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• What's about Java?

  - by Silviu Turuga

  What is Java? In very short words, Java is a programming language that let you make an application that can be run on different operating systems, no matter we are talking about Windows, Mac OS, Linux or even embedded devices, such as RaspberryPi. When you compile a Java program, instead of getting a binary output as you get on other programming languages, you'll get a Java intermediate code, called Java bytecode. This is interpreted at run time, by a virtual machine that is specifically for the hardware and operating system you are using. What Java do i need? There are 5 major versions of Java: Java SE(Standard Edition) - this is what I'll use on most of my tutorials. Most of the examples will run on Java 6, but for others you'll need Java 7. Java EE (Enterprise Edition) - used for enterprise development Java ME (Micro Edition) - for running Java on mobile and different embedded devices such as PDAs, TV set-top boxes, printers, etc. Java Embedded - for some embedded devices such as Raspberry Pi, where the resources are limited JavaFX - to develop rich content User Interfaces. This is also something that will use a lot. More detailed information can be found on Oracle's website If you just want to run java applications you'll need the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed. If you want to program and create new applications, then you'll need the JDK (Java Development Kit).  How to check if Java is already installed? From command line, if you are on Windows, or from Terminal on Mac enter the following: java -version You should get something like this, if you have java installed on your system: java version "1.6.0_37" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_37-b06-434-11M3909) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.12-b01-434, mixed mode) Note: your current Java version might be different from mine. More information https://www.java.com/en/download/faq/whatis_java.xml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) Next steps Install Java SDK Chose an IDE. I recommend NetBeans as it is very easy to use and also let you quickly create the GUI of your application Alternatives are Eclipse, Komodo Edit (for Mac), etc. There are plenty of solutions both free or paid. Resources on web Oracle Tutorials - lot of tutorials and useful resources JavaRanch - forum about java

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• So, I though I wanted to learn frontend/web development and break out of my comfort zone...

  - by ripper234

  I've been a backend developer for a long time, and I really swim in that field. C++/C#/Java, databases, NoSql, caching - I feel very much at ease around these platforms/concepts. In the past few years, I started to taste end-to-end web programming, and recently I decided to take a job offer in a front end team developing a large, complex product. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and become more of an "all around developer". Problem is, I'm getting more and more convinced I don't like it. Things I like about backend programming, and missing in frontend stuff: More interesting problems - When I compare designing a server that handle massive data, to adding another form to a page or changing the validation logic, I find the former a lot more interesting. Refactoring refactoring refactoring - I am addicted to Visual Studio with Resharper, or IntelliJ. I feel very comfortable writing code as it goes without investing too much thought, because I know that with a few clicks I can refactor it into beautiful code. To my knowledge, this doesn't exist at all in javascript. Intellisense and navigation - I hate looking at a bunch of JS code without instantly being able to know what it does. In VS/IntelliJ I can summon the documentation, navigate to the code, climb up inheritance hiererchies ... life is sweet. Auto-completion - Just hit Ctrl-Space on an object to see what you can do with it. Easier to test - With almost any backend feature, I can use TDD to capture the requirements, see a bunch of failing tests, then implement, knowing that if the tests pass I did my job well. With frontend, while tests can help a bit, I find that most of the testing is still manual - fire up that browser and verify the site didn't break. I miss that feeling of "A green CI means everything is well with the world." Now, I've only seriously practiced frontend development for about two months now, so this might seem premature ... but I'm getting a nagging feeling that I should abandon this quest and return to my comfort zone, because, well, it's so comfy and fun. Another point worth mentioning in this context is that while I am learning some frontend tools, a lot of what I'm learning is our company's specific infrastructure, which I'm not sure will be very useful later on in my career. Any suggestions or tips? Do you think I should give frontend programming "a proper chance" of at least six to twelve months before calling it quits? Could all my pains be growing pains, and will they magically disappear as I get more experienced? Or is gaining this perspective is valuable enough, even if plan to do more "backend stuff" later on, that it's worth grinding my teeth and continuing with my learning?

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• How to apply effects that occur (or change) over time to characters in a game?

  - by Joshua Harris

  So assume that I have a system that applies Effects to Characters like so: public class Character { private Collection<Effect> _effects; public void AddEffect (Effect e) { e.ApplyTo(this); _effects.Add(e); } public void RemoveEffect (Effect e) { e.RemoveFrom(this); _effects.Remove(e); } } public interface Effect { public void ApplyTo (Character character); public void RemoveFrom (Character character); } Example Effect: Armor Buff for 5 seconds. void someFunction() { // Do Stuff ... Timer armorTimer = new Timer(5 seconds); ArmorBuff armorbuff = new ArmorBuff(); character.AddEffect(armorBuff); armorTimer.Start(); // Do more stuff ... } // Some where else in code public void ArmorTimer_Complete() { character.RemoveEffect(armorBuff); } public class ArmorBuff implements Effect { public void applyTo(Character character) { character.changeArmor(20); } public void removeFrom(Character character) { character.changeArmor(-20); } } Ok, so this example would buff the Characters armor for 5 seconds. Easy to get working. But what about effects that change over the duration of the effect being applied. Two examples come to mind: Damage Over Time: 200 damage every second for 3 seconds. I could mimic this by applying an Effect that lasts for 1 second and has a counter set to 3, then when it is removed it could deal 200 damage, clone itself, decrement the counter of the clone, and apply the clone to the character. If it repeats this until the counter is 0, then you got a damage over time ability. I'm not a huge fan of this approach, but it does describe the behavior exactly. Degenerating Speed Boost: Gain a speed boost that degrades over 3 seconds until you return to your normal speed. This is a bit harder. I can basically do the same thing as above except having timers set to some portion of a second, such that they occur fast enough to give the appearance of degenerating smoothly over time (even though they are really just stepping down incrementally). I feel like you could get away with only 12 steps over a second (maybe less, I would have to test it and see), but this doesn't seem very elegant to me. The only other way to implement this effect would be to change the system so that the Character checks the _effects collection for effects that alter any of the properties any time that they are being used. I could handle this in functions like getCurrentSpeed() and getCurrentArmor(), but you can imagine how much of a hassle it would be to have that kind of overhead every time you want to do a calculation with movement speed (which would be every time you move your character). Is there a better way to deal with these kinds of effects or events?

