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• "Opportunity" to take over maintenance of a small internal website. What should I do?

  - by Dan

  I have been offered an "opportunity" to take over maintenance of a small internal website run by my group that provides information about schedules and photos of events the groups done. My manager sent me the link to the site and checked it out. The site looked clean and neat but loaded in ~5 seconds. I thought this was a little long considering the site really didn't contain a lot of content. This prompted me to take a look under the hood at the pages source code. To my horror it'd been totally hacked together using nested tables! I'm new so I really can't say no to this "opportunity" so what should I do with it? Every fiber of my being feels that the only correct thing to do is over hall the site using CSS, Div's, Span's and any other appropriate tags that a sane/good web developer would used to begin with instead of depending on the render incentive magic of tables. But I'd like to ask programmers with more experienced then me, who have been in this situation. What should I do? Is my only realistic option to leave the horror as is and only adjusting the content as requested? I'm really torn between good development and the corporate reality I'm part of. Is there some kind of middle ground where things can be made better even if they're not perfect? Thanks ahead of time.

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• Is it bad practice to output from within a function?

  - by Nick

  For example, should I be doing something like: <?php function output_message($message,$type='success') { ?> <p class="<?php echo $type; ?>"><?php echo $message; ?></p> <?php } output_message('There were some errors processing your request','error'); ?> or <?php function output_message($message,$type='success') { ob_start(); ?> <p class="<?php echo $type; ?>"><?php echo $message; ?></p> <?php return ob_get_clean(); } echo output_message('There were some errors processing your request','error'); ?> I understand they both achieve the same end result, but are there benefits doing one way over the other? Or does it not even matter?

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• Is committing/checking in code everyday a good practice?

  - by ArtB

  I've been reading Martin Fowler's note on Continuous Integration and he lists as a must "Everyone Commits To the Mainline Every Day". I do not like to commit code unless the section I'm working on is complete and that in practice I commit my code every three days: one day to investigate/reproduce the task and make some preliminary changes, a second day to complete the changes, and a third day to write the tests and clean it up^ for submission. I would not feel comfortable submitting the code sooner. Now, I pull changes from the repository and integrate them locally usually twice a day, but I do not commit that often unless I can carve out a smaller piece of work. Question: is committing everyday such a good practice that I should change my workflow to accomodate it, or it is not that advisable? Edit: I guess I should have clarified that I meant "commit" in the CVS meaning of it (aka "push") since that is likely what Fowler would have meant in 2006 when he wrote this. ^ The order is more arbitrary and depends on the task, my point was to illustrate the time span and activities, not the exact sequence.

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• Is it a bad practice to include all the enums in one file and use it in multiple classes?

  - by Bugster

  I'm an aspiring game developer, I work on occasional indie games, and for a while I've been doing something which seemed like a bad practice at first, but I really want to get an answer from some experienced programmers here. Let's say I have a file called enumList.h where I declare all the enums I want to use in my game: // enumList.h enum materials_t { WOOD, STONE, ETC }; enum entity_t { PLAYER, MONSTER }; enum map_t { 2D, 3D }; // and so on. // Tile.h #include "enumList.h" #include <vector> class tile { // stuff }; The main idea is that I declare all enums in the game in 1 file, and then import that file when I need to use a certain enum from it, rather than declaring it in the file where I need to use it. I do this because it makes things clean, I can access every enum in 1 place rather than having pages openned solely for accessing one enum. Is this a bad practice and can it affect performance in any way?

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• bad practice to create a print friendly page to remove the use of pdfs?

  - by Phil

  the company I work for has a one page invoice that uses the library tcpdf. they wanted to do some design changes that I found are just incredibly difficult for setting up in .pdf format. using html/css I could easily create the page and have it print very nicely, but I have a feeling that I am over looking something. is it a good practice to set up a page just for printing? and if not, is it at least better than putting out a ugly .pdf? I could also use the CSS inline so that if they wanted to download it and open it they could.

