this. I have found such implementations to be impractical, for the most part. Enter The World Of Utilities There are a myriad of open source/free software solutions to help you here. One of my favorites is KeePass, which creates encrypted files that can be saved to a network share, Sharepoint, etc. KeePass has UIs for most operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Other solutions I've used before worth mentioning include PasswordSafe and 1Password, with the latter one being a paid solution – but wildly popular in mobile devices. There are, of course, even more "enterprise-level" solutions available from 3rd party vendors. The truth is that most of the customers that I work with don't need that level of protection of their digital assets, and something like a KeePass database on Sharepoint suits them very well. What are you doing to safeguard your passwords? Leave a comment below, and join the discussion! Cheers, -Argenis

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• Fast Data Executive Round Table FY14 event kit

  - by JuergenKress

  We are very interested to run joint marketing events jointly with you as our partners! At our SOA Community Workspace (SOA Community membership required) you can find a new Fast Data Executive Round Table FY14 event kit. This event is designed at senior IT and executives level for the purposes of education, awareness, and thought leadership around the subject of big data; and a specific flavor of big data - Fast Data - that has begun to spark the imagination of many Oracle customers. Fast Data is not new. It’s a term that was invented initially by Ovum’s Tony Baer as a way to represent the collection of ‘high velocity’ solutions with respect to the big data. For Oracle, the Fast Data campaign in FY13 began as a way to tie a broader set of solutions together (SOA/Business Process Management, Data Integration and Business Analytics) under a set of use cases focused on real-time, high velocity data. It has helped to give Oracle a leap-frog advantage over many of the niche integration vendors (i.e. Informatica, Pega, Tibco, Software AG, Terracotta) who haven’t been able to address these types of end-to-end use cases which rely on the combination of filtering, in-memory data processing, correlation, real-time data movement and transformation, end-to-end analytics, and business process management. Only Oracle can address all the dimensions of fast data, and only Oracle can provide a set of engineered solutions to address this space. This event is designed to continue that thought leadership momentum and raise the awareness about what Oracle Fast Data solutions are designed to solve. It’s designed to highlight real customer solutions and articulate the business benefits that fast data can address. This is not an event that gets into the esoteric technical standards of Hadoop, NoSQL, and in-memory data grids. This is an event that instead gets into the heart of business problems that big data has left un-addressed and charts the path for next steps in fast data. Get the Fast Data Executive Round Table FY14 event kit here. Support marketing campaigns We can support such events by: Oracle speakers - contact your partner manager Marketing budget - contact your A&C marketing manager Event location - free use of Oracle Customer Visitor Centers conference rooms Promote your event at events.oracle.com: http://tinyurl.com/eventspecialized E-Blast: invite customers to your event – contact your A&C marketing manager For additional marketing kits e.g for Business Process Managementplease visit our SOA Community Workspace. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags:

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• A little gem from MPN&ndash;FREE online course on Architectural Guidance for Migrating Applications to Windows Azure Platform

  - by Eric Nelson

  I know a lot of technical people who work in partners (ISVs, System Integrators etc). I know that virtually none of them would think of going to the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) learning portal to find some deep and high quality technical content. Instead they would head to MSDN, Channel 9, msdev.com etc. I am one of those people :-) Hence imagine my surprise when i stumbled upon this little gem Architectural Guidance for Migrating Applications to Windows Azure Platform (your company and hence your live id need to be a member of MPN – which is free to join). This is first class stuff – and represents about 4 hours which is really 8 if you stop and ponder :) Course Structure The course is divided into eight modules.  Each module explores a different factor that needs to be considered as part of the migration process. Module 1:  Introduction:  This section provides an introduction to the training course, highlighting the values of the Windows Azure Platform for developers. Module 2:  Dynamic Environment: This section goes into detail about the dynamic environment of the Windows Azure Platform. This session will explain the difference between current development states and the Windows Azure Platform environment, detail the functions of roles, and highlight development considerations to be aware of when working with the Windows Azure Platform. Module 3:  Local State: This session details the local state of the Windows Azure Platform. This section details the different types of storage within the Windows Azure Platform (Blobs, Tables, Queues, and SQL Azure). The training will provide technical guidance on local storage usage, how to write to blobs, how to effectively use table storage, and other authorization methods. Module 4:  Latency and Timeouts: This session goes into detail explaining the considerations surrounding latency, timeouts and how to assess an IT portfolio. Module 5:  Transactions and Bandwidth: This session details the performance metrics surrounding transactions and bandwidth in the Windows Azure Platform environment. This session will detail the transactions and bandwidth costs involved with the Windows Azure Platform and mitigation techniques that can be used to properly manage those costs. Module 6:  Authentication and Authorization: This session details authentication and authorization protocols within the Windows Azure Platform. This session will detail information around web methods of authorization, web identification, Access Control Benefits, and a walkthrough of the Windows Identify Foundation. Module 7:  Data Sensitivity: This session details data considerations that users and developers will experience when placing data into the cloud. This section of the training highlights these concerns, and details the strategies that developers can take to increase the security of their data in the cloud. Module 8:  Summary Provides an overall review of the course.