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• Ubuntu Linux won't display netbook's native resolution

  - by Daniel

  FYI: My Netbook model is HP Mini 210-1004sa, which comes with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150, and has a display 10.1" Active Matrix Colour TFT 1024 x 600. I recently removed Windows 7 Starter from my netbook, and replaced it with Ubuntu 12.10. The problem is the OS doesn't seem to recognise the native display resolution of 1024x600 i.e. the bottom bits of Ubuntu is hidden beneath the screen & the only 2 available resolutions are: the default 1024x768 and 800x600. I've also thought about replacing Ubuntu with Lubuntu or Puppy Linux, as the system does run a bit slow, but I can't, as then I won't be able to access the taskbar and application menu which will be hidden beneath the screen. Only Ubuntu with Unity is currently usable, as the Unity Launcher is visible enough. I was able to define a custom resolution 1024x600 using the Q&A: How set my monitor resolution? but when I set that resolution, there appears a black band at the top of the screen and the desktop area is lowered, with bits of it hidden beneath the screen. I tried leaving it at this new resolution and restarting the system to see if the black band would disappear & the display will fit correctly, but it gets reset to 1024x768 at startup and displays following error: Could not apply the stored configuration for monitors none of the selected modes were compatible with the possible modes: Trying modes for CRTC 63 CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 63: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 63: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 63: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 63: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) Trying modes for CRTC 64 CRTC 64: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 0) CRTC 64: trying mode 1024x768@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 64: trying mode 800x600@56Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1) CRTC 64: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1024x600@60Hz (pass 1)

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• Alert: It is No Longer 1982, So Why is CRM Still There?

  - by Mike Stiles

  Hot off the heels of Oracle’s recent LinkedIn integration announcement and Oracle Marketing Cloud Interact 2014, the Oracle Social Cloud is preparing for another big event, the CRM Evolution conference and exhibition in NYC. The role of social channels in customer engagement continues to grow, and social customer engagement will be a significant theme at the conference. According to Paul Greenberg, CRM Evolution Conference Chair, author, and Managing Principal at The 56 Group, social channels have become so pervasive that there is no longer a clear reason to make a distinction between “social CRM” and traditional CRM systems. Why not? Because social is a communication hub every bit as vital and used as the phone or email. What makes social different is that if you think of it as a phone, it’s a party line. That means customer interactions are far from secret, and social connections are listening in by the hundreds, hearing whether their friend is having a positive or negative experience with your brand. According to a Mention.com study, 76% of brand mentions are neutral, neither positive nor negative. These mentions fail to get much notice. So think what that means about the remaining 24% of mentions. They’re standing out, because a verdict, about you, is being rendered in them, usually with emotion. Suddenly, where the R of CRM has been lip service and somewhat expendable in the past, “relationship” takes on new meaning, seriousness, and urgency. Remarkably, legions of brands still approach CRM as if it were 1982. Today, brands must provide customer experiences the customer actually likes (how dare they expect such things). They must intimately know not only their customers, but each customer, because technology now makes personalized experiences possible. That’s why the Oracle Social Cloud has been so mission-oriented about seamlessly integrating social with sales, marketing and customer service interactions so the enterprise can have an actionable 360-degree view of the customer. It’s the key to that customer-centricity we hear so much about these days. If you’re attending CRM Evolution, Chris Moody, Director of Product Marketing for the Oracle Marketing Cloud, will show you how unified customer experiences and enhanced customer centricity will help you attract and keep ideal customers and brand advocates (“The Pursuit of Customer-Centricity” Aug 19 at 2:45p ET) And Meg Bear, Group Vice President for the Oracle Social Cloud, will sit on a panel talking about “terms of engagement” and the ways tech can now enhance your interactions with customers (Aug 20 at 10a ET). If you can’t be there, we’ll be doing our live-tweeting thing from the @oraclesocial handle, so make sure you’re a faithful follower. You’ll notice NOBODY is writing about the wisdom of “company-centricity.” Now is the time to bring your customer relationship management into the socially connected age. @mikestilesPhoto: Sue Pizarro, freeimages.com

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• Switch from back-end to front-end programming: I'm out of my comfort zone, should I switch back?

