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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 25, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 25, 2012Popular ReleasesAsp.NET Url Router: v1.0: build for .net 2.0 and .net 4.0menu4web: menu4web 0.0.3: menu4web 0.0.3Craig's Utility Library: Craig's Utility Library 3.1: This update adds about 60 new extension methods, a couple of new classes, and a number of fixes including: Additions Added DateSpan class Added GenericDelimited class Random additions Added static thread friendly version of Random.Next called ThreadSafeNext. AOP Manager additions Added Destroy function to AOPManager (clears out all data so system can be recreated. Really only useful for testing...) ORM additions Added PagedCommand and PageCount functions to ObjectBaseClass (same as M...MemoryLifter: MemoryLifter 2.4.1: KNOWN ISSUE: Sometime the automatic installation of SQL Compact Edition dependency does not work, when you are behind a proxy server. To solve that problem install SQL CE 3.5 SP2 manually from the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5783SQL Monitor - managing sql server performance: SQLMon 4.2 alpha 14: 1. improved accuracy of logic fault checking in analysisDotSpatial: DotSpatial 1.1: This is a Minor Release. See the changes in the issue tracker. Minimal -- includes DotSpatial core and essential extensions Extended -- includes debugging symbols and additional extensions Just want to run the software? End user (non-programmer) version available branded as MapWindow Want to add your own feature? Develop a plugin, using the template and contribute to the extension feed (you can also write extensions that you distribute in other ways). Components are available as NuGet pa...Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: C++, .NET Coding Guideline: Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework Coding Guideline This document describes the coding style guideline for native C++ and .NET (C# and VB.NET) programming used by the Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework project team.WebDAV for WHS: Version 1.0.67: - Added: Check whether the Remote Web Access is turned on or not; - Added: Check for Add-In updates;Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 3.0 (March 2012) for .NET 4.0: March release of Phalanger 3.0 significantly enhances performance, adds new features and fixes many issues. See following for the list of main improvements: New features: Phalanger Tools installable for Visual Studio 2011 Beta "filter" extension with several most used filters implemented DomDocument HTML parser, loadHTML() method mail() PHP compatible function PHP 5.4 T_CALLABLE token PHP 5.4 "callable" type hint PCRE: UTF32 characters in range support configuration supports <c...Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.0: Version 8.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: Internationalization Custom authentication provider Access control list for forums and threads Webdeploy package checksum: abc62990189cf0d488ef915d4a55e4b14169bc01 Visit Roadmap for more details.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6: This beta release is the first to support SQL Server 2012 (in addition to SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2). Since it is marked as a beta release, we are looking for bug reports in the next few months as you use BIDS Helper on real projects. In addition to getting all existing BIDS Helper functionality working appropriately in SQL Server 2012 (SSDT), the following features are new... Analysis Services Tabular Smart Diff Tabular Actions Editor Tabular HideMemberIf Tabular Pre-Build ...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 1: New feature - Windows 8 Metro build New feature - JsonTextReader automatically reads ISO strings as dates New feature - Added DateFormatHandling to control whether dates are written in the MS format or ISO format, with ISO as the default New feature - Added DateTimeZoneHandling to control reading and writing DateTime time zone details New feature - Added async serialize/deserialize methods to JsonConvert New feature - Added Path to JsonReader/JsonWriter/ErrorContext and exceptions w...SCCM Client Actions Tool: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.11: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.11 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Fixed a bug when ping and cmd.exe kept running in endless loop after action progress was finished. Fixed update checking from Codeplex RSS feed. The tool is downloadable as a ZIP file that contains four files: ClientActionsTool.hta – The tool itself. Cmdkey.exe – command line tool for managing cached credentials. This is needed for alternate credentials feature when running the HTA...WebSocket4Net: WebSocket4Net 0.5: Changes in this release fixed the wss's default port bug improved JsonWebSocket supported set client access policy protocol for silverlight fixed a handshake issue in Silverlight fixed a bug that "Host" field in handshake hadn't contained port if the port is not default supported passing in Origin parameter for handshaking supported reacting pings from server side fixed a bug in data sending fixed the bug sending a closing handshake with no message which would cause an excepti...SuperWebSocket, a .NET WebSocket Server: SuperWebSocket 0.5: Changes included in this release: supported closing handshake queue checking improved JSON subprotocol supported sending ping from server to client fixed a bug about sending a closing handshake with no message refactored the code to improve protocol compatibility fixed a bug about sub protocol configuration loading in Mono improved BasicSubProtocol added JsonWebSocketSessionUltra Presenter Desktop: UltraPresenter Desktop Version 2012.03.18: New release with new interface design.LoU: LoU.Dungeons V0: LoU.Dungeons V0SSIS GoogleAnalyticsSource: Version 1.0.3 x64: Now it's possible to select 225 metrics and 93 dimensions and I have modified almost all of the data types.HTML to docx Converter: htmltodocx_0.5.1_alpha: Improved UTF-8 support. Please note, for proper UTF-8 support, there appears to be an issue with PHPWord that needs to be addressed. See: http://phpword.codeplex.com/discussions/261365 for a discussion.Daun Management Studio: Daun Management Studio 0.1 (Alpha Version): These are these the alpha application packages for Daun Management Studio to manage MongoDB Server. Please visit our official website http://www.daun-project.comNew ProjectsBundle Transformer: Bundle Transformer - a modular extension for System.Web.Optimization. Classes CssTransformer and JsTransformer, included in the core of Bundle Transformer, implement interface IBundleTransform. They are intended to replace the standard classes CssMinify and JsMinify.Catel fody plugin: Catel plugin for Fody. For more information about Fody, see http://code.google.com/p/fody/.CharsetConverter: CharsetConverter makes it easier to convert a bunch of files from one charset to another. Files are backuped and recoded. You will no longer need to convert one file after another. It's developed in VB.NET.FNSYS: ??GM Spriter: GM Spriter creates copy rectangle and scaling data for sprites that can drawn in pieces. Supporting a more advanced, optimized, and less resource intensive method.htty: htty is the HTTP TTY, a console application for interacting with web servers.menu4web: menu4web is lightweight javascript code for creating dynamic menus on web sites.mvcpractice2: mvcpractice2National Transportation Information Control Protocol Suite: A Standards Compliant Extensible NTCIP Software Solution. It is utilized in all federally funded projects in the world over. It contains utilities for encoding, decoding in various layer formats such as HDLC, PMPP, SNMP (BER, PER Etc.) There are also some proprietary features. This software was developed in my Free Time because the software in use by my organization was severely lacking and always required some type of major change for the smallest thing. After implementation and...OpenEMR: OpenEMR is an open source medical practice management application (EHR EMR PMS) featuring fully integrated electronic health records, scheduling, electronic billing, internationalization, free support, a vibrant community, and a whole lot more. Mirror of Sourceforge OpenEMR project.Opera Extension Creator: The program helps create extensions for Opera. You can write code in another editor (program can automatically checks for changes on the disk) and only one click to create .oex file and install it in Opera. It's developed in (V)C# 2005 and .NET 2.0. PADNUG Site Redesign: Bringing the PADNUG web site up to current technologies and giving it a facelift.Practico1: ejercicios de practico 1Roslyn and C#-Derived Languages: Roslyn and C#-Derived Languages(for example: Axum)Series Organiser: An app that organises tv series episodes based on the file name into a series folder structure.Silverlight socket component: Beetle.SL?????Silverlight socket?????,???????????,??????????tcp??;?????????????.Skylark: Skylark is an n-tier application to test drive different .NET technologies across various domain problems. It's developed in .NET C#