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• Best practice for organizing/storing character/monster data in an RPG?

  - by eclecto

  Synopsis: Attempting to build a cross-platform RPG app in Adobe Flash Builder and am trying to figure out the best class hierarchy and the best way to store the static data used to build each of the individual "hero" and "monster" types. My programming experience, particularly in AS3, is embarrassingly small. My ultra-alpha method is to include a "_class" object in the constructor for each instance. The _class, in turn, is a static Object pulled from a class created specifically for that purpose, so things look something like this: // Character.as package { public class Character extends Sprite { public var _strength:int; // etc. public function Character(_class:Object) { _strength = _class._strength; // etc. } } } // MonsterClasses.as package { public final class MonsterClasses extends Object { public static const Monster1:Object={ _strength:50, // etc. } // etc. } } // Some other class in which characters/monsters are created. // Create a new instance of Character var myMonster = new Character(MonsterClasses.Monster1); Another option I've toyed with is the idea of making each character class/monster type its own subclass of Character, but I'm not sure if it would be efficient or even make sense considering that these classes would only be used to store variables and would add no new methods. On the other hand, it would make creating instances as simple as var myMonster = new Monster1; and potentially cut down on the overhead of having to read a class containing the data for, at a conservative preliminary estimate, over 150 monsters just to fish out the one monster I want (assuming, and I really have no idea, that such a thing might cause any kind of slowdown in execution). But long story short, I want a system that's both efficient at compile time and easy to work with during coding. Should I stick with what I've got or try a different method? As a subquestion, I'm also assuming here that the best way to store data that will be bundled with the final game and not read externally is simply to declare everything in AS3. Seems to me that if I used, say, XML or JSON I'd have to use the associated AS3 classes and methods to pull in the data, parse it, and convert it to AS3 object(s) anyway, so it would be inefficient. Right?

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• Travelling at Magenic

  - by Chris G. Williams

  I occasionally get asked if we travel "a lot" at Magenic. Sometimes the question comes from job candidates. Other times it's clients, recruiters or friends. To give a simple yes or no answer would be a disservice to the person asking the question. So here is my standard answer:It depends.(That was the short version.  Here's the long version...)We do have some guys that are more "national" in focus, and they can travel a fair amount. They also receive a little extra in compensation for doing so. It's a balancing act, and not necessarily a one-size-fits-all situation. Not everyone is well suited to constant travel. Some folks enjoy it and some folks hate it.With our local guys, our general policy is to TRY and keep them close to home whenever possible, but sometimes the needs of the client will dictate otherwise. (As Spock would say... the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.)In most cases though, we really do try to avoid sending our guys on extended travel gigs (i.e. every week for 6 months) when a simple kickoff trip and occasional visit will do. This depends on the nature of the gig, of course. Some types of work lend themselves to this model better than others. Additionally, this can and does vary by office. If one office is having trouble staffing a gig (not enough available bodies) and another office has a few too many folks on the bench, well... you can connect the dots. But again, we try to keep that to a minimum.Lastly, we all have our own thresholds for what we consider "a lot" of travel. There are two parts to this threshold:Half of it is whatever you're accustomed to already. The other half is being honest with yourself about how much you [like/hate] dealing with airports, car rentals, taxis, hotels, disruptions to your workout schedule, time away from friends/family, etc.Knowing a bit about yourself will definitely help you decide how much travel is too much for you.

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

  - by dsollen

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

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• Separating logic and data in browser game

  - by Tesserex

  I've been thinking this over for days and I'm still not sure what to do. I'm trying to refactor a combat system in PHP (...sorry.) Here's what exists so far: There are two (so far) types of entities that can participate in combat. Let's just call them players and NPCs. Their data is already written pretty well. When involved in combat, these entities are wrapped with another object in the DB called a Combatant, which gives them information about the particular fight. They can be involved in multiple combats at once. I'm trying to write the logic engine for combat by having combatants injected into it. I want to be able to mock everything for testing. In order to separate logic and data, I want to have two interfaces / base classes, one being ICombatantData and the other ICombatantLogic. The two implementers of data will be one for the real objects stored in the database, and the other for my mock objects. I'm now running into uncertainties with designing the logic side of things. I can have one implementer for each of players and NPCs, but then I have an issue. A combatant needs to be able to return the entity that it wraps. Should this getter method be part of logic or data? I feel strongly that it should be in data, because the logic part is used for executing combat, and won't be available if someone is just looking up information about an upcoming fight. But the data classes only separate mock from DB, not player from NPC. If I try having two child classes of the DB data implementer, one for each entity type, then how do I architect that while keeping my mocks in the loop? Do I need some third interface like IEntityProvider that I inject into the data classes? Also with some of the ideas I've been considering, I feel like I'll have to put checks in place to make sure you don't mismatch things, like making the logic for an NPC accidentally wrap the data for a player. Does that make any sense? Is that a situation that would even be possible if the architecture is correct, or would the right design prohibit that completely so I don't need to check for it? If someone could help me just layout a class diagram or something for this it would help me a lot. Thanks. edit Also useful to note, the mock data class doesn't really need the Entity, since I'll just be specifying all the parameters like combat stats directly instead. So maybe that will affect the correct design.