  - by ripper234

  I've been a backend developer for a long time, and I really swim in that field. C++/C#/Java, databases, NoSql, caching - I feel very much at ease around these platforms/concepts. In the past few years, I started to taste end-to-end web programming, and recently I decided to take a job offer in a front end team developing a large, complex product. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and become more of an "all around developer". Problem is, I'm getting more and more convinced I don't like it. Things I like about backend programming, and missing in frontend stuff: More interesting problems - When I compare designing a server that handle massive data, to adding another form to a page or changing the validation logic, I find the former a lot more interesting. Refactoring refactoring refactoring - I am addicted to Visual Studio with Resharper, or IntelliJ. I feel very comfortable writing code as it goes without investing too much thought, because I know that with a few clicks I can refactor it into beautiful code. To my knowledge, this doesn't exist at all in javascript. Intellisense and navigation - I hate looking at a bunch of JS code without instantly being able to know what it does. In VS/IntelliJ I can summon the documentation, navigate to the code, climb up inheritance hiererchies ... life is sweet. Auto-completion - Just hit Ctrl-Space on an object to see what you can do with it. Easier to test - With almost any backend feature, I can use TDD to capture the requirements, see a bunch of failing tests, then implement, knowing that if the tests pass I did my job well. With frontend, while tests can help a bit, I find that most of the testing is still manual - fire up that browser and verify the site didn't break. I miss that feeling of "A green CI means everything is well with the world." Now, I've only seriously practiced frontend development for about two months now, so this might seem premature ... but I'm getting a nagging feeling that I should abandon this quest and return to my comfort zone, because, well, it's so comfy and fun. Another point worth mentioning in this context is that while I am learning some frontend tools, a lot of what I'm learning is our company's specific infrastructure, which I'm not sure will be very useful later on in my career. Any suggestions or tips? Do you think I should give frontend programming "a proper chance" of at least six to twelve months before calling it quits? Could all my pains be growing pains, and will they magically disappear as I get more experienced? Or is gaining this perspective is valuable enough, even if plan to do more "backend stuff" later on, that it's worth grinding my teeth and continuing with my learning?

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• What arguments can I use to "sell" the BDD concept to a team reluctant to adopt it?

  - by S.Robins

  I am a bit of a vocal proponent of the BDD methodology. I've been applying BDD for a couple of years now, and have adopted StoryQ as my framework of choice when developing DotNet applications. Even though I have been unit testing for many years, and had previously shifted to a test-first approach, I've found that I get much more value out of using a BDD framework, because my tests capture the intent of the requirements in relatively clear English within my code, and because my tests can execute multiple assertions without ending the test halfway through - meaning I can see which specific assertions pass/fail at a glance without debugging to prove it. This has really been the tip of the iceberg for me, as I've also noticed that I am able to debug both test and implementation code in a more targeted manner, with the result that my productivity has grown significantly, and that I can more easily determine where a failure occurs if a problem happens to make it all the way to the integration build due to the output that makes its way into the build logs. Further, the StoryQ api has a lovely fluent syntax that is easy to learn and which can be applied in an extraordinary number of ways, requiring no external dependencies in order to use it. So with all of these benefits, you would think it an easy to introduce the concept to the rest of the team. Unfortunately, the other team members are reluctant to even look at StoryQ to evaluate it properly (let alone entertain the idea of applying BDD), and have convinced each other to try and remove a number of StoryQ elements from our own core testing framework, even though they originally supported the use of StoryQ, and that it doesn't impact on any other part of our testing system. Doing so would end up increasing my workload significantly overall and really goes against the grain, as I am convinced through practical experience that it is a better way to work in a test-first manner in our particular working environment, and can only lead to greater improvements in the quality of our software, given I've found it easier to stick with test first using BDD. So the question really comes down to the following: What arguments can I use to really drive the point home that it would be better to use StoryQ, or at the very least apply the BDD methodology? Can you point me to any anecdotal evidence that I can use to support my argument to adopt BDD as our standard method of choice? What counter arguments can you think of that could suggest that my wish to convert the team efforts to BDD might be in error? Yes, I'm happy to be proven wrong provided the argument is a sound one. NOTE: I am not advocating that we rewrite our tests in their entirety, but rather to simply start working in a different manner for all future testing work.

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• C# Preprocessor Directives

  - by MarkPearl

  Going back to my old c++ days at university where we had all our code littered with preprocessor directives - I thought it made the code ugly and could never understand why it was useful. Today though I found a use in my C# application. The scenario – I had made various security levels in my application and tied my XAML to the levels by set by static accessors in code. An example of my XAML code for a Combobox to be enabled would be as follows… <ComboBox IsEnabled="{x:Static security:Security.SecurityCanEditDebtor}" />   And then I would have a static method like this… public static bool SecurityCanEditDebtorPostalAddress { get { if (SecurityCanEditDebtorPostalAddress) { return true; } else { return false; } } } My only problem was that my XAML did not like the if statement – which meant that while my code worked during runtime, during design time in VS2010 it gave some horrible error like… NullReferenceException was thrown on “StatiucExtension”: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation… If however my C# method was changed to something like this… public static bool SecurityCanEditDebtorPostalAddress { get { return true; } }   My XAML viewer would be happy. But of course this would bypass my security… <Drum Roll> Welcome preprocessor directives… what I wanted was during my design experience to totally remove the “if” code so that my accessor would return true and not have any if statements, but when I release my project to the big open world, I want the code to have the is statement. With a bit of searching I found the relevant MSDN sample and my code now looks like this… public static bool SecurityCanEditDebtorPostalAddress { get { #if DEBUG return true; #else if (Settings.GetInstance().CurrentUser.SecurityCanEditDebtorPostalAddress) { return true; } else { return false; } #endif } }   Not the prettiest beast, but it works. Basically what is being said here is that during my debug mode compile my code with just the code between the #if … #else block, but what I can now do is if I want to universally switch everything to the “if else” statement, I just go to my project properties –> Build and change the “Debug” flag as illustrated in the picture below. Also note that you can define your own conditional compilation symbols, and if you even wanted to you could skip the whole properties page and define them in code using the #define & #undef directives. So while I don’t like the way the code works and would like to look more into AOP and compare it to this method, it works for now.