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• nhibernate subclass in code

  - by Antonio Nakic Alfirevic

  I would like to set up table-per-classhierarchy inheritance in nhibernate thru code. Everything else is set in XML mapping files except the subclasses. If i up the subclasses in xml all is well, but not from code. This is the code i use - my concrete subclass never gets created:( //the call NHibernate.Cfg.Configuration config = new NHibernate.Cfg.Configuration(); SetSubclass(config, typeof(TAction), typeof(tActionSub1), "Procedure"); //the method public static void SetSubclass(Configuration configuration, Type baseClass, Type subClass, string discriminatorValue) { PersistentClass persBaseClass = configuration.ClassMappings.Where(cm => cm.MappedClass == baseClass).Single(); SingleTableSubclass persSubClass = new SingleTableSubclass(persBaseClass); persSubClass.ClassName = subClass.AssemblyQualifiedName; persSubClass.DiscriminatorValue = discriminatorValue; persSubClass.EntityPersisterClass = typeof(SingleTableEntityPersister); persSubClass.ProxyInterfaceName = (subClass).AssemblyQualifiedName; persSubClass.NodeName = subClass.Name; persSubClass.EntityName = subClass.FullName; persBaseClass.AddSubclass(persSubClass); } the Xml mapping looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <hibernate-mapping xmlns="urn:nhibernate-mapping-2.2" namespace="Riz.Pcm.Domain.BusinessObjects" assembly="Riz.Pcm.Domain"> <class name="Riz.Pcm.Domain.BusinessObjects.TAction, Riz.Pcm.Domain" table="dbo.tAction" lazy="true"> <id name="Id" column="ID"> <generator class="guid" /> </id> <discriminator type="String" formula="(select jt.Name from TJobType jt where jt.Id=JobTypeId)" insert="true" force="false"/> <many-to-one name="Session" column="SessionID" class="TSession" /> <property name="Order" column="Order1" /> <property name="ProcessStart" column="ProcessStart" /> <property name="ProcessEnd" column="ProcessEnd" /> <property name="Status" column="Status" /> <many-to-one name="JobType" column="JobTypeID" class="TJobType" /> <many-to-one name="Unit" column="UnitID" class="TUnit" /> <bag name="TActionProperties" lazy="true" cascade="all-delete-orphan" inverse="true" > <key column="ActionID"></key> <one-to-many class="TActionProperty"></one-to-many> </bag> <!--<subclass name="Riz.Pcm.Domain.tActionSub" discriminator-value="ZPower"></subclass>--> </class> </hibernate-mapping> What am I doing wrong? I can't find any examples on google:(

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• Is a Model Driven Architecture in Language Oriented Programming (MPS) feasible at this time

  - by Steven Jeuris

  As a side project I am developing some sort of DSL where I describe a data model, and generate desired code files from it. I believe this is called Model Driven Architecture. My partial existing implementation uses C#, CodeDOM, XML and XSLT to do this manually. I discovered there already exist better environments to do this in. The one which fascinated me the most is called MPS, which follows the Language Oriented Programming paradigm. This article, written by a cofounder of JetBrains was a real eye opener for me. I truly believe LOP has a very good chance of becoming the next big programming paradigm once it has broader support. From my short experience with MPS, I noticed it is still mainly Java-oriented. My question is, how feasible is it to generate code files for other (multiple) languages instead of just Java. I don't need full language support from the start, so preferably, I need to be able to implement a language in a agile way. E.g. first support only one type, add access modifiers, ... Perhaps some other (free) environment already provides this out of the box. P.S.: I find it important to have a lot of control over the naming conventions and such of the generated code. This is one of the reasons why I started my own implementation.

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• Aggregating Excel cell contents that match a label [migrated]

  - by Josh

  I'm sure this isn't a terribly difficult thing, but it's not the type of question that easily lends itself to internet searches. I've been assigned a project for work involving a complex spreadsheet. I've done the usual =SUM and other basic Excel formulas, and I've got enough coding background that I'm able to at least fudge my way through VBA, but I'm not certain how to proceed with one part of the task. Simple version: On Sheet 1 I have a list of people (one on each row, person's name in column A), on sheet 2 I have a list of groups (one on each row, group name in column A). Each name in Sheet 1 has its own row, and I have a "Data Validation" dropdown menu where you choose the group each person belongs to. That dropdown is sourced from Sheet 2, where each group has a row. So essentially the data validation source for Sheet 1's "Group" column is just "=Sheet2!$a1:a100" or whatever. The problem is this: I want each group row in Sheet 2 to have a formula which results in a list of all the users which have been assigned to that group on Sheet 1. What I mean is something the equivalent of "select * from PeopleTab where GROUP = ThisGroup". The resulting cell would just stick the names together like "Bob Smith, Joe Jones, Sally Sanderson" I've been Googling for hours but I can't think of a way to phrase my search query to get the results I want. Here's an example of desired result (Dash-delimited. Can't find a way to make it look nice, table tags don't seem to work here): (Sheet 1) Bob Smith - Group 1 (selected from dropdown) Joe Jones - Group 2 (selected from dropdown) Sally Sanderson - Group 1 (selected from dropdown) (Sheet 2) Group 1 - Bob Smith, Sally Sanderson (result of formula) Group 2 - Joe Jones (result of formula) What formula (or even what function) do I use on that second column of sheet 2 to make a flat list out of the members of that group?

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• EF4 CPT5 Code First Remove Cascading Deletes

  - by Dane Morgridge

  I have been using EF4 CTP5 with code first and I really like the new code.  One issue I was having however, was cascading deletes is on by default.  This may come as a surprise as using Entity Framework with anything but code first, this is not the case.  I ran into an exception with some one-to-many relationships I had: Introducing FOREIGN KEY constraint 'ProjectAuthorization_UserProfile' on table 'ProjectAuthorizations' may cause cycles or multiple cascade paths. Specify ON DELETE NO ACTION or ON UPDATE NO ACTION, or modify other FOREIGN KEY constraints. Could not create constraint. See previous errors. To get around this, you can use the fluent API and put some code in the OnModelCreating: 1: protected override void OnModelCreating(System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.ModelBuilder modelBuilder) 2: { 3: modelBuilder.Entity<UserProfile>() 4: .HasMany(u => u.ProjectAuthorizations) 5: .WithRequired(a => a.UserProfile) 6: .WillCascadeOnDelete(false); 7: } This will work to remove the cascading delete, but I have to use the fluent API and it has to be done for every one-to-many relationship that causes the problem. I am personally not a fan of cascading deletes in general (for several reasons) and I’m not a huge fan of fluent APIs.  However, there is a way to do this without using the fluent API.  You can in the OnModelCreating, remove the convention that creates the cascading deletes altogether. 1: protected override void OnModelCreating(System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.ModelBuilder modelBuilder) 2: { 3: modelBuilder.Conventions.Remove<OneToManyCascadeDeleteConvention>(); 4: } Thanks to Jeff Derstadt from Microsoft for the info on removing the convention all together.  There is a way to build a custom attribute to remove it on a case by case basis and I’ll have a post on how to do this in the near future.