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• WebLogic How-to Videos: Install, Upgrade, & Patch

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Here is another great YouTube video by our product manager Monica Riccelli. She talks about installers now being standardized in Oracle for greater consistency -- no more WebLogic native installers. Also, JDK is no longer a part of the WebLogic install. The various installers she discusses include OUI, ZIP, OEPE, Coherence and more. Monica then takes us through a step by step install process. After the install process is complete the video takes us through the configuration wizard. The ZIP installer is then discussed and its effectiveness, such as it being the smallest downloadable option, easy, and very popular with our customers and limitations (such as for development only and not to be used in production) highlighted. Monica then takes us through the configuration wizard, its usage, and when to use WLST scripts. The video then discusses NodeManager and its usage and discusses how to reconfigure a WebLogic domain on upgrade – through our GUI tools or through command line interface. Lastly, it highlights Opatch – a patch application tool used by our customers and standardized across all Oracle products. Really detailed video. Check it out!  /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Why Apple’s New SDK Limitation is So Offensive

  - by TStewartDev

  I am not an Apple fanboy, nor have I ever been. However, I have owned a Mac, an iPod, and an iPhone in my lifetime, and for more than a decade, I have defended Apple against the untruths that the haters so enjoy spewing. I encouraged my wife to buy a MacBook when she needed a new laptop two years ago, and I often recommend them to my friends and relatives. I have proudly and happily used my first generation iPhone for nearly three years. Now, for the first time in well over ten years, I find myself ready to swear off Apple and encourage everyone I know to do the same. I was disappointed when Apple wouldn't allow native apps, but I still bought the iPhone. I've stomached their ambiguous app approval process even though it's apparent that Steve may just reject your app because he doesn't like you or feels threatened by you (I'm still lamenting the rejection of the Google Voice app). But, as a developer, I can no longer tolerate Apple's terms and the kind of totalitarian control they indicate Apple wants. In case you are not already familiar, Apple has dictated in their OS 4.0 SDK license agreement (the now infamous Section 3.3.1) that all apps developed for the iPhone must be coded in C, C++, or Objective C, and moreover, that using any cross-compiling platforms is a violation of the agreement. For those of you who aren't developers, let me try to illustrate why this angers those of us who are. Imagine you're a professional writer. You've had articles published in some journals and magazines, and you've got a couple popular books out there, too. You've got an idea for a new book, and so you take it to your publisher. Your publisher agrees that it's a good idea. "But," says the publisher, "we want to hold our books to a tighter standard so that our readers get the experience we want them to have. Therefore, from now on, all our writers may only use words from this list of the 10,000 most common English words. Furthermore, if you cite any other works or quote anyone, they must comply with that same list, or you'll have to rewrite the entire work as well in case our readers want to look up your citation." What do you do? If your work is a children's book, this probably isn't a big deal to you. If it's an autobiography, textbook, or even a novel, though, you're going to have a lot of trouble describing your content with only common words. It's going to take you longer to complete your book, too, since you'll be looking up less common words frequently to see if you can use them. You could always go to another publisher, but this one has the best ability to distribute your book. The next largest distributor can only do a quarter as much. You could abandon the project altogether, but then everyone loses. Isn't this a silly scenario? Who would put such a limitation on writers? Yet this is very much what Apple is doing. They are using their dominant position in the market to coerce developers to write their apps exclusively for the iPhone OS by making it too expensive to write for multiple platforms. It is at least a threefold attack, striking at Adobe who is set to release a compiler that lets Flash source be compiled to iPhone binaries; striking at Google whose Android platform stands the best chance at the moment of providing serious competition to the iPhone; and reinforcing their own strong position by keeping popular apps exclusively to iPhone. And while developers are already very upset about this, the sad fact is that most of us will cave and give in to Apple because consumers don't know any better. They will continue to buy Apple's toy forcing developers to play Apple's maniacal game in order to make any money, at least until Steve Jobs decides he doesn't like them or he intends to release a competing application (bye-bye OpenFeint). Apple has been kept in check on the desktop front by a very dominant Microsoft, but I'm afraid that their success with iPods, iTunes, and iPhones has created a monster that we may have to bear until it is slain by an anti-trust suit or dies with the retirement of Steve Jobs.