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• How to visualize code?

  - by gablin

  I've mostly only had to read my own code. As such, I've had no need to visualize the code as I already know how each and every class and module communicate with one another. But the few times I've had to read someone else's code - let us now assume we are talking about at least one larger module which contains several internal classes - I've almost always found myself wishing "This would have been so much easier to understand if I could just visualize it!" So what are the common methods or tools for enabling this? Which do you use, and why do you prefer them over the others? I've heard stuff like UML, module and class diagrams, but I imagine there are more. Furthermore, any of these is most likely better than anything I can devise on my own. EDIT: For those who answer with "Use pen and paper and just draw it": This isn't very helpful unless you explain this further. What exactly am I supposed to draw? A box for each class? Should I include the public methods? What about its fields? How should I draw connections that explain how one class uses another? What about modules? What if the language isn't object-oriented but functional or logical, or even just imperative (C, for instance)? What about global variables and functions? Is there an already-standardized way of drawing this, or do I need to think up of a method of my own? You get the drift.

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• Android: Layouts and views or a single full screen custom view?

  - by futlib

  I'm developing an Android game, and I'm making it so that it can run on low end devices without GPU, so I'm using the 2D API. I have so far tried to use Android's mechanisms such as layouts and activities where possible, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's not easier to just create a single custom view (or one per activity) and do all the work there. Here's an example of how I currently do things: I'm using a layout to display the game's background as an image view and the square game area, which is a custom view, centered in the middle. What would you say? Should I continue to use layouts where possible or is it more common/reasonable to just use a large custom view? I'm thinking that this would probably also make it easier to port my code to other platforms.

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• Test driven development - convince me!

  - by Casebash

  I know some people are massive proponents of test driven development. I have used unit tests in the past, but only to test operations that can be tested easily or which I believe will quite possibly be correct. Complete or near complete code coverage sounds like it would take a lot of time. What projects do you use test-driven development for? Do you only use it for projects above a certain size? Should I be using it or not? Convince me!

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• Is it bad to be the only person supporting software you have developed?

  - by trpt4him

  My employer has a need for a web-based application to manage and share data within the department, with approximately 50-75 possible users. I feel I have the ability to write it for them. I would likely use Python/Django with a MySQL database, so it would be open source. However, I'm the only IT person in my department (our larger organization has a separate IT support staff with which I often work, but not for web development). I want to develop this application, but if I leave in 1-2 years, and someone else has to come in after me and support it, will this be seen as a bad decision? This is assuming all the obvious points -- I will write documentation, I will comment my code, and I will strive to follow good application design principles. But will that be enough? In principle, is it acceptable for one person to develop and support an entire web application? Is this a "do first, then show and ask" kind of situation, or should I be certain it will be adopted by everyone involved first?

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• Do I have to write a lot of boilerplate code if I keep working using Java?

  - by edem

  I'm working for a company writing ERP applications. My problem is that I have to write tons of boilerplate code. I came up with ideas to automatize/prevent the drudgery but only some of them were accepted. I have been told by the lead developer that my ideas tend to be go far afield and I should write code everyone can understand. I had a discussion about this lately and it seems to me that this kind of code ramp is within java's philosophy. I have to write lots of code to achiveve simple things not because it is necessary but because this is the way most of the people at the company think. Is this universally applicable to most of the companies out there using java or this is just my company's view? Do I have to get used to the drudgery if I keep working for java-based firms?

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• How do you keep track of the authors of code?

  - by dustyprogrammer

  This is something I was never taught. I have seen alot of different types of authoring styles. I code primarily in Java and Python. I was wondering if there was a standard authoring style or if everything is freestyle. Also if you answer would you mind attaching the style you use to author files that your create at home or at work. I usually just go @author garbagecollector @company garbage inc.

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• Tips or techniques to use when you don't know how to code something?