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• problems programmatically creating UIView on iPad App

  - by user3871

  I have been struggling with this problem for a few days. My iPad app is designed to be a portrait game. To satisfy Apple's expection, I also support landscape mode. When it goes into landscape mode, the game goes into a letterbox format with back borders on the sides. My problem is I am creating the UIWindow and UIView programmatically. For some unkown reason, the touch controls are "locked" in to think I'm always in landscape mode. And even though visually in portrait mode everything looks correct, the top and bottom of the screen does not respond to touch. To summarize how I am setting this up, let me provide the skeletal framework of what I'm doing: in main.cpp: int retVal = UIApplicationMain(argc, argv, nil, @"derbyPoker_ipadAppDelegate"); In the delegate, I am doing this: - (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions { CGRect screenBounds = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]; CGFloat scale = [[ UIScreen mainScreen] scale ]; m_device_width = screenBounds.size.width; m_device_height = screenBounds.size.height; m_device_scale = scale; // Everything is built assuming 640x960 window = [[ UIWindow alloc ] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]]; viewController = [ glView new ]; [self doStateChange:[blitz class]]; return YES; } The last bit of code sets up the UIView... - (void) doStateChange: (Class) state{ viewController.view = [[state alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, m_device_width, m_device_height) andManager:self]; viewController.view.contentMode = UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFit; viewController.view.autoresizesSubviews = YES; [window addSubview:viewController.view]; [window makeKeyAndVisible]; } The problem seems to related to the line viewController.view.contentMode = UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFit; If I remove that line, touch works correctly in portrait mode. But the negative is when I'm landscape mode, the game stretches incorrectly. So That's not a option. The frustrating thing is, when I originally had this set up with a NIB file, it worked fine. I have read through the docs about UIWindow, UIViewController and UIView and have tried about everything to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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• Perfect is the enemy of “Good Enough”

  - by Daniel Moth

  This is one of the quotes that I was against, but now it is totally part of my core beliefs: "Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough" Folks used to share this quote a lot with me in my early career and my frequent interpretation was that they were incompetent people that were satisfied with mediocrity, i.e. I ignored them and their advice. (Yes, I went through an arrogance phase). I later "grew up" and "realized" that they were missing the point, so instead of ignoring them I would retort: "Of course we have to aim for perfection, because as human beings we'll never achieve perfection, so by aiming for perfection we will indeed achieve good enough results". (Yes, I went through a smart ass phase). Later I grew up a bit more and "understood" that what I was really being told is to finish my work earlier and move on to other things because by trying to perfect that one thing, another N things that I was responsible for were suffering by not getting my attention - all things on my plate need to move beyond the line, not just one of them to go way over the line. It is really a statement of increasing scale and scope. To put it in other words, getting PASS grades on 10 things is better than getting an A+ with distinction on 1-2 and a FAIL on the rest. Instead of saying “I am able to do very well these X items” it is best if you can say I can do well enough on these X * Y items”, where Y > 1. That is how breadth impact is achieved. In the future, I may grow up again and have a different interpretation, but for now - even though I secretly try to "perfect" things, I try not to do that at the expense of other responsibilities. This means that I haven't had anybody quote that saying to me in a while (or perhaps my quality of work has dropped so much that it doesn't apply to me any more - who knows :-)). Wikipedia attributes the quote to Voltaire and it also makes connections to the “Law of diminishing returns”, and to the “80-20 rule” or “Pareto principle”… it commonly takes 20% of the full time to complete 80% of a task while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort …check out the Wikipedia entry on “Perfect is the enemy of Good” and its links. Also use your favorite search engine to search and see what others are saying (Bing, Google) – it is worth internalizing this in a way that makes sense to you… Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• What You Said: Staying Productive While Working from home

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Earlier this week we asked you to share your telecommuting/work-from-home productivity tips. Now we’re back with a tips and tricks roundup; read on to see how your fellow readers stay focused at home. By far and away the most common technique deployed as carefully isolating work from home life. Carol writes: I love working from home and have done so for 6 years now. I have a routine just as if I was going to an office, except my commute is 12 steps. I get ready for work, grab my purse and smart phone and go to up the steps to my office. I maintain a separate phone line and voice mail for work that I cannot answer from anywhere but my work desk. I use call forwarding when I travel so only my office phone number is published. I have VOIP phone service so I can forward calls from the internet if I forget, or need to change where the phone is forwarded. I do have a wired and wireless head set so I can go get a cold drink if on one of those long boring conference calls. I plan my ‘get off from work’ time and try to stick to it, as with any job some days I am late getting off, but it all works out. I make sure my office is for work only, any other computer play time is in a different part of the house on different computer. My office has laptop, dock, couple of monitors, multipurpose printer, fax, scanner, file cabinets – just like the office at a company. I just also happen to have a couple of golden retrievers that come to work with me and usually lay quietly until 5, and yes they know it is 5pm sometimes before I do. For me, one of the biggest concerns when working from home is not being unproductive, but the danger of never stopping work. You could keep going and going because let’s face it – the company will let you do it, so I set myself up to prevent that and maintain a separateness. HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus? How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder?

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• How to explain bad software to non-technical people?

  - by mtutty

  In discussing software development with non-technical people (customers, business owners, project sponsors, etc.), I often resort to analogies and metaphors. It's relatively easy and effective to use a "house" or other metaphor for describing the size and complexity of new development. However, we often inherit someone else's code or data, and this approach doesn't seem to hold up as well when trying to explain why we're gutting something that already seems to work. Of course we can point to cycle time and cost to be saved in the future but this generally means nothing to business folks. I know doctors can say "just take this pill," but I'm not sure that software devs have the same authority. Ideas? EDIT: Let me add a bit to the discussion. The specific project I'm talking about has customers that don't realize (or care) about specific aspects of the system we're retiring (i.e., they think it was just fine): The system would save a NEW RECORD every time someone updated a field The system contained tables for reference data. These tables had new records added every day, even though they were duplicates of previous records. And there was no way to tie the reference data used for a particular case at the time it was closed. This is like 99% of the data in the old system. The field NAMES also have spaces, apostrophes and other inappropriate characters in them, making everything harder to work with. In addition to the incredible amount of duplicate data, they have around 1000 XLS files with data they want added to the system. Previously, they would do a spreadsheet for each case in the database, IN ADDITION TO what they typed into the database. Getting rid of this old, unneeded information and piping in the XLS data comprises about 80% of the total project effort, and was not something we could accurately predict. I'm trying to find a concrete way to describe how bad this thing was, mostly so that the customer will understand why the migration process has been so time-consuming. The actual coding was done pretty quickly and the new system works fine, but without the old data they won't be happy. Sorry to get into the weeds, but most of the answers I've seen so far are pretty basic scope/schedule/cost things. I've been doing this for 15 years, so this really is more of a reflective, philosophical question - but without some of the details it can be difficult to really appreciate the awful beauty of this problem.