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• Using XML as data storage

  - by Kian Mayne

  I was thinking about the XML format and the following quote: “XML is not a database. It was never meant to be a database. It is never going to be a database. Relational databases are proven technology with more than 20 years of implementation experience. They are solid, stable, useful products. They are not going away. XML is a very useful technology for moving data between different databases or between databases and other programs. However, it is not itself a database. Don't use it like one.“ -Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML by Elliotte Rusty Harold (page 230, Part 4, Item 41, 2nd paragraph) This seems to really stress that XML should not be used for data storage and should only be used for program to program interoperability. Personally, I disagree and .NET's app.config file that's used to store a program's settings is an example of data storage in an XML file. However for databases rather than configurations etc XML should not be used. To develop my point, I will use two examples: A) Data about customers with fields that are all on one level i.e. there are a number of fields all relating to one customer with no children B) Data about configuration of an application where nested fields and properties make a lot of sense So my question is, Is this still a valid statement and is it now acceptable to store data using XML? EDIT: I've sent an email to the author of that quote to ask for his input/extra context.

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• What I&rsquo;m Reading &ndash; Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner&rs

  - by Dave Campbell

  I don’t have a lot of time for reading lately, so James Patterson and all those guys are *way* ahead of me … but I do try to make time to read technical material. A couple books have come across just recently and I thought I’d mention them one at a time. The book I want to mention tonight is Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner’s Guide : by Cameron Albert and Frank LaVigne. Cameron and Frank are both great guys and you’ve seen their blog posts come across my SilverlightCream posts many times. I like the writing and format of the book. It leads you quite well from one concept to the next and for a technical book, it holds your interest. You can check out a free chapter here. I have the eBook because for technical material, at least lately, I’ve gravitated toward that. I can have it with me on a USB stick at work, or at home. Read the free chapter then check out their blogs. Even if you think you know a lot of this material, I think you’ll find yourself learning something, and besides, it’s a great one-place reference. Good work guys! Technorati Tags: Silverlight 4

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• WolframAlpha Can Now Do In-depth Analysis of Your Facebook Account

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re a big fan of WolframAlpha’s ability to crunch the numbers on just about anything–and we certainly are–you’ll likely be just as delighted as we were to watch it massage the data from your Facebook account. Find out your most liked, discussed, and shared posts, see your Facebook habits, and other neat trends. I unleashed it on my account this morning, not sure what to expect from the results. Within the results tabulation WolframAlpha provided me with all sorts of neat data break downs. I now know exactly how many days it is to my next birthday, the composition of my aggregate posting habits (how many posts are status updates, links, or photos), the time of day when I do the most posting (and what the composition of those posts is), and my average post length. I also know my most liked post and my most commented on post. It will even crunch the numbers on your network of friends (60.6% of my friends are married, for example). By far one of the more interesting data analysis it does on the friendship data, however, is organizing all your friends into relationship clusters so you can see who in your Facebook network is friends with other people in your Facebook network. The service from WolframAlpha is free: simply visit the WolframAlpha search portal and type in “Facebook report” to start the process. You’ll be prompted to create a WolframAlpha account if you don’t have one and to authorize the WolframAlpha Facebook app to access your data. Your Facebook data is cached to your WolframAlpha account for one hour in order to crunch the numbers and display the results. WolframAlpha HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? Java is Insecure and Awful, It’s Time to Disable It, and Here’s How

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• Moving from Silverlight 4 Beta to RC - Part 2

  In my previous post I talked about updating my development environment from Silverlight 4 Beta to Silverlight 4 RC (release candidate). After updating, I opened the solution for my Task-It project and found that several things were broken. I would've been surprised if it just worked as is! What disappointed me is that after spending a decent amount of time searching the web, I could not find information telling me what I needed to update/change...and wouldn't it be nice if there was a wizard to update it for you? What changed? I wish I had made notes along the line of each of the things I found, but here are a few that I can recall: In the Web project, the following dll's no longer exist: System.Web.DomainServices.dll System.Web.DomainServices.LinqToSql.dll (if you are using the Entity Framework I believe that one is System.Web.DomainServices.EntityFramework.dll) System.Web.Ria.dll In the Silverlight project: System.Windows.Ria.dll I'm not positive which new assemblies need to be referenced for your project, but I'm going to list the ones I think you need. One way to verify is to create a new Silverlight application with support for WCF RIA Services and see which dlls are included. In the Web project: System.Data.Entity.dll System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.EntityFramework.dll (I've moved from LinqToSql to EntityFramework, so I'm not sure which one the LinqToSql stuff comes from) System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.dll System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Server.dll In the Silverlight project: System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client.dll System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client.Web.dll System.ServiceModel.Web.Extensions.dll Where are these dll's? These all live in either the Silverlight or RIA Services subdirectories under:         C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs Of if you are on a 64-bit machine like me:         C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs Wrap up Good luck, and I hope this helps to get you back in business! If anyone finds anything that I've missed, please enter a comment and I'll update the post accordingly.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Can't customize the application switcher

  - by Byron Hawkins

  I'm trying to change the shortcut for switching applications from Alt+Tab to Ctrl+Tab, but changes in the System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Navigation are being ignored. Even if I disable the Switch applications shortcut entirely, it still maps to Alt+Tab. At one point I had some keys remapped with xmodmap, but since then I have deleted that configuration and rebooted. My keyboard layout settings are all defaults. The OS is Ubuntu 12.04, with all software updated this afternoon. It would also be nice to have the variation of application switching that includes one icon per window, instead of one icon per application, since I am frequently switching between windows of an application and would rather not wait for the switcher to realize I want a different window of the current application. My other Ubuntu 12.04 install has the application switcher that I like, but I'm not sure how to choose between them on this install (which was set up by my university department). Thanks if anyone can help me with this.

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• Silverlight 4 Twitter Client &ndash; Part 6