  - by janoChen

  I have a background as UI designer. And I realized that it is a bit hard for me to write a pieces of logic. Sometimes I get it right, but most of the time, I end up with something hacky (and it usually takes a lot of time). And is not that I don't like programming, in fact, I'm starting to like it as much as design. It's just that sometimes I think that I'm better at dealing with colors an shapes, rather than numbers and logic (but I want to change that). What I usually do is to search the solution on the Internet, copy the example, and insert it into my app (I know this is not a very good practice). I've heard that one tip was to write the logic in common English as comment before writing the actual code. What other tips and techniques I can use?

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• Is deserializing complex objects instead of creating them a good idea, in test setup?

  - by Chris Bye

  I'm writing tests for a component that takes very complex objects as input. These tests are mixes of tests against already existing components, and test-first tests for new features. Instead of re-creating my input objects (this would be a large chunk of code) or reading one from our data store, I had the thought to serialize a live instance of one of these objects, and just deserialize it into test setup. I can't decide if this is a reasonable idea that will save effort in long run, or whether it's the worst idea that I've ever had, causing those that will maintain this code will hunt me down as soon as they read it. Is deserialization of inputs a valid means of test setup in some cases? To give a sense of scale of what I'm dealing with, the size of serialization output for one of these input objects is 93KB. Obtained by, in C#: new BinaryFormatter().Serialize((Stream)fileStream, myObject);

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• Legitimate use of the Windows "Documents" folder in programs.

  - by romkyns

  Anyone who likes their Documents folder to contain only things they place there knows that the standard Documents folder is completely unsuitable for this task. Every program seems to want to put its settings, data, or something equally irrelevant into the Documents folder, despite the fact that there are folders specifically for this job1. So that this doesn't sound empty, take my personal "Documents" folder as an example. I don't ever use it, in that I never, under any circumstances, save anything into this folder myself. And yet, it contains 46 folders and 3 files at the top level, for a total of 800 files in 500 folders. That's 190 MB of "documents" I didn't create. Obviously any actual documents would immediately get lost in this mess. My question is: can anything be done to improve the situation sufficiently to make "Documents" useful again, say over the next 5 years? Can programmers be somehow educated en-masse not to use it as a dumping ground? Could the OS start reporting some "fake" location hidden under AppData through the existing APIs, while only allowing Explorer and the various Open/Save dialogs to know where the "real" Documents folder resides? Or are any attempts completely futile or even unnecessary? 1For the record, here's a quick summary of the various standard directories that should be used instead of "Documents": RoamingAppData for user-specific data and settings. This is the directory to use for user-specific non-temporary data. Anything placed here will be available on any machine that a given user logs on to in networks where this is configured. Do not place large files here though, because they slow down login/logout in such environments. LocalAppData for user-and-machine-specific data and settings. This data differs for every user and every machine. This is also where very large user-specific data should be placed. ProgramData for machine-specific data and settings. These are the same regardless of which user is logged on, and will not roam to other machines in a network. GetTempPath for all files that may be wiped without loss of data when not in use. This is also the place for things like caches, because like temporary data, a cache does not need to be backed up. Place your huge cache here and you'll save your user some backup trouble. "Documents" itself should only ever be used if the user specified it manually by entering a path or selecting it in a Save dialog. That is the only time it is ever appropriate to save stuff in "Documents".

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• How should compound words be handled when coding? Is there a definitive list of compound words? [closed]

  - by Ray

  QUESTION: How should you handle compound words when programming? Are there any good lists available online for developers of generally accepted technology-related compound words? I can see how this is highly ambiguous, so should I just use common-sense? EXAMPLE: I would be inclined to do this: filename NOT FileName or login NOT LogIn However, the microsoft documentation indicates that filename is not compound. So I wonder, is there a more definitive source? See also, this english.stackexchange discussion on filename. Under the section "Capitalization Rules for Compound Words and Common Terms" located here: Microsoft .NET Capitalization Conventions only offers a limited introduction into the topic, and leaves it up to the developer to use their intuition with the rest.