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• My First 5K, the recap.

  - by Chris Williams

  It was a nice day to be outside (and trust me, those aren't words you'll hear from me often.) I got to the site around 7:45, hit the pre-reg table and got my number along with a goody bag full of coupons for racing gear, a water bottle and a tshirt. Oh and a map. Stashed all that stuff in the jeep, emptied my pockets of everything but my iPhone and my jeep key, and proceeded to walk around for a bit as people started showing up and signing in. It was fairly breezy, and there was definitely a storm coming... but it was anyone's guess on when it would actually arrive. It was interesting to see everyone who was participating. If I had to guess, I would say the event was 60-70% women, with a pretty broad distribution of age... as young as 13 to well over 60 (in both genders.) I don't know exactly how many folks were there, but it was well over 300. Eventually it was time to kick things off, and everyone made their way to the start line. All of the 5k and 10k runners were mixed together, starting at the same time. All the walkers and the people with strollers or dogs were in the back. It was pretty chaotic at first, once things started, but it thinned out fairly quickly. The 10k people and the hardcore runners sped ahead of everyone else and the walkers gradually lagged behind. The 5K course was pretty nice, winding around a lake down in Eden Prairie. The 10K course overlapped most of ours, but branched off a couple times too. I didn't run the whole time, but I started the race running and I ended it running, and did a mix of walking and running along the way. I met my goals, which were a) don't ever stop and b) don't be last. The weather managed to hold out for the entire race. It never got too hot, there was a nice breeze and it was mostly overcast. Pretty much perfect in my book. About 20-30 minutes after I left, the rain came down pretty hard. I had a good time, and will most likely do more of them. We'll see.

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• Nvidia driver overscan issue second monitor via dvi-d cable

  - by benmichael

  Ok, I know that I have a bit of a bizarre setup, but here goes. I have an old laptop, HP Pavilion 6000. The graphics card in there is a GeForce 7150M. The monitor connection is an old 18pin. The external monitor I use is a Samsung SyncMaster 2333. Don't ask me why, but this monitor only has a dvi-d connection (yes, i have searched it). So I have the monitor plugged into the laptop. If I use any of the Nvidia propriety drivers and try to set the resolution up to 1920x1080 (the monitor's native resolution), I get a massive overscan issue. Over the years I have tried to get this to work, tinkering with my xorg.conf to death. I have also tried this on every Ubuntu since 10.04, on all the corresponding LUbuntus, and on all the Linux Mints since Lisa. Exact same issue. I have even tried it in WinDoze and it works perfectly there (although I did get the error once, but was unable to reproduce it). Using the Open Source drivers it works perfectly iff I switch off the laptop monitor (this makes no difference with the Nvidia drivers). I would have happily gone on using the Open Source drivers, except that since upgrading to LUbuntu 12.10, the Open Source drivers make my monitor completely hazy and have the same overscan issue until I (through the haze, only because I know where things are) go to the monitor settings, activate the laptop's monitor, then deactivate it, and suddenly it comes right. I have to do this every time. So I have to find a way to fix one of them, so I may as well tackle the propriety drivers, hence this overlong question. Amidst other things, I have tried the nvidia-settings, but because it is connected to an 18pin, it detects the monitor as a vga monitor and does not give me overscan correction options. I have tried custom modlines (although there are always more of those try), I have tried using xrandr, and I have tried all the FlatPanelOptions. What I have not tried is a Gentoo build, as I don't have time any more to do that installation, but up to about three years ago when I ran Gentoo exclusively I did not have this issue. Below is an link to an image with a red highlight around the portion of the screen visible to me, the numbers around it are the number of pixels which are cut off. This does seem to drift a few pixels every now and then. Thanks in advance. Nvidia driver issue image

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• I didn't mean to become a database developer, but now I am. Should I stop or try to get better?

  - by pretlow majette

  20 years ago I couldn't afford even a cheap POS program when I opened my first surf shop in the Virgin Islands. I bought a copy of Paradox (remember that?) in 1990 and spent months in a back room scratching out a POS application. Over many iterations, including a switch to Access (2000)/SQL Server (2003), I built a POS and backoffice solution that runs four stores with multiple cash registers, a warehouse and office. Until recently, all my stores were connected to the same LAN (in a small shopping center) and performance wasn't an issue. Now that we've opened a location in the States that's changed. Connecting to my local server via the internet has slowed that locations application to a crawl. This is partly due to the slow and crappy dsl service we have in the Virgin Islands, and partly due to my less-than-professional code and sql. With other far-away stores in the works, I need a better solution. I like my application. My staff knows it well, and I'm not inclined to take on the expense of a proper commercial solution. So where does that leave me? I should probably host my sql online to sidestep the slow dsl here. I think I can handle cleaning up my SQL querries to speed that up a bit. What about Access? My version seems so old, but I don't like the newer versions with the 'ribbon'. There are so many options... Should I be learning Visual Studio with an eye on moving completely to the web? Will my VBA skills help me at all there? I don't have the luxury of a year at the keyboard to figure it out anymore. What about dotnetnuke, sharepoint, or lightswitch? They all seem like possibilities, but even understanding their capabilities is daunting. I'm pretty deep into it, but maybe I should bail and hire a consultant or programmer. That sounds expensive tho, and there's no guarantee there either... Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Or, if anybody is interested in buying a small chain of surf shops...