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• Code testing practice

  - by Robin Castlin

  So now I have come to the conclusion like many others that having some way of constantly testing your code is good practice since it enables fewer people to be involved (colleges and customers alike) by simply knowing what's wrong before someone else finds out the hard way. I've heard and read some about Unit Testing and understand what it's supposed to do and all. The there are so many different types of bugs. It can be everything from web browser not being able not being able to send correct values, javascript failing, a global function messing up a piece of code somewhere to a change that looked good when testing it out but fails in some special case which was hard to anticipate. My simply finding these errors I learn to rarely repeat them again, but there seems to always be new bugs to be found and learnt from. I would guess maybe the best practice would be to run every page and it's functions a couple of times, witness the result and repeat this in Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer (and all smartphones apparently) to make sure it works as intended. However this would take quite some time to do consider I don't work with patches/versions and do little fixes here and there a couple of times per week. What I prefer would be some kind of page I can just load that tests as much things as possible to make sure the site works as intended. Basicly just run a lot of cURL's with POST-values and see if I get expected result. But how would I preferably not increase the IDs of every mysql rows if I delete these testing rows? It feels silly to be on ID 1000 with maybe 50 rows in total. If I could build a new project from scratch I would probably implement some kind of smooth way to return a "TRUE" on testing instead of the actual page. But this solution would for the moment being have to be passed on existing projects. My question What would you recommend to be the best way to test my site to make sure that existing functions does their job upon editing the code? Should I consider to implement a lot of edits first, then test manually the entire code to make sure it still works? Is there any nice way of testing codes without "hurting" the ID columns? Extra thoughs Would it be a good idea to associate all of my files to the different parts of my site which they affect? For instance if I edit home.php I will through documentation test if my homepage's start works as intended since it's the only part of my site it should affect.

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• Advice on how to build html5 basic tile game (multi player, cross device)

  - by Eric

  I just read http://buildnewgames.com/real-time-multiplayer/ which explains the fundamentals and bets practices to build a massive real time multiplayer html5 game. My question is however given the “simplicity” of the game I need to build (simple kind of scratch game where you find or not something behind a tile), do I really need complex tools (canvas or node.js for example) ? The game The gamestakes place with a picture of our office as a background (tilemap). For HR purpose, we wish to create the following game fore employees: each day they can come to the website and click on a certain number of tiles (3 max per day) and find behind it motivation advice and interesting facts about the company. The constraints and rules the screen is divided into isometric 2D square tiles. There are basically an image (photograph of our office) number of tiles on the screen game: about 10,000 to much more (with scroll , see below) the players can scroll in 4 directions there are only 2 types of tiles: already open and closed player can open tiles that have not been yet open by other players there is no path for players : any player can click on any tile on the screen at any moment (if it’s not already done by another player) 2 players can’t be on the same tile at the same moment (or if they can, I’ll have to manage to see which one clicked on it first) only one type of player (all with similar roles), no weapon, no internal score… very simple game. no complex physics (collision only occurs if 2 players are on the same tile) The target I need to achieve: cross device, cross browsers high performance reaction (subsecond reactions) average nb of players per hour: up to 10K players per hour (quite high indeed but it’s because we aim at proving our case for the game to our business unit) So what I would like to know: 2D Tiled map: Do I need tiledmapeditor or can I enable me split the screen like here ? should I use canvas or plain html/css could be sufficient for my need? do I need a game engine/framework such as melon.js or crafty./js ? (even if the game play is extremely basic, I do need mouse and touché device support, mouse emulations on touch devices…) or ca I easily/quickly do it without? for my constraints and targets, should I use CPU acceleration ? for my constraints and targets, should I use web workers ? for the database, for a massively real time game should I avoid to put the current locations of player in MySQL as i feel it might slow me down. What kind of DB should I implement ? Thanks for your help !

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• Trying to use stencils in 2D while retaining layer depth

  - by Steve

  This is a screen of what's going on just so you can get a frame of reference. http://i935.photobucket.com/albums/ad199/fobwashed/tilefloors.png The problem I'm running into is that my game is slowing down due to the amount of texture swapping I'm doing during my draw call. Since walls, characters, floors, and all objects are on their respective sprite sheet containing those types, per tile draw, the loaded texture is swapping no less than 3 to 5+ times as it cycles and draws the sprites in order to layer properly. Now, I've tried throwing all common objects together into their respective lists, and then using layerDepth drawing them that way which makes things a lot better, but the new problem I'm running into has to do with the way my doors/windows are drawn on walls. Namely, I was using stencils to clear out a block on the walls that are drawn in the shape of the door/window so that when the wall would draw, it would have a door/window sized hole in it. This is the way my draw was set up for walls when I was going tile by tile rather than grouped up common objects. first it would check to see if a door/window was on this wall. If not, it'd skip all the steps and just draw normally. Otherwise end the current spriteBatch Clear the buffers with a transparent color to preserve what was already drawn start a new spritebatch with stencil settings draw the door area end the spriteBatch start a new spritebatch that takes into account the previously set stencil draw the wall which will now be drawn with a hole in it end that spritebatch start a new spritebatch with the normal settings to continue drawing tiles In the tile by tile draw, clearing the depth/stencil buffers didn't matter since I wasn't using any layerDepth to organize what draws on top of what. Now that I'm drawing from lists of common objects rather than tile by tile, it has sped up my draw call considerably but I can't seem to figure out a way to keep the stencil system to mask out the area a door or window will be drawn into a wall. The root of the problem is that when I end a spriteBatch to change the DepthStencilState, it flattens the current RenderTarget and there is no longer any depth sorting for anything drawn further down the line. This means walls always get drawn on top of everything regardless of depth or positioning in the game world and even on top of each other as the stencil has to happen once for every wall that has a door or window. Does anyone know of a way to get around this? To boil it down, I need a way to draw having things sorted by layer depth while also being able to stencil/mask out portions of specific sprites.