  - by Max

  In this post, we are going to look into implementing lists into our twitter application and also about enhancing the data grid to display the status messages in a pleasing way with the profile images. Twitter lists are really cool feature that they recently added, I love them and I’ve quite a few lists setup one for DOTNET gurus, SQL Server gurus and one for a few celebrities. You can follow them here. Now let us move onto our tutorial. 1) Lists can be subscribed to in two ways, one can be user’s own lists, which he has created and another one is the lists that the user is following. Like for example, I’ve created 3 lists myself and I am following 1 other lists created by another user. Both of them cannot be fetched in the same api call, its a two step process. 2) In the TwitterCredentialsSubmit method we’ve in Home.xaml.cs, let us do the first api call to get the lists that the user has created. For this the call has to be made to https://twitter.com/<TwitterUsername>/lists.xml. The API reference is available here. myService1.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService1.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService1.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(GlobalVariable.getUserName(), GlobalVariable.getPassword()); myService1.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(ListsRequestCompleted); myService1.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("https://twitter.com/" + GlobalVariable.getUserName() + "/lists.xml")); 3) Now let us look at implementing the event handler – ListRequestCompleted for this. public void ListsRequestCompleted(object sender, System.Net.DownloadStringCompletedEventArgs e) { if (e.Error != null) { StatusMessage.Text = "This application must be installed first."; parseXML(""); } else { //MessageBox.Show(e.Result.ToString()); parseXMLLists(e.Result.ToString()); } } 4) Now let us look at the parseXMLLists in detail xdoc = XDocument.Parse(text); var answer = (from status in xdoc.Descendants("list") select status.Element("name").Value); foreach (var p in answer) { Border bord = new Border(); bord.CornerRadius = new CornerRadius(10, 10, 10, 10); Button b = new Button(); b.MinWidth = 70; b.Background = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); b.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); //b.Width = 70; b.Height = 25; b.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(b_Click); b.Content = p.ToString(); bord.Child = b; TwitterListStack.Children.Add(bord); } So here what am I doing, I am just dynamically creating a button for each of the lists and put them within a StackPanel and for each of these buttons, I am creating a event handler b_Click which will be fired on button click. We will look into this method in detail soon. For now let us get the buttons displayed. 5) Now the user might have some lists to which he has subscribed to. We need to create a button for these as well. In the end of TwitterCredentialsSubmit method, we need to make a call to http://api.twitter.com/1/<TwitterUsername>/lists/subscriptions.xml. Reference is available here. The code will look like this below. myService2.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService2.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService2.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(GlobalVariable.getUserName(), GlobalVariable.getPassword()); myService2.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(ListsSubsRequestCompleted); myService2.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://api.twitter.com/1/" + GlobalVariable.getUserName() + "/lists/subscriptions.xml")); 6) In the event handler – ListsSubsRequestCompleted, we need to parse through the xml string and create a button for each of the lists subscribed, let us see how. I’ve taken only the “full_name”, you can choose what you want, refer the documentation here. Note the point that the full_name will have @<UserName>/<ListName> format – this will be useful very soon. xdoc = XDocument.Parse(text); var answer = (from status in xdoc.Descendants("list") select status.Element("full_name").Value); foreach (var p in answer) { Border bord = new Border(); bord.CornerRadius = new CornerRadius(10, 10, 10, 10); Button b = new Button(); b.Background = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); b.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); //b.Width = 70; b.MinWidth = 70; b.Height = 25; b.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(b_Click); b.Content = p.ToString(); bord.Child = b; TwitterListStack.Children.Add(bord); } Please note, I am setting the button width to be auto based on the content and also giving it a midwidth value. I wanted to create a rounded corner buttons, but for some reason its not working. Also add this StackPanel – TwitterListStack of the Home.xaml <StackPanel HorizontalAlignment="Center" Orientation="Horizontal" Name="TwitterListStack"></StackPanel> After doing this, you would get a series of buttons in the top of the home page. 7) Now the button click event handler – b_Click, in this method, once the button is clicked, I call another method with the content string of the button which is clicked as the parameter. Button b = (Button)e.OriginalSource; getListStatuses(b.Content.ToString()); 8) Now the getListsStatuses method: toggleProgressBar(true); WebRequest.RegisterPrefix("http://", System.Net.Browser.WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp); WebClient myService = new WebClient(); myService.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(TimelineRequestCompleted); if (listName.IndexOf("@") > -1 && listName.IndexOf("/") > -1) { string[] arrays = null; arrays = listName.Split('/'); arrays[0] = arrays[0].Replace("@", " ").Trim(); //MessageBox.Show(arrays[0]); //MessageBox.Show(arrays[1]); string url = "http://api.twitter.com/1/" + arrays[0] + "/lists/" + arrays[1] + "/statuses.xml"; //MessageBox.Show(url); myService.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri(url)); } else myService.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://api.twitter.com/1/" + GlobalVariable.getUserName() + "/lists/" + listName + "/statuses.xml")); Please note that the url to look at will be different based on the list clicked – if its user created, the url format will be http://api.twitter.com/1/<CurentUser>/lists/<ListName>/statuses.xml But if it is some lists subscribed, it will be http://api.twitter.com/1/<ListOwnerUserName>/lists/<ListName>/statuses.xml The first one is pretty straight forward to implement, but if its a list subscribed, we need to split the listName string to get the list owner and list name and user them to form the string. So that is what I’ve done in this method, if the listName has got “@” and “/” I build the url differently. 9) Until now, we’ve been using only a few nodes of the status message xml string, now we will look to fetch a new field - “profile_image_url”. Images in datagrid – COOL. So for that, we need to modify our Status.cs file to include two more fields one string another BitmapImage with get and set. public string profile_image_url { get; set; } public BitmapImage profileImage { get; set; } 10) Now let us change the generic parseXML method which is used for binding to the datagrid. public void parseXML(string text) { XDocument xdoc; xdoc = XDocument.Parse(text); statusList = new List<Status>(); statusList = (from status in xdoc.Descendants("status") select new Status { ID = status.Element("id").Value, Text = status.Element("text").Value, Source = status.Element("source").Value, UserID = status.Element("user").Element("id").Value, UserName = status.Element("user").Element("screen_name").Value, profile_image_url = status.Element("user").Element("profile_image_url").Value, profileImage = new BitmapImage(new Uri(status.Element("user").Element("profile_image_url").Value)) }).ToList(); DataGridStatus.ItemsSource = statusList; StatusMessage.Text = "Datagrid refreshed."; toggleProgressBar(false); } We are here creating a new bitmap image from the image url and creating a new Status object for every status and binding them to the data grid. Refer to the Twitter API documentation here. You can choose any column you want. 11) Until now, we’ve been using the auto generate columns for the data grid, but if you want it to be really cool, you need to define the columns with templates, etc… <data:DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="False" Name="DataGridStatus" Height="Auto" MinWidth="400"> <data:DataGrid.Columns> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn Width="50" Header=""> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> <DataTemplate> <Image Source="{Binding profileImage}" Width="50" Height="50" Margin="1"/> </DataTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn> <data:DataGridTextColumn Width="Auto" Header="User Name" Binding="{Binding UserName}" /> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn MinWidth="300" Width="Auto" Header="Status"> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> <DataTemplate> <TextBlock TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="{Binding Text}"/> </DataTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn> </data:DataGrid.Columns> </data:DataGrid> I’ve used only three columns – Profile image, Username, Status text. Now our Datagrid will look super cool like this. Coincidentally,  Tim Heuer is on the screenshot , who is a Silverlight Guru and works on SL team in Microsoft. His blog is really super. Here is the zipped file for all the xaml, xaml.cs & class files pages. Ok let us stop here for now, will look into implementing few more features in the next few posts and then I am going to look into developing a ASP.NET MVC 2 application. Hope you all liked this post. If you have any queries / suggestions feel free to comment below or contact me. Cheers! Technorati Tags: Silverlight,LINQ,Twitter API,Twitter,Silverlight 4

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• TDD - Outside In vs Inside Out

  - by Songo

  What is the difference between building an application Outside In vs building it Inside Out using TDD? These are the books I read about TDD and unit testing: Test Driven Development: By Example Test-Driven Development: A Practical Guide: A Practical Guide Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .Net Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests---This one was really hard to understand since JAVA isn't my primary language :) Almost all of them explained TDD basics and unit testing in general, but with little mention of the different ways the application can be constructed. Another thing I noticed is that most of these books (if not all) ignore the design phase when writing the application. They focus more on writing the test cases quickly and letting the design emerge by itself. However, I came across a paragraph in xUnit Test Patterns that discussed the ways people approach TDD. There are 2 schools out there Outside In vs Inside Out. Sadly the book doesn't elaborate more on this point. I wish to know what is the main difference between these 2 cases. When should I use each one of them? To a TDD beginner which one is easier to grasp? What is the drawbacks of each method? Is there any materials out there that discuss this topic specifically?