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• Quick Tip - Speed a Slow Restore from the Transaction Log

  - by KKline

  Here's a quick tip for you: During some restore operations on Microsoft SQL Server, the transaction log redo step might be taking an unusually long time. Depending somewhat on the version and edition of SQL Server you've installed, you may be able to increase performance by tinkering with the readahead performance for the redo operations. To do this, you should use the MAXTRANSFERSIZE parameter of the RESTORE statement. For example, if you set MAXTRANSFERSIZE=1048576, it'll use 1MB buffers. If you...(read more)

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• Defining formula through user interface in user form

  - by BriskLabs Pakistan

  I am a student and developing a simple assignment - windows form application in visual studio 2010. The application is suppose to construct formulas as per user requirement. The process: It has to pick data from columns of Microsoft Access database and the user should be able to pick the data by column name like we do in a drop down menu. and create reusable formulas in it ( configure it once and can change it again). followings are column titles from database that can be picked for example. e.g Col -1 : Marks in Maths Col -2 : Total Marks in Maths Col -3 : Marks in science Col -4 : Total marks in science Finally we should be able to construct any formula in the UI like (Col 1 + Col 3 ) / ( col 2 + col 4) = Formula 1 once this is formula is set saved and a name is assigned to it by user. he/she can use the formula and results shall appear in a window below. i.e He would be able to calculate his desired figures (formula) by only manipulating underlying data on the UI layer....choose the data for a period and apply the formula and get the answer Problem: It looks like I have to create an app where rules are set through UI....... this means no stored procedures are required in SQL.... please suggest the right approach.

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• prism and multiple screens

  - by Avi

  OK - I am studying Prism a little because of a "free weekend" offer on Pluralsight. As this is proving too complex for me, I went to the Prism book and looked at the forward, and this is what it said: What comes after “Hello, World?” WPF and Silverlight developers are blessed with an abundance of excellent books... There’s no lack of tutorials on Model-View-ViewModel ... But they stop short of the guidance you need to deliver a non-trivial application in full. Your first screen goes well. You add a second screen and a third. Because you started your solution with the built-in “Navigation Application Template,” adding new screens feels like hanging shirts on a closet rod. You are on a roll. Until the harsh reality of real application requirements sets in. As it happens, your application has 30 screens not three. There’s no room on that closet rod for 30 screens. Some screens are modal pop-ups; you don’t navigate to a pop-up. Screens become interdependent such that user activity in one screen triggers changes that propagate throughout the UI. Some screens are optional; others are visible only to authorized users. Some screens are permanent, while other screens can be opened and closed at will. You discover that navigating back to a previously displayed screen creates a new instance. That’s not what you expected and, to your horror, the prior instance is gone along with the user’s unsaved changes. Now the issue is, I don't relate to this description. I've never been a UI programmer, but same as everyone else I'm using Windows apps such as MS-Office, and web sites such as Amazon, Facebook and StackExchange. And I look at these and I don't see many "so many screens" issues! Indeed, the only applications having many windows I can think of is Visual Studio. Maybe also Visio, a little. But take Word - You have a ribbon and a main window. Or take Facebook: You have those lists on the left (Favorites, Lists, Groups etc.), the status middle, the adds and then the Contacts sidebar. But it's only one page. Of course, I understand that in enterprise scenarios there are dashboad applications where multiple segments of the screen are updated from multiple non-related services. This I dig. But other scenarios? So - What am I missing? What is the "multiple screens" monster Pirsm is supposed to be the silver bullet solution for? Shoud I invest in studying Prism in addition to learning WPF or ASP.NET MVC?