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• Android Array Lag?

  - by Mike

  I am making a platform game for Android. It is sort of a tile based game. I added bullets and enemies with AI and a bunch of tile types. I created a simple map with no Enemies. Everything was running well and smooth until I shot a bunch of bullets randomly everywhere. A couple of hundreds of bullets later, the FPS lowered. I made a test to find out if the bullets were the problem so I made another simple map with just a tile to stand on and left it for a while. Minutes later, I played around with it a bit to check if the FPS changed and it didnt. I reloaded the same map and shot a lot of bullets. Minutes later, the FPS was visibly lower even after the number of bullets were zero. Points to note: Programmed FPS is 30 Tested on a Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Galaxy W Any tile, enemy, bullet that is off screen is not drawn to prevent lag Bullets collide with Tiles (if they dont collide with in 450 frames, they are removed from the array) I used List bullets = new ListArray(); I used bullets.add(new Bullet(x, y, params...)); I used for(...){ if(...){ bullets.remove(i); } } Code for bullet: private void drawBullets(Canvas canvas) { for (int i = 0; i < bullets.size(); i++) { Bullet b = bullets.get(i); b.update(canvas); //updates physics if (b.t > blm) { //if the bullet is past its expiry bullets.remove(i); i--; } else { if (svx((b.x)) > 0 && svx(b.x) < width && svy((b.y)) > 0 && svy(b.y) < height) { // if bullet is not off screen b.draw(canvas); // draw the bullet } } } } I tried searching for solutions and references but I have no luck. I'm guessing that the lag has something to do with the Array and the Bullets or Classes that I've loaded? I'm not sure! Someone please help! Thanks in advance! :)

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• Why can't Java/C# implement RAII?

  - by mike30

  Question: Why can't Java/C# implement RAII? Clarification: I am aware the garbage collector is not deterministic. So with the current language features it is not possible for an object's Dispose() method to be called automatically on scope exit. But could such a deterministic feature be added? My understanding: I feel an implementation of RAII must satisfy two requirements: 1. The lifetime of a resource must be bound to a scope. 2. Implicit. The freeing of the resource must happen without an explicit statement by the programmer. Analogous to a garbage collector freeing memory without an explicit statement. The "implicitness" only needs to occur at point of use of the class. The class library creator must of course explicitly implement a destructor or Dispose() method. Java/C# satisfy point 1. In C# a resource implementing IDisposable can be bound to a "using" scope: void test() { using(Resource r = new Resource()) { r.foo(); }//resource released on scope exit } This does not satisfy point 2. The programmer must explicitly tie the object to a special "using" scope. Programmers can (and do) forget to explicitly tie the resource to a scope, creating a leak. In fact the "using" blocks are converted to try-finally-dispose() code by the compiler. It has the same explicit nature of the try-finally-dispose() pattern. Without an implicit release, the hook to a scope is syntactic sugar. void test() { //Programmer forgot (or was not aware of the need) to explicitly //bind Resource to a scope. Resource r = new Resource(); r.foo(); }//resource leaked!!! I think it is worth creating a language feature in Java/C# allowing special objects that are hooked to the stack via a smart-pointer. The feature would allow you to flag a class as scope-bound, so that it always is created with a hook to the stack. There could be a options for different for different types of smart pointers. class Resource - ScopeBound { /* class details */ void Dispose() { //free resource } } void test() { //class Resource was flagged as ScopeBound so the tie to the stack is implicit. Resource r = new Resource(); //r is a smart-pointer r.foo(); }//resource released on scope exit. I think implicitness is "worth it". Just as the implicitness of garbage collection is "worth it". Explicit using blocks are refreshing on the eyes, but offer no semantic advantage over try-finally-dispose(). Is it impractical to implement such a feature into the Java/C# languages? Could it be introduced without breaking old code?