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• Designing configuration for subobjects

  - by Stefano Borini

  I have the following situation: I have a class (let's call it Main) encapsulating a complex process. This class in turn orchestrates a sequence of subalgorithms (AlgoA, AlgoB), each one represented by an individual class. To configure Main, I have a configuration stored into a configuration object MainConfig. This object contains all the config information for AlgoA and AlgoB with their specific parameters. AlgoA has no interest to the information relative to the configuration of AlgoB, so technically I could have (and in practice I have) a contained MainConfig.AlgoAConfig and MainConfig.AlgoBConfig instances, and initialize as AlgoA(MainConfig.AlgoAConfig) and AlgoB(MainConfig.AlgoBConfig). The problem is that there is some common configuration data. One example is the printLevel. I currently have MainConfig.printLevel. I need to propagate this information to both AlgoA and AlgoB, because they have to know how much to print. MainConfig also needs to know how much to print. So the solutions available are I pass the MainConfig to AlgoA and AlgoB. This way, AlgoA has technically access to the whole configuration (even that of AlgoB) and is less self-contained I copy the MainConfig.printLevel into AlgoAConfig and AlgoBConfig, so I basically have three printLevel information repeated. I create a third configuration class PrintingConfig. I have an instance variable MainConfig.printingConfig, and then pass to AlgoA both MainConfig.AlgoAConfig and MainConfig.printingConfig. Have you ever found this situation? How did you solve it ? Which one is stylistically clearer to a new reader of the code ?

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• How do graphics programmers deal with rendering vertices that don't change the image?

  - by canisrufus

  So, the title is a little awkward. I'll give some background, and then ask my question. Background: I work as a web GIS application developer, but in my spare time I've been playing with map rendering and improving data interchange formats. I work only in 2D space. One interesting issue I've encountered is that when you're rendering a polygon at a small scale (zoomed way out), many of the vertices are redundant. An extreme case would be that you have a polygon with 500,000 vertices that only takes up a single pixel. If you're sending this data to the browser, it would make sense to omit ~499,999 of those vertices. One way we achieve that is by rendering an image on a server and and sending it as a PNG: voila, it's a point. Sometimes, though, we want data sent to the browser where it can be rendered with SVG (or canvas, or webgl) so that it can be interactive. The problem: It turns out that, using modern geographic data sets, it's very easy to overload SVG's rendering abilities. In an effort to cope with those limitations, I'm trying to figure out how to visually losslessly reduce a data set for a given scale and map extent (and, if necessary, for a known map pixel width and height). I got a great reduction in data size just using the Douglas-Peucker algorithm, and I believe I was able to get it to keep the polygons true to within one pixel. Unfortunately, Douglas-Peucker doesn't preserve topology, so it changed how borders between polygons got rendered. I couldn't readily find other algorithms to try out and adapt to the purpose, but I don't have much CS/algorithm background and might not recognize them if I saw them.

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• SQLAuthority News – My Evaluation of Singapore SharePoint Conference

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this year I presented at SQLAuthority News – Presenting at South East Asia SharePoint Conference – Oct 26, 27, 2010 – Singapore. I felt very good to be presenting at Singapore as SharePoint Conference as I was the only SQL Speaker at the event. The event was filled with SharePoint enthusiasts and lots of other experts from all around the globe. The event was one of the best organized event, I attended in subcontinent. I just received my feedback score of the event. I was very much surprised and stunned. My ratting are very high as well, my demo were considered as one of the best demo of the whole event. I am not sure how much feedback I can share with community as organizer did not specify to me but I am very certain that I am allowed to share my own feedback. Speaker – 4.39 (best score 4.74, average 3.84) Contents – 4.37 (best score 4.39, average 3.65) Demo – 4.48 (best score, 4.48, average 3.61) I am very glad that all of my efforts to do presentations at SharePoint Conference are finally paid up. I was very much worried earlier if attendees will accept me or not as I am coming as speaker from foreign technology and no one knows me there. I must thank all of you for the same. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SharePoint, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SharePoint

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• SQL SERVER – Load Generator – Free Tool From CodePlex

  - by pinaldave

  One of the most common questions I receive is if there any tool available to generate load on SQL Server. Absolutely there is a fabulous free tool available to generate load on SQL Server on Codeplex. This tool was released in 2008 but it is still extremely relevant to generate the load on SQL Server as well works fabulously. CodePlex is a project initiated by Microsoft for hosting open source softwares. The best part of this SQL Server Load Generator is that users can run multiple simultaneous queries again SQL Server using different login account and different application name. The interface of the tool is extremely easy to use and very intuitive as well. One of the things which I felt needed improvement was a default configuration. As every single time when I was adding a query the default settings were showing up and I had to manually change that. However, when I went to Menu >> Tools >>Options I was really happy as it has options to change every single default which is available. Here one can give default username, password, database name as well various settings related to configuration. Additionally application logging is also possible through the options. A couple of other important points I noticed was the button to reset counters as well status bar containing useful information of Total Threads, Completed Queries and Failed Queries. I use this frequently for my load testing. What tool do you use for SQL Server Load Generator? Download SQL Load Generator Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• When does a Project Manager start in a project?

  - by johndoucette

  From a colleague of mine… “As a project manager, when do you typically like to get initially involved in the project? Is it better for the PM to be rolled on during the project kick-off, the first week, or is it better to roll-on the second week when things settle down?” My textbook answer is “the Project Manager is responsible for the successful completion and delivery of the expected outcome of the project through the following major tasks;” 1.    Identifying requirements 2.    Establishing clear and achievable objectives 3.    Balancing the competing demands for quality, scope, time, and cost 4.    Adapting the specifications, plans, and approach to the different concerns and expectations of the various stakeholders However; My colleague is often a lead technical consultant coming into a project alone to help a client solve a complex problem. As Magenic consultants, we all possess many of the “project managing” skills I talked about above and tend to be responsible for item #1 and #2 as well as the actual architecture/design tasks early in a project. When the real development begins and there is no PM involved, the project will quickly get harder to execute unless items #3 & #4 are assigned to a Project Manager. In software development, the concept of context switching between coding and other administrative activities is the hardest skill perfect. In my experience, I have rarely been introduced to someone who has mastered this skill. This is the limbo I was in when I was asked to become a PM -- while still developing. “Put down the code” was not only a profound statement, but looking back – a necessary one. Unless you are lucky to have found that one developer who is a superman, asking your developers (internal corporate or consultant) to perform #3 and #4 tasks, will surely take more time, allow opportunity for more scope, and eventually cost more. Project Managers are crucial to the overall success of a project, and I prefer them to start by taking ownership of delivery on day one.