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• How to specialize a c++ variadic template?

  - by Serge

  I'm trying to understand c++ variadic templates. I'm not much aware of the correct language to use to explain what I'd like to achieve, so it might be simpler if I provide a bit of code which illustrate what I'd like to achieve. #include <iostream> #include <string> using namespace std; template<int ...A> class TestTemplate1 { public: string getString() { return "Normal"; } }; template<int T, int ...A> string TestTemplate1<2, A...>::getString() { return "Specialized"; } template<typename ...A> class TestTemplate2 { }; int main() { TestTemplate1<1, 2, 3, 4> t1_1; TestTemplate1<1, 2> t1_2; TestTemplate1<> t1_3; TestTemplate1<2> t1_4; TestTemplate2<> t2_1; TestTemplate2<int, double> t2_2; cout << t1_1.getString() << endl; cout << t1_2.getString() << endl; cout << t1_3.getString() << endl; cout << t1_4.getString() << endl; } This throws several errors. error C2333: 'TestTemplate1<::getString' : error in function declaration; skipping function body error C2333: 'TestTemplate1<1,2,3,4::getString' : error in function declaration; skipping function body error C2333: 'TestTemplate1<1,2::getString' : error in function declaration; skipping function body error C2333: 'TestTemplate1<2::getString' : error in function declaration; skipping function body error C2977: 'TestTemplate1' : too many template arguments error C2995: 'std::string TestTemplate1::getString(void)' : function template has already been defined error C3860: template argument list following class template name must list parameters in the order used in template parameter list How can I have a specialized behavior for every TestTemplate1<2, ...> instances like t1_4?

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• Travelling at Magenic

  - by Chris G. Williams

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

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• Our own Daily WTF

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dvroegop/archive/2014/08/20/our-own-daily-wtf.aspxIf you're a developer, you've probably heard of the website the DailyWTF. If you haven't, head on over to http://www.thedailywtf.com and read. And laugh. I'll wait. Read it? Good. If you're a bit like me probably you've been wondering how on earth some people ever get hired as a software engineer. Most of the stories there seem to weird to be true: no developer would write software like that right? And then you run into a little nugget of code one of your co-workers wrote. And then you realize: "Hey, it happens everywhere!" Look at this piece of art I found in our codebase recently: public static decimal ToDecimal(this string input) {     System.Globalization.CultureInfo cultureInfo = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InstalledUICulture;     var numberFormatInfo = (System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo)cultureInfo.NumberFormat.Clone();     int dotIndex = input.IndexOf(".");     int commaIndex = input.IndexOf(",");     if (dotIndex > commaIndex)         numberFormatInfo.NumberDecimalSeparator = ".";     else if (commaIndex > dotIndex)         numberFormatInfo.NumberDecimalSeparator = ",";     decimal result;     if (decimal.TryParse(input, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.Float, numberFormatInfo, out result))         return result;     else         throw new Exception(string.Format("Invalid input for decimal parsing: {0}. Decimal separator: {1}.", input, numberFormatInfo.NumberDecimalSeparator)); }  Me and a collegue have been looking long and hard at this and what we concluded was the following: Apparently, we don't trust our users to be able to correctly set the culture in Windows. Users aren't able to determine if they should tell Windows to use a decimal point or a comma to display numbers. So what we've done here is make sure that whatever the user enters, we'll translate that into whatever the user WANTS to enter instead of what he actually did. So if you set your locale to US, since you're a US citizen, but you want to enter the number 12.34 in the Dutch style (because, you know, the Dutch are way cooler with numbers) so you enter 12,34 we will understand this and respect your wishes! Of course, if you change your mind and in the next input field you decide to use the decimal dot again, that's fine with us as well. We will do the hard work. Now, I am all for smart software. Software that can handle all sorts of input the user can think of. But this feels a little uhm, I don't know.. wrong.. Or am I too old fashioned?

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• PASS Summit 2011: Save Money Now

  - by Bill Graziano

  Register by March 31st and save $200.  On April 1st we increase the price.  On July 1st we increase it again.  We have regular price bumps all the way through to the Summit.  You can save yourself $200 if you register by Thursday. In two years of marketing for PASS and a year of finance I’ve learned a fair bit about our pricing, why we do this and how you react to it.  Let me help you save some money! Price bumps drive registrations.  We see big spikes in the two weeks prior to a price increase.  Having a deadline with a cost attached is a great motivator to get people to take action. Registering early helps you and it helps PASS.  You get the exact same Summit at a cheaper rate.  PASS gets smoother cash flow and a better idea of how many people to expect.  We also get people that are already registered that will tell their friends about the conference. This tiered pricing lets us serve those that are very price conscious.  They can register early and take advantage of these discounts.  I know there are people that pay for this conference out of their own pockets.  This is a great way for those people to reduce the cost of the conference.  (And remember for next year that our cheapest pricing starts right after the Summit and usually goes up around the first of the year.) We also get big price bumps after we announce the program and the pre-conference sessions.  If you wrote down the 50 or so best known speakers in the SQL Server community I’m guessing we’ll have nearly all of them at the conference.  We did last year.  I expect we will this year too.  We’re going to have good sessions.  Why wait?  Register today. If you want to attend a pre-conference session you can always add it to your registration later.  Pre-con prices don’t change.  It’s very easy to update your registration and add a pre-conference session later. I want as many people as possible to attend the Summit.  It’s been a great experience for me and I hope it will be for you.  And if you are going to go, do yourself a favor and save some money.  Register today!