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• Speed up your Silverlight Debugging for large projects

  - by Aligned

  I'm working on a 5+ year old ASP.NET project that has 74+ projects and we've been adding new Silverlight applications to run in the ASP.NET page islands. My machine at work isn't the most powerful, so I find myself waiting a lot for the whole thing to build. I'm using Visual Studio 2010, so that takes up a lot of resources as well. This causes me to get distracted and I start looking at the news... I need to combat that more :-). I can't get a new machine, that's up to someone else, so I've found a few tricks to help. 1. Only build the Silverlight project you're working with. This will build all referenced projects (you can see these by right clicking and clicking Project Dependencies) and package a new XAP (you can see all the actions in your output build window). Then refresh your page with the Silverlight app and it's up-to-date. 2. I was working with a co-worker (thanks Jordan) who was using the the Debug -> attach to processes window. In the Attach to: row there is a "Select..." button. In the dialog, click "Debug these code types:" and select Silverlight. Hit ok. Then all you need to do is find your process (you might need to click the refresh button). I'm usually debugging in IE, so I select the first one and push "i" on the keyboard. That brings me to the IE windows open. Find the one with type of Silverlight, x86. It is usually directly above one with type of x86 that has the page title for "title". Click attach and watch your output window spit out messages about loading debug symbols and your breakpoints enabled (if this doesn't happen you chose the wrong process, hit stop and try again). Now you can debug the client code as normal, server code requires a full F5 or attaching to the correct process. To improve this even further, bind the menu item to a key stroke. I chose ctrl + x, x. (Tools -> Options -> Keyboard, search for Debug.AttachToProcess, set the shortcut keys globaly and assign). Most of the time I build the project, then hit ctrl + x, x then i, then enter and I'm debugging. The process I want is usually the first IE in the list.

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• MySQL Connector/Net 6.6.4 RC1 has been released

  - by fernando

  MySQL Connector/Net 6.6.4, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver  for MySQL has been released.  This is the Release Candidate intended to introduce users to the new features in the release.  This release is feature complete it should be stable enough for users to understand the new features and how we expect them to work.  As is the case with all non-GA releases, it should not be used in any production environment.  It is appropriate for use with MySQL server versions 5.0-5.6 It is now available in source and binary form from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/#downloads and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point-if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.) The 6.6 version of MySQL Connector/Net brings the following new features:   * Stored routine debugging   * Entity Framework 4.3 Code First support   * Pluggable authentication (now third parties can plug new authentications mechanisms into the driver).   * Full Visual Studio 2012 support: everything from Server Explorer to Intellisense&  the Stored Routine debugger. The following specific fixes are addressed in this version: - Fixed Entity Framework + mysql connector/net in partial trust throws exceptions (MySql bug #65036, Oracle bug #14668820). - Added support in Parser for Datetime and Time types with precision when using Server 5.6 (No bug Number). - Fix for bug TIMESTAMP values are mistakenly represented as DateTime with Kind = Local (Mysql bug #66964, Oracle bug #14740705). The release is available to download athttp://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.6.html Documentation ------------------------------------- You can view current Connector/Net documentation at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/connector-net.html For specific topics: Stored Routine Debugger:http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/connector-net-visual-studio-debugger.html Authentication plugin:http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/connector-net-programming-authentication-user-plugin.html You can find our team blog at http://blogs.oracle.com/MySQLOnWindows. You can also post questions on our forums at http://forums.mysql.com/. Enjoy and thanks for the support!

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• Is this a pattern? Should it be?

  - by Arkadiy

  The following is more of a statement than a question - it describes something that may be a pattern. The question is: is this a known pattern? Or, if it's not, should it be? I've had a situation where I had to iterate over two dissimilar multi-layer data structures and copy information from one to the other. Depending on particular use case, I had around eight different kinds of layers, combined in about eight different combinations: A-B-C B-C A-C D-E A-D-E and so on After a few unsuccessful attempts to factor out the repetition of per-layer iteration code, I realized that the key difficulty in this refactoring was the fact that the bottom level needed access to data gathered at higher levels. To explicitly accommodate this requirement, I introduced IterationContext class with a number of get() and set() methods for accumulating the necessary information. In the end, I had the following class structure: class Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const = 0; }; class RecursingIterator : public Iterator { RecursingIterator(const Iterator &below); }; class IterateOverA : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // Iterate over members in dataStructure1 // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // and set it in the context // invoke the sub-iterator }; class IterateOverB : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // iterate over members dataStructure2 (form context) // set dataStructure2's item in the context // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // invoke the sub-iterator }; void main() { class FinalCopy : public Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // copy data from structure 1 to structure 2 in the context, // using some data from higher levels as needed } } IterationContext ctx(dateStructure2); IterateOverA(IterateOverB(FinalCopy())).iterate(dataStructure1, ctx); } It so happens that dataStructure1 is a uniform data structure, similar to XML DOM in that respect, while dataStructure2 is a legacy data structure made of various structs and arrays. This allows me to pass dataStructure1 outside of the context for convenience. In general, either side of the iteration or both sides may be passed via context, as convenient. The key situation points are: complicated code that needs to be invoked in "layers", with multiple combinations of layer types possible at the bottom layer, the information from top layers needs to be visible. The key implementation points are: use of context class to access the data from all levels of iteration complicated iteration code encapsulated in implementation of pure virtual function two interfaces - one aware of underlying iterator, one not aware of it. use of const & to simplify the usage syntax.