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #007

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 Find Stored Procedure Related to Table in Database – Search in All Stored Procedure In 2006 I wrote a small script which will help user  find all the Stored Procedures (SP) which are related to one or more specific tables. This was quite a popular script however, in SQL Server 2012 the same can be achieved using new DMV sys.sql-expression_dependencies. I recently blogged about it over Find Referenced or Referencing Object in SQL Server using sys.sql_expression_dependencies. 2007 SQL SERVER – Versions, CodeNames, Year of Release 1993 – SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT 1995 – SQL Server 6.0, codenamed SQL95 1996 – SQL Server 6.5, codenamed Hydra 1999 – SQL Server 7.0, codenamed Sphinx 1999 – SQL Server 7.0 OLAP, codenamed Plato 2000 – SQL Server 2000 32-bit, codenamed Shiloh (version 8.0) 2003 – SQL Server 2000 64-bit, codenamed Liberty 2005 – SQL Server 2005, codenamed Yukon (version 9.0) 2008 – SQL Server 2008, codenamed Katmai (version 10.0) 2011 – SQL Server 2008, codenamed Denali (version 11.0) Search String in Stored Procedure Searching sting in the stored procedure is one of the most frequent task developer do. They might be searching for a table, view or any other details. I have written a script to do the same in SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. This is worth bookmarking blog post. There is an alternative way to do the same as well here is the example. 2008 SQL SERVER – Refresh Database Using T-SQL NO! Some of the questions have a single answer NO! You may want to read the question in the original blog post. I had a great time saying No! SQL SERVER – Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History SQL Server stores history of all the taken backup forever. History of all the backup is stored in the msdb database. Many times older history is no more required. Following Stored Procedure can be executed with a parameter which takes days of history to keep. In the following example 30 is passed to keep a history of month. 2009 Stored Procedure are Compiled on First Run – SP taking Longer to Run First Time Is stored procedure pre-compiled? Why the Stored Procedure takes a long time to run for the first time?  This is a very common questions often discussed by developers and DBAs. There is an absolutely definite answer but the question has been discussed forever. There is a misconception that stored procedures are pre-compiled. They are not pre-compiled, but compiled only during the first run. For every subsequent runs, it is for sure pre-compiled. Read the entire article for example and demonstration. Removing Key Lookup – Seek Predicate – Predicate – An Interesting Observation Related to Datatypes This is one of the most important performance tuning lesson on my blog. I suggest this weekend you spend time reading them and let me know what you think about the concepts which I have demonstrated in the four part series. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Seek Predicate is the operation that describes the b-tree portion of the Seek. Predicate is the operation that describes the additional filter using non-key columns. Based on the description, it is very clear that Seek Predicate is better than Predicate as it searches indexes whereas in Predicate, the search is on non-key columns – which implies that the search is on the data in page files itself. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL Server – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administration assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. 2010 Recycle Error Log – Create New Log file without Server Restart Once I observed a DBA to restaring the SQL Server when he needed new error log file. This was funny and sad both at the same time. There is no need to restart the server to create a new log file or recycle the log file. You can run sp_cycle_errorlog and achieve the same result. Get Database Backup History for a Single Database Simple but effective script! Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database The subject is very complex and I have done my best to simplify the concept. In simpler words, when a parallel operation is created for SQL Query, there are multiple threads for a single query. Each query deals with a different set of the data (or rows). Due to some reasons, one or more of the threads lag behind, creating the CXPACKET Wait Stat. Threads which came first have to wait for the slower thread to finish. The Wait by a specific completed thread is called CXPACKET Wait Stat. Information Related to DATETIME and DATETIME2 There are quite a lot of confusion with DATETIME and DATETIME2. DATETIME2 is also one of the underutilized datatype of SQL Server.  In this blog post I have written a follow up of the my earlier datetime series where I clarify a few of the concepts related to datetime. Difference Between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 – WITH GETDATE Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 2011 Introduction to CUME_DIST – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function CUME_DIST(). This function provides cumulative distribution value. It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. Instead of creating new table, I will be using AdventureWorks sample database as most of the developer uses that for experiment. Introduction to FIRST _VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical functions FIRST_VALUE() and LAST_VALUE(). This function returns first and last value from the list. It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I’d like to attempt to explain its function through a brief example. Instead of creating a new table, I will be using the AdventureWorks sample database as most developers use that for experiment purposes. OVER clause with FIRST _VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 – ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING “Don’t you think there is bug in your first example where FIRST_VALUE is remain same but the LAST_VALUE is changing every line. I think the LAST_VALUE should be the highest value in the windows or set of result.” Puzzle – Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY You can see that row number 2, 3, 4, and 5 has same SalesOrderID = 43667. The FIRST_VALUE is 78 and LAST_VALUE is 77. Now if these function was working on maximum and minimum value they should have given answer as 77 and 80 respectively instead of 78 and 77. Also the value of FIRST_VALUE is greater than LAST_VALUE 77. Why? Explain in detail. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This functions accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. Instead of creating new table, I will be using AdventureWorks sample database as most of the developer uses that for experiment. A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available Our book was out of stock in 48 hours of it was arrived in stock! We got call from the online store with a request for more copies within 12 hours. But we had printed only as many as we had sent them. There were no extra copies. We finally talked to the printer to get more copies. However, due to festivals and holidays the copies could not be shipped to the online retailer for two days. We knew for sure that they were going to be out of the book for 48 hours. This is the story of how we overcame that situation! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Libgdx actor bounds are wrong

  - by Undume

  The Actor's boundaries are not centered at the ButtonText but I used the setBounds() method. The higher the Y position is, the less centered is the boundary. The weird thing is that i only created and added to the Stage one button but the screen shows two. When i click the top button, the bottom one is the one highlighted. How can i fix that? import com.badlogic.gdx.Game; import com.badlogic.gdx.Gdx; import com.badlogic.gdx.files.FileHandle; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.Stage; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.ui.Skin; import com.badlogic.gdx.scenes.scene2d.ui.TextButton; public class MyGame extends Game { Stage stage; @Override public void create() { stage=new Stage(); FileHandle skinFile = new FileHandle("data/resources/uiskin/uiskin.json"); Skin skin = new Skin(skinFile); TextButton sas=new TextButton("dd",skin); sas.setBounds(0, 500, 100, 100); stage.addActor(sas); Gdx.input.setInputProcessor(stage); } @Override public void dispose() { super.dispose(); } @Override public void render() { super.render(); stage.act(Gdx.graphics.getDeltaTime()); stage.draw(); } @Override public void resize(int width, int height) { super.resize(width, height); } @Override public void pause() { super.pause(); } @Override public void resume() { super.resume(); } }

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• Files backup utility with incremental backups that would keep backup device clean

  - by Wojtek

  I've tested a few of backup utilities and still haven't found one that would satisfy me. Almost every one of them has two options: - full backup - not an option to use frequently - incremental backup - seems right, but there's one thing about it: Incremental backup builds on a base of a full backup, backing up only those files, that were created/changed. The thing is, that after some time you've got a lot of unwanted files from the old backups bloating your backup device. Also, if you'd accidentally delete your full (first) backup file, then the differential backups would be corrupted (you wouldn't be able to restore them). The thing I'm looking for is a program, that would backup files simply by copying them. It would check the backup device whether it contains the file (unchanged): - if yes, it should proceed to the next file (we've got current version backed up) - if no, it would copy the file to the backup device - if the device contains a file that is no longer on our disk, the program would delete it from the backup device Is there any such utility, that would work this way? If not, do you have any hints on how to backup fairly big amounts of data (around 20gb) quite frequently with incremental backups and not be exposed to those unwanted effects of backup size puffing up?

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• Carriers Holding Your OS Updates Hostage

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/10/10/carriers-holding-your-os-updates-hostage.aspx Just a small rant here.  Today the Windows Phone 8 GDR2 update finally became available for Nokia handset users.  Now I’m not sure that it is AT&T fault entirely that Samsung and HTC users got their updates two months ago and we are just finally seeing it.  It may have something to do with the Nokia Amber update.  But every Windows Phone update on AT&T from 7.1 on seems to have been delayed.  How is it that the premiere Windows Phone carrier is always the last one to release updates? Smart phone ecosystems are a partnership between the OS provider, the hardware manufacturer and the carriers.  If any one of those partners does not hold up its responsibilities then everyone gets a black eye.  The goal for all involved should be to release updates as early as possible with reasonable assurance of stability.  This ensures the satisfaction of consumers and increases the likelihood of future sales. From what I have seen so far AT&T has been the one breaking the consumer’s trust in the Windows Phone ecosystem.  Aside from voicing our dissatisfaction we may need to start voting with our feet until they realize that they being a poor citizen has consequences. Technorati Tags: ATT,Windows Phone,Windows Phone 8,Microsoft,Nokia,GDR2

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• Are there any actual case studies on rewrites of software success/failure rates?