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• "ODM" - One of the Support team's most valued acronyms

  - by graham.mckendry(at)oracle.com

  If you submit technical service requests (SRs) through the My Oracle Support portal, you may often see the term "ODM" used in updates from our Support team. ODM is an acronym for "Oracle Diagnostic Methodology", which defines a standard problem solving approach that all of Oracle Support uses for every technical SR. ODM provides a number of benefits to the SRs - both for the Support organization and for the customer - including a consistent approach, higher quality, justified solutions, and ultimately faster resolution. Screenshot: Example of an ODM "Issue Clarification" activity in a service request The Oracle Diagnostic Methodology applies to both categories of technical SRs: Consultative (question-answer topics) and Problem-Solution. There are a few KM Notes that describe the steps of ODM, however to keep things simple (and since those KM Notes appear to be a bit outdated), I'll summarize the ODM stages here as follows: Consultative ODM - Three mandatory stages: ODM Question: Clarification of the customer's exact question. ODM Answer: Thorough answer to the customer's question. ODM Knowledge Content: Reference to new or existing knowledge base content, or explanation why the particular SR does not necessarily require knowledge content. Problem-Solution ODM - Eight mandatory stages: ODM Issue Clarification: Clarification of the reported issue, including the symptoms, the steps to reproduce, and an outline of the business impact ODM Issue Verification: Confirmation of the issue being verified based on proof provided by the customer, such as screenshots, log files, or reproducing the issue during an Oracle Web Conference. ODM Cause Determination: Succinct outline of the root cause of the issue. ODM Cause Justification: Explanation as to why the root cause applies to this particular situation. ODM Proposed Solution(s): Succinct outline of the potential solution(s) to resolve the issue. ODM Proposed Solution(s) Justification: Explanation of why the proposed solution(s) will in fact resolve the issue. ODM Solution Action Plan: Detailed numbered instructions on how to execute the proposed solutions. ODM Knowledge Content: Reference to new or existing knowledge base content, or explanation why the particular SR does not necessarily require knowledge content. During these stages, you may see other optional ODM-related activities such as "ODM Data Collection", "ODM Action Plan", "ODM Research", and "ODM Test Case". Again, these structured tags help ensure a uniform methodology across your SRs. With this knowledge you should be able to develop better predictability of what's coming next in your SRs, as well as what you can do to help expedite the resolution process.

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• More elegant way to avoid hard coding the format of a a CSV file?

  - by dsollen

  I know this is trivial issue, but I just feel this can be more elegant. So I need to write/read data files for my program, lets say they are CSV for now. I can implement the format as I see fit, but I may have need to change that format later. The simply thing to do is something like out.write(For.getValue()+","+bar.getMinValue()+","+fi.toString()); This is easy to write, but obviously is guilty of hard coding and the general 'magic number' issue. The format is hard-coded, requires parsing of the code to figure out the file format, and changing the format requires changing multiple methods. I could instead have my constants specifying the location that I want each variable to be saved in the CSV file to remove some of the 'magic numbers'; then save/load into the an array at the location specified by the constants: int FOO_LOCATION=0; int BAR_MIN_VAL_LOCATION=1; int FI_LOCATION=2 int NUM_ARGUMENTS=3; String[] outputArguments=new String[NUM_ARGUMENTS]; outputArguments[FOO_LOCATION] = foo.getValue(); outputArgumetns[BAR_MIN_VAL_LOCATION] = bar.getMinValue(); outptArguments[FI_LOCATOIN==fi.toString(); writeAsCSV(outputArguments); But this is...extremely verbose and still a bit ugly. It makes it easy to see the format of existing CSV and to swap the location of variables within the file easily. However, if I decide to add an extra value to the csv I need to not only add a new constant, but also modify the read and write methods to add the logic that actually saves/reads the argument from the array; I still have to hunt down every method using these variables and change them by hand! If I use Java enums I can clean this up slightly, but the real issue is still present. Short of some sort of functional programming (and java's inner classes are too ugly to be considered functional) I still have no obvious way of clearly expressing what variable is associated with each constant short of writing (and maintaining) it in the read/write methods. For instance I still need to write somewhere that the FOO_LOCATION specifies the location of foo.getValue(). It seems as if there should be a prettier, easier to maintain, manner for approaching this? Incidentally, I'm working in java at the moment, however, I am interested conceptually about the design approach regardless of language. Some library in java that does all the work for me is definitely welcome (though it may prove more hassle to get permission to add it to the codebase then to just write something by hand quickly), but what I'm really asking is more about how to write elegant code if you had to do this by hand.

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• Best system for creating a 2d racing track

  - by tesselode

  I am working a 2D racing game and I'm trying to figure out what is the best way to define the track. At the very least, I need to be able to create a closed circuit with any amount of turns at any angle, and I need vehicles to collide with the edges of the track. I also want the following things to be true if possible (but they are optional): The code is simple and free of funky workarounds and extras I can define all of the parts of the track (such as turns) relative to the previous parts I can predict the exact position of the road at a certain point (that way I can easily and cleanly make closed circuits) Here are my options: Use a set of points. This is my current system. I have a set of turns and width changes that the track is supposed to make over time. I have a point which I transform according to these instructions, and I place a point every 5 steps or so, depending on how precise I want the track to be. These points make up the track. The main problem with this is the discrepancy between the collisions and the way the track is drawn. I won't get into too much detail, but the picture below shows what is happening (although it is exaggerated a bit). The blue lines are what is drawn, the red lines are what the vehicle collides with. I could work around this, but I'd rather avoid funky workaround code. Beizer curves. These seem cool, but my first impression of them is that they'll be a little daunting to learn and are probably too complicated for my needs. Some other kind of curve? I have heard of some other kinds of curves; maybe those are more applicable. Use Box2D or another physics engine. Instead of defining the center of the track, I could use a physics engine to define shapes that make up the road. The downside to this, however, is that I have to put in a little more work to place the checkpoints. Something completely different. Basically, what is the simplest system for generating a race track that would allow me to create closed circuits cleanly, handle collisions, and not have a ton of weird code?