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

  - by dsollen

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

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• Could I be going crazy with Event Handlers? Am I going the "wrong way" with my design?

  - by sensae

  I guess I've decided that I really like event handlers. I may be suffering a bit from analysis paralysis, but I'm concerned about making my design unwieldy or running into some other unforeseen consequence to my design decisions. My game engine currently does basic sprite-based rendering with a panning overhead camera. My design looks a bit like this: SceneHandler Contains a list of classes that implement the SceneListener interface (currently only Sprites). Calls render() once per tick, and sends onCameraUpdate(); messages to SceneListeners. InputHandler Polls the input once per tick, and sends a simple "onKeyPressed" message to InputListeners. I have a Camera InputListener which holds a SceneHandler instance and triggers updateCamera(); events based on what the input is. AgentHandler Calls default actions on any Agents (AI) once per tick, and will check a stack for any new events that are registered, dispatching them to specific Agents as needed. So I have basic sprite objects that can move around a scene and use rudimentary steering behaviors to travel. I've gotten onto collision detection, and this is where I'm not sure the direction my design is going is good. Is it a good practice to have many, small event handlers? I imagine going the way I am that I'd have to implement some kind of CollisionHandler. Would I be better off with a more consolidated EntityHandler which handles AI, collision updates, and other entity interactions in one class? Or will I be fine just implementing many different event handling subsystems which pass messages to each other based on what kind of event it is? Should I write an EntityHandler which is simply responsible for coordinating all these sub event handlers? I realize in some cases, such as my InputHandler and SceneHandler, those are very specific types of events. A large portion of my game code won't care about input, and a large portion won't care about updates that happen purely in the rendering of the scene. Thus I feel my isolation of those systems is justified. However, I'm asking this question specifically approaching game logic type events.

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• EF Doesn't Like Same Named Tables

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2013/07/02/153327.aspxIt's another week and another restriction imposed by the Entity Framework (EF). Don't get me wrong. I like EF, but I don't like how it restricts you in different ways. At this point you may be asking yourself the question: how can you have more than one table with the same name?The answer is to have tables in different schemas. I do this to partition the data based on the area of concern. It allows security to be assigned conveniently. A lot of people don't use schemas. I love them. But this article isn't about schemas.In the situation I have two tables:Contact.PersonEmployee.PersonThe first contains the basic, more public information such as the name. The second contains mostly HR specific information. I then mapped these tables to two classes. I stuck to a Table per Class (TPC) mapping, because of problems I've had in the past implementing inheritance with EF. The following code gives you the basic contents of the classes.[Table("Person", Schema = "Employee")]public class Employee {   ...   public int PersonId { get; set; }   [ForeignKey("PersonId")]   public virtual Person Person { get; set; }}[Table("Person", Schema = "Contact")]public class Person {   [Key]   public int Id { get; set; }   ...}This seemingly simple scenario just doesn't work. The problem occurs when you try to add a Person to the DbContext. You get an InvalidOperationException with the following text:The entity types 'Employee' and 'Person' cannot share table 'People' because they are not in the same type hierarchy or do not have a valid one to one foreign key relationship with matching primary keys between them..This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, there is no People table in my database. Second, I have used the SetInitializer method to stop a database from being created, so it shouldn't be thinking about new tables.The solution to my problem was to change the name of my Employee.Person table. I decided to name it Employee.Employee. It's not ideal, but it gets me past the EF limitation. I hope that this article will help someone else that has the same problem.

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• Do functional generics exist or what is the correct name for them if they do?