  - by James Drinkard

  I've seen multiple posts about rewrites of applications being bad, peoples experiences about it here on Programmers, and an article I've ready by Joel Splosky on the subject, but no hard evidence of case studies. Other than the two examples Joel gave and some other posts here, what do you do with a bad codebase and how do you decide what to do with it based on real studies? For the case in point, there are two clients I know of that both have old legacy code. They keep limping along with it because as one of them found out, a rewrite was a disaster, it was expensive and didn't really work to improve the code much. That customer has some very complicated business logic as the rewriters quickly found out. In both cases, these are mission critical applications that brings in a lot of revenue for the company. The one that attempted the rewrite felt that they would hit a brick wall at some point if the legacy software didn't get upgraded at some point in the future. To me, that kind of risk warrants research and analysis to ensure a successful path. My question is have there been actual case studies that have investigated this? I wouldn't want to attempt a major rewrite without knowing some best practices, pitfalls, and successes based on actual studies. Aftermath: okay, I was wrong, I did find one article: Rewrite or Reuse. They did a study on a Cobol app that was converted to Java.

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• Informed TDD &ndash; Kata &ldquo;To Roman Numerals&rdquo;

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/05/28/informed-tdd-ndash-kata-ldquoto-roman-numeralsrdquo.aspxIn a comment on my article on what I call Informed TDD (ITDD) reader gustav asked how this approach would apply to the kata “To Roman Numerals”. And whether ITDD wasn´t a violation of TDD´s principle of leaving out “advanced topics like mocks”. I like to respond with this article to his questions. There´s more to say than fits into a commentary. Mocks and TDD I don´t see in how far TDD is avoiding or opposed to mocks. TDD and mocks are orthogonal. TDD is about pocess, mocks are about structure and costs. Maybe by moving forward in tiny red+green+refactor steps less need arises for mocks. But then… if the functionality you need to implement requires “expensive” resource access you can´t avoid using mocks. Because you don´t want to constantly run all your tests against the real resource. True, in ITDD mocks seem to be in almost inflationary use. That´s not what you usually see in TDD demonstrations. However, there´s a reason for that as I tried to explain. I don´t use mocks as proxies for “expensive” resource. Rather they are stand-ins for functionality not yet implemented. They allow me to get a test green on a high level of abstraction. That way I can move forward in a top-down fashion. But if you think of mocks as “advanced” or if you don´t want to use a tool like JustMock, then you don´t need to use mocks. You just need to stand the sight of red tests for a little longer ;-) Let me show you what I mean by that by doing a kata. ITDD for “To Roman Numerals” gustav asked for the kata “To Roman Numerals”. I won´t explain the requirements again. You can find descriptions and TDD demonstrations all over the internet, like this one from Corey Haines. Now here is, how I would do this kata differently. 1. Analyse A demonstration of TDD should never skip the analysis phase. It should be made explicit. The requirements should be formalized and acceptance test cases should be compiled. “Formalization” in this case to me means describing the API of the required functionality. “[D]esign a program to work with Roman numerals” like written in this “requirement document” is not enough to start software development. Coding should only begin, if the interface between the “system under development” and its context is clear. If this interface is not readily recognizable from the requirements, it has to be developed first. Exploration of interface alternatives might be in order. It might be necessary to show several interface mock-ups to the customer – even if that´s you fellow developer. Designing the interface is a task of it´s own. It should not be mixed with implementing the required functionality behind the interface. Unfortunately, though, this happens quite often in TDD demonstrations. TDD is used to explore the API and implement it at the same time. To me that´s a violation of the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) which not only should hold for software functional units but also for tasks or activities. In the case of this kata the API fortunately is obvious. Just one function is needed: string ToRoman(int arabic). And it lives in a class ArabicRomanConversions. Now what about acceptance test cases? There are hardly any stated in the kata descriptions. Roman numerals are explained, but no specific test cases from the point of view of a customer. So I just “invent” some acceptance test cases by picking roman numerals from a wikipedia article. They are supposed to be just “typical examples” without special meaning. Given the acceptance test cases I then try to develop an understanding of the problem domain. I´ll spare you that. The domain is trivial and is explain in almost all kata descriptions. How roman numerals are built is not difficult to understand. What´s more difficult, though, might be to find an efficient solution to convert into them automatically. 2. Solve The usual TDD demonstration skips a solution finding phase. Like the interface exploration it´s mixed in with the implementation. But I don´t think this is how it should be done. I even think this is not how it really works for the people demonstrating TDD. They´re simplifying their true software development process because they want to show a streamlined TDD process. I doubt this is helping anybody. Before you code you better have a plan what to code. This does not mean you have to do “Big Design Up-Front”. It just means: Have a clear picture of the logical solution in your head before you start to build a physical solution (code). Evidently such a solution can only be as good as your understanding of the problem. If that´s limited your solution will be limited, too. Fortunately, in the case of this kata your understanding does not need to be limited. Thus the logical solution does not need to be limited or preliminary or tentative. That does not mean you need to know every line of code in advance. It just means you know the rough structure of your implementation beforehand. Because it should mirror the process described by the logical or conceptual solution. Here´s my solution approach: The arabic “encoding” of numbers represents them as an ordered set of powers of 10. Each digit is a factor to multiply a power of ten with. The “encoding” 123 is the short form for a set like this: {1*10^2, 2*10^1, 3*10^0}. And the number is the sum of the set members. The roman “encoding” is different. There is no base (like 10 for arabic numbers), there are just digits of different value, and they have to be written in descending order. The “encoding” XVI is short for [10, 5, 1]. And the number is still the sum of the members of this list. The roman “encoding” thus is simpler than the arabic. Each “digit” can be taken at face value. No multiplication with a base required. But what about IV which looks like a contradiction to the above rule? It is not – if you accept roman “digits” not to be limited to be single characters only. Usually I, V, X, L, C, D, M are viewed as “digits”, and IV, IX etc. are viewed as nuisances preventing a simple solution. All looks different, though, once IV, IX etc. are taken as “digits”. Then MCMLIV is just a sum: M+CM+L+IV which is 1000+900+50+4. Whereas before it would have been understood as M-C+M+L-I+V – which is more difficult because here some “digits” get subtracted. Here´s the list of roman “digits” with their values: {1, I}, {4, IV}, {5, V}, {9, IX}, {10, X}, {40, XL}, {50, L}, {90, XC}, {100, C}, {400, CD}, {500, D}, {900, CM}, {1000, M} Since I take IV, IX etc. as “digits” translating an arabic number becomes trivial. I just need to find the values of the roman “digits” making up the number, e.g. 1954 is made up of 1000, 900, 50, and 4. I call those “digits” factors. If I move from the highest factor (M=1000) to the lowest (I=1) then translation is a two phase process: Find all the factors Translate the factors found Compile the roman representation Translation is just a look-up. Finding, though, needs some calculation: Find the highest remaining factor fitting in the value Remember and subtract it from the value Repeat with remaining value and remaining factors Please note: This is just an algorithm. It´s not code, even though it might be close. Being so close to code in my solution approach is due to the triviality of the problem. In more realistic examples the conceptual solution would be on a higher level of abstraction. With this solution in hand I finally can do what TDD advocates: find and prioritize test cases. As I can see from the small process description above, there are two aspects to test: Test the translation Test the compilation Test finding the factors Testing the translation primarily means to check if the map of factors and digits is comprehensive. That´s simple, even though it might be tedious. Testing the compilation is trivial. Testing factor finding, though, is a tad more complicated. I can think of several steps: First check, if an arabic number equal to a factor is processed correctly (e.g. 1000=M). Then check if an arabic number consisting of two consecutive factors (e.g. 1900=[M,CM]) is processed correctly. Then check, if a number consisting of the same factor twice is processed correctly (e.g. 2000=[M,M]). Finally check, if an arabic number consisting of non-consecutive factors (e.g. 1400=[M,CD]) is processed correctly. I feel I can start an implementation now. If something becomes more complicated than expected I can slow down and repeat this process. 3. Implement First I write a test for the acceptance test cases. It´s red because there´s no implementation even of the API. That´s in conformance with “TDD lore”, I´d say: Next I implement the API: The acceptance test now is formally correct, but still red of course. This will not change even now that I zoom in. Because my goal is not to most quickly satisfy these tests, but to implement my solution in a stepwise manner. That I do by “faking” it: I just “assume” three functions to represent the transformation process of my solution: My hypothesis is that those three functions in conjunction produce correct results on the API-level. I just have to implement them correctly. That´s what I´m trying now – one by one. I start with a simple “detail function”: Translate(). And I start with all the test cases in the obvious equivalence partition: As you can see I dare to test a private method. Yes. That´s a white box test. But as you´ll see it won´t make my tests brittle. It serves a purpose right here and now: it lets me focus on getting one aspect of my solution right. Here´s the implementation to satisfy the test: It´s as simple as possible. Right how TDD wants me to do it: KISS. Now for the second equivalence partition: translating multiple factors. (It´a pattern: if you need to do something repeatedly separate the tests for doing it once and doing it multiple times.) In this partition I just need a single test case, I guess. Stepping up from a single translation to multiple translations is no rocket science: Usually I would have implemented the final code right away. Splitting it in two steps is just for “educational purposes” here. How small your implementation steps are is a matter of your programming competency. Some “see” the final code right away before their mental eye – others need to work their way towards it. Having two tests I find more important. Now for the next low hanging fruit: compilation. It´s even simpler than translation. A single test is enough, I guess. And normally I would not even have bothered to write that one, because the implementation is so simple. I don´t need to test .NET framework functionality. But again: if it serves the educational purpose… Finally the most complicated part of the solution: finding the factors. There are several equivalence partitions. But still I decide to write just a single test, since the structure of the test data is the same for all partitions: Again, I´m faking the implementation first: I focus on just the first test case. No looping yet. Faking lets me stay on a high level of abstraction. I can write down the implementation of the solution without bothering myself with details of how to actually accomplish the feat. That´s left for a drill down with a test of the fake function: There are two main equivalence partitions, I guess: either the first factor is appropriate or some next. The implementation seems easy. Both test cases are green. (Of course this only works on the premise that there´s always a matching factor. Which is the case since the smallest factor is 1.) And the first of the equivalence partitions on the higher level also is satisfied: Great, I can move on. Now for more than a single factor: Interestingly not just one test becomes green now, but all of them. Great! You might say, then I must have done not the simplest thing possible. And I would reply: I don´t care. I did the most obvious thing. But I also find this loop very simple. Even simpler than a recursion of which I had thought briefly during the problem solving phase. And by the way: Also the acceptance tests went green: Mission accomplished. At least functionality wise. Now I´ve to tidy up things a bit. TDD calls for refactoring. Not uch refactoring is needed, because I wrote the code in top-down fashion. I faked it until I made it. I endured red tests on higher levels while lower levels weren´t perfected yet. But this way I saved myself from refactoring tediousness. At the end, though, some refactoring is required. But maybe in a different way than you would expect. That´s why I rather call it “cleanup”. First I remove duplication. There are two places where factors are defined: in Translate() and in Find_factors(). So I factor the map out into a class constant. Which leads to a small conversion in Find_factors(): And now for the big cleanup: I remove all tests of private methods. They are scaffolding tests to me. They only have temporary value. They are brittle. Only acceptance tests need to remain. However, I carry over the single “digit” tests from Translate() to the acceptance test. I find them valuable to keep, since the other acceptance tests only exercise a subset of all roman “digits”. This then is my final test class: And this is the final production code: Test coverage as reported by NCrunch is 100%: Reflexion Is this the smallest possible code base for this kata? Sure not. You´ll find more concise solutions on the internet. But LOC are of relatively little concern – as long as I can understand the code quickly. So called “elegant” code, however, often is not easy to understand. The same goes for KISS code – especially if left unrefactored, as it is often the case. That´s why I progressed from requirements to final code the way I did. I first understood and solved the problem on a conceptual level. Then I implemented it top down according to my design. I also could have implemented it bottom-up, since I knew some bottom of the solution. That´s the leaves of the functional decomposition tree. Where things became fuzzy, since the design did not cover any more details as with Find_factors(), I repeated the process in the small, so to speak: fake some top level, endure red high level tests, while first solving a simpler problem. Using scaffolding tests (to be thrown away at the end) brought two advantages: Encapsulation of the implementation details was not compromised. Naturally private methods could stay private. I did not need to make them internal or public just to be able to test them. I was able to write focused tests for small aspects of the solution. No need to test everything through the solution root, the API. The bottom line thus for me is: Informed TDD produces cleaner code in a systematic way. It conforms to core principles of programming: Single Responsibility Principle and/or Separation of Concerns. Distinct roles in development – being a researcher, being an engineer, being a craftsman – are represented as different phases. First find what, what there is. Then devise a solution. Then code the solution, manifest the solution in code. Writing tests first is a good practice. But it should not be taken dogmatic. And above all it should not be overloaded with purposes. And finally: moving from top to bottom through a design produces refactored code right away. Clean code thus almost is inevitable – and not left to a refactoring step at the end which is skipped often for different reasons.   PS: Yes, I have done this kata several times. But that has only an impact on the time needed for phases 1 and 2. I won´t skip them because of that. And there are no shortcuts during implementation because of that.