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• Storing hierarchical template into a database

  - by pduersteler

  If this title is ambiguous, feel free to change it, I don't know how to put this in a one-liner. Example: Let's assume you have a html template which contains some custom tags, like <text_field />. We now create a page based on a template containing more of those custom tags. When a user wants to edit the page, he sees a text field. he can input things and save it. This looks fairly easy to set up. You either have something like a template_positions table which stores the content of those fields. Case: I now have a bit of a blockade keeping things as simple as possible. Assume you have the same tag given in your example, and additionally, <layout> and <repeat> tags. Here's an example how they should be used: <repeat> <layout name="image-left"> <image /> <text_field /> </layout> <layout name="image-right"> <text_field /> <image /> </layout> </repeat> We now have a block which can be repeated, obviously. This means: when creting/editing a page containing such a template block, I can choose between a layout image-left and image-right which then gets inserted as content element (where content for <image /> and <text_field /> gets stored). And because this is inside a <repeat>, content elements from the given layouts can be inserted multiple times. How do you store this? Simply said, this could be stored with the same setup I've wrote in the example above, I just need to add a parent_id or something similiar to maintain a hierarchy. but I think I am missing something. At least the relation between an inserted content element and the origin/insertion point is missing. And what happens when I update the template file? Do I have to give every custom tag that acts as editable part of a template an identifier that matches an identifier in the template to substitue them correctly? Or can you think of a clean solution that might be better?

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• If most of team can't follow the architecture, what do you do?

  - by Chris

  Hi all, I'm working on a greenfields project with two other developers. We're all contractors, and myself and one other just started working on the project while the orginal one has been doing most of the basic framework coding. In the past month, my fellow programmer and I have been just frustrated by the design descisions done by our co-worker. Here's a little background information: The application at face value appeared to be your standard n-layered web application using C# on the 3.5 framework. We have a data layer, business layer and a web interface. But as we got deeper into the project we found some very interesting things that have caused us some troubles. There is a custom data access sqlHelper type base which only accepts dictionary key/valued entries and returns only data tables. There are no entity objects, but there are some massive objects which do everything and then are tossed into session for persitance. The general idea is that the pages (.aspx) don't do anything, while the controls (.ascx) do everything. The general flow is that a client clicks on a button, which goes to a user control base which passes a process request to the 'BLL' class which goes to the page processor, which then goes to a getControlProcessor, which at last actually processes the request. The request itself is made up of a dictionary which is passing a string valued method name, stored procedure name, a control name and possibly a value. All switching of the processing is done by comparing the string values of the control names and method names. Pages are linked together via a common header control that uses a combination of javascript and tables to create a hyperlink effect. And as I found out yesterday, a simple hyperlink between one page and another does not work because of the need to have quite a bit of information in session to determine which control to display on a page. My fellow programmer and I both believe that this is a strange and uncommon approach to web application development. Both of us have been in this business for over five years and neither of us have seen this approach. My question is this, how would we approach our co-worker and voice our concerns and what should we do if he does not want to accept the criteic? We both do not want to insult the work that has been done, but feel that going forward will create a nightmare for development. Thanks for your comments.

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• Attaching new animations onto skeleton via props, a good idea?

  - by Cardin

  I'm thinking of coding a game with an idea of mine. I've coded 2D games before, but I'm new to 3D programming, so I'd like to ask if this idea of mine is feasible or out of my depth. I'm making a game where there are many different characters for the player to choose from (JRPG style). So to save time, I have an idea of creating many different varied characters using a completely naked body mesh and animation skeleton, standardised across all characters. For example, by placing different hair, boots, armor props on the character mesh, new characters can be formed. Kinda like playing dress-up with a barbie doll. I'm thinking this can be done by having a bone on the prop that I can programmically attach to the main mesh. Also, I plan to have some props add new animations to the base skeleton, so equipping some particular props would give it new attack, damage, idle animations. This is because I can't expect the character to have the same swinging animation if he had a big sword or an axe. I think this might be possible if the prop has its own instance of the animation skeleton with just only the new animations, and parenting the base body mesh to this new skeleton. So all the base body mesh has are just the basic animations, other animations come from the props. My concerns are, 1) the props might not attach to the mesh properly and jitter a lot, 2) since prop and body are animated differently, the props and base mesh will cause visual artefacts, like the naked thighs showing through the pants when the character walks, 3) a custom pipeline have to be developed to export skeletons without mesh, and also to attach the base body mesh to a new skeleton during runtime in the game. So my question: are these features considered 'easy' to code? Or am I trying to do something few have ever succeeded with on their own? It feels like all these can be done given enough time and I know I definitely have to do a bit of bone matrix calculations, but I really don't want to drag out the development timeline unnecessarily from coding mathematically intense things or analyzing how to parse 3D export formats. I'm currently only at the Game Design stage, so if these features aren't a good idea, I can simply change the design of the game. (Unrelated to question) I could always, as last resort, have the characters have predetermined outfit and weapon selections so as to animate everything manually.

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