  - by voroninp

  Consider the following generic class public class EntityChangeInfo<EntityType,TEntityKey> { ChangeTypeEnum ChangeType {get;} TEntityKeyType EntityKey {get;} } Here EntityType unambiguously defines TEntityKeyType. So it would be nice to have some kind of types' map public class EntityChangeInfo<EntityType,TEntityKey> with map < [ EntityType : Person -> TEntityKeyType : int] [ EntityType : Car -> TEntityKeyType : CarIdType ]> { ChangeTypeEnum ChangeType {get;} TEntityKeyType EntityKey {get;} } Another one example is: public class Foo<TIn> with map < [TIn : Person -> TOut1 : string, TOut2 : int, ..., TOutN : double ] [TIn : Car -> TOut1 : int, TOut2 :int, ..., TOutN : Price ] > { TOut1 Prop1 {get;set;} TOut2 Prop2 {get;set;} ... TOutN PropN {get;set;} } The reasonable question how this can be interpreted by the compiler? Well, for me it is just the sortcut for two structurally similar classes: public sealed class Foo<Person> { string Prop1 {get;set;} int Prop2 {get;set;} ... double PropN {get;set;} } public sealed class Foo<Car> { int Prop1 {get;set;} int Prop2 {get;set;} ... Price PropN {get;set;} } But besides this we could imaging some update of the Foo<: public class Foo<TIn> with map < [TIn : Person -> TOut1 : string, TOut2 : int, ..., TOutN : double ] [TIn : Car -> TOut1 : int, TOut2 :int, ..., TOutN : Price ] > { TOut1 Prop1 {get;set;} TOut2 Prop2 {get;set;} ... TOutN PropN {get;set;} public override string ToString() { return string.Format("prop1={0}, prop2={1},...propN={N-1}, Prop1, Prop2,...,PropN); } } This all can seem quite superficial but the idea came when I was designing the messages for our system. The very first class. Many messages with the same structrue should be discriminated by the EntityType. So the question is whether such construct exist in any programming language?

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• Do functional generics exist and what is the correct name for them if they do?

  - by voroninp

  Consider the following generic class: public class EntityChangeInfo<EntityType,TEntityKey> { ChangeTypeEnum ChangeType {get;} TEntityKeyType EntityKey {get;} } Here EntityType unambiguously defines TEntityKeyType. So it would be nice to have some kind of types' map: public class EntityChangeInfo<EntityType,TEntityKey> with map < [ EntityType : Person -> TEntityKeyType : int] [ EntityType : Car -> TEntityKeyType : CarIdType ]> { ChangeTypeEnum ChangeType {get;} TEntityKeyType EntityKey {get;} } Another one example is: public class Foo<TIn> with map < [TIn : Person -> TOut1 : string, TOut2 : int, ..., TOutN : double ] [TIn : Car -> TOut1 : int, TOut2 :int, ..., TOutN : Price ] > { TOut1 Prop1 {get;set;} TOut2 Prop2 {get;set;} ... TOutN PropN {get;set;} } The reasonable question: how can this be interpreted by the compiler? Well, for me it is just the shortcut for two structurally similar classes: public sealed class Foo<Person> { string Prop1 {get;set;} int Prop2 {get;set;} ... double PropN {get;set;} } public sealed class Foo<Car> { int Prop1 {get;set;} int Prop2 {get;set;} ... Price PropN {get;set;} } But besides this we could imaging some update of the Foo<>: public class Foo<TIn> with map < [TIn : Person -> TOut1 : string, TOut2 : int, ..., TOutN : double ] [TIn : Car -> TOut1 : int, TOut2 :int, ..., TOutN : Price ] > { TOut1 Prop1 {get;set;} TOut2 Prop2 {get;set;} ... TOutN PropN {get;set;} public override string ToString() { return string.Format("prop1={0}, prop2={1},...propN={N-1}, Prop1, Prop2,...,PropN); } } This all can seem quite superficial but the idea came when I was designing the messages for our system. The very first class. Many messages with the same structure should be discriminated by the EntityType. So the question is whether such construct exists in any programming language?

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• Strangling the life out of Software Testing

  - by MarkPearl

  I recently did a course at the local university on Software Engineering. At the beginning of the course I looked over the outline of the subject and there seemed to be some really good content. It covered traditional & agile project methodologies, some general communication and modelling chapters and finished off with testing. I was particularly excited to see the section on testing as this was something I learnt on my own and see great value in. The course has now just ended and I am very disappointed. I now know one of the reasons why so few people i.e. in my region do Test Driven Development, or perform even basic testing methodologies. The topic was to academic! Yes, you might be able to list 4 different types of black box test approaches vs. white box test approaches and describe the characteristics of Smoke Tests, but never during course did we see an example of an actual test or how it might be implemented! In fact, if I did not have personal experience of applying testing in actual projects, I wouldn’t even know what a unit test looked like. Now, what worries me is the following… It took us 6 months to cover the course material, other students more than likely came out of that course with little appreciation of the subject – in fact they now have a very complex view of what a test is – so complex that I think most of them will never attempt it again on their own. Secondly, imagine studying to be a dentist without ever actually seeing a tooth? Yes, you might be able to describe a tooth, and know what it is made out of – but nobody would want a dentist who has never seen a tooth to operate on them. Yet somehow we expect people studying software engineering to do the same? This is not right. Now, before I finish my rant let me say that I know this is not the same everywhere in the world, and that there needs to be a balance on practical implementation and academic understanding – I am just disappointed that this does not seem to be happening at the institution that I am currently studying at ;-( Please, if you happen to be a lecturer or teacher reading this post – a combination of theory and practical's goes a long way. We need to up the quality of software being produced and that starts at learner level!

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