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• Am I bored with programming? [closed]

  - by user1167074

  I have started programming 2 years back and I have learnt web programming while working for big corporate companies. I was very passionate and I even did couple of side projects which were well appreciated by my friends and colleagues. But for the past 2 months I am not doing anything really interesting with programming, even if I get good ideas I am not feeling like coding, sub consciously I am feeling like "So What?" if I do this project. I would like to know from the more experienced programmers if this is just a phase or am I really missing something? Thanks

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• How to organize a Coding Dojo?

  - by Stephan

  Over on stack overflow it was asked how to organize a coding dojo (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4338567/how-to-organize-a-coding-dojo-event). I believe that may have been the wrong forum... I wonder the same thing: how is a Codeing Dojo organized? What is the structure of a meeting? How would one pick Katas? What do you plan ahead of time? I am interested in any ideas on this as well as links to any resource that may be outlining this.

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• Is it bad practise to call a controller action from a view that was rendered by another controller?

  - by marco-fiset

  Let's say I have an OrderController which handles orders. The user adds products to it through the view, and then the final price gets calculated through an AJAX call to a controller action. The price calculation logic is implemented in a seperate class and used in a controller action. What happens is that I have many views from different controllers that need to use that particular action. I'd like to have some kind of a PriceController that I could call an action on. But then the view would have to know about that PriceController and call an action on it. Is it bad practice for a view to call an action on a different controller from which it was rendered?

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• When should one use "out" parameters?

  - by qegal

  In Objective-C, there are several methods like initWithContentsOfFile:encoding:error: where one passes in a reference to an NSError object for the error: parameter. In this example, the value of the NSError object passed in can change based on what goes on at runtime when the method is being called and whether the body of the method was executed in a certain way successfully. In a way I think of this NSError object as sort of like a second return value from the method, and only differs from an object anObject in the statement return anObject; in that when this statement is called, execution leaves the method. So my question is, not only in the context of error handling in Objective-C, but in general, when should one use an "out" parameter in place of returning said value in a return statement?

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• Pros and cons of creating a print friendly page to remove the use of pdfs?

  - by Phil

  the company I work for has a one page invoice that uses the library tcpdf. they wanted to do some design changes that I found are just incredibly difficult for setting up in .pdf format. Using html/css I could easily create the page and have it print very nicely, but I have a feeling that I am over looking something. What are the pros and cons of setting up a page just for printing? What are the pros and cons of putting out a .pdf? I could also use the CSS inline so that if they wanted to download it and open it they could.

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• Sucking Less Every Year ?

  - by AdityaGameProgrammer

  Sucking Less Every Year A trail of thought that had been on my mind for a while Quoting directly from the post I've often thought that sucking less every year is how humble programmers improve. You should be unhappy with code you wrote a year ago. If you aren't, that means either A) you haven't learned anything in a year, B) your code can't be improved, or C) you never revisit old code. All of these are the kiss of death for software developers. How often does this happen or not happen to you? How long before you see an actual improvement in your coding ? month, year? Do you ever revisit Your old code? How often does your old code plague you? or how often do you have to deal with your technical debt. It is definitely very painful to fix old bugs n dirty code that we may have done to quickly meet a deadline and those quick fixes ,some cases we may have to rewrite most of the application/code. No arguments about that. Some of the developers i had come across argued that they were already at the evolved stage where their coding doesn't need improvement or cant get improved anymore. Does this happen? If so how many years into coding on a particular language does one expect this to happen?

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• Getting graduates up to speed?

  - by Simon

  This question got me thinking about how comapnies deal with newly-hired graduated. Do experienced programmers expect CS graduates to write clean code (by clean I mean code easily understandable by others — maybe that is too much to expect?) Or do significant portion of graduates at your place (if any) just end up testing and fixing small bugs on existing applications? And, even if they do bug fixes, do you end up spending double the amount of time just checking they did not end up breaking anything and creating new bugs? How do you deal with such scenarios when pair programming and code reviews are not available options (for reasons such as personal deadlines), and also what techniques did you find to get fresh graduate up to speed? Some suggestions would be great.

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