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• What is a legal way to use music from registered authors in a game?

  - by mm24

  I have recently asked a question about music in games like Guitar Hero. I have found that that in Europe (at least) if I do want to use a track composed by a musician member of a royalty collecting society I need to pay a flat fee to the society and not only to the member. So a "one-to-one" agreement is not valid and the society can come up to me and ask me for money for each download. Even if for FREE! This is a fee sheet list of the UK agency: for fee, see "Permanent download services" It is about 1,200 GBP for less than 22,000 copies and they DON'T specify anything more and they said me on the phone that I need to wait and see how many downloads I get before knowing the price. This is kind of crazy as If I give away the App for free I will have to PAY 1,200 GBP!! I am shocked and I feel very bad. One agency suggested me to use a fake name of the artist, but in this way is not fair to my collaborators as what they hope is that the App gets lots of downloads and in this way that other people will get to know about them and hopefully commission them more work. The other solution is to work only with non registered musicians. The question here to you is: Has anyone found a legal way to use music from registered authors in a game?

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• Is browser fingerprinting a viable technique for identifying anonymous users?

  - by SMrF

  Is browser fingerprinting a sufficient method for uniquely identifying anonymous users? What if you incorporate biometric data like mouse gestures or typing patterns? The other day I ran into the Panopticlick experiment EFF is running on browser fingerprints. Of course I immediately thought of the privacy repercussions and how it could be used for evil. But on the other hand, this could be used for great good and, at the very least, it's a tempting problem to work on. While researching the topic I found a few companies using browser fingerprinting to attack fraud. And after sending out a few emails I can confirm at least one major dating site is using browser fingerprinting as but one mechanism to detect fake accounts. (Note: They have found it's not unique enough to act as an identity when scaling up to millions of users. But, my programmer brain doesn't want to believe them). Here is one company using browser fingerprints for fraud detection and prevention: http://www.bluecava.com/ Here is a pretty comprehensive list of stuff you can use as unique identifiers in a browser: http://browserspy.dk